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Explore how geopolitical shifts create unprecedented opportunities to build a more open and user-controlled internet in this conference talk from the 39th Chaos Communication Congress. Examine the concept of "enshittification" - the deliberate degradation of digital platforms - and understand how US trade policies historically prevented global efforts to combat this phenomenon through laws criminalizing reverse-engineering and technological modification. Analyze the current geopolitical moment as Trump's trade disruptions inadvertently create space for technologists worldwide to develop tools like mods, hacks, alternative clients, and scrapers that can liberate users from Big Tech's exploitative practices. Learn about the systematic policy choices that enabled tech monopolization, transforming the internet into "five giant websites, each filled with screenshots of the other four," and discover how "felony contempt of business-model" laws criminalized users' rights to modify their own devices. Understand the decades-long war on general-purpose computing and the push for manufacturer-controlled devices that prioritize corporate interests over user autonomy. Gain insights from Electronic Frontier Foundation veteran Cory Doctorow's 24-year perspective on digital rights activism and his vision for seizing this unique historical moment to reclaim computational freedom and build an internet that serves users rather than corporate surveillance and extraction.
