Rick Falkvinge, TweetFounder of the Swedish and first Pirate Party

Biography: Rick Falkvinge

Rick Falkvinge is the founder of the first Pirate Party and a campaigner for next-generation civil liberties and sensible information policy. In particular, he stresses how the copyright industries work in collusion with Big Brother hawks to erode or eliminate the parts of Internet that guarantee our civil liberties. On this platform, one of privacy and digital rights, his party became the largest in the below-30 demographic in the 2009 European Elections. When not doing politics or exploring technical subjects in detail, Mr. Falkvinge can usually be seen cooking, sampling a scotch whisky, or riding a fast motorcycle.

Twitter: @Falkvinge

Presentation: TweetMorning Keynote: Beware Red Flags On The Internet

Time: Monday 09:00 - 09:50 / Location: Store Sal, Musikhuset

We can learn a lot from historic patterns. We can observe that all of this has happened before - and all of this will most likely happen again. Every time, it feels just as unique as last time. When incumbent industries are threatened by a new and disruptive technology, they will use any justification imaginable to kill it in its infancy, trying to convince legislators that their particular special interest is a public interest. It always ends badly.

Looking at history, as industries become threatened by new technology, they typically embrace it in public and talk passionately about its potential, but only in terms of how the new technology can support the existing and incumbent industries. Under absolutely no circumstances
must the new technology be allowed to come into a position to replace the currently dominant industries.