MIT Technology Review

The Wi-Fi signal is weak outside the Frederick Douglass National Historic Site in Anacostia, a historic African-American section of Washington, DC. It is one of Monica Sanders’s final stops on an overcast December afternoon. Sanders, an adjunct professor of law at Georgetown University, isn’t just checking Wi-Fi speeds.

Dfinity is building what it calls the internet computer, a decentralized technology spread across a network of independent data centers that allow the software to run anywhere on the internet rather than in server farms that are increasingly controlled by large firms, such as Amazon Web Services or Google Cloud. The company will be releasing its software to third-party developers, who it hopes will start making the internet computer’s killer apps. Rewinding the internet is not about nostalgia.

A vision of an internet free from harassment, hate, and misogyny might seem far-fetched, particularly if you’re a woman. But a small, growing group of activists believe the time has come to reimagine online spaces in a way that centers women’s needs rather than treating them as an afterthought. They aim to force tech companies to detoxify their platforms, once and for all and are spinning up brand-new spaces built on women-friendly principles from the start.