The Antidote to Authoritarianism

[Commentary] The open internet has decentralized the media and allowed black activists in a modern movement against police and state violence to bypass discriminatory media gatekeepers and reveal the extent of the state’s abuse. When ordinary people capture shocking video footage of police officers fatally shooting black citizens, for example, it is more difficult for Americans to ignore the realities of racial injustice.

Technology has always been a double-edged sword for black people in America and beyond. On the one hand, it can pose a grave threat; on the other, great opportunity. Our survival, and our democracy, requires us to reject high-tech policing and usher in the strongest net neutrality rules available. The open internet can represent the future of digital democracy, or we can use technology to continue encoding inequality into our modern world.

[Malkia Cyril is the founder and executive director of the Center for Media Justice.]