Reclaiming the Idea of Digital Sovereignty

I've had this as an item on my bucket list to write about for the better part of the year. Not only has this been a key ideological value of mine, it is what originally got me so interested in the atmosphere as it is one of the fundamental aspects of atproto that you reclaim some part of ownership, not just over your data but over your online identity. As we've seen the decline of ownership in recent years with no shortage of companies who gain to sell you more subscriptions telling you why never owning your music, your software or even your car is the way of the future, there seems to have been a societal shift towards what Yanis Varoufakis calls Techno Feudalism in his book of the same name where he explains our current model where the largest player no longer compete in markets but own them by being like feudal lords with ownership of the digital infrastructure (i.e. the cloud) to which we are all tenants. Ownership of infrastructure begets unbalanced control and political influence and it is a topic that impacts all of us in multiple ways.

But first, what is Digital Sovereignty?

According to wikipedia:

Digital sovereignty (also referred to as technological sovereignty, cyber sovereignty, or data sovereignty) is the concept that a state, organisation, or individual should possess meaningful control over the digital infrastructure, data, hardware, and software upon which it depends.

One Swiss paper also cited there, Digital Sovereignty in Switzerland: the laboratory of federalism frames it in the following way:

Digital sovereignty can be defined as the ability of authorities to maintain their strategic autonomy, i.e. to be able to autonomously use and control the tangible and intangible assets and digital services that impact the economy, society, and democracy.

What is it also not?

This idea also contains the word sovereignty which on its own is quite powerful and is often misused by bad faith actors, and we also need to make sure we don't let the waters get muddied in order to not lose the fight.

On one hand, when I started my company earlier this year, digital sovereignty was a core value of mine to push for, as I believe that in today's ever-changing geopolitical landscape, it is a competitive advantage to not have your eggs all in one basket and to not be at the mercy of foreign powers (whether state or corporate actors). I believe this to be true on an individual level , a community level, an enterprise level as well as a state level, and while the latter begets the most attention these days, when it comes to our communities, whether online or offline, we need to do more to safeguard our third spaces.

Also, during the latest Local First conference in Berlin, I sat at a table with @sebastian.eurosky.social and @robin.berjon.com from @eurosky.social and caught some dismay at how far right political groups are running with the sovereignty term and giving it their own nationalist spin which has nothing to do with individual freedoms and autonomy mentioned above, but rather control under a different glove. Sovereignty and nationalism should be decoupled and I believe it's important to fight back on this front as much as we can and to reclaim the idea of sovereignty as well as the sovereignty itself.

Another aspect to be weary of, as this article from 2025 states is the following:

Too often it is framed as isolation—control through exclusion—rather than as capacity: the ability to act effectively and responsibly within interdependent systems.

It is what drove me to put a bit more clarity in my thoughts and to go ahead with this series at this time.

What comes next?

I already have a lot of thoughts on this topic and I am structuring this as multi-part publication series that will tackle what it means for me in each of these aspects while inviting to discussions and collaboration. I want your opinions, I want your critiques and I want us to build a better model for our social world together. I currently have drafts for what digital sovereignty means for individuals, for communities, for enterprises (big and small), and for states. I would also like to put out later some suggestions on how we can improve this in all those areas where we are involved, step-by-step.

Stay tuned!