In 1970, the Chilean government – the first elected Marxists in the world – designed a network of machines for workers to communicate.

They imagined this internet supporting a bottom-up socialism led by workers, an alternative to the top-down authoritarianism of the Soviet Union.

By 1972, Cybersyn was running with workers sharing messages up and down the country.

Requests for materials and labour would bubble up, sometimes reaching this operations room.

In 1973, the US backed a military coup against the democratically elected leader of Chile. The dictatorship tore apart Cybersyn.

Cybersyn was a step towards a world of big data built around autonomy. How would a socialist internet look today?

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