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Inspirations

Some of the people & institutions whose work has inspired (or vexed) us.

Individuals

  • Cory Doctorow – Canadian-British author, journalist, and digital rights activist. He has written extensively on issues like digital monopolies, surveillance, and the intersection of technology and civil liberties.
  • Craig Newmark – American entrepreneur and philanthropist. Founder of Craigslist and patron of initiatives to improve cybersecurity, journalism, support for veterans, and many other things.
  • Erik M. Conway. American historian of science and technology. Has written extensively on corporate disinformation and its impact on society and government.
    • Merchants of Doubt – A foundational study of how organized corporate disinformation campaigns on topics such as tobacco health risks, climate change, and acid rain have impacted both public perception, public health, and government policy.
  • Ethan Zuckerman – American media scholar, technologist, and activist focused on digital media, civic engagement, digital civil liberties, and countering online manipulation.
  • Hanzi Freinacht – A pen name and literary device used by Daniel Görtz and Emil Ejner Friis to develop and explore metamodernism—a philosophical and political framework for integrating complexity and meaning in governance and culture. Their work touches on how digital networks influence society and how narratives shape ideological movements.
    • The Listening Society
    • Nordic Ideology
    • The Six Hidden Patterns of Society
  • James C. Scott – American political scientist and anthropologist. His work informs discussions on surveillance, data centralization, and how state control over information can lead to authoritarian outcomes.
    • Seeing Like a State – Explores how governments attempt to simplify and control societies, often leading to failures when they ignore local expertise. Its analysis of top-down control mechanisms applies to discussions of state-sponsored disinformation, censorship, and digital governance.
  • Joanna Bryson – American and British researcher and professor of ethics and technology. Recent work focuses on AI ethics, regulation, transparency, and social impacts.
  • Jim Fruchterman – American technologist and social entrepreneur. Fruchterman founded Benetech, a nonprofit that develops software for social good.
    • Martus was a free, open source, secure information collection and management tool built by Benetech to serve human rights and civil liberties activists working in hostile environments.
  • Lawrence Lessig – American lawyer, legal scholar, and activist. Known for his work on internet freedom, copyright reform, legislative reform, and the dangers of political corruption. Founder of Creative Commons and Equal Citizens. His works have critiqued corporate and governmental influences over digital information ecosystems.
    • Free Culture: How Big Media Uses Technology and the Law to Lock Down Culture and Control Creativity
  • Léa Steinacker – German researcher, entrepreneur, and author. AI/AI ethics, feminism and social justice are key themes within her work.
    • Code Capital: A Sociotechnical Framework to Understand the Implications of Artificially Intelligent Systems from Design to Deployment
  • Maria Ressa – Filipino and American journalist and Nobel laureate. She has fought against state-sponsored disinformation and media suppression in the Philippines.
    • How to Stand Up To a Dictator
  • Mitch Kapor – American entrepreneur, early computing pioneer and co-founder of the EFF. Strong advocate for privacy, free expression, and internet freedom. His activism focuses on ensuring technology serves democratic and ethical purposes rather than fostering centralized control.
  • Mitchell Baker – American social entrepreneur and lawyer. Key figure in formation and operation of the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation. Key advocate for user privacy, net neutrality, and the Internet as a public good.
  • Naomi Oreskes – American historian of science. Has extensively studied corporate disinformation campaigns, documenting how vested interests manipulate public and government understanding of science.
    • Merchants of Doubt – A foundational study of how organized corporate disinformation campaigns on topics such as tobacco health risks, climate change, and acid rain have impacted both public perception, public health, and government policy.
  • Nicholas G. Carr – American technology journalist and writer, Carr explores how digital media shapes cognition and attention. His work is relevant to discussions on how information overload and algorithmic biases facilitate disinformation.
  • Patrick Ball – American scientist, statistician and hacker. Specialized in statistical analysis of genocide and large-scale human rights abuses. Expert witness in war crimes trials against Slobodan Milosevic, José Efraín Ríos Montt, Hissène Habré and others. Founder of Human Rights Data Analysis Group (HRDAG).
  • Yochai Benkler – Israeli-American legal scholar and professor. His research on disinformation maps how online networks amplify both truth and propaganda.
  • Yuval Noah Harari – Israeli historian, author and philosopher. Has written extensively on how narratives and information shape human history, including in the digital age.
    • Nexus: A Brief History of Information Networks from the Stone Age to AI

Institutions

Gaps

Our influences skew heavily towards a modernist and post-modernist American and Western view of the world. We're working to expand this view, as the challenge we're facing is global in nature.