De Algemene Ledenvergadering van de Piratenpartij Nederland heeft Matthijs Pontier uit Amsterdam opnieuw tot lijsttrekker gekozen. Voor de rol van lijsttrekker hadden zich acht kandidaten verkiesbaar gesteld. De Piratenpartij is een internationale politieke beweging die zich inzet voor mensenrechten, democratie, transparantie en vrije toegang tot informatie. Pontier was eerder lijsttrekker bij de landelijke verkiezingen in […]

Het bericht Matthijs Pontier verkozen tot lijsttrekker Piratenpartij verscheen eerst op Piratenpartij.

The 2025 Pirate National Conference is officially behind us! If you missed the conference, be sure to check out Parts 1 and 2 on our YouTube channel.

A special thanks to Birgitta Jónsdóttir and Sean Tobin for taking the time out of their days to deliver speeches and presentations.

With the conclusion of the conference and the tabulation of the results, we are pleased to present our new board:

Captain – Jolly Mitch Davilo
Vice Captain – Ty Clifford
Treasurer – Darren McKeeman
Scribe – Blase Henry
Lookout – Wanda Ward
Beancounter – Eli McGee
Swarmcare – Dustin Etts
Webadmin – Morgan Landry
Director of PR – Ryan Codine

and our inaugural YPUSA Captain – Rowan Tipping!

Thank you to everyone who participated in this year’s conference and contributed to the new look Pirate Party. We look forward to the upcoming year and the future of the USPP.

Congratulations to all the new board members!

CAPTAIN’S NOTE: I’m honored to be trusted with the keys to the ship. Thank you everyone for the vote of confidence. May the next year and coming years of the United States Pirate Party be fruitful.

Victory is Arrrs.

uspirates.org/a-new-board-elec…

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s the 100th day that Rümeysa Öztürk is facing deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like. Now, Salvadoran journalist Mario Guevara could be deported after being arrested while trying to report on a protest. Read on for more press freedom news.

Paramount’s spineless capitulation

For a while, it looked like Paramount might come to its senses. After warnings from Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) as well as several state and federal lawmakers, directors were reportedly worried that settling President Donald Trump’s frivolous lawsuit to grease the wheels for approval of a merger could subject them to liability for bribery.

But ultimately, majority owner Shari Redstone — who stands to make a fortune if the merger with Skydance Media closes — got her way, and Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to settle. We said in a press release that the settlement “will be remembered as one of the most shameful capitulations by the press to a president in history. But we are not done fighting. We’ve already filed a shareholder information demand and … we will continue to pursue our legal options to stop this affront to Paramount shareholders, CBS journalists, and the First Amendment.”

Legendary First Amendment lawyers Floyd Abrams and James Goodale also gave us their reactions. They both recall a time when news outlets were owned by news companies that had both economic and principled interests in defending the First Amendment. They’re alarmed by what they’re seeing today. Read more here.

Atrocities against Palestinian journalists

Advocating for Palestinian journalists from the United States is tougher than ever these days, with an administration that doesn’t even pretend to care about dead reporters.

But sometimes journalism itself is the best way to effect change, and that’s why we partnered with The Intercept and independent journalist Neha Madhira to tell the stories of journalists who have been targeted by the Israeli military — often after receiving warnings to stop their reporting, or else. Their testimonials speak for themselves. Read more here.

Don’t let ICE work in secret

Interested in what Immigration and Customs Enforcement is up to? Step right up to read ICE’s many press releases touting their accomplishments, watch “Dr. Phil” McGraw’s ICE ride-alongs on his new TV network, and, of course, follow ICE on social platform X.

Just don’t expect to read independent reporting about ICE activity — at least not if government officials get their way. Journalists and members of the public who report on ICE are increasingly under attack by officials who would prefer to silence them so government propaganda can fill the information void. Read more here.

Wiretap Act can’t criminalize routine journalism

We joined a coalition of free-speech groups and filed an amicus brief in the case against journalist Tim Burke for publishing unaired Fox News footage of Tucker Carlson’s interview with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West.

Prosecutors are using the Wiretap Act, which prohibits “intercepting” “electronic communications,” in an attempt to convict Burke for publicizing Ye’s antisemitic rant, among other things. Their position is that they can charge Burke regardless of whether the footage was publicly available — he needs to prove that as a defense.

