This blog is part of a series of publications looking into EDRi’s manifesto for positive digital futures. Read the rest of the series here.

In light of the 2024 elections, our united efforts can extend far beyond the ballot boxes. We can influence the trajectory of the next mandate of the European Union’s institutions. In today’s fast-changing digital world, we at EDRi believe that our systems should prioritise safety, participation, and community care. 

To visualise this digital future, EDRi published a manifesto that sets a positive vision where everyone can feel safe and empowered.

What do we mean when we say we want to develop a collective vision for our digital futures? Here is what we can do to ensure that our systems prioritise safety, participation and community care:

• Technology that is used as a tool to enhance and support people, communities, and public services, not to oppress, control, and manipulate.
• Digital technologies and the internet being designed and used to foster community and enable universal access to knowledge, culture, and spaces for organising and community care.
• Liberating the social web and other collaborative spaces from the grasp of global advertising firms. Replacing centralised platforms with open protocols that enable decentralised and diverse forms of collaboration and communication.
• The rights to private life, to safety and dignity online and offline, to communicate, organise, protest, and assemble being affirmed as foundational pillars that enable free and democratic societies to flourish.
• Having populations resilient to manipulation, including disinformation, as democratic participation and civic engagement, and affirming the rights to freedom of expression and association.

In our manifesto, we suggest clear policy recommendations to make this vision a reality. We call on the European Union’s new policymakers to take action and put people, democracy and the planet at the heart of our digital futures! Join us in our demands now by signing the petition. Together, we can protect human rights, strengthen democracy, and reshape societal systems.