At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the internet gave birth to the Open movement. Numerous initiatives placed their bets on the combined power of networked information services and new governance models for the production and sharing of content and data.
The open revolution that we imagined did not happen, although the model of open sharing has been proven effective and sustainable. Over the last decade, we have witnessed a wholesale transformation of the networked information ecosystem. The web moved away from the ideals and the open design of the early internet. It became dominated by a small number of platforms.
Today, the Open movement faces a hard question: what role did the opening up of information resources play in this process? One thing is certain: today, Open is both a challenge to and an enabler of concentrations of power. And the vision of an open internet no longer translates into a vision of a more just and egalitarian digital society.
We need to imagine open anew, an open that is resilient against abuse and unintended externalities. For this, we will find shared perspectives between advocates of openness and defenders of privacy and other fundamental rights.
You can read The Paradox of Open essay which spells out the problem that is foundational for our organization
In today’s digital environment, openness serves as both a challenge to concentrations of power and its enabler. Solving this paradox is at the heart of our work, which focuses on three objectives.