“Police, prosecutors and thin-skinned politicians would love the ability to harass and punish journalists who use the internet for routine reporting whenever they so please. The government’s construction of the Wiretap Act would give them the perfect excuse to do so,” FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern said in a press release. Read more here.

What we’re reading

Tulsi Gabbard is hunting for “deep-state criminals.” Is she even following the law? (The Intercept). “The leak — and the official FOIA release — didn’t damage national security at all. It informed the public about one of the administration’s most pernicious lies to date,” FPF’s Lauren Harper told The Intercept.

Trump’s attacks on CNN, Fox underscore effort to stifle questions, put media on back foot (The Hill). Recent White House crackdowns on leaked intelligence “have nothing to do with national security and everything to do with saving themselves from embarrassment,” FPF’s Stern told The Hill.

ICE hardens: Masked agents intimidate reporters while seizing more immigrants at Lower Manhattan court (AMNY). Harassing journalists might rank pretty low on the list of awful things masked ICE goons are doing these days. But without journalists we wouldn’t know about the rest of them, and the administration is well aware of that.

freedom.press/issues/paramount…

We would like to share the amazing news that the European Citizen initiative created by the Stop killing games community has reached the required threshold of 1 million signatures across Europe! And you can still add your signature until the end of the month!

At the European Pirate Party, defending digital rights is at the heart of our mission. We believe that when people purchase a videogame, they should be guaranteed the right to use it – not left at the mercy of arbitrary shutdowns by publishers. Consumers should not be treated as renters of entertainment they’ve paid for. That’s why we decided to endorse the Initiative after it launched.

As we noted before, this campaign calls for clear legal obligations: once a game is sold, it must remain in a playable state, even if the publisher steps away. No one should wake up to find their purchased game disabled by a remote switch. We find this unacceptable. We’re encouraged by the grassroots energy behind this effort. From independent developers to influential streamers like Ross Scott, who spearheaded the push, to public figures like PewDiePie, who has previously expressed support for Pirate Party values – this is a powerful coalition of gamers, creators, and digital freedom advocates.

While it seemed unclear for months if the initiative would gather enough signatures before the deadline, it suddenly gathered a huge wave of support in the last week, and today it reached the target of 1 million signatures! At this point it is clear that the European Union will have to address the initiative, and the more signatures we get above the required threshold the bigger the chance that they will decide to actually address the problem with games being killed by the publishers. You can easily see the current numbers of signatures with this tracker.

Let’s further ensure that the voices of European gamers and citizens are heard loud and clear in Brussels! Let’s protect digital ownership! Let’s defend access! Let’s stop the silent destruction of the digital heritage!

Sign the European citixens inititative here: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home

If you are a UK citizen there’s a separate petition there: https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/702074/

If you want to join the Stop killing games community for the end stretch of the campaign, they have a lovely discord server that you can check out.

The post Today is the day to stop killing games! first appeared on European Pirate Party.

Matthijs Pontier, PhD, heeft een achtergrond als wetenschapper. Hij is al lang actief voor de Piratenpartij en was al eerder lijsttrekker. Daarnaast zit hij in het bestuur van Meer Democratie en de Stichting Drugsbeleid. Momenteel vertegenwoordigt Matthijs de Piratenpartij als fractievoorzitter in Waterschap Amstel, Gooi en Vecht en ondersteunt hij de stadsdeelfracties in Amsterdam. Bio […]

Het bericht Matthijs stelt zich voor verscheen eerst op Piratenpartij.

Every Thursday of the week, Bastian’s Night is broadcast from 21:30 CEST (new time).

Bastian’s Night is a live talk show in German with lots of music, a weekly round-up of news from around the world, and a glimpse into the host’s crazy week in the pirate movement aka Cabinet of Curiosities.

If you want to read more about @BastianBB: –> This way

piratesonair.net/bastians-nigh…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Paramount Global, which owns CBS News, has reportedly decided to settle President Donald Trump’s frivolous lawsuit over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with his former presidential rival Kamala Harris.

Virtually no one aside from Trump’s hangers-on believes the case had any merit, let alone $16 million worth. There was no rational reason for Paramount to settle — aside from paying for favoritism, including over its planned merger with Skydance Media.

Legendary First Amendment lawyers Floyd Abrams and James Goodale each recall a time when news outlets were owned by news companies that had both economic and principled interests in defending the First Amendment. They’re alarmed by what they’re seeing today.

