Peter Kirstein Lecture 2023 featuring Cory Doctorow.
A Big Tech Disassembly Manual
We're paying way too much attention to making Big Tech better, and not nearly enough attention to making it *smaller*. After all, nobody's perfect - especially a multinational corporation hoping to craft speech rules governing 3 billion people speaking 1,000 languages in 100 countries - and that means that giant services are bound to make colossal mistakes with stupendous consequences.
Making Big Tech smaller starts with making it easier to leave. Interoperability is the techbuster's secret weapon. With interop, uses can leave Facebook without cutting ties to the people who stay; or switch mobile OSes without losing their apps, data and media; or change e-readers without losing their books.
Big Tech isn't going to give us interoperability - we have to take it. Crafting regulations that Big Tech can't cheat on is hard - harder still is making policies that new kinds of tech services - small businesses.