2. A Digital Commonwealth for the 21st Century

More and more, all that we do – our activities online, offline, at home, at work, with friends, with families, with strangers – and all that we are – our physical, psychological, and social identities – is captured in digital form, only to resurface in aggregate as the data driving mass social transformation and unprecedented accumulations of value. Though we all contribute to this process and feel its effects, the decision-making power is retained by a handful of powerful actors, notably platform monopolies. To democratise the development of digital technology, we must:

• counter the power of platform monopolies, through:
  • anti-trust enforcement,
  • stronger privacy regulation,
  • platform interoperability, and
  • collective representation of data producers, i.e. data unions;
• and lay the infrastructure for a digital commonwealth:
  • decommodify data through a public data commons,
  • support democratic economic structures for data-driven innovation, e.g. platform cooperatives, and
  • establish a digital rights framework for citizens.