In this episode of Citation Needed, Crypto Skeptic and Software Developer, Molly White, gives a talk at XOXO Festival where she reminisces about her childhood experiences discovering the World Wide Web for the first time. Through narrating her early days online, Molly highlights how the early web, though flawed, was an exciting new ecosystem where human expressions and connections were made and flourished.

She contrasts the web of her childhood with the web of today, which she bemoans as having become a tool used by Tech Giants for extracting data, time, and money from their users, effectively abusing them and contributing to a more isolated, alienating world.

Molly White concludes her talk by pointing out how the Tech Giants that have come to dominate our online lives have started to falter under increasing levels of scrutiny as more and more people are becoming aware of how these Tech Giants are exploiting their users in exchange for profit and power. She then outlines how those of us who grew up loving the web can reclaim it for ourselves once more.

You can find this podcast presentation as a blog post on the Citation Needed Website.