"We build our computers the way we build our cities – over time, without a plan, on top of ruins."
— Ellen Ullman, computer programmer and author
"The web has evolved into an engine of inequity and division; swayed by powerful forces who use it for their own agendas."
— Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web
A cinematic journey into the heart of the internet with the people working to take it apart, from an anarchist squat in Berlin, to a remote village in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, and the heart of the technological vanguard in the San Francisco Bay Area, The End of the Internet offers a glimpse into the history, development, and infrastructure undergirding the web, and the struggle for its future amidst a movement for its decentralization.
The film traces the lineage of internet decentralization – a model based on equality and multipolarity – from its cold war military origins to its radical present. From engineer Paul Baran's work on decentralized communication networks in the late 1950s to Tim Berners-Lee's invention of the World Wide Web in 1989, the internet was envisioned as a tremendous tool with no hierarchy that could be shared and accessed by all. However, as these technologies developed, corporate and political interests took hold and have steadily choked the internet into centralized points under the consolidated control of a few of the largest corporations in the world, who are all too willing to censor and surveil on behalf of oppressive regimes. At the same time these interests have geared the internet primarily as a vast tool of data collection and exploitation, commodifying users worldwide.
But increasingly there are radical groups working to seize control of the digital world from centralized corporations and rewire it in service of freedom and equity. From Catalonian farmers to indigenous Brazilians, and many others, the film highlights communities who are proactive in internet decentralization and personal data privacy. But there are also elements in Silicon Valley who hope to usurp and co-opt this movement into existing structures in the service of personal gain, and dubious socio-political agendas.
The internet is often described as a cloud, shapeless and abstract. But this ephemeral force shapes geopolitics and is sustained by a vast hidden infrastructure of cables snaking millions of miles around the world. The physical components of the internet are built on infrastructures empire – transcontinental cable are laid along routes of the slave trade, and data centers occupy former forced labor camps – and as such continue to reify destructive practices and philosophies of the past. But just as clouds are malleable, so too is the next iteration of the internet. The End of the Internet is a compelling and engaging journey through the most consequential technologies of modern life outlining the power struggles for the ability to shape the internet and our world.
FILMMAKER'S STATEMENT: "At its heart, The End of the Internet explores the decentralization movement— a network of people working to reimagine the internet's infrastructure. The film highlights the plotics, philosophies, and tensions driving their work, but it also embraces the messiness and contradictions of their efforts. Decentralization is not presented as a utopian solution, but as a tool that can be shaped for better or worse, depending on who wields it. Through encounters with a diverse array of flawed, compelling characters, the film shows that building a new system is as complicated and human as the systems it seeks to replace.
My goal is to create a smart, sophisticated, and provocative cinematic experience that sparks meaningful conversations about the power structures embedded in our technologies. By resisting simplification and rejecting the aesthetic conventions of traditional tech documentaries, I hope the film challenges viewers to grapple with the values shaping their world— and imagine their own visions for the future."
— Dylan Reibling
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