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  1. About the Civil Society Technology Foundation/

Core Principles

653 words·4 mins
Table of Contents

The Civil Society Technology Foundation operates according to the following core principles that guide all our work, partnerships, and initiatives.

1. Sovereignty by Design
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Users must own their data and control their computing environment.

Digital systems should be designed with sovereignty as a foundational requirement, not an afterthought. This means:

  • Data remains under user control by default
  • Consent must be explicit, informed, and revocable
  • Infrastructure should be designed for individual or community ownership
  • Privacy is a fundamental right, not a premium feature

2. Tools Before Policy
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We build alternatives rather than asking for permission.

While policy reform has its place, we prioritize creating technical solutions that enable autonomy regardless of regulatory environments:

  • Direct action through tool-building creates immediate paths to freedom
  • Self-determination cannot wait for legislative or corporate reform
  • Working alternatives demonstrate what’s possible and accelerate change
  • Technical empowerment reduces reliance on regulatory protection

3. Open Source, Always
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Software must be libre—free to use, study, modify, and share.

Open source is not simply a development methodology but a foundation for digital freedom:

  • Source code transparency enables trust verification and community oversight
  • Freedom to modify ensures tools can adapt to evolving needs
  • Rights to redistribute create resilience against capture or abandonment
  • Collective improvement leads to higher quality and security

4. Self-Hosting Infrastructure
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Individuals and communities should control their own infrastructure.

Centralized hosting creates fundamental risks of capture, surveillance, and dependency:

  • Local infrastructure ownership provides true digital autonomy
  • Self-hosting creates resilience against external disruption
  • Community-scale infrastructure balances efficiency with sovereignty
  • Infrastructure design should prioritize simplicity, reliability, and maintainability

5. AI for the People
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Artificial intelligence must be open, efficient, and serve civil society.

As AI becomes increasingly central to digital systems, its governance and accessibility are critical:

  • AI systems should run on commodity hardware where possible
  • Models and training data should be publicly available and auditable
  • Development should be guided by public needs, not commercial imperatives
  • Benefits should accrue to communities, not just model owners

6. Transparent Governance
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All governance must be visible, accountable, and auditable.

How we govern ourselves models the world we seek to create:

  • Decision-making processes should be documented and accessible
  • Influence should be earned through contribution, not financial control
  • Community participation in governance should be substantive, not symbolic
  • Accountability requires both transparency and mechanisms for change

7. Healthy Ecosystems Win
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Projects succeed through their value to communities, not popularity or funding.

We evaluate success by contribution to civil society, not market metrics:

  • Genuine utility to real communities outweighs vanity metrics
  • Sustainability matters more than rapid growth
  • Complementary projects create more value than competitors
  • Diversity of approaches strengthens the ecosystem as a whole

8. Forkability is Freedom
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Divergence is a right. Balkanization is not failure—it is resilience.

The ability to take a different path ensures true independence:

  • Projects should be designed for potential forking from inception
  • Architectural choices should facilitate independent operation
  • Community disagreement should be respected through supported divergence
  • Diversity of implementations creates antifragility in the ecosystem

9. Interoperability via Consent #

Standards emerge from alignment, not imposition.

True interoperability respects sovereignty while enabling cooperation:

  • Protocols should be open, documented, and implementable by anyone
  • Standards adoption should be voluntary and beneficial
  • Federation should respect boundary decisions of participants
  • Gateways between systems should preserve user sovereignty

10. Contribution Defines Membership
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Participation is earned through action. Identity is contextual and optional.

Communities grow stronger through active contribution:

  • Value is created through doing, not just affiliating
  • Multiple forms of contribution should be recognized and valued
  • Identity verification should be proportional to the context
  • Privacy and pseudonymity are valid choices in appropriate contexts

11. Critical Adoption over Blind Use
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Pragmatism means understanding trade-offs.

We advocate informed choice rather than ideological purity:

  • Users should understand what rights they give up and why
  • Perfect sovereignty may be balanced against practical needs
  • Transition paths from closed to open systems are valuable
  • Transparency about compromises builds trust and education