ALT-TEXT - User contributions [en]

ALT-TEXT Wiki - Main Page

2026-09-10T11:40:37Z

Luc:

The '''ALT-TEXT Wiki''' is an open-access reference knowledge base dedicated to AI literacy, digital sovereignty, media literacy, and human-centred technology, maintained by ALT-TEXT.

== Purpose of this Project ==
Navigating modern tech ecosystems requires practical, accessible documentation. The ALT-TEXT Wiki aims to demystify complex technical, regulatory, and policy landscapes – from machine learning frameworks to platform governance and European digital policy. It serves as an evolving open tool to support educators, civil society, researchers, and non-profit organisations working towards digital rights and open-source alternatives.

== Methodological Disclaimer & AI Disclosure ==
In the spirit of transparency and digital literacy, readers should note the following regarding the current state of this wiki:

* '''AI-Assisted Generation:''' Much of the initial structure and descriptive content across these entries was generated using large language models. While edited for scope, the text has not undergone exhaustive manual peer review.
* '''Citations & References:''' Many entries currently lack comprehensive academic or primary-source citations. Fact-checking, source attribution, and verification are ongoing processes.
* '''Work in Progress:''' Information provided here should be treated as a draft reference rather than an absolute authority. We encourage users to cross-reference critical technical and legal details.

== Open Invitation: Contribute & Refine ==
A truly democratic digital public sphere relies on community oversight and shared knowledge. We actively invite contributions from researchers, developers, policy experts, and advocates.

You can help us improve this resource by:

# Adding missing citations, primary sources, and peer-reviewed references.
# Expanding, correcting, or clarifying existing definitions.
# Adding new terms, case studies, or open-source software directories.
# Auditing existing pages for factual accuracy or algorithmic bias.

To start editing or contributing definitions, please sign up for an account or reach out to the ALT-TEXT team.

== Glossaries ==

* [[AI Terminology Glossary]] – Key concepts in artificial intelligence: how models are built and trained, generative AI and large language models, the history of the field, deployment risks, and the policy vocabulary needed to follow AI regulation.
* [[AI People Glossary]] – The people who shaped artificial intelligence, from the mathematical precursors and the founders of the field to today's industry leaders and its critics.
* [[Media and Information Literacy Glossary]] – Terms in media and information literacy, freedom of expression, platform governance, and critical thinking.

== Directories ==

* [[Free Tier Services Directory]] – Hosted services that are free to start on, organised by what a small organisation needs to do: publishing, email, files, data, AI, measurement and the tooling in between. 437 services across ten pages.

== Browse ==

* [[:Category:Free Tier Services]] – The free tier directory pages
* [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence]] – Every AI terminology entry
* [[:Category:People]] – Biographical entries
* [[:Category:Glossary]] – All glossary content
* [[Special:AllPages]] – Every page on this wiki
* [[Special:Categories]] – Full category list

ALT-TEXT Wiki - Main Page

2026-09-10T11:39:48Z

Luc: added disclaimer and invitation to refine

The '''ALT-TEXT Wiki''' is an open-access reference knowledge base dedicated to AI literacy, digital sovereignty, media literacy, and human-centred technology, maintained by ALT-TEXT.

== Purpose of this Project ==
Navigating modern tech ecosystems requires practical, accessible documentation. The ALT-TEXT Wiki aims to demystify complex technical, regulatory, and policy landscapes – from machine learning frameworks to platform governance and European digital policy. It serves as an evolving open tool to support educators, civil society, researchers, and non-profit organisations working towards digital rights and open-source alternatives.

== Methodological Disclaimer & AI Disclosure ==
In the spirit of transparency and digital literacy, readers should note the following regarding the current state of this wiki:

* '''AI-Assisted Generation:''' Much of the initial structure and descriptive content across these entries was generated using large language models. While edited for scope, the text has not undergone exhaustive manual peer review.
* '''Citations & References:''' Many entries currently lack comprehensive academic or primary-source citations. Fact-checking, source attribution, and verification are ongoing processes.
* '''Work in Progress:''' Information provided here should be treated as a draft reference rather than an absolute authority. We encourage users to cross-reference critical technical and legal details.

