While ecosystems are collapsing and human life on Earth is becoming increasingly precarious, CEOs of large tech companies are shooting themselves into space for fun and dreaming of colonising the universe as immortal machine humans. They portray themselves as saviours and have nothing but undisguised cynicism for the rest of humankind. We are witnessing a massive attack on trade unions and democratic institutions, which until now at least threatened to restrict their power. The extraction of the raw materials needed for their products devastates entire landscapes and deepens colonial extraction. With their ‘social’ media, they promote isolation and the collapse of democratic public spheres. They control comprehensive infrastructures and use them to strengthen the power of fascist forces and accelerate a technocratic-authoritarian restructuring of society.

We are movements and anti-capitalist activists who practise various forms of resistance. We have enough of Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Meta, Tesla, OpenAI, Nvidia and co.! That is why we want to bring together interested people, activists and movements, network and connect local struggles. We want to deepen our understanding of the problem, exchange ideas about necessary forms of action, develop strategies together and advance the resistance.

Whether you are politically active against Big Tech, conducting scientific research or involved in other ways, we look forward to your contribution to Cables of Resistance.

Cross-cutting questions could include: How does Big Tech manage to assert itself largely unhindered against democratic institutions? What Big Tech strategies do we need to understand in order to combat them effectively? What can we learn from past struggles?

Please choose one of the following tracks even if your contribution touches on several topics. The questions are examples.

• Urban policy: How is Big Tech changing our cities, our mobility, our neighbourhoods? What can we do about it in urban policy initiatives?
• Water and raw materials: How does the enormous water demand of chip production and data centres or lithium mining affect people and the environment in different parts of the world? How can we counter this in environmental initiatives?
• Labour: How are Big Tech companies changing conditions for workers through new forms of global exploitation such as click work, automation or the use of ‘AI’? What can we do about this in collectives, co-ops, companies, trade unions or movements?
• Climate and energy: How is Big Tech fuelling the climate catastrophe? How can the climate movement incorporate the new questions arising from this into its struggle?
• Militarisation: How are Big Tech companies involved in global armament and what role do they already play in armed conflicts today? What leverage do we have against this?
• Fascism: How does Big Tech reinforce fascist and authoritarian tendencies? Which ideologies and modes of operation must we oppose?
• Feminism: How is Big Tech promoting new anti-feminist and queerphobic discourses? How can we make our struggles against Big Tech feminist?
• Futures: What might good futures for all look like beyond Big Tech and capitalism?

There are the following formats:
• Lightning Talks 15 minutes
• Talks 30 minutes
• Short workshops 60 minutes
• Long workshops 90 minutes

Movements
If you are organised as a movement and we might not yet be in contact with you, please feel free to write us at cableresist-call@riseup.net outside of the form.

Logistics

• Languages: The conference languages are English and German; if necessary, we may be able to arrange translations from other languages.
• Travel expenses: Please note that the conference is organised on a non-commercial and voluntary basis. We therefore ask you to cover your own travel expenses if possible. However, we want everyone who wants to participate to be able to do so. So please get in touch if you need support; we will then see what we can do.

We want to be combative on the outside and appreciative on the inside. Any form of discrimination, violence, hurtful and transgressive behaviour, such as sexist, racist, antisemitic, queerphobic, ableist, classist, or similar assaults and statements will not be tolerated.

You can enter proposals until 2026-01-16 23:59 (Europe/Berlin), 1 month, 3 weeks from now.