About Balance

We live in a world shaped by concentrated technological power. A handful of companies and state actors now design, build, and control the systems that structure how we communicate, organise, work, learn, and live. These systems go beyond platforms. They include infrastructure, standards, algorithms, and architectures — the often invisible scaffolding of modern life.

While often presented as neutral or inevitable, these technologies reflect particular values and priorities. Too often, they are optimised for control, surveillance, efficiency, and profit, rather than public benefit. The result is a digital environment that reinforces existing inequalities, suppresses dissent, and limits collective imagination.

Balance is a response to this, and provides a space for critical reflection on the impacts of digital power and invites creative thought about how to reshape these systems.

Many digital systems are designed for speed, scale, and control, often serving the interests of the powerful. However, alongside the dominant platforms and infrastructures, alternatives are emerging. These alternatives aim to redistribute power, promote transparency, and create more equitable and sustainable systems that benefit both people and the planet.

Through essays, analysis, and speculative or creative responses, we highlight the work being done to build alternatives, consider what still needs to be imagined, and offer new perspectives on the future of digital power. Our aim is to explore how technology can be reimagined to serve the collective well-being, fostering a more inclusive, transparent, and sustainable digital world.

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