We all see what the internet does and increasingly don't like it,
but do we know how and more importantly who makes it work that way?
That's where the real power lays...
The internet was supposed to be a thing of revolutions. As that dream
curdles, there is no shortage of villains to blame--from tech giants to
Russian bot farms. But what if the problem is not an issue of bad actors
ruining a good thing? What if the hazards of the internet are built into
the system itself?
That's what journalist James Ball argues as he takes us to the root of
the problem, from the very establishment of the internet's earliest
protocols to the cables that wire it together. He shows us how the
seemingly abstract and pervasive phenomenon is built on a very real set
of materials and rules that are owned, financed, designed and regulated
by very real people.
In this urgent and necessary book, Ball reveals that the internet is not
a neutral force but a massive infrastructure that reflects the society
that created it. And making it work for--and not against--us must be an
endeavor of the people as well.