Becoming a pirate

Aral:

Hello again. So, between the 16th and the 22nd of June of this year, so, last month, I curated something called BeDemocracy; an Exhibit for the Nobel Peace Centre in Oslo, and I curated it through Twitter and the exhibit actually takes place at the Nobel Peace Centre next to the more permanent exhibits like the Peace Prize, and all those panels that you're seeing are various tweets that are being displayed, so as I was curating, those panels were actually lighting up and people if they liked it they could do a thumbs up; I wonder where we got that idea from. And Heidi, who I was working with there, couldn't be here today, but she said instead, how about we ask you to nominate one of the curators for October, and so when I looked through the line-up I was like, who would be great. And one person just totally stuck out, and she also happens to be the person I'm going to be interviewing next, and that is Ancilla.

I met Ancilla a little while ago I think at a conference that we were both at and I love her work, I love her approach to her work, and I love what she's doing. She is a former Bits of Freedom activist and a Pirate Party member…with the Pirate Party, sorry, and I'd like to invite her up actually, and maybe we can have a relaxed chat on the deckchairs, because I haven't had a chance to sit in those. That would be nice. Ancilla. Join me. Hello.

Ancilla:

Hello.

Aral:

Are these comfortable. I really haven't tried them; they look great.

Ancilla:

I need sunscreen.

Aral:

I know, gosh, me too. I go red. So…what made you become a Pirate?

Ancilla:

It wasn't an overnight decision, obviously, or actually it was a three overnight decision.

Aral:

OK.

Ancilla:

I got asked.

Aral:

OK.

Ancilla:

It was as simple as that. Somebody approached me that I knew before from Bits of Freedom and they said, would you like to be running for City Council.

Aral:

And this is in The Netherlands?

Ancilla:

This is in Amsterdam, the City Council of Amsterdam, and it was a tough decision for me because it was very short notice and at the same time it was a very easy decision because I was already working on the topics that the Pirate Party deals with…

Aral:

Right, with Bits of Freedom.

Ancilla:

Privacy, democracy…

Aral:

So what got you into that. At what point did you say, I want to be politically active, I want to…

Ancilla:

It wasn't like a snap second moment that incurred this decision, but it was over the course of ten years that I was just following reports and news messages about privacy and digital rights, but also in the real world away from keyboard, and it just started building up and building up, and every time that there was a news story about our privacy being taken away, it was always joined with a message like, oh it's just temporary and it's just locally and it's just…you know…

Aral:

And that's always the case, right?

Ancilla:

But it doesn't go away.

Aral:

No.

Ancilla:

It just started building up and building up…

Aral:

And we had examples of that at the beginning of the day as well with like Facebook or with Nest saying initially, we won't share data, and then sharing data, and then this, so always there is that thing where it's like initially, it's not what you think it's going to be; don't worry about it.

Ancilla:

It's like the frog that gets boiled in hot water, eh?

Aral:

Exactly, I love that analogy. It's perfect.

Ancilla:

It's really true; it's really true, and I started noticing that, and then at one point in time I think it was like probably right after I got preventatively searched, or stop and frisk as they call it in…

Aral:

What is that. So what happened?

Ancilla:

In America, they basically close off an area…

Aral:

This was in the States?

Ancilla:

No, this was in Amsterdam.

Aral:

OK, all right.

Ancilla:

The Netherlands, they do that here now too. Well, they do it in Holland now too.

Aral:

OK.

Ancilla:

They close off an area and they frisk everybody that's in that area, so you're basically stuck there for twenty minutes, justifying the fact that you have done nothing wrong and you're just walking there, and they search your bag and you get frisked…

Aral:

And we still call ourselves democracies, right?

Ancilla:

That was the moment that I was like…we do not live in a free country any more; this is not freedom, and if we're going to go down this path, it's only going to get worse, and if we don't do anything then it's just going to get worse.

Aral:

And who's going to do something. I mean, it's kind of like up to us.

Ancilla:

I wasn't doing anything with these topics; I was just interested in them. I was modelling and I was acting and presenting and just completely a whole different thing, so at first I thought, well, this is a topic for nerds and for people in IT and for maybe like lawyers and politicians for them to deal with, and then I started thinking like, OK, well it's affecting every one of us and if every one of us feels like, hey, I'm not like the ideal person to do this, then nobody's going to be doing it.

Aral:

And I think a lot of us feel that way. I mean, I know I did. I came into this really slowly because always the easy way is, I could be working at Google, I could be working at Facebook, I'd probably find the technical challenge, the design challenges challenging, and I could just go do that, but like you, I slowly came into it thinking, I can't do this any more, and even though I was building apps for the iOS platform for Apple, even though they're not the worst in terms of corporate surveillance necessarily because their business model's slightly different today at least, that can change; I still felt like I didn't want to contribute to this platform, because in the future, it was going to stop me from being able to work on things that I really wanted to, because those platforms were not going to exist unless we built them. So what do we do?

Ancilla:

What do we do. I think just by being outspoken and taking this topic to people that are not in the scene of technology makes a big difference and making it be able to discuss it and to make everybody feel like yeah, this is about you as well and it's about you and your family and your friends and your children.

Aral:

And what do you say to people who listen to Russell Brand who says, don't get involved in the whole political thing.

Ancilla:

I think he said a lot more than that!

Aral:

Yes, indeed.

Ancilla:

I understand that sentiment, I really do, and when I started running for City Council for the Pirate Party, a lot of people approached me and said, well I don't believe in politics and blah-blah-blah; and I thought, well, if you don't believe, I think they're expressing a lack of trust in the politicians that are already there and like, well, if you're not happy with it, you can still do something now and maybe not in ten years.

Aral:

And so we can be the change we want to see.

Ancilla:

It's a cliché, but it's true.

Aral:

It's true. I think that's a great note to end this on, Ancilla, and if you'll remain here, we'll have you for our panel, but thank you so much for coming down.

Ancilla:

Thank you.

(applause)