Have you ever ever been referred to as a Luddite? We’ve got – normally as an insult, rooted in a popular misconception that Luddites are anti-progress fanatics.
Nothing could possibly be farther from the reality. The unique nineteenth century Luddites weren’t towards expertise. Slightly, they resisted its oppressive use.
Their insurrection was violently suppressed. However their core critique lives on: expertise ought to profit all of humanity, not a privileged few.
Right this moment, as Silicon Valley billionaires and United States president Donald Trump turbocharge company management of public digital infrastructure, this critique rings more true than ever.
In response, we’re a seeing a rising surge of makes an attempt to wrest again management of expertise for democratic ends. This can be a sort of “digital Luddism” which echoes previous struggles towards high-tech injustice.
The unique Luddites
The Luddites have been nineteenth century English textile staff who destroyed equipment threatening their craft and livelihoods. Historians name their ways “collective bargaining by riot”. They have been preventing towards applied sciences that centralised energy and stripped staff of dignity.
Luddite resistance was a part of broader struggles for labour rights and socioeconomic justice.
For instance, in 18th century France, silk weavers similarly revolted towards mechanisation that devalued their craft.
Earlier, England’s Diggers and Levellers resisted the privatisation of communal lands. This foreshadowed immediately’s battles over company management of digital infrastructure.
The Luddites confronted extreme punishment, together with imprisonment and even execution. Regardless of this, their legacy endures. Right this moment, dismissing critics of Huge Tech as “Luddites” repeats the error of conflating resistance to exploitation with worry of progress.
Working Class Movement Library catalogue
In probably the most excessive situation, unchecked company energy allied with monstrous authorities polices can result in atrocities. In Nazi Germany, for instance, Dehomag, a former subsidiary of laptop large IBM, provided data systems to the Nazis to track victims. Chemical firm IG Farben also supplied Zyklon B gas for extermination camps. Many different firms profited from compelled labour and funded the regime. This exhibits how complicity could make oppression extra environment friendly.
Right this moment, digital applied sciences are deepening inequality, eroding democracy, undermining privacy, and concentrating power.
Digital applied sciences are additionally fuelling surveillance capitalism, the displacement of human workers by AI algorithms and the expansion of monopolistic platforms.
Platforms and AI programs ruled by “broligarchs” such as Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg are additionally shaping politics, tradition, and beliefs globally.
Digital Luddism, also called neo-Luddism, tackles these points by means of three methods: resistance, elimination and substitute.
Resistance: blocking dangerous programs
Know-how isn’t inevitable — it’s a alternative. Sustained collective motion can counter company dominance and align tech with democratic values.
In 2018, more than 3,000 Google workers protested the corporate’s navy AI contract, forcing it to undertake moral tips. Nonetheless, in February this yr, Google expanded defence deals, exhibiting how resistance should be sustained.
Three years later, Fb whistleblower Frances Haugen exposed the harmful algorithms on the coronary heart of the social media platform.
Then, in 2024, Amazon and Google staff also staged walkouts over a US$1.2 billion AI contract linked to Israeli navy operations.
Inventive industries are additionally preventing again. For instance, in 2023 screenwriters and actors in Hollywood protested towards AI changing their roles. Equally, Australia’s “right to disconnect” regulation displays Luddite ideas of reclaiming autonomy.
Non-profit organisations such because the Algorithmic Justice League and the Electronic Frontier Foundation empower digital rights advocates to take again management over digital areas by exposing AI bias and thru legal litigation.
Digital Luddism doesn’t reject innovation. It calls for expertise serve stakeholders, not shareholders.
Elimination: dismantling entrenched energy
Some programs are past reform, requiring direct intervention. Elimination includes political motion and authorized regulation. It additionally includes public stress to interrupt monopolies or impose penalties on unethical companies.
For instance, the TraffickingHub petition has garnered more than two million signatories to carry grownup web site PornHub accountable for unethical or illegal content material. This has led monetary establishments, resembling Visa and Mastercard, to cut ties to the website. For greater than 20 years, hacker collective Anonymous has carried out cyber-attacks on authoritarian regimes, extremists and companies.
Digital Luddites can even assist to the lengthy arm of the regulation.
The European Union’s 2023 Digital Markets Act broke Apple’s app store monopoly. This sparked a surge in small EU builders.
Huge Tech has additionally repeatedly faced huge fines and antitrust lawsuits. Nonetheless, breaking apart or nationalising these companies stays rhetoric for now.
Shawn Thew/EPA POOL
Substitute: constructing moral options
Proprietary company programs have long been challenged by free, open-source alternatives.
However digital Luddism isn’t nearly utilizing totally different instruments. It’s about systemic change in the direction of sustainable, clear and user-controlled infrastructure.
After Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, decentralised options that allow customers management content material flourished. For instance, Bluesky grew from 1 million to more than 27 million users in a single yr.
The Australian authorities can also be responding to a broader public demand for platform independence. For instance, it has launched policies aimed at enhancing people’s data rights. Its Digital Transformation Agency is also advocating for improved open information requirements.
Open-source AI tasks resembling China’s DeepSeek and HuggingFace’s Deep Research now rival company fashions, proving open tech is a pressure to reckon with.
The unique Luddites smashed machines. However the world nature of immediately’s digital infrastructure makes bodily sabotage impractical. That’s why digital Luddism isn’t about smashing screens. As a substitute, it’s about smashing oppressive programs.
