At a time when academics and citizens are increasingly concerned with surveillance capitalism, Europe takes on a leadership role in the global transformation towards a digital future that treats users fairly. It fosters initiatives such as the right to repair, advances privacy and security policies such as the GDPR, and highlights citizens’ digital rights.

The emergence of digital rights and citizenship in the past two decades opens new avenues of politicization in technological realms and suggests new kinds of political subjectivities.

However, the historical precedents of these developments have been little studied. In the 1980s and 1990s, enthusiasts across Europe started to take part in grassroots cultures of creative computing, as well as the participatory use of computers for experimentation, self-expression, or activism.

To proactively engage in the current technological transformation and successfully implement the values of participation, social inclusion, and bottom-up innovation in today’s technology policy, we need to understand these historical developments.