Decidim Fest 2022

Decidim Fest returns on October 13 and 14, 2022 with the motto The future of the internet

The Internet is today a space in conflict. The democratic and distributed space for the free circulation of knowledge and collaboration that nurtured its founding principles is a long way off. The Internet is today undergoing a profound process of centralisation and privatisation of all its layers: the servers and infrastructures that connect them, the platforms that operate on them and the data generated by the whole of the world's connected population. The capacity for democratic control of the network of networks is increasingly distant from the citizenry, and its governance is concentrated in a few companies that operate globally and are always ahead of the regulatory processes that should guarantee fundamental rights in the digital era.

What is the future of the Internet? What risks and threats do we face in this scenario? Is it possible to change these dynamics on a global scale? What are the democratic challenges of the Internet of the future? From the Decidim project and from the city of Barcelona we open a new edition of the Decidim Fest, and on this occasion we do it to face these questions, in view of the urgency of finding concrete answers to think and build the Internet of the future. Just as the climate emergency needs global responses to guarantee the life and sustainability of present and future generations, the technological emergency needs an open, free and democratic Internet at the service of the people, public-commons digital infrastructures that guarantee fundamental rights, and spaces that explore the power of cooperation and collaboration on a global scale to face the complex challenges that lie ahead of us in the face of the multiple crises to come.