== Open Invitation: Contribute & Refine ==
A truly democratic digital public sphere relies on community oversight and shared knowledge. We actively invite contributions from researchers, developers, policy experts, and advocates.

You can help us improve this resource by:

# Adding missing citations, primary sources, and peer-reviewed references.
# Expanding, correcting, or clarifying existing definitions.
# Adding new terms, case studies, or open-source software directories.
# Auditing existing pages for factual accuracy or algorithmic bias.

To start editing or contributing definitions, please sign up for an account or reach out to the ALT-TEXT team.

== Glossaries ==

* [[AI Terminology Glossary]] – Key concepts in artificial intelligence: how models are built and trained, generative AI and large language models, the history of the field, deployment risks, and the policy vocabulary needed to follow AI regulation.
* [[AI People Glossary]] – The people who shaped artificial intelligence, from the mathematical precursors and the founders of the field to today's industry leaders and its critics.
* [[Media and Information Literacy Glossary]] – Terms in media and information literacy, freedom of expression, platform governance, and critical thinking.

== Directories ==

* [[Free Tier Services Directory]] – Hosted services that are free to start on, organised by what a small organisation needs to do: publishing, email, files, data, AI, measurement, and the tooling in between.

== Browse ==

* [[:Category: Free Tier Services]] – The free tier directory pages
* [[:Category: Artificial Intelligence]] – Every AI terminology entry
* [[:Category: People]] – Biographical entries
* [[:Category: Glossary]] – All glossary content
* [[Special:AllPages]] – Every page on this wiki
* [[Special:Categories]] – Full category list

== Glossaries ==

* [[AI Terminology Glossary]] – Key concepts in artificial intelligence: how models are built and trained, generative AI and large language models, the history of the field, deployment risks, and the policy vocabulary needed to follow AI regulation.
* [[AI People Glossary]] – The people who shaped artificial intelligence, from the mathematical precursors and the founders of the field to today's industry leaders and its critics.
* [[Media and Information Literacy Glossary]] – Terms in media and information literacy, freedom of expression, platform governance, and critical thinking.

== Directories ==

* [[Free Tier Services Directory]] – Hosted services that are free to start on, organised by what a small organisation needs to do: publishing, email, files, data, AI, measurement and the tooling in between. 437 services across ten pages.

== Browse ==

* [[:Category:Free Tier Services]] – The free tier directory pages
* [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence]] – Every AI terminology entry
* [[:Category:People]] – Biographical entries
* [[:Category:Glossary]] – All glossary content
* [[Special:AllPages]] – Every page on this wiki
* [[Special:Categories]] – Full category list

ALT-TEXT Wiki - Main Page

2026-09-08T05:59:29Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

The '''ALT-TEXT Wiki''' is a working reference on AI literacy, digital sovereignty, and ethical technology, compiled and maintained by ALT-TEXT.

== Glossaries ==

* [[AI Terminology Glossary]] – Key concepts in artificial intelligence: how models are built and trained, generative AI and large language models, the history of the field, deployment risks, and the policy vocabulary needed to follow AI regulation.
* [[AI People Glossary]] – The people who shaped artificial intelligence, from the mathematical precursors and the founders of the field to today's industry leaders and its critics.
* [[Media and Information Literacy Glossary]] – Terms in media and information literacy, freedom of expression, platform governance, and critical thinking.

== Directories ==

* [[Free Tier Services Directory]] – Hosted services that are free to start on, organised by what a small organisation needs to do: publishing, email, files, data, AI, measurement and the tooling in between. 437 services across ten pages.

== Browse ==

* [[:Category:Free Tier Services]] – The free tier directory pages
* [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence]] – Every AI terminology entry
* [[:Category:People]] – Biographical entries
* [[:Category:Glossary]] – All glossary content
* [[Special:AllPages]] – Every page on this wiki
* [[Special:Categories]] – Full category list

Free Tier Services Directory

2026-09-08T05:59:29Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free Tier Services Directory ==
A directory of hosted services that are free to start on, organised by what a small organisation actually needs to do: put a site online, send email, collect responses, store files, add AI, measure what is happening, and keep the plumbing between them working.

