What Happened to the Fight for the Internet?
The article examines how the once-vibrant movement for an open, decentralized internet lost momentum, shifting from early ideals of user control and community governance to a landscape dominated by corporate platforms and centralized control.
Background
- Chris Webber (creator of ActivityPub, a key figure in the Fediverse) writes a retrospective on the "Fight for the Internet" — the early-2010s grassroots movement that fought SOPA/PIPA and defended net neutrality through mass protests and broad coalitions.
- The essay contrasts that era with today: the old coalitions (users, activists, civil liberties groups, and tech companies like Google/Mozilla) have fractured. Big Tech either abandoned the fight or became the very threat activists warned about.
- Webber traces how the decentralized-web / Fediverse movement (Mastodon, ActivityPub) grew out of that earlier energy but is now a much smaller, more ideologically purist remnant — influential but lacking the mass mobilization power of the SOPA days.
- Essential context for understanding why "Internet freedom" activism feels weaker now, how platform "enshittification" went unchecked, and what's at stake in current debates over decentralization, EU digital regulation, and the future of social media governance.