I will be speaking at LibrePlanet this year (2016) about freedom on the Web. Here’s the session description:

Imagine a world where surveillance is the default and users must opt-in to privacy. Imagine that your every action is logged and analyzed to learn how you behave, what your interests are, and what you might do next. Imagine that, even on your fully free operating system, proprietary software is automatically downloaded and run not only without your consent, but often without your knowledge. In this world, even free software cannot be easily modified, shared, or replaced. In many cases, you might not even be in control of your own computing – your actions and your data might be in control by a remote entity, and only they decide what you are and are not allowed to do.

This may sound dystopian, but this is the world you’re living in right now. The Web today is an increasingly hostile, freedom-denying place that propagates to nearly every aspect of the average users’ lives – from their PCs to their phones, to their TVs and beyond. But before we can stand up and demand back our freedoms, we must understand what we’re being robbed of, how it’s being done, and what can (or can’t) be done to stop it.

There are a number of other great sessions this year from a number of speakers, many well-known. We also have an opening keynote from Edward Snowden!

All FSF associate members get free entry. If you can’t join us, the conference will be streamed live. You can also see videos of past talks on the FSF’s self-hosted GNU MediaGoblin instance.

Special thanks to the FSF for covering a large portion of my travel expenses; I otherwise might not have been able to attend. Thank you to all who donated to the conference scholarship fund.