Everything listed has a standing free tier rather than a trial. 437 services across ten subject pages.

Free tiers are not charity. They are the top of a pricing funnel, and the allowance is set where it stops being cheap for the provider and starts being expensive for you. That is fine, and often the right trade for a small organisation, but it is worth knowing which of these you could leave if the terms changed. The open-source and self-hostable entries are the ones where that answer is easiest.

=== Sections ===
* [[Free tier: Websites and publishing]] — 40 services. Hosting, content management, publishing tools.
* [[Free tier: Email]] — 72 services. Sending, newsletters, forwarding, testing, validation.
* [[Free tier: Images, video and files]] — 56 services. Storage, sharing, image CDNs, media processing.
* [[Free tier: Data sources and reference APIs]] — 56 services. Location, reference data, news, markets, weather.
* [[Free tier: Developer tooling]] — 55 services. API clients, mocks, webhooks, scraping, JSON and SQL tools.
* [[Free tier: Measuring without surveilling]] — 39 services. Analytics, with the privacy-preserving options first, and consent tooling.
* [[Free tier: Forms and surveys]] — 35 services. Form back ends, hosted builders, surveys, signatures.
* [[Free tier: AI tools and services]] — 33 services. Model access, evaluation and observability, notebooks.
* [[Free tier: Design and visual assets]] — 33 services. Design tools, page builders, icons, templates.
* [[Free tier: Documents and PDFs]] — 18 services. Generating documents, and extracting data from them.

=== How to read this ===
An entry here is not a recommendation. The free allowance quoted is what the provider advertised when the page was compiled, and providers change it without notice, usually downwards. Where a service is open source or self-hostable that is stated, because it changes what happens to you if the free tier disappears.

Free tiers also differ in what they cost you in other currencies. Some are paid for with your visitors' data, some with branding on your pages, some with a lock-in that gets expensive at the point you outgrow the tier. Those are noted where they are known.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Nothing here has been independently verified against the providers. Check before relying on any of it, and treat an old page as a starting point for searching rather than as an answer.

=== See also ===
[[Digital sovereignty]], [[Open-weight model]], [[Surveillance capitalism]], [[AI Terminology Glossary]]

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]
[[Category:Digital Sovereignty]]

Category:Free Tier Services

2026-09-08T05:59:28Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier services ==

Pages in this category make up the [[Free Tier Services Directory]]: hosted services that are free to start on, grouped by what a small organisation needs to do rather than by technical category.

These are directory pages, not glossary entries. They describe what is available to use; for what the terms mean, see the [[AI Terminology Glossary]].

Every entry is a snapshot and none has been independently verified. Free tiers change often and usually get smaller. Check the provider before relying on any allowance quoted here.

[[Category:Digital Sovereignty]]

Free tier: Websites and publishing

2026-09-08T05:59:28Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: Websites and publishing ==
Hosting, content management and publishing tools with a free tier — enough to put a site online, keep it edited, and hand editing to someone who does not write code.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Content management ===
* [https://www.contentful.com/ Contentful] — Headless CMS with content delivery over an API. Free Community space for one project.
* [https://www.cosmicjs.com/ Cosmic] — Headless CMS and API toolkit. Free personal plan for individual developers.
* [https://crystallize.com Crystallize] — Headless product information manager with e-commerce support and a GraphQL API. Free tier includes unlimited items on one project.
* [https://www.datocms.com/ DatoCMS] — GraphQL-based headless CMS aimed at small sites, with a free tier covering a limited number of records and API calls.
* [https://hygraph.com/ Hygraph] — GraphQL-first headless CMS, formerly GraphCMS. Free tier for small projects.
* [https://www.prismic.io/ Prismic] — Headless CMS with a hosted editing interface and API. The Community plan is free for one user.
* [https://www.sanity.io/ Sanity.io] — Structured content platform with an open-source editing environment and a hosted real-time datastore. Generous free tier.
* [https://soloist.ai Solo] — Website generator from Mozilla that builds a small business site from a short description. Free.
* [https://squidex.io/ Squidex] — Open-source, API- and GraphQL-first CMS built on event sourcing. Free tier for small projects.
* [https://www.storyblok.com Storyblok] — Headless CMS aimed at both developers and editors, working with any modern framework. Community plan is free.
* [https://tina.io/ TinaCMS] — Open-source, Git-backed headless CMS supporting Markdown, MDX and JSON. Successor to Forestry.io.
* [https://wpjack.com WPJack] — Installs and manages WordPress on a server you already own. Free tier covers one server and two sites.

