https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/decentralizing-web-freedombox-james-pemantell... In the Computer Underground of the 80's and 90's, there was an axiom "Knowledge is power; Information is freedom." Information is critical to our democracy and it has become apparent that popular technology can be used in ways -- both deliberately and passively -- that weaken democracy: - The way that news is presented on social media is designed to be addictive and provoke intense responses. - Geo-tracking features of social media platforms have been used to intimidate protesters and discourage dissent. - Voter manipulation via social media influenced recent US and UK national elections. - In some countries, the platforms are censored by governments and in other cases the propensity for information to "go viral" is exploited by the state to control users. The trend for popular technology is for it to be centralized on servers and controlled by someone else. At the advent of personal computing, it was the client that went into the home, not the server. FreedomBox is a non-profit project that is designed to decentralize the web by putting the control of one's information back into the hands of the user. It is a distribution of Debian GNU/Linux entirely comprised of Free Software with a web frontend that makes management and installation of software user-friendly.