I recently wrote a feature piece for a new Canadian-owned media outlet called Be Giant about Gander Social, a new Canadian-owned and operated social-media app that is still in beta testing, and the broader debate around what some call “digital sovereignty.”
Here’s an excerpt:
Over the past few decades, the vast majority of our essential communications infrastructure has become entirely American. From the Slack messages we send at work to our X posts and our Instagram stories and Facebook Reels to the search engines and shopping platforms we use: all American. Even the undersea cables over which our digital communications flow were built by U.S. companies. That reality has become a lot more uncomfortable of late, and many Canadians are now thinking about what’s come to be called “digital sovereignty.” Should we have our own homegrown services? Is that even possible at this point? And if we had Canadian alternatives, would anyone use them?
You can read the rest here: https://www.begiant.ca/stories/ideas/canada-digital-sovereignty-gander-social