(Barlow’s and our aspirations meet the facts).

Data Subjects of all countries unite !

We were promised ultimate freedom and liberty and instead we have become serfs of new masters.

Your tyranny has overshadowed and transcended that of government- yet you are not elected.

You have highjacked our space, our freedom and our sovereignty.

You have no moral right to rule us or possess us.

You are not welcome among us.

You do not answer to democracy, but you will have to answer to us, the People.
Your arrogance and indifference to human tragedy, your abuse and avid concentration of power and hegemony disqualify you from the role you have usurped.

You have transformed our dreams and promises of decentralized freedom into a centralized nightmare.

Under the pretext of saving the world you fill your coffers without contributing to society.

You yield before no manipulation.

You have degraded us to products in your realm. Products that deserve no respect.

Governments cannot and will not stop you, but we the People will. We will boycott your services. We will take our clicks away from you and your empire will crumble.

You have no right to make judgments affecting life and death.

We no longer trust you.

What you fear most is our passion. What you lack most is compassion.

Privacy is not dead. Get over it.

Now, here are our demands:

You will give us back control over our lives.

We will only allow you to coexist with us if you accept that with power comes obligations and that your disregard of ethics and social responsibility will cease.

You are not above the law and your failure to assume your obligations and contribute towards society are shameful.

Your abuse of your overwhelmingly dominant position and your failure to take ethics into account when developing or rather acquiring new technology and services  ( you develop little yourself)  are intolerable.

You will allow Data Subjects all over the world to take control of their own data and immediately heed their demands for deletion and de-referencing except for those wielding corporate  power or  holding public office.

You will not anoint yourself to be the judge over the « appropriateness » of such demands.

You will allow public inspection to verify that these demands have been met and that data has been definitely and permanently erased from your gigantic data troves –  because we do not trust you.

You will create an ethics board with independent  experts who will monitor all of your new “technology” whether developed in-house or acquired and in particular those technologies that apply to artificial intelligence.

You will refrain from further abuse of your dominant position destroying any alternative to your « services » and consolidating your power even more.

This time we will create a true civilization of the Mind in Cyberspace.
May it be more humane and fair than the world you have made.

Paris, France
August 3, 2018

Dan Shefet