“The agreement of Paramount to pay any settlement amount to Donald Trump ... is an ominous blow to press freedom in our nation.”

Floyd Abrams

Abrams, who represented The New York Times during the Pentagon Papers case and had a hand in countless other seminal First Amendment rulings, told Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) via email that “the agreement of Paramount to pay any settlement amount to Donald Trump based on a ‘60 Minutes’ broadcast that was both journalistically responsible and fully protected by the First Amendment is an ominous blow to press freedom in our nation.”

As Abrams noted in a letter to the Times, despite the significant challenges the Trump administration presents for media outlets, “it is not too much for the public to ask of the press that it remain vigilant in its coverage of him and militant in defense of itself.”

Goodale, the Times vice president, vice chairman, and general counsel from 1963 to 1980, led the newspaper’s resistance to the Nixon administration’s war on the press. He told FPF in an email, “It’s a sad day for journalism in the United States when the corporate owners of major news broadcasters are unwilling to fight back against baseless lawsuits by politicians.”

“It’s a sad day for journalism in the United States when the corporate owners of major news broadcasters are unwilling to fight back against baseless lawsuits by politicians.”

James Goodale

Goodale reiterated his view, which he also expressed in a prior interview with FPF, that businesspeople unwilling to safeguard reporters’ rights should choose a different industry. “Operating a news outlet is a serious responsibility and those whose other financial interests won’t allow them to stand up for the First Amendment should stay out of the news business.”

Seth Stern, FPF’s director of advocacy, added that Paramount’s settlement and other capitulations by major media outlets “put to rest the myth that billionaires and corporate conglomerates will refrain from meddling with the editorial affairs of news publishers they own. CBS and other corporate-owned news outlets are full of great journalists who deserve ownership that won’t throw them under the bus to make a buck. Americans concerned by these developments should support independent news outlets willing to stand up for their journalists’ First Amendment rights so that our free press can survive this administration.”

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

freedom.press/issues/legendary…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Paramount Global announced late Tuesday that it will pay $16 million to settle an entirely frivolous and unconstitutional lawsuit brought by President Donald Trump over the editing of a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris.

It’s been widely reported that the settlement is intended to clear the way for federal approval of the sale of Paramount to Skydance Media, which will result in a multimillion-dollar payout to Paramount Chair Shari Redstone.

Three U.S. senators previously launched an investigation into whether paying off Trump through a settlement to obtain approval of the sale would violate federal bribery and other laws, and the California Senate opened a similar investigation.

The following statement can be attributed to Seth Stern, director of advocacy at Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF):

Today is a dark day for press freedom. Paramount’s spineless decision to settle Trump’s baseless and patently unconstitutional lawsuit is an insult to the journalists of ‘60 Minutes’ and an invitation to Trump to continue targeting other news outlets. Each time a company cowers and surrenders to Trump’s demands it only emboldens him to do it again.

It will be remembered as one of the most shameful capitulations by the press to a president in history.

But we are not done fighting. We’ve already filed a shareholder information demand and are sending a second demand today to uncover information about this decision. With that information, we will continue to pursue our legal options to stop this affront to Paramount shareholders, CBS journalists, and the First Amendment. Paramount directors should be held accountable and we will do all we can to make that happen.

FPF is a Paramount Global shareholder, and you can read our letter notifying Paramount of our plans to take legal action in the event of a settlement with Trump here. You can read a previous statement from our counsel here, and our recent demand for information to which we are entitled as shareholders here.

Please contact us if you would like further comment.

freedom.press/issues/paramount…

Interested in what Immigration and Customs Enforcement is up to? Step right up to read ICE’s many press releases touting their accomplishments, watch Dr. Phil’s ICE ride-alongs on his new TV network, and, of course, follow ICE on social platform X.

Just don’t expect to read independent reporting about ICE activity — at least not if government officials get their way. Journalists and members of the public who report on ICE are increasingly under attack by officials who would prefer to silence them so government propaganda can fill the information void.

Threatening investigations on spurious grounds

The most recent example is the government’s attack on CNN for its reporting about an app called ICEBlock that alerts users to sightings of ICE agents nearby.

“Border czar” Tom Homan called on the Department of Justice to investigate CNN for its reporting, and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem said her agency is working with the DOJ on a potential prosecution of CNN for “encouraging people to avoid law enforcement activities and operations.”

