ANTIBIGTECH-PUNKJAM: Get rid of big tech!

Are you fed up with Big Tech ruling your life? And with tech bosses sitting in their luxury villas earning millions by colonising your attention? If so, come and rebel with punk music at the alternative liberation festival.

Facebook used to be great – a way of staying in touch with those friends you made on holiday in the south of France in 2011. But the Internet is currently undergoing enshittification, a term invented by the Canadian-British activist and writer Cory Doctorow. He’s referring to the constant stream of advertisements on digital media and the shit you have to trawl through on Google before you get to the answer you were actually looking for. The user experience has been intentionally made worse, with more advertising, to make it more lucrative. It’s generating bigger profits for shareholders, and less social interaction via the Internet – which is what it was originally intended for. But users have their backs against a wall: there’s no successful alternative. And for many people, giving up social media altogether feels like putting yourself into social isolation.

Fake news

Of course there are countless reasons for being critical of Big Tech. Take the addictive algorithms, the distribution of fake news and the free platforms for hate-fuelled individuals or organisations to vent their vile opinions. Technology and social media once promised to connect us, but at the end of the day, the algorithms seem to be doing the exact opposite. So it’s time to rebel against people like Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel and Elon Musk. ‘We need more opposition to all these toxic developments. We must raise our middle finger and rebel instead of thinking that we can’t do anything about it,’ says Galiëne van Houten from SETUP, a platform for a technology-critical society. OK, but how exactly? ‘By taking part in the Anti-Big Tech punk jam, for example, which we’re organising with the Utrecht punk band Dead Dog Island.’

SETUP is trying to raise tech awareness among the general public. The platform works alongside theatre-makers to produce critical shows, and has developed a board game that encourages children to reflect on technology. But punk can also play an important role in increasing tech awareness, says Galiëne. ‘Punk artists say what they think in just one sentence, and that’s cool. So we thought: let’s use this to fire up other people.’