We’re at a critical crossroads in our movement — tech billionaires are destroying our communities and planet to protect their bottom line. They’ve made backroom deals with politicians to secure their influence aside the Trump administration. And now — they’ve come out of hiding — plainly securing tax breaks to avoid accountability for AI expansion, deportation and war tech, and the surveillance state.
Big Tech corporations are moving fast — stealing our tax dollars, water, electricity, and more to feed sprawling data centers. Tech giants like Larry Ellison and Jeff Bezos are buying newsrooms to control dominant narratives and masquerade their own harms. And surveillance corporations like Amazon’s Ring and Flock watch our every move, while Palantir provides the tech infrastructure to power deportations and genocide in Gaza.
Big Tech has made their choice. And our movement has chosen each other. That’s why from April 17 – 19, we brought together 500+ organizers, artists, lawyers, tech workers, and movement builders for Take Back Tech III.
Take Back Tech is a gathering for organizers, artists, tech workers, academics, lawyers, and more to rally together and strategize our next power-building moves. Originally launched in 2019 at the heart of Silicon Valley in San José, we wrapped up the third iteration last month in Atlanta, GA.
Attendees came from surveillance campaigns, data center fights, the movement against deportation, media justice work, electoral organizing and so much more. They came because they understand that these fights are connected. The same billionaires profiting off of mass deportation are developing AI tech to aid genocide in Gaza. And the same billionaires censoring and shadowbanning our communities on social media are sidelining us to build data centers in our neighborhoods.
Let’s run it back:
We opened our convening on Friday evening with a conversation with award-winning, New York Times bestselling author, Naomi Klein, who spoke on how tech oligarchs are actively barreling us toward apocalyptic times — not by accident, but as part of their business model. Klein connected the dots on how this presents a new opportunity for our movements — one where we can form unlikely alliances from our collective will to live and protect our planet.
Then, frontline organizers took the stage for The Race for Our Future. KeShaun Pearson, Director of Memphis Community Against Pollution (MCAP), Jorge Lopez, community organizer with Movimiento Socioambiental Comunitario por el Agua y el Territorio (MOSACAT), Gina Mangham, an attorney and organizer with Renew DeKalb, and KD Minor, Community Solutions Manager with the Alliance for Affordable Energy, all made clear why this fight can’t wait. From Louisiana, Georgia, and South Memphis to Chile, the organizers on that stage are leading the resistance against concentrated power and cash grabs by tech billionaires here and now.
On Saturday, we called out what we’re seeing as it is — tech oligarchy and technofacism. Our second plenary, TechnoFaschos: How Tech Power Became State Power, laid out how Silicon Valley and the government collude to protect their profits and maintain their power. The panel featured Marisa Franco, Co-founder and Director of Mijente, Dr. Safya Noble, Director of UCLA’s Center on Resilience and Digital Justice, Gil Durán, founder of The Nerd Reich Podcast, and moderator Ash-Lee Woodard Henderson, long-time movement strategist. Together, they emphasized that our resistance requires us to hold an intersectional, united front to fight back.
And then we challenged our attendees by asking “Is AI the enemy or is that the wrong question?” Through our debate, we practiced principled struggle and sharpened our movement analysis.
- Moderated by: Tawana Petty, social justice organizer and poet
- On the side of taking back AI to benefit our communities: Aasim Shabazz, Co-Founder and President of Twin Cities Innovation Alliance, Adrian Reyna Chavoya, Strategy Director with People’s Tech Project, Sasha Costanza-Chock, Head of Research & Sensemaking at One Project, and Janet Vertesi, Associate Director at Princeton University’s Keller Center
- They met our four debaters arguing that AI cannot be reformed and instead needs to be dismantled: Sarah Hamid, Director of Strategic Campaigns at Electronic Frontier Foundation, Edith Romero, community organizer with Eye on Surveillance, Veronica Moreno, Director of Operations and Technology at Climate Justice Alliance, and Jumana Musa, Director, Fourth Amendment Center at the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL).
While one side emphasized that there are examples of our communities programming tech for good, the opposing team reminded us of the white supremacist ideas that formed AI. There is no one clear argument or answer, and that was exactly the point.
We ended the weekend by visioning a liberated future for our people. Our closing plenary, The Story They’re Selling (And What We’re Building Instead), featured Justin Hendrix, CEO and Editor of Tech Policy Press, André Brock, Associate Professor of Black Digital Media at Georgia Tech University, Ariella Steinhorn, Founding writer at Hard Reset, and Cayden Mak, host of the Block and Build Podcast at Convergence Magazine. Together, they broke down what the tech oligarchy’s capture of the media ecosystem actually looks like and how we can fight back.
Throughout the whole weekend, our attendees strengthened their analysis and learned from one another through various workshops. These sessions ranged from our communities’ most pressing issues like Big Tech’s role in apartheid and genocide, how data centers are exploiting our communities’ water and energy, surveillance tech in our cities and at the hands of the Department of Homeland Security, and power-building across climate, racial, and tech justice movements.
The workshops. The trainings. The narrative strategy. MediaJustice and Mijente exist to make building power between movements across the country possible.
Thank you again to the 500+ leaders who joined us for Take Back Tech III. This weekend wouldn’t be possible without the incredible insight, energy, and expertise you brought to the room.
Big Tech corporations have chosen to solidify their profits into the apocalypse. But we’ve chosen life. We’ve chosen joy. We’ve chosen each other.
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