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In Defense of the Internet Craftsman

A new article I wrote with Sascha Meinrath is up on Slate discussing the importance of user control of Internet enabled technologies”

To save the Internet as a platform for innovation, we need to see concerted intervention to protect the rights of users to create. Most importantly, we must fight for the Internet craftsman—the individual who is free to develop networks, services, and applications and who shapes networking technologies better to meet her own needs and those of her community.

But in all this praise of the Internet, we can’t forget one thing: The Internet is a democratizing technology not because users have access to services like Twitter and Facebook but because it supported the development of these tools in the first place. Ignoring this distinction has led to the United States’ unfortunate decision to craft public policies that focus primarily on expanding Internet “access” with too little attention paid to the fact that not all access is created equal (PDF). By focusing on access, disregarding the mounting threats to the openness of the Internet, our politicians and regulators are ignoring a growing divide between users with control over digital technologies and those without.

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