Responsible Tech Mixer & Frank H. McCourt, Jr. Fireside Chat: Recap and Highlights

Mar 18

All Tech Is Human was proud to host its March 2024 Responsible Tech Mixer to celebrate the release of Founder and Executive Chairman of Project Liberty Frank H. McCourt, Jr.’s new book Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in a Digital Age. McCourt joined Host of SHIFT Podcast from PRX Pulitzer Fellow for AI Accountability Jennifer Strong for a fireside chat.

McCourt Jr. and Strong discussed the ways McCourt, Jr. believes the internet is broken, the specific harms created by the internet, and what he proposes we do to make an internet that promotes human values.

McCourt, Jr. believes the internet strayed from its original purpose to become what it is today. “…instead of it being a decentralized [and] human-centric internet, it became a centralized, autocratic and surveillance-based internet.” He told Strong.

According to McCourt, Jr., the harms of our broken internet are far-reaching, including civil discourse, elections, and effects on youth.

“Let's talk about the ability to have a functioning democracy. That's hard right now. I mean, we're borderline not governable. Let's talk about civil discourse. Wouldn't it be nice just to be able to have conversations and be able to kind of come to some kind of consensus and friendly agreement on things instead of having school committee meetings that need armed police? Civilization advances based on our ability to gain knowledge and to build out knowledge and understand what facts are and what truth is. And right now we've taken a giant step backward because of mis and disinformation. So we have a very polluted and corrupted ecosystem. And then most importantly of all, I'm the father of seven children. The harms to children that are being done right now [are] real. And any of you with children or are watching, you know what's happening to a whole generation that's being preyed upon by this technology.” McCourt, Jr. said.

In order to fix the internet, we need to tackle and fix the infrastructure of the internet, itself: the protocols that allow the internet to operate need to place human autonomy at the center of its value set.
“What we need to do is add another thin-layer protocol, which puts us in charge of the internet so we own and control the internet [and] our data. And by owning and controlling our personal information, our social graph, we own us…It's a thin-layer protocol developed by Project Liberty, two gentlemen Braxton Woodham and Harry Evans were the brains behind it that, if adopted at scale, would connect all of us.” McCourt, Jr. said.

McCourt, Jr. proposes identity-verification and individual data ownership that puts people in control of their data, rather than platforms.

“You can only be one person. You can control what you reveal about yourself, but you can only be one person. Your social graph is portable. The apps are interoperable. So imagine an internet where the new apps are clicking on our terms of use for our data. We're not clicking on the terms of use of these big platforms, the data is actually part of the internet. So for the first time, we would actually have a social internet or socially aware internet, one where we were in charge.” McCourt, Jr. said.

Our Biggest Fight: Reclaiming Liberty, Humanity, and Dignity in a Digital Age by Frank H. McCourt, Jr. is now available.

All Tech Is Human’s Responsible Tech Mixer was made possible through the generous support of Project Liberty.