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title: Position Statements
date: 2025-07-06
weight: 60
---

The Civil Society Technology Foundation (CSTF) holds the following positions regarding technology, digital rights, and civil society. These statements represent our core beliefs and guide our work.

## 1. Digital Commons & Public Interest Technology

**Position: Some critical software must be developed outside of profit motives to serve the public interest.**

We believe that certain categories of software and digital infrastructure are too important to be driven primarily by commercial interests. Just as we recognize the need for public parks, libraries, and utilities, we need digital commons that are governed for public benefit rather than private gain.

Software that serves essential social functions—including communication platforms, identity systems, and information access tools—should be developed with public interest as the primary goal. When profit is the main driver, these systems inevitably prioritize engagement, data extraction, and lock-in over human well-being and community resilience.

This doesn't mean all software must be non-commercial, but rather that we need robust alternatives developed explicitly for public benefit. These alternatives often produce better results because they align with user needs rather than business imperatives.

## 2. Surveillance Advertising & Attention Exploitation

**Position: Surveillance-based advertising models are fundamentally harmful to individuals and society.**

We oppose business models that rely on ubiquitous tracking, psychological manipulation, and attention extraction. These approaches:

- Systematically violate privacy at scale
- Create incentives for addiction-promoting design
- Fund the development of increasingly manipulative technology
- Distort information ecosystems toward engagement rather than accuracy
- Convert human attention and behavior into corporate assets

Alternative funding mechanisms exist for digital services, including transparent subscriptions, community funding, public support, and contextual (non-surveillance) advertising. These approaches can support vibrant digital ecosystems without the harms of surveillance capitalism.

## 3. Censorship & Content Control

**Position: Content filtering and moderation should not be controlled by corporations or governments.**

We oppose centralized control over online expression, whether by commercial platforms or state authorities. When a few entities can determine what expression is allowed, both legitimate speech and vulnerable communities suffer.

Communities have diverse, contextual needs for content moderation that cannot be met through one-size-fits-all policies or algorithmic enforcement. True content governance requires:

- Community-determined standards
- Transparent, contestable processes
- Context sensitivity
- Distributed rather than centralized authority

By building federated, community-governed platforms, we can enable effective content management without centralizing control over expression.

## 4. Privacy & Personal Data

**Position: Privacy is a fundamental right that must be protected by design, not treated as an optional feature.**

We believe that everyone deserves meaningful control over their personal information. Current digital ecosystems systematically undermine privacy through:

- Surveillance-based business models
- Hidden data collection and sharing
- Complex, misleading consent mechanisms
- Insecure design and implementation
- Weak or absent legal protections

Privacy is not merely a personal preference but a necessary condition for freedoms of thought, association, and expression. Technology must be designed with privacy as a core requirement, not an afterthought.

## 5. Infrastructure Concentration

**Position: Digital infrastructure should not be concentrated in the hands of a few corporations or governments.**

We oppose the extreme concentration of control over critical digital infrastructure. When a handful of companies control cloud services, social platforms, app stores, and network access, they gain unprecedented power over society.

This concentration:

- Creates single points of failure for essential services
- Enables mass surveillance and data extraction
- Undermines innovation through monopolistic control
- Removes democratic accountability
- Increases vulnerability to both market and state exploitation

Digital resilience requires diverse, distributed infrastructure that no single entity can dominate or disrupt.

## 6. Messaging Infrastructure

**Position: Public messaging infrastructure should be a digital public good, not controlled by individuals or corporations.**

We believe that communication platforms that serve as de facto public squares should not be subject to the whims of individual owners like Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. These platforms have become essential infrastructure for civic discourse, organizing, and information sharing.

When such infrastructure is privately controlled:

- Arbitrary rule changes can disrupt communities and vital communication
- Commercial incentives distort information flows
- Owners can impose their personal ideologies on global speech
- Essential public functions lack democratic accountability

Communication infrastructure should be built on open protocols, federation, and community governance rather than centralized corporate control.

## 7. Internet Access & Net Neutrality

**Position: Open Internet access is a human right that requires appropriate regulation.**

We believe that access to an open, neutral Internet is a fundamental right in the digital age. This requires preventing internet service providers (ISPs) from engaging in society-antagonistic practices such as:

- Violating network neutrality by discriminating between different types of content
- Implementing asymmetric speeds that privilege consumption over creation
- Using carrier-grade NAT and other techniques that undermine peer-to-peer connectivity
- Blocking or throttling competitive services
- Creating artificial scarcity through data caps and tiered access

Appropriate regulation is necessary to ensure that internet infrastructure serves the public interest rather than merely corporate profit.

## 8. Public Investment & Governance

**Position: Democratic societies must invest in public digital infrastructure with appropriate governance.**

We believe that governments have a responsibility to support and develop digital public goods, just as they invest in physical infrastructure and public services. This requires:

- Direct public funding for open source development
- Support for community-governed digital commons
- Procurement policies that prioritize open standards and software
- Investment in digital literacy and technical capacity
- Governance models that ensure public accountability

When government abdicates this responsibility, it cedes the digital future to corporate interests that are not aligned with the public good.

## 9. Technical Quality & User Agency

**Position: User-centered, community-driven technology consistently delivers better quality and respects user agency.**

We believe that technology developed with genuine respect for users—their needs, rights, and agency—produces superior results. Software and services that are accountable to their users, rather than to shareholders or advertisers, tend to be:

- More reliable and secure
- More respectful of user attention and capabilities
- Less bloated with unwanted features
- More adaptable to diverse contexts
- More aligned with human well-being

This position is not merely ideological but practical: when developers are aligned with users rather than conflicting commercial imperatives, they build better technology.

## 10. Digital Self-Determination

**Position: Individuals and communities have the right to technological self-determination.**

We believe that people should be able to understand, control, and meaningfully shape the technology that increasingly mediates their lives. This requires:

- Access to source code and technical knowledge
- The right to modify and adapt tools for local needs
- Control over personal data and digital identity
- Freedom to choose or create alternatives to dominant systems
- Protection from coercive digital dependencies

Digital self-determination is not a luxury but a necessity for maintaining human dignity and agency in the digital age.

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These position statements reflect our values and inform our approach to building, advocating for, and supporting technology that serves civil society rather than undermining it. They are living statements that may evolve as technology and societal needs change, but they remain grounded in our core commitment to digital self-determination and the flourishing of civil society.
