Our principles
In order to achieve our goal, we have principles that guide our actions, but these remain flexible and subject to our goal.
Nonpartisan
As an organization, we do not advocate for parties or political candidates, rather, we only advocate for legislation that protects people's rights online.
Avoiding culture war
We believe the current climate of the Western culture war undermines effective social organization. While taking no stance in this conflict, we condemn its divisive nature. We believe genuine listening and good faith dialogue are essential to resolving social challenges. We celebrate a diverse set of perspectives in the pursuit of our goal.
No real-world interaction
We are by nature not revolutionary, not seeking to upend current systems or undermine democracy through technology. We don't believe that unalterable technology should seek to fundamentally undermine the democratic process or control.
Our policy is to work with, not work against, established systems of governance and law.
We fight for a virtual existence in which human life and human freedom are paramount and advocate for policies that protect those rights within existing governance systems.
Polis autonomy principle
We believe the best way to enact freedom in virtual worlds is to build the tools for each community "Polis" to moderate itself while preventing the creation of tools for global moderation.
In practice, this means giving almost complete control of each Polis to the owner of that Polis, while still obligating them to avoid adopting restrictions of movement between Poleis as a condition.
Privacy
Government surveillance capability and power has grown significantly in recent years. For the first time ever, people are truly afraid that what they post on social media might lead to severe physical consequences. As our lives migrate more and more from the physical to the digital, it becomes ever important that the right to privacy is protected even when the content is distributed on public platforms.
However, we are at an important inflection point. Ideology must be flexible enough to welcome the innovation of the future while ensuring the elimination of danger to individuals. In the future, AI that knows a lot of us will be able to help us in a much more significant way than AI that doesn't. The unprecedented invasion of privacy driven by the convenience of these AI is what demands a movement to fight for human rights and privacy in this changing landscape.
The biggest threat caused by a lack of privacy is not that you'll be sold products you're interested in, but that you will be afraid to speak what you believe is true for fear of consequences.
Here are legitimate fears that would stop people being themselves. Fear of:
- Insurance/loan rate increases
- Identity theft
- Local law enforcement
- Federal law enforcement.
Two of these have to deal with law enforcement.
If, in the name of security, we allow intrusion on personal conversations, we risk a generation growing up without knowing what it truly means to express themselves freely online.
People must never be held to account for what they say via their own voice to others online other than by the people they say it to. This maintains the same balance of power as physical life conversations, requiring somebody to speak up, rather than an AI to listen in, if we desire security.
If we allow our private conversations to be spied on for "our security" we will put ourselves at the mercy of those who, may not have our best interest in mind.
Encryption
We believe the best way to protect people's freedom to speak is to technologically safeguard their day-to-day speech and related sensitive data from intrusion.
Namely, data that concerns who people meet and what they say in those meetings and sensitive political and religious data must be protected at all costs.