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt also accused CNN of inciting violence against ICE officers, despite no evidence that ICEBlock, let alone CNN’s reporting on it, has caused any violence.

An app that reports on the presence of law enforcement officers in public isn’t illegal. ICEBlock’s creator told CNN that its purpose is to help people “avoid interactions with ICE,” and many people have legitimate reasons to want to avoid ICE, even if they’re not in the country illegally. At the risk of stating the obvious, journalism about ICEBlock is also legal and protected by the First Amendment.

But none of that has stopped administration officials from making threats, probably with the hope of intimidating CNN and others from reporting on public efforts to counter ICE. They had to have known that their baseless accusations would lead to even more people finding out about ICEBlock. But this isn’t about ICEBlock, it’s about chilling journalism.

Opening baseless investigations

And officials haven’t stopped at just threatening investigations for reporting on ICE. In February, the Federal Communications Commission actually opened an investigation into a California radio station, KCBS, after it reported on ICE raids happening in San Jose.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr said that broadcasting the locations of ICE agents violates FCC rules requiring licensees to operate in the “public interest,” even though such reporting is constitutionally protected. The fact that KCBS is owned by a nonprofit controlled by Democratic megadonor George Soros surely didn’t endear the station to Carr either.

Again, the clear intent of this investigation — and others by the FCC — is to chill news outlets from reporting on ICE and other topics the administration would prefer they avoid. KCBS, for instance, apparently removed the news report on the San Jose raids from its website after the FCC announced its investigation.

Transforming ICE into secret police

Some Republicans in Congress seem to also want in on the secrecy, by turning ICE into the secret police.

In June, Sen. Marsha Blackburn introduced the “Protecting Law Enforcement from Doxxing Act,” a bill that would make it a crime to name a federal law enforcement officer, including ICE officers, in certain circumstances. Sen. Lindsey Graham joined as a co-sponsor of the bill after grandstanding on social media about the need for legislation to prohibit the disclosure of the identities of ICE agents and other federal law enforcement officers.

While Blackburn’s bill requires the “intent to obstruct a criminal investigation or immigration enforcement operation” when naming an ICE officer, that will likely offer little protection when officials are constantly claiming that any public scrutiny of ICE obstructs its work. Those found guilty under the law could be imprisoned for five years.

ICE freezing out transparency

Finally, ICE itself is pushing for more and more secrecy. The agency often refuses or fails to respond to Freedom of Information Act requests, leading news outlets and other requesters to sue. It illegally attempted to curtail congressional visits to ICE facilities, and then apparently quickly and quietly rescinded that guidance.

In May, ICE asked the San Francisco Standard to blur the faces of ICE agents whose pictures were taken in public during an operation at a courthouse. The Standard refused and then reported on the request under the headline, “The ICE agents disappearing your neighbors would like a little privacy, please.”

Last week, ICE agents in New York reportedly harassed journalists attempting to cover immigration court proceedings, including by photographing their press credentials.

Perhaps most disturbingly, ICE is currently attempting to deport Mario Guevara, a journalist known for documenting immigration raids, after he was arrested on unjustified charges while covering a “No Kings” protest in Georgia. Guevara now faces the prospect of being returned to El Salvador, a country he left after receiving death threats for his reporting.

He’s been granted bond, but the government alarmingly argued that his livestreaming of a protest justifies deporting him because he publicized law enforcement activities (which is what journalists are supposed to do).

In addition to using deportations to punish reporting, the administration is also targeting opinion writing. It’s currently attempting to deport Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk over an op-ed she co-wrote.

These potential deportations send a chilling message to other journalists who’ve fled to the United States from repressive countries. As one reporter told The New Yorker about Guevara’s case, “Today, it was Mario, but tomorrow it could be any one of us.” And while noncitizen journalists are the easiest targets for now, it’s abundantly clear that the government would like to criminalize journalists it doesn’t like, regardless of the journalists’ residency status.

Yet many journalists — like those at the Standard — are refusing to be chilled. Reporters, many at smaller news outlets, have kept reporting on ICE raids in their communities, often relying on video or photos of ICE agents in public captured by the public and posted on social media—videos that Homan and Leavitt would probably claim should be illegal.

