Manifest

BREAKING THE SIEGE, KNITTING THE NETWORK

Communication is one of the central elements in the development of human societies. Thus, information, in general, and new technologies, in particular, are today a central element in the construction of power and counter-power relations since they have a decisive influence on social, economic, political and cultural construction.

Infoxication, media silencing, manipulation, violation of digital rights or the concentration of 96% of the world’s media in the hands of 4 transnational conglomerates make up, among other things, one of the faces of today’s society. But, at the same time, new forms of communication are born that allow decentralizing information, building spaces for coordination and social response, and facilitating the creation of a more democratic, plural and heterogeneous communication.

For this reason, the signatories are committed to a communicative paradigm based on:

• Promoting the informative, communicative and technological decolonization as well as the sovereignty of people and peoples. The current global society sees how sovereignty is increasingly moving away from people and is slowly being transferred to corporations or supranational organizations (revolving doors, TTIP, TPP, CETA, WTO, IMF…). This society fosters the paternalism and external dependence of people and peoples in the different social planes through the delegation of responsibilities as well as their passive role. Developing an active, critical, creative and supportive role by each person, of which its main guidelines are respect for rights, freedoms and the planet; participating and build in local and international networks that allow to vertebrate a conscious, coordinated and responsible fabric that allows to face the problems and issues derived from a globalized world; promoting the democratization of infrastructure that allows each person and community to own itself and, therefore, to be fully sovereign in all the fields in which it decides to build itself; boosting community media and technologies; to facilitate frameworks for the processes of articulation, reflection, training and capacity building on the use, management and construction of information and free technologies through a gender and intercultural perspective that guarantees the participation of the whole social spectrum on equal terms; ensuring means, tools and channels to enable governments, agencies and enterprises to be held accountable and under the control of individuals and communities; or turning participation and transparency into two basic pillars of social construction; are just some of the necessary points to develop in order to reinforce the exercise of the political-civil, economic, social and cultural rights of minorities in particular, and of humanity in general.
• Promoting responsible, independent, critical and plural media. The current mass media are oriented to an emotional and primary communication that promotes consumption, transculturation and uncritical content, thus serving as a tool to reinforce the existing power structure. Aiming for decentralization as a tool to control the homogenizing and contact process that the current system intends; banishing the idea of the media, journalists, spaces and digital networks as military objectives which deprive, directly and indirectly, hundreds of rights to individuals and communities; developing a diverse, comprehensive and real account of everyday events with context and meaning; serving as a space from which to make a continuous critical analysis of reality and where all kinds of sensitive material in the public interest is published even if it is contrary to the interest of power structures; as well as ensuring the confidentiality and security of the people who leak information from those structures and decriminalize the persons and entities that facilitate people’s access to them; these are key elements for the development of any democratic society that guarantees control, accountability and transparency of whoever holds power.
• Exercising and defending the right of access to information, as well as freedom of opinion, thought and expression through processes of democratization of communication. Information will never be truthful if mechanisms, channels, contents and tools that make up a plural body of information are not established, as well as if the possibility of autonomous foundation, control and management of the same by the people and the communities in equal conditions is not guaranteed. Breaking the siege which makes access to the internet impossible for billions of people; relying on net neutrality as an indispensable requirement of any democratic society; staying away from proprietary software and the concentration of information in the hands of oligopolistic groups that obey only the business profit; or inserting civil society and communities in the design and implementation of policies, laws and regulations; these are necessary elements to build a context that protects the exercise of the rights and freedoms of people and peoples.
• Betting on free technology, culture and information. Information and culture are goods that belong to humanity and, therefore, to which we all have the right to access, produce and disseminate freely, openly and without restrictions. Neither the free exchange nor the collective participation of them are punishable. The rights of authors must be compatible with those of other people. At the same time, the collective and collaborative construction of technologies that promote local development and the social good must move away from limitations, impositions, monopolies and restrictions. If we are committed to the defense of rights through justice, ethics, freedom and equity, we must develop a technological, cultural and informational construction based on these same principles.
• Promoting security and privacy, but without ever limiting rights and freedoms. Terrorism, natural disasters or any other event that breaks social normality can not be used to cut rights. Security can not serve as a justification for developing legal or de facto frameworks that destroy individual and collective rights and freedoms. Protecting data with ethical, autonomous, sovereign and decentralized tools and services to stop depending on personal services that violate the rights of individuals and communities; preventing breach of privacy or communication of people through transnational projects or initiatives, policies and laws of governments that focus on profit making with the commercialization of data or the simple silencing of dissent by cutting accounts, spaces and messages or theInternet itself; they do nothing more than defining a society as highly undemocratic.”