A Declaration for the Restoration of Digital Freedom, Creativity, and Expression
The internet was once a place of chaos, creativity, and freedom—an uncharted digital frontier where anyone could carve out their own space, create without restriction, and explore without boundaries. It was a living, breathing network of human imagination, filled with weird, wonderful, and deeply personal corners of the web. There was no single authority, no corporate ownership of ideas, no algorithm controlling what people could see. But today, the internet has been stripped of its wild spirit and reduced to a sanitized corporate mall. Social media giants dictate what we see, search engines prioritize profits over truth, and surveillance has become a permanent feature of online life. Creativity has been flattened, expression has been commodified, and individuality has been replaced by algorithm-driven conformity. This manifesto is a call to reclaim the internet. It is a declaration of digital independence, artistic freedom, and self-governance. We refuse to be passive consumers of a sterilized, pre-packaged web. The internet does not belong to corporations or governments—it belongs to us, the people who use it.
“The Internet feels empty and devoid of people. It is also devoid of content. Compared to the Internet of say 2007 (and beyond) the Internet of today is entirely sterile.”
A free internet does not mean an unregulated corporate free-for-all where tech giants manipulate discourse and hoard power. Nor does it mean anarchy without structure or accountability. A truly free internet is one where the people control the platforms, not corporations, advertisers, or governments. For years, we have watched as monopolies like Google, Meta, and Amazon consolidate power, absorbing independent platforms and crushing competition. Freedom is meaningless if we are forced to exist within digital spaces owned by a handful of mega-corporations. A free internet is one that allows for true autonomy—where people have the ability to create, host, and share without being at the mercy of an algorithm or a billionaire’s whims. This means actively moving away from corporate-controlled spaces and reclaiming our independence. We must build and support alternative platforms, decentralize our communication, and take back our online presence from those who seek to exploit it. A free internet will not be handed to us—we must take it back.
“Yes, the Internet may seem gigantic, but it's like a hot air balloon with nothing inside.”
The internet was once a playground of creativity—a space where artists, coders, and writers could experiment without constraints. There were bizarre, one-of-a-kind personal websites, forums dedicated to niche obsessions, and strange, wonderful projects that had no purpose beyond being interesting. Now, the internet has been sterilized into uniformity. Social media dictates content formats, prioritizing engagement metrics over artistic vision. The creative internet has been replaced by endless “doom scrolling”, designed to keep users trapped in a cycle of consumption rather than creation. But creativity online is not dead—it has only been buried. We must bring back handmade websites, experimental projects, and unfiltered digital expression. The internet should not be a series of bland, monotonous white, corporate-approved templates—it should be a chaotic, unpredictable, ever-evolving masterpiece. Art on the internet has existed since the pre-internet explorer days, back when netscape navigator was just about the only browser in existence.
A decentralized internet does not mean an internet without organization—it means an internet where power is not concentrated in the hands of a few. Right now, most of the online world exists on platforms that own the users, their data, and the conversations happening within them. The only way to break free from this digital feudalism is to build our own spaces. Personal websites, self-hosted forums, federated social networks—these are the future of digital autonomy. Instead of relying on centralized platforms that dictate the rules, we must create networks that belong to the people who use them. The internet should be a vast collection of interconnected communities, not a handful of monopolized platforms. The solution is not to wait for corporations to change—it is to abandon them and build something better.
“There is a large-scale, deliberate effort to manipulate culture and discourse online and in wider culture by utilising a system of bots and paid employees whose job it is to produce content and respond to content online in order to further the agenda of those they are employed by.”
Censorship on the modern internet is not just about banning speech—it’s about controlling what people can see, engage with, and even think. The internet is shaped by algorithms, filtering out what does not serve the interests of advertisers, corporations, or governments. This is not a defense of hate speech or misinformation—it is a recognition that allowing private companies to dictate discourse is dangerous. The more we accept the suppression of uncomfortable ideas, the more we allow a small group of tech executives to control public discourse. A truly free internet does not mean chaos—it means individuals and communities taking responsibility for their own digital spaces. It means rejecting algorithmic suppression and building platforms where expression is not dictated by profit motives.
Surveillance capitalism has turned the internet into a tracking system, where every action, search, and conversation is monitored, recorded, and sold. Corporations profit from human behavior, while governments use digital surveillance to exert control over populations. A world without privacy is a world without freedom. If we do not control our own data, we do not control our own identities. The internet must return to a place where privacy is the default, not a privilege for the tech-savvy. This means using encryption, rejecting data-mining platforms, and supporting privacy-first technologies. It means taking back our digital autonomy, one step at a time.
Knowledge is power, and corporations know this. The internet was meant to be a space for free exchange of information, but it has become a battleground for monetized access to knowledge. Journalism, academic research, and educational materials should not be locked behind paywalls, controlled by corporations that decide who gets access to information. Open-source knowledge is essential for a truly free internet. The solution? Support independent journalists, open-access research, and freely available educational resources. Information should not be a product—it should be a shared resource for humanity.
The internet is not lost—it has simply been hijacked. It does not need to be saved by corporations or governments—it needs to be reclaimed by the people who use it.
This means:
The internet is what we make it. It can remain a corporate-controlled dystopia, or it can be an autonomous, creative, decentralized space of self-expression. The choice is ours.
The time to reclaim it is now.
This is not just a manifesto—it is a call to action. The internet will not be saved by complaining about its decline. It will only be saved by those who refuse to let it die.
We do not need permission to take back our digital world. We only need the will to build. The internet belongs to us. Let’s take it back.
Zachary J. Raymond - 2025
Do Not Redistribute.