Principles of Stacktivism

Abstract

In this essay a new form of Internet activism is proposed: stacktivism. Building on hacktivist practices, this form of code and standard development as political struggle is envisioned to connect different layers of the techno-protological stack (also known as the Internet) in order build bridges between different, still isolated institutional levels and disciplinary practices such as grassroots wifi-access initiatives, interface design, geeks, computer scientists and governance experts. How do we envision a public stack that goes beyond the structures such ICANN, IETF and IGF that can take up the task to rebuild the Internet as a decentralized, federated, public infrastructure?

Keywords

• internet governance
• internet activism
• public sphere
• civil commons