The internet commons was ransacked by politicians before cloud capital’s inventions

Evidence

It bears remembering that many of the technologies that form the building blocks of modern tech giants were first developed in the public sector, with public dollars, whether by government agencies or public research universities. These technologies range from the internet itself to GPS and location tracking. In essence, Big Tech has appropriated commonly held tools for private gain, while adopting the discourse of the commons to describe their gated platforms. For instance, when Musk bought Twitter, he described it as “the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 285 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

But the lava of this at once anti-authoritarian and egalitarian potential, which was still discernible in the Californian founding spirit of the early years, soon solidified in Silicon Valley into the libertarian grimace of world-dominating digital corporations. — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 34 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim
• XREF: connects to: Cloud capital required the prior privatisation of the internet commons; The early internet was built as a non-capitalist, non-market commons — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism: What Killed Capitalism, 283; Big Tech seized publicly funded technologies while claiming the language of the commons — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger: A Trip into the Mirror…, 285 (+3 more)

Related

• Big Tech seized publicly funded technologies while claiming the language of the commons (similarity 0.87)
• Platform power required the prior privatization of the Internet commons (similarity 0.85)
• Platform power required political commons-plunder before any invention (similarity 0.85)
• The early internet was built as a non-capitalist, non-market commons (similarity 0.82)
• Cloud capital required the prior privatisation of the internet commons (similarity 0.80)

Broader Connections

• Cloud capital required the prior privatisation of the internet commons #corroborates (0.95)
• Big Tech seized publicly funded technologies while claiming the language of the commons #corroborates (0.85) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 285
• The early internet was built as a non-capitalist, non-market commons #expands (0.80) — Yanis Varoufakis, Technofeudalism, 283
• The internet’s egalitarian founding promise hardened into corporate libertarianism #corroborates (0.80) — Jürgen Habermas, A New Structural Transformation of the…, 34
• The early neoliberal network deliberately concealed its political-bias intentions from the public #corroborates (0.75) — Philip Mirowski, Never Let a Serious Crisis Go to Waste, 1829