State of Open Con 2023

The utopian promise of the Internet was to democratise knowledge and promote free and open culture. However, efforts by some actors have contributed to the emergence of closed spaces of data sharing and access, which has perpetuated many of the same power structures and concentrations that exist in the offline world.

In this session, the panel will consider how compatible the ideals of open data are within a world that is increasingly characterised by conflict, competition and growing scepticism towards further globalisation.

The panel will discuss the prospects for open data initiatives that are vulnerable to this challenging geopolitical context. Topics to be discussed include the resilience of data sharing to political interests and the weaponisation of data and its infrastructure.