Google, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube and the other platforms are not just companies: they are global publishers wielding a power of censorship and of selecting meaning without any democratic mandate.
The Manifesto
We defend
human
digital rights
We live in an era in which power is passing from states to algorithms. AI, born to expand human potential, risks reducing it to a mere extension of machines.
The great digital platforms concentrate knowledge, data and opinions, while individuality, memory and critical thinking are wearing thin.
Preamble
Once,power manifested itself through borders, armies and governments.
Today it is silent, diffuse and omnipresent: it expresses itself through algorithms. They decide what we see, read and buy, whom we love, what we think. They determine reputations, identities and public truths.
They have no face, yet they possess an eternal memory.
Humanity has handed search engines and digital platforms the key to reality. In return, it received the promise of connection, efficiency, progress.
But beneath the surface of that promise lies a threat: the oblivion of the human, the dominance of automatic, impersonal, unquestionable knowledge.
Algopolio was born to make visible what algorithmic power conceals. It is an independent, non-partisan, non-profit association that brings together jurists, technologists, philosophers, artists and informed citizens.
It was born as a civic response to a new form of concentration of power: no longer economic or political, but cognitive and algorithmic.
In the new digital ecosystem, a few private players set the rules of visibility and of global information. Their control over the flow of data and over the construction of individual reputation is a direct threat to the principles of freedom, truth and democracy.
Fundamental principles
Principle 01 / 07
The centrality of the human being
Human beings must remain at the centre of the technological process, not at its margins. Innovation is not an end: it is a means to human dignity.
Principle 02 / 07
Freedom and digital self-determination
Every individual must be able to decide how to be represented online, what to remember and what to forget.
Principle 03 / 07
The right to be forgotten and to delisting
The right “not to be easily found” is a pillar of personal freedom. The internet cannot turn into a perpetual tribunal.
Principle 04 / 07
Platform accountability
Search engines and digital intermediaries are not neutral tools. They are publishers of power, accountable for the consequences of their algorithmic choices.
Principle 05 / 07
Algorithmic transparency
Algorithms that affect lives, reputations and opportunities must be accessible, verifiable and explainable.
Principle 06 / 07
Protecting truth and reputation
Disinformation, fake news and manipulated news are weapons of moral destruction. Whoever spreads or indexes them without control must answer for their actions.
Principle 07 / 07
Selective memory and historical responsibility
Defending the right to be forgotten does not mean erasing history, but preventing memory from becoming a perpetual sentence.
The right to be forgotten
The right to be forgotten, recognised by the European Court of Justice and reaffirmed by Italian case law, is humanity’s first defence against the infinite memory of machines.
Yet today this right is threatened by the slowness of proceedings, the resistance of the platforms and the opacity of their ranking systems.
Algopolio is committed to
- 01Promotecollective legal actions against abuses by search engines and social networks.
- 02Builda network of digital lawyers and jurists specialised in data protection, reputation and delisting.
- 03Collaboratewith universities and research centres to define an ethical code for algorithms.
- 04Monitorpublic institutions so that they adopt effective, genuinely enforceable rules, not mere declarations of principle.
Digital justice must become fast, accessible and proportionate.
Reputation is not a sentence, but a common good.
The promise
We believe that the digital world can be a force for emancipation, not oppression.
But this requiresawareness, courage and responsibility.
Algopolio was born to safeguard the most fragile and most sacred part of our era: the freedom to be human.
Defending the Human in the Age of Algorithms.
The crisis of truth
Every day, billions of pieces of information are indexed, rewarded, hidden or amplified by systems that no one controls.
Algorithms decide who deserves trust and who must be forgotten.
But when truth becomes a function of code, democracy is hollowed out.
Our battle is not against technology, but against technological irresponsibility.
We want to restore sovereignty over information to the community, by creating a new pact between citizen, knowledge and algorithm.
Because every algorithm is a choice, and every choice can only be just if it is free.
The Algopolio Manifesto