=== Hosting and site builders ===
* [https://www.alwaysdata.com/ Alwaysdata] — General-purpose hosting with 1 GB of storage, supporting MySQL, PostgreSQL and a wide range of runtimes including Python, Node, Go, Elixir and .NET.
* [https://www.awardspace.com Awardspace.com] — Web hosting with PHP and MySQL, a free short domain and no adverts.
* [https://boomurl.com boomurl] — Publishes static files — HTML, Markdown, images, PDFs or a whole folder — to an HTTPS URL without a build step.
* [https://bubble.io/ Bubble] — Visual builder for web and mobile applications without code. Free with Bubble branding on the result.
* [https://www.dappling.network/ dAppling Network] — Decentralised hosting for Web3 front ends, focused on uptime and tamper resistance.
* [https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing DigitalOcean] — Three static sites free on the App Platform starter tier.
* [https://freeflarum.com/ FreeFlarum] — Community-funded hosting for Flarum forums, free for up to 250 users. A donation removes the watermark.
* [https://harvis.dev Harvis.dev] — Static hosting driven from the command line with no configuration or build step. Includes a subdomain, TLS and form handling.
* [https://www.koyeb.com/ Koyeb] — Serverless application platform. The free Hobby plan gives 550 compute hours a month on a 512 MB instance.
* [https://mdbgo.com/ MDB GO] — Hosting for one project with 500 MB of memory and SFTP access. Containers expire after two weeks.
* [https://mirin.com Mirin] — Hosting for React, Vue and Svelte component sites, with visual editing for non-developers.
* [https://neocities.org Neocities] — Static hosting in the spirit of early personal web pages. 1 GB of storage and 200 GB of bandwidth.
* [https://www.netlify.com/ Netlify] — Builds, deploys and hosts static sites and applications. Free tier is metered in credits, roughly 30 GB of bandwidth a month.
* [https://www.pandastack.io/ PandaStack] — Hosting in several shapes — static sites, containers and databases — with a free tier on each.
* [https://pantheon.io/ pantheon.io] — Managed Drupal and WordPress hosting with automated deployment. Free for development sites.
* [https://qoddi.com Qoddi] — Application platform in the mould of Heroku, with a free tier for small services.
* [https://readthedocs.org/ readthedocs.org] — Documentation hosting with versioning and PDF export, free for open projects. Widely used for software manuals.
* [https://render.com render.com] — Unified platform for sites and applications, with free TLS, a global CDN and automatic deploys from Git.
* [https://revdoku.com/ Revdoku] — Publishes files, reports and small sites directly from an AI assistant such as ChatGPT or Claude.
* [https://shipstatic.com ShipStatic] — Static hosting designed to be driven by a command or an AI agent, with permanent free sites, HTTPS and unmetered bandwidth. Custom domains are paid.
* [https://sourceforge.net/ SourceForge] — Long-running host for open-source project downloads and pages.
* [https://surge.sh/ surge.sh] — Static publishing from the command line. Unlimited sites with custom domain support.
* [https://tilda.cc/ tilda.cc] — Visual website builder. Free tier covers one site of up to 50 pages and 50 MB, using a limited set of layout blocks.
* [https://vercel.com/ Vercel] — Builds, deploys and hosts web applications with free TLS, a global CDN and a preview URL for every push. Strong fit for Next.js and static site generators.
* [https://versoly.com/ Versoly] — Website builder aimed at software products. Unlimited sites, 70-plus blocks and custom CSS on the free plan.