Continuing to report and inform the public is exactly the right response to the government’s attempts to intimidate the press from reporting on ICE. But journalists can’t push back on these chilling tactics alone.

“See something, say something” shouldn’t just be a motto for the security state. When you see these chilling tactics employed by the government against the free press, speak up against it—to other journalists, on op-ed pages and in letters to the editor, to ICE, to your state and local representatives, and to Congress.

freedom.press/issues/ice-wants…

Our rights and freedoms – online and offline – are facing unprecedented threats. Recognising this as a collective struggle, we want to explore the theme Resilience and Resistance in Times of Deregulation and Authoritarianism for this edition of Privacy Camp. The 13th edition of Privacy Camp is set to take place on 30 September 2025.

The post #PrivacyCamp25: Call for Sessions open appeared first on European Digital Rights (EDRi).

ICYMI

This Friday, the Fourth of July, the United States Pirate Party will be hosting our annual Pirate National Conference. It will be hybrid, hosting jointly in-person and online, with the Conference taking place in San Francisco, California. This year, the theme is “Run for Something!”.

For more information about our 2025 Conference, you may visit the official Conference page.

This past Sunday, we had another series of meetings and joint appearances between ourselves and the US Transhumanist Party. The purpose of these meetings have been to further advance the coalition plans between our two parties.

Not only did Captain Drew Bingaman serve as the guest on the latest Virtual Enlightenment Salon by the USTP, but members of the USTP joined us for our Sunday meeting.

We are pleased to announce that the coalition between our two parties is all but official. Both parties will be ratifying the bylaws of the coalition in the coming days and will officially kick off a new era in US minor party politics.

This coalition, slated to officially be named “All Hands for a Free Future Coalition”, which can be shortened to “All Hands”, “AllHandsFuture” and, if you have a sense of humor, “the Handies”, will begin with our two parties and will be expected to expand membership to fellow parties down the line.

We here in the United States Pirate Party would like to express our gratitude to our friends in the United States Transhumanist Party.

Free Men. Free Labor. Free Soil. Free Future.

Don’t forget to tune into our conference, streamed live to our YouTube channel this Friday. Not only will we be electing a new board, but also we shall inaugurate the first ever Captain of Young Pirates USA.

uspirates.org/icymi-2025-pirat…

Long before he was the Freedom of Information Act director at The Washington Post, Nate Jones was a curious college student with a penchant for Able Archer 83.

Looking to learn more about the 1983 NATO war game, he ventured to the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and sifted through a box inscribed “military exercises.” The folders inside were empty and classified.

“You can do FOIA, but good luck,” an archivist told him. “So instead of giving up, I kind of got a little angry,” he recalled.

Jones funneled that FOIA frustration into fanaticism. Years later, he acquired the documents his college self had yearned for and eventually wrote a book about the war scenario based on them.

But the lesson he learned transcended Able Archer 83. Access to even one unclassified document from the jump is all it would have taken to start a chain reaction of declassification for Jones much sooner.

“If the dang Reagan Library had just given me the records right away, it would have helped me file tens of thousands of more public records requests,” he explained.

To understand how FOIA requests and public records like those ultimately obtained by Jones can be used to fight government secrecy and improve our communities, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) hosted an online webinar June 24 with Jones, MuckRock CEO Michael Morisy, and investigative journalist and author Miranda Spivack.

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Morisy, whose organization has helped file over 156,000 records requests and led to the release of over 11 million pages, said the key to a successful FOIA lies in its preparation. As a starting point, he advises requesters to “step inside the mindset of a bureaucrat” and envision the request from their perspective.

“Where are the records that you care about? How would you describe them? How would they work? Who would have access to them? And then use that to guide that public records officer to exactly what you want,” he said.

Spivack — who recently authored “Backroom Deals in Our Backyards: How Government Secrecy Harms Our Communities and the Local Heroes Fighting Back” — said it’s also important to consider the system of records requests as a whole, beyond the individuals working within them.

Unlike at the federal level, she said, there isn’t a constituency for transparency at the state and local levels “until somebody bumps into a problem.” That can stifle requesters.

“There are a lot of groups at the state and local level that are pro transparency, but I think they really have to get into communities and have to translate for people why it matters,” added Spivack. “Not even when you need it, but before you need it, why it should matter that your government should be more transparent.”

