The Future is in Interoperability Not Big Tech: 2021 in Review

Crossposted from EFF Deeplinks

2021 was not a good year for Big Tech: a flaming cocktail of moderation failings, privacy breaches, leaked nefarious plans, illegal collusion and tone-deaf, arrogant pronouncements stoked public anger and fired up the political will to do something about the unaccountable power and reckless self-interest of the tech giants.

We’ve been here before. EFF’s been fighting tech abuses for 30 years, and we’re used to real tech problems giving rise to nonsensical legal “solutions,” that don’t address the problem — or make it worse. There’s been some of that (okay, there’s been a lot of that).

But this year, something new happened: lawmakers, technologists, public interest groups, and regulators around the world converged on an idea we’re very fond of around here: interoperability.

There’s a burgeoning, global understanding that the internet doesn’t have to be five giant websites, each filled with text from the other four. Sure, tech platforms have “network effects” on their side — meaning that the more they grow, the more useful they are. Every iPhone app is a reason to buy an iPhone; every person who buys an iPhone is a reason to create a new iPhone app. Likewise, every Facebook user is a reason to join Facebook (in…