What are the media-technological criteria for free speech? In this talk, I examine the concept of "critical infrastructure," in the sense of various types of media apparatus necessary for the free expression of critical thought. I begin with a consideration of the concept of parrhesia, a Greek term used by Foucault to examine certain types of free speech. In a communication landscape largely mediated by software technologies and digital networks, there is a tendency to conceptualize these networks through models such as the frontier or the public square. However, considering issues such as ownership and visibility, I argue that the networks through which we communicate are really more like a shopping mall: pseudo-public spaces operated primarily by commercial business interests. Examples such as open source software and distributed mesh networks are posited as sites in which we might locate more viable spaces for speaking freely.

The talk was given at the conference "Poetics of Infrastructure" in Vienna on December 13, 2014. This extract is part of the Issue Poetics of Infrastructure.