manifesto.
manifestos are growing in popularity as the internet continues to be stolen from us. here are a few examples. and... here's mine:
i don't have to tell you that the internet has become a capitalistic nightmare. you can easily see it for yourself. look around. everyone who uses the internet is painfully aware that the social medias that rule our lives are made up of predatory algorithms and stolen data. on facebook and instagram, the ads are so deeply personal that people are convinced they're being spied on (they are). on youtube, content creators have their livelihoods stolen by demonitization, as they beg for the unpredictable algorithm to show them mercy so they may make a living. and we all know what tiktok has been doing with user data. the list goes on. meanwhile, cryptocurrency and nfts rule the web while they destroy the environment and profit off of ponzi scheme structures and predatory behaviour. ai art generators steal art from artists without consent, while artists worldwide protest to the shameless plaguarism of their hard work at the hands of soulless ai. what is at the root of all this? corporate greed. capitalism feeding off of our right to information, while stealing from us. stealing our information, our data, our lives and our livelihoods. it didn't use to be like this. many things have improved with time. human rights, representation, accessibility... the internet is not one of these things. the so-called "evolution" of the internet has been regressive and terrifying. once a place for freedom of expression, art, and access to unlimited information, our web has become a cash-grabbing surveillance state ruled by ceos, companies and corporations, in a phenomenon that netizens are calling web3 (web three). our web is the largest source of information the world has ever seen. and they are trying to monetize it. information, education, and free access are all human rights. by monetizing and placing barriers on the internet, corporations and greedy ceos are trying to steal our freedom of expression and access to information; the very fundamentals that used to make up our internet. information wants to be free, and we want to free it. that is exactly what the yesterweb movement seeks to do. as a hacktivist, an avid internet user, a programmer, and someone who works in webmastering, the yesterweb movement has changed my life. us cyberpunks, digital archivists, anarchists, cyber activists... we want change. we want our internet back. the internet used to be run by users, for users. aka: by the people, for the people. we want that back. to do so, we need to take the web back from the hands of the businessman, the corporate slave or the ceo. how do we do this? well, congratulations, just by visiting this site, you've done a part toward this goal. because this radical action will be done through the reclaimation of our net through smallweb corners like this. by making our own websites through open source, community run, available resoucres like neocities, we are effectively taking back our web. we are, once again, making the web by the people, for the people, by making the pages on that web by ourselves. reject the corporate media. reject the predatory nature of algorithms. reject stolen data. reject their legalized spyware. reject nfts, cryptocurrency, and schemes. let's take back our web, together. with love, tj < 3 |
