Mission

Our mission is upheld by two pillars:

1. Expose in detail the mechanisms of technological oppression
2. Increase public awareness of technological freedom’s significance and endow people with the skills and knowledge to attain technological freedom themselves

Confronting two fundamental issues impeding technological freedom are the reason The Technological Freedom Forum was started. The two issues are an underlying theme in all The Forum’s activities; know them well:

The Dependence Problem

When we say digital dependence, we mean people’s dependence on certain technologies—particularly those that are hostile to their users' technological freedom—in the sense that choosing to exit such a system has a significant impact on the ability to live what others would consider a normal lifestyle. In many cases, technological dependence is not easy to identify, and in no case is it easy to break free of. There are even some technologies where you have no choice but to be subject to them, such as AI-driven shadow credit scores and automatic license plate readers (whose function has far outcrept the name).

Technological dependence manifests both at the individual and societal level. It may be hard to notice in your own life. Do you use a digital payment app, like PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, Cash App, Apple Pay, Samsung Pay, or Google Pay? Payment apps are convenient, but take a moment to introspect. Would it be easy to stop using them the next day, or would you need to think for a moment on how to change your patterns of life that depended on these apps being available? The convenience these apps offer are in exchange for your privacy. You’re trusting third parties not only with your financial transaction history, but all metadata and habits that can be inferred from it. And some of the companies behind those apps share or sell¹ your personal information by default. Financial metadata, including transaction history, is not just used to serve you targeted advertisements; it can reveal much more about you than you think, and is already being used for predictive policing.

Another subtle instance of technological dependence at the individual level is hidden in modern cars. While some say it’s a privilege to be able to drive a car, for most Americans, cars are essential in getting to work on a weekday. One does not simply stop using their car without major lifestyle changes. Newer cars are computers on wheels. They are always connected to the internet through cellular data, the same way your phone connects to the internet when not on Wi-Fi. Your driving history, patterns, and behaviors are routinely reported to the car manufacturer through that connection, along with auxiliary information depending on the manufacturer’s data collection policy. That auxiliary data may include what you say in the car, biometric identifiers such as the shape of your face, and even sexual activity (Kia’s privacy policy). For now, there may be a choice to use older car models or buy cars from companies that do less tracking. But there aren’t any that do no tracking, and older car models risk becoming obsolete, if not outlawed completely due to emissions and safety concerns.

On the societal level, nations are sinking in the quicksand of technological dependence. They integrated technology with governance for efficiency; in doing so they willingly, unwillingly, or unknowingly welcomed Big Tech elites—the true owners and operators of the technology—to meddle in the affairs of the public. This transfer of power is why digital sovereignty is gaining traction in Europe: they want their government to be free from the influence of U.S. tech magnates. Shouldn’t our own government be free from the influence of tech magnates too?

Big Tech and the platforms they control exist outside the checks and balances system of the United States. Their wealth is so tremendous that it penetrates the ideological barrier separating monetary value from political power. With their puppeteering hands they undermine the people’s say in their own government, and thus undermine democracy itself. But Big Tech does not only have colossal wealth; they have colossal influence as well. They control algorithms: the kind that decide what people see on their feeds. Algorithmic personalization² is known to lead to distorted worldviews. Take the next logical step, and you realize that algorithm owners have the ability to alter peoples’ worldviews and opinions en masse: owning the algorithm means owning the people’s minds. This kind of control is not theoretical. It has been here since before the internet, through censored television broadcasts and newspapers. But the problem has only been exacerbated with modern technology. Look at the United States’ takeover of TikTok algorithm: it is officially touted as a win for Americans’ privacy and national security, while the real winners are the elites who seized power over a mechanism to influence the collective opinions, beliefs, and worldviews of the American people.

The meaning of power, influence, and sovereignty is changing. Those who control platforms and algorithms control the people using them. We of The Forum aim to demonstrate how to reclaim your autonomy, so that you can break free from the tightening grip on liberty.

The Surveillance Problem

Technology is being used to control people through invasive surveillance. Mass surveillance infrastructure is already here, and has been here for decades. The September 11th attacks of 2001 put a wedge in the societal gates holding back a new generation of surveillance enabled by modern technology. National security efforts were doubled due to fears of terrorism. Government surveillance authority and technology were vastly expanded as part of that initiative. What would appear to the clear-minded as an inexcusable encroachment on individual liberty was hastily accepted by the frightened public.³

12 years later, the Snowden disclosures proved that the “limited [surveillance] program[s]” were trespassing their original limitations. Three-letter agencies took advantage of an exception in the anti-terrorism foreign surveillance legislature which permitted them to monitor U.S. citizens when their communications cross national borders. However, the internet is an inherently global system: there’s no simple switch for users to disable routing traffic through other countries. Even if there were such a thing, it would make several websites and services unusable. So while laws were written to monitor foreign communication, intelligence agencies managed to expand their surveillance authority to the American people as well. The gate was half-open then.

25 years later—today—data brokers have commodified highly precise and sensitive information on nearly every individual with a computer (including smartphones and cars, which are computers). Your information ends up in some shady database one way or another. It’s a passive process: you live your life normally and it happens without your knowledge or explicit consent. Or if you live your life paranoid of surveillance, you quickly realize that you can’t work, can’t drive, can’t communicate, can’t purchase⁴ without some system logging your every movement, facial expression, message, and transaction. Surveillance at such a scale was previously only accessible to the government, but now such power is in the hands of a few oligarchs, especially those in Big Tech. Intelligence agencies demonstrate that shift in power when they bypass our constitutional protections by purchasing—rather than obtaining a search warrant for—the information from data brokers, who are enabled to gather such precise information by Big Tech’s obsession with information harvesting.

The gate is almost fully open now. What could come in through the gate? Authoritarianism. Totalitarianism. Dictatorship. Mass surveillance is a tool in the dictator’s kit to control the population by fear of persecution. Coupled with a poorly literate population, a tangible threat emerges. Standing by hoping nobody comes through the gate to seize power is blissful naivety. We must collectively pull the gate shut, lock it, bar it, and chain it tight to ensure our right to liberty.