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In her book *ERROR 404: Are you ready for a world without the internet?*, journalist Esther Paniagua offers a thorough analysis of the current state of the Internet and digitalization. She highlights both the positive impacts—such as new ways to communicate and collaborate—and the negative aspects, including crime, addiction, misinformation, bias, and censorship. Beyond diagnosing these issues, Esther presents thoughtful solutions, emphasizing the urgent need to rethink and reshape the Internet to minimize toxicity and maximize its potential for creating a better world.
Esther’s proposals focus on four key areas: individual, collective, government, and business. At the individual level, she stresses the importance of critical thinking and digital education to combat misinformation and cybersecurity threats. Collectively, civil society can drive change through initiatives that promote a fairer digital economy and open, supportive online spaces. Governments should establish common rules to regulate tech giants responsibly and enhance cybersecurity while leveraging digital tools to improve public services and environmental care. Lastly, businesses are called to adopt stakeholder capitalism, prioritizing societal and environmental well-being alongside profits. Esther’s book encourages readers to become changemakers, working toward a sustainable, equitable digital future—an ambitious but achievable goal with collective will and action.
In her book ERROR 404, journalist Esther Paniagua is committed to incorporating ethics and social values into technology.
Could we be left without Internet? Could someone sabotage her? Could we live without it? And, the key question, can we live in a digitalized world, avoiding the most insane part of it? We chatted with Esther Paniagua following the publication of her book ERROR 404: Are you ready for a world without the internet?.
Esther is a journalist and author specializing in science and technology. She collaborates with media such as El País, Xataka or Muy Interesante and is a professor in the Executive Master’s Degree in Artificial Intelligence at the Institute of Artificial Intelligence. She has been recognized as one of the “
In her book, a meticulously documented essay, Esther makes a diagnosis of the state of the Internet and digitalization in the world, pointing out both its benefits – new ways of communicating, working, collaborating, being supportive, living – and its most toxic parts – crime, addiction, manipulation, misinformation, discrimination, bias, censorship, repression.
But it doesn’t stop there. After the diagnosis, come the proposals for solutions. And that’s what makes this book enlightening, courageous, and motivating.
Esther tells us that we are in time to rethink and recreate the Internet, so that toxicity is reduced to a minimum and the opportunities to live in a better world are maximized. Doing so is not easy, nor quick, nor obvious. But it can be done.
How to rethink the Internet?
There are two central ideas:
1.- Digital governance should be guided by the individual and social values to be protected, and not by technology.
2.- On an individual and collective level, we must take responsibility and raise awareness.
In her book, Esther explains how to approach each of these ideas and provides proposals and a multitude of references to initiatives that are already underway. It is about addressing solutions in the following areas: Individual, Collective, Government and Business.
1.- Individual
On an individual level, the key is critical thinking and education from childhood. Being a “digital native” does not imply knowing the threats and dangers of the digital environment. We can do a lot individually if we equip ourselves with minimum skills in cybersecurity and in precautions against misinformation and manipulation.
2.- Collective
Civil society has a lot to say. This is also what the expert of the Future Trends Forum, Henry De Sio , pointed out to us in a recent interview on the “changemaker effect”.
There are a multitude of initiatives to rethink and recreate the Internet as a free, open and supportive space, which Esther points out in her book.
By way of example, we point out:
- The initiative The Billion Seconds Institute, of which she is a member, and which seeks to move from current economic models where money is in the exploitation of user data, to models where “the distribution of value is more equitable, plural, sustainable and conscious.”
- INITIATIVE FOR DIGITAL PUBLIC INFRASTRUCTURE launched by the expert of the Future Trends Forum, Etham Zuckerman from the University of Massachusetts Amherst.
All collaborative economy initiatives can be included in this section, although there are also some that arise from the hand of public administrations, such as the so-called collaborative cities.
3.- Government
It is not a question of hyper-regulating, but of establishing common rules of the game to avoid the irregular and harmful behaviour of the so-called GAFAM – an acronym for Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple and Microsoft – and of establishing internationally agreed governance principles .
Based on these principles, Esther tells us, it is necessary to take action, taking measures such as the creation of a digital commerce zone subject to compliance with actionable rules on privacy, non-discrimination, non-violation of human rights, etc., which guarantees accountability.
In addition, it is a matter of facing the challenges of cybersecurity together.
Finally, it is also about using technology and digitalisation to make life easier for citizens and take care of the planet, with initiatives encompassed under the term Govtech.
4.- Business
There are more and more voices that defend the so-called stakeholder capitalism, that is, a new type of capitalism in which companies seek to create long-term value taking into account the needs of all their stakeholders, society in general and the planet.
With the pandemic, society demands this type of behavior from companies, more than ever, togive them their trust. To illustrate, a fact: 71% of consumers would lose trust in a brand if they perceive that it is putting profits ahead of people.
At the intersection between the business world and civil society, a multitude of initiatives arise that are encompassed in the term tech4good and that encompass applications of technology for sustainability, the environment and the circular economy.
The above are only brief brushstrokes of what you will find in the book. As we said above, rethinking and recreating the Internet, so that toxicity is reduced to a minimum and the opportunities to live in a better world are maximized, is difficult, but not impossible.
Quoting the renowned economist Carlota Pérez, whom we have the privilege of having among our community of experts, Esther points out that, with everyone’s will, it is not impossible to “achieve the global society of sustainable knowledge“.
ERROR 404!
The title of this section is not intended to scare you. ???? What she intends to do is to recommend you read Esther’s book so that you have a full understanding of the current situation of digitalization in the world and encourage you to be a changemaker.
