Privacy Panopticons: J. Edgar Hoover to the Age of AI — where is the OFF switch?

SPECIAL EVENT! NEW LOCATION!!!

Micky Metts will share stories of her life of community activism, and organizing around free software and cooperative development, privacy, and nurturing collective ownership. Theodora Skeadas will interview Micky on her four passions - community building, industry organizing, free software liberation, cooperative development, and how they have permeated her life, from living next to billionaires in affluent Connecticut, marching on DC to protest the Vietnam War with Students for a Democratic Society, playing in a punk rock band in Boston, to more recently, co-founding the Agaric Web Technology Collective and participating in the May First Movement, discussing the role of autonomous technology providers.

Join us for a Fireside Chat as they discuss a pressing challenge of our time: the interplay between technology and individual freedoms. They will explore critical questions such as:

• Why should I care about free software?
• Why are there no guarantees of privacy and security?
• What does “freedom” mean in the context of software in our society?
• How is our collective freedom linked to the software we choose?

This conversation will bridge past and present efforts to resist surveillance and centralized power, highlighting actionable steps individuals and communities can take to reclaim agency in an increasingly digitized world.

Don’t miss this powerful discussion on reclaiming privacy and freedom in the age of AI!

COME JOIN US!!!!

ABOUT THE SPEAKERS

Micky Metts
Micky is a member of visionary Agaric Web Technology Collective, a May First board member, and part of the "free software for community building" movement - using tools like Nextcloud, Drupal and GNU/Linux as an OS. She is on the board of the US Solidarity Economy Network (SEN) - and Agarics are members of United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC), the national grassroots organization representing thousands of workers across the country. The members are worker-owners "building power with national and international partners to advance an agenda for economic justice rooted in community-based, shared ownership."

Micky's four topic areas -- Community building, Industry organizing, Free software liberation & cooperative development -- converge in her presentations. She is a member of the Drupal community, a group based on free software. She has presented and lectured at Universities and Cooperative events around the world, and she writes about her experience in Agaric as a contributing author in what has been dubbed the Platform Cooperativism Handbook Manifesto, "Ours to Hack and to Own." In the top ten books list, Wired Magazine.

Theodora Skeadas
Theo is a public policy professional with 13 years of experience at the intersection of technology, society, and safety. As DoorDash's Community Policy Manager, she helps build their trust and safety policies to make DoorDash the safest and most trusted marketplace out there. Additionally, as Chief of Staff with Humane Intelligence, she contributes to the development of hands-on, measurable methods of real-time assessments of societal impact of AI models. She is also Advisory Board Chair of All Tech is Human.

Previously, she worked as an independent consultant with non-profits, governments, and companies on issues including AI governance, tech-facilitated gender-based violence, government efforts to combat disinformation, information integrity, journalist safety, fraud, election integrity, and AI philanthropy.