Let's Fix the Internet

Within 'Fix the Internet', Waag researched the state of the social and public Internet in 2014. With partners like Bits of Freedom, Greenhost, Isoc, the University of Applied Sciences Amsterdam and University of Amsterdam we looked at the current state of the Internet: is it still public? And what about the networks, the soft- and hardware? Are they fixable?

On 15 January 1994, the Digital City network in Amsterdam went live and for the first time offered access to an open, social online environment in Amsterdam. The early adopters were mostly hackers and artists, a wider audience followed suit. There was even some congestion on the digital 'highway', as modems were sold out in Amsterdam.

Twenty years later, everything that the Internet has brought us is more or less taken for granted. We have become valued content ourselves, but we are under complete surveillance when we are online. How public can the Internet still be called nowadays? What is its current state? What did 20 years of technology bring us? Time to take action... the internet is broken. We have to fix the internet.

Let us recapture the Internet!