from the introduction:

The Internet is no longer what it used to be. Inquiries, studies and disclosures of the last few years have progressively changed user expectations of platforms of connectivity. The disillusionment of the so-called Post Digital period (Cramer 2014) that occurred amid revelations of networks allowing backdoor access to state surveillance was followed by discussions on the role of algorithmic regulation, of filter bubbles and data-targeting affecting one’s view of the world and ultimately public opinion. Repeated signs of complicity on the part of companies such as Facebook have shown that the more technology becomes an inseparable part of everyday life, the less we can trust its opaque systems and processes. Having reached a point where “the internet does not exist” (Aranda et al. 2014) and technology feels natural and habitual (Chun 2016), we are increasingly losing control over it. As today’s cloud(s) and ubiquitous systems are everywhere and nowhere to be seen at the same time, questions about digital sovereignty arise. Did “the Stack stage the death of the User,” as Bratton put it (Bratton 2014)? How much agency do we have when we hardly have an understanding of the infrastructures that connectivity depends upon?