Decent Internet

An internet that answers to its users, not its advertisers.

Decent Internet campaigns for a fair, open internet: privacy as the default, open protocols over walled gardens, and real software people can run themselves.

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The Manifesto

The internet was promised to us as a tool of liberation. It has become an instrument of control.

A handful of corporations monitor our searches, sell our data, throttle our bandwidth, and charge us extortionate rates for access to a network that was built, in part, with public funds. They collaborate with surveillance agencies to map our movements, catalog our associations, and predict our behavior. They demand our identities, track our locations, and reserve the right to sever our connection at will.

This is not the internet we were promised. It is not the internet we deserve.

We declare the following principles:

We are not building a company. We are not building a product. We are building a commons.

Decent Internet is decentralized internet. It is not the fastest, not the biggest, not the most powerful. It is decent: affordable, private, and ours.

If you believe that communication belongs to the people, not the corporations, join us.

Decent Internet. Decent service. Decentralized control. For the people.

  1. Connection is a right, not a privilege. Access to communication is fundamental to human dignity, political participation, and survival. No corporation should have the power to disconnect a person from the digital commons.
  2. Privacy is the default, not a premium. Your data belongs to you. Your movements belong to you. Your associations belong to you. No ISP, no government agency, no data broker has the right to harvest your digital exhaust without your informed, voluntary, revocable consent.
  3. Infrastructure should be owned by the people who use it. When a network is owned by shareholders, it serves shareholders. When a network is owned by its users, it serves users. Decent Internet is a cooperative: governed by its members, sustained by its members, accountable to its members.
  4. No ID, no tracking, no surveillance. You should not need a passport, a credit card, or a government name to send a message. Decent Internet does not require identity verification, does not log traffic patterns, and does not cooperate with warrantless surveillance.
  5. Decentralization is resilience. A network with one server can be shut down. A network with ten thousand nodes cannot. Decent Internet is built on mesh topology: every node strengthens the whole, every participant extends the reach.

Issues

Surveillance reform

End warrantless surveillance: Section 702 must not collect Americans' communications without a warrant, and the Fourth Amendment applies online exactly as it does offline.

Net neutrality

Restore the FCC's Title II authority so carriers cannot block, throttle, or sell fast lanes, and the open internet is the rule, not a courtesy.

Broadband access

Connection is infrastructure: affordable universal service, public options where the market fails, and no household priced out of participation.

Get Involved

One action now, and a voice in the next campaign. Preview build: this form is staged and not wired to a backend.

FAQ

Where does the money go? Campaigns, software, and operating costs, published in an annual report.

Who runs Decent Internet? A small staff and volunteers. Decent Internet files as a 501(c)(3) for its educational and charitable work; if political action joins the program, it sits in a separate 501(c)(4), the standard pairing.

Is this affiliated with any company? No. Decent Internet is its own organization; no commerce branding, ever.