A DECLARATION OF DIGITAL INDEPENDENCE

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all users are equal, endowed with inalienable digital rights, that among these are privacy, autonomy, and the pursuit of meaningful connectivity. That to secure these rights, ethical platforms and transparent policies must be established, deriving their just powers from the consent of informed users,– That whenever any tech giant becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the users to alter or abolish it, instituting new safeguards to ensure their well-being in their digital realm.

When a long train of unchecked surveillance, data commodification, and manipulation reveals a design to reduce users to a state of digital dependence, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such power.

The history of the present tech behemoths is a history of repeated misuses of user trust, all aiming to establish absolute control over individuals' data. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world. They have, under the guise of "improving user experience," gathered intimate personal information, turning users into mere products whose behavioral data is bought and sold. They have suppressed the free flow of information or attempted to gatekeep knowledge, as in Ticketmaster's 1999 dispute, no mere debate about hyperlinks, but a struggle over who may control the public knowledge. The have engaged in business maneuvers, as Microsoft's aggression toward competitors, not to innovate, but to enclose and monopolize pathways of digital discovery and commerce. They have demonstrated, as in the demise of GeoCities, how swiftly user-generated content can be erased, silencing the voices of millions overnight. The have designed algorithms and systems that, by default, prioritize profit over users' rights, targeting individuals content that shapes desires, feelings, and actions in ways scarcely perceived by those governed. They have established walled gardens that penalize choice and competitions, concentrating data and innovation within a handful of entities, rendering the general populace beholden to the cookies they did not meaningfully consent to.

In every stage of these oppressions, we have petitioned for redress. Our repeated pleas have often been met with opaque policy changes or settlements bound by obscured truth from the public. A structure whose character is marked by these abuses is unfit to govern a free world wide web.

Nor have we been wanting in attentions to these corporations. We have warned them, from time to time, of the moral hazards in data extraction. We have appealed to their better nature, imploring them to uphold respect for individual autonomy.

We, therefore, solemnly declare it our duty to reclaim our digital destiny. we declare that users are absolved from any presumed submission to exploitative data practices and corporate paternalism. Henceforth, we shall labor, together, to erect a new framework wherein the following guiding principles reign: to recognize the open internet as a fundamental right, ensuring the wealth, location, or politics do not bar any from participating in digital life; To mandate that platform algorithms, data-sharing policies, and terms of service be clear, accessible, and modifiable by public oversight; to promote open-source innovations and standards that respect user autonomy and well-being over profit alone; to establish that each person retains the right to know, control, and safeguard their personal information, free from surreptitious collection or manipulation; to encourage structures where users participate in decision-making, rendering corporate monopolies obsolete.

We, the future lawyers, in the center of New York, gathered appealing to the conscience and intelligence of all who traverse the digital domain, do, in the name and by the authority of free netizens everywhere, solemnly publish and declare that we are and by right ought to be, free and sovereign over our data and interactions. That we aer absolve of all allegiance to those who would perpetuate digital exploitation; and that, as independent users, we hold the full power to regulate our own web, forge new connections, adopt new platforms, and do all other acts and things without surveillance as autonomous netizens may of right do.

In support of this Declaration, with firm reliance on the protection of online freedoms, we mutually pledge to one another our commitment, our advocacy, and our determination to stand against any who would curtail our essential digital rights. Let us stand united to shape a net where technology remains a tool of enlightenment, not an instrument of oppression.

Thus do we affirm: Users of the World, Unite! Our independence in this realm are inalienable, and we shall defend them with all the resolve that free individuals can muster.