=== Publishing tools ===
* [https://mintlify.com Mintlify] — Documentation platform for APIs, with hosted, componentised pages and a free tier for small projects.
* [https://publora.com Publora] — Publishing API that posts or schedules to ten social networks from a single call.
* [https://www.tiny.cloud TinyMCE] — Rich text editor you embed in your own pages. Core features are free for unlimited use.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Digital sovereignty]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

Free tier: Measuring without surveilling

2026-09-08T05:59:27Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: Measuring without surveilling ==
Analytics, and the consent tooling that sits alongside it. The first group here is cookieless and privacy-preserving by design, several are open source and self-hostable, and they are listed first deliberately: for most small sites they answer the same questions as the advertising-funded alternatives without exporting visitor data.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Privacy-preserving web analytics ===
* [https://aptabase.com Aptabase] — Open-source, privacy-friendly analytics for mobile and desktop applications, with SDKs for Swift, Kotlin and others.
* [https://beampipe.io Beampipe.io] — Simple, privacy-focused web analytics. Free for five domains and 10,000 page views a month.
* [https://counter.dev counter.dev] — Deliberately minimal web analytics, which is what keeps it privacy-friendly. Free, or pay what you like.
* [https://getinsights.io getinsights.io] — Cookie-free analytics, free up to 3,000 events a month.
* [https://www.goatcounter.com/ GoatCounter] — Open-source web analytics, offered as a hosted service and free for non-commercial sites.
* [https://hitkeep.com/ HitKeep] — Open-source web and product analytics with a free cloud plan for three sites.
* [https://rybbit.io Rybbit] — Open-source, cookieless alternative to Google Analytics. Free plan for small sites.
* [https://seline.so Seline] — Cookieless, lightweight site and product analytics.
* [https://dicloud.net/trackwith-privacy-focused-analytics/ TrackWith Dicloud] — Lightweight privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics, with unlimited page views on the free tier.
* [https://umami.is/ Umami] — Open-source, privacy-focused alternative to Google Analytics. Widely self-hosted; a hosted tier is also offered.

=== Product and site analytics ===
* [https://amplitude.com/ amplitude.com] — Product analytics. One million events a month across two applications.
* [https://appfit.io AppFit] — Combined analytics and product management tooling.
* [https://clicky.com Clicky] — Site analytics with real-time views. Free for one site and 3,000 views.
* [https://docbeacon.io DocBeacon] — Document sharing with tracking and engagement reporting.
* [https://gizmoanalytics.io/ Gizmo Analytics] — Analytics aimed at people running many small sites at once.
* [https://analytics.google.com/ Google Analytics] — The dominant web analytics product, free at the scale most sites operate at. Note that its model is advertising, and that using it places visitor data with Google — the reason most of the alternatives above exist.
* [https://heap.io heap.io] — Captures every user interaction automatically rather than requiring events to be defined in advance. Free up to 10,000 sessions a month.
* [https://hotjar.com Hotjar] — Heatmaps, session recordings and surveys. 2,000 page views a day.
* [https://logspot.io LogSpot] — Unified web and product analytics with embeddable widgets.
* [https://mixpanel.com/ Mixpanel] — Product analytics with unlimited history and EU or US data residency. 100,000 tracked users a month.
* [https://www.moesif.com Moesif] — Analytics for REST and GraphQL APIs rather than for pages. Free up to 500,000 calls a month.
* [https://posthog.com PostHog] — Full product analytics suite, also offering session recording and feature flags. One million events a month.
* [https://repohistory.com Repohistory] — Keeps GitHub repository traffic history beyond the fortnight GitHub itself retains.
* [https://statcounter.com/ StatCounter] — Long-established visitor analytics. Free plan covers the 500 most recent visitors.
* [https://statsig.com Statsig