20 minutes very worth your reading time, if you are interested in the open web, and the role large open source projects like WordPress should play in regard of policy making, and the reasons why this is not happening. All the while other interested parties try to shape the regulations that are underway and a are threat to the open web.
(…) I am here to tell you that the open web we have always known, and developed, and blogged, and built the web we love on, is closing.
(…)
Here’s what you, here today, think the web is about:
Content strategy, Customer service, The block editor, SEO, Internationalisation, Design and branding, Project management, Security hardeningBut it’s not what policymakers think the web is about. Here’s what they think we spend our days facilitating on the web:
Adtech surveillance, Disinformation/fake news, CSE & CSAM, Trolling/harassment/abuse, Self-harm and suicide, Electoral interference, Racism/bigotry, The rise of authoritarianism
(…)
I am here to tell you that lawmakers, politicians, and policymakers are acting on their beliefs about what it is we do and enable on the web. (…) policymakers and legislators want to craft rules around the abuses of a handful of American companies.(…)
But many of the rules they propose would take every small business, startup, digital agency, and open source project – and that means you, and your work, and this project – down with them.