Introducing the Public Interest Internet

Say the word “internet” these days, and most people will call to mind images of Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos, of Google and Twitter: sprawling, intrusive, unaccountable. This tiny handful of vast tech corporations and their distant CEOs demand our online attention and dominate the offline headlines. 

But on the real internet, one or two clicks away from that handful of conglomerates, there remains a wider, more diverse, and more generous world. Often run by volunteers, frequently without any obvious institutional affiliation, sometimes tiny, often local, but free for everyone online to use and contribute to, this internet preceded Big Tech, and inspired the earliest, most optimistic vision of its future place in society.

When Big Tech is long gone, a better future will come from the seed of this public interest internet: seeds that are being planted now, and which need everyone to nurture them. 

The word “internet” has been so effectively hijacked by its most dystopian corners that it’s grown harder to even refer to this older element of online life, let alone bring it back into the forefront of society’s consideration. In his work documenting this space and exploring its future, academic, entrepreneur, and author Ethan Zuckerman has named it our “digital public infrastructure.” Hana Schank and her colleagues at the New America think tank have revitalized discussions around what they call “public interest technology.”  In Europe, activists, academics and public sector broadcasters talk about the benefits of the internet’s “public spaces” and improving and expanding the “public stack.” Author and activist Eli Pariser has dedicated a new venture to advancing better digital spaces—what its participants describe as the “New Public”.

Not to be outdone, we at EFF have long used the internal term: “the Introducing the Public Interest Internet