Still, there are cases where a local or state government records office can provide more information than a federal one, which is why Spivack recommends filing requests with both parties when it’s appropriate to do so.

Jones concurred. “It’s a great strategy to always file with as many agencies as you can.”

Another helpful strategy is to replicate prior successful records requests, he said.

“Don’t reinvent the wheel. Have an agency release more of what they already have released,” Jones said. Many reporters, including those at the Post, use MuckRock to find examples of past successful requests and duplicate them to save time and increase their odds of a successful request, he added.

As the Trump administration slashes FOIA offices and prunes the National Archives and Records Administration’s budget, one audience question, from open government advocate Alex Howard, addressed the possibility of insulating FOIA offices from political influence and firings.

Jones suggests modeling FOIA offices more closely on the Inspector General’s Office, which could add pressure on people in the agency “to release the things to the public in a timely manner.”

“So if you want to call it insulation, that would be fine, but I would rather call it empowerment,” he added.

Looking ahead, Morisy said that the encroachment of corporate interests in records requests is contributing to the “hollowing out” of government competence and could be clogging up the system. Instead of fighting together, transparency constituencies are picking individual battles, he said, which waters down their ability to enact change within the system.

“I think they’re losing, which I think is a big, big problem,” Morisy said.

Still, Jones is optimistic about the system, even if it’s far from perfect. He encourages requesters to file weekly, if not daily, to open the tap on a consistent flow of releases. Following that ethos could yield “one or two or three good documents a week,” he said.

“Be a proactive requester, not a reactive requester,” Jones said. “If you plant your acorns, the trees will grow.”

freedom.press/issues/use-publi…

The Hack The Promise Festival in Basel has firmly established itself as a pivotal platform where international experts, activists, and engaged communities come together for interdisciplinary discussions on the social, political, and technical challenges of digital transformation. The 2024 festival revolved around the theme “fact/fake/fiction,” exploring how truth, fiction, and manipulation increasingly intertwine in digital spaces and what this means for democratic societies.

At last year’s event, Schoresch Davoodi delivered his lecture in German, titled „Fakten und Fiktionen – Wie die Gesellschaft durch Unsicherheit gestresst wird“ (“Facts and Fictions – How Society is Stressed by Uncertainty”). His presentation moved beyond a mere description of digital phenomena, analyzing how overlapping global crises—such as pandemics, wars, and economic challenges—create a collective societal stress that heightens vulnerability to misinformation and manipulation.

Davoodi critically assessed current political responses as often symptomatic, addressing surface issues rather than the underlying causes like diffuse social anxieties and psychological strain. His approach combines technical perspectives with socio-psychological insights, offering a holistic analysis that remains relatively uncommon in the programmatic discussions of many Pirate Parties.

He also reflected critically on the role of NGOs in political discourse, cautioning against the risk that NGO-affiliated structures might act more as instruments of control than as independent actors, potentially limiting democratic pluralism and open debate. This perspective encourages important discussions regarding the influence of civil society organizations in net politics and democratic participation.

Philosophically, Davoodi’s lecture drew on Immanuel Kant’s Enlightenment theory and critiques of dogmatic thinking, emphasizing the necessity of independent thought and the rejection of authoritarian mentalities. This normative framing adds depth, extending beyond purely technical or political considerations.

The Hack The Promise Festival is widely recognized for fostering critical and interdisciplinary dialogue. Within this context, Davoodi’s lecture provides valuable programmatic impulses for Pirate Parties internationally. It signals a strategic shift away from solely activist-driven approaches towards a more reflective and mature political stance that emphasizes education, resilience, and a pluralistic discourse culture.

By addressing current challenges in digital society and highlighting the necessary evolution in net politics, this contribution holds significant relevance for Pirate Parties worldwide. The festival thus plays an important role in advancing the international debate on democracy and digital freedom, helping to strengthen it for the future.

Looking Ahead: Hack The Promise Festival 2025

The next Hack The Promise Festival is scheduled for October 3–5, 2025, and will take place at the Padelhalle Klybeck in Basel. The upcoming edition will explore hacking as a socio-technical practice. This goes beyond computer specialists, focusing on opening up systems to challenge and change societal structures—be they technological, political, epistemic, or social. The aim is to disrupt power dynamics and envision new futures beyond imposed limitations.

Author: Schoresch Davoodi

pp-international.net/2025/07/h…