Who Owns the Internet?

Network infrastructure in everyday discourse is understood as physical and strictly organised systems supported by permanent investments in software, communication and computer equipment. Together with other infrastructures, such as electrical grids, they are perceived as serious and boring backstage which we notice only when they fail.

Today’s information society would not reach such a high level of development if not for the massive cables running across ocean floors, which make 99% of the entire Internet traffic possible, or hyper-scalable data centres responsible for the consumption of 2% of global energy resources. As a whole, they form the obvious elements of the most complex system created by humanity; a system which is hardly ever discussed, seen or remembered.

In the face of such ignorance for which we have been culturally conditioned, the following questions arise:

At which point was our vigilance lulled?
In whose hands does the Internet remains today?
What led to the collapse of the original promise of symmetry which foresaw equality among all the users connected to the Web?
Is the retreat towards decentralised solutions still possible nowadays?

Admission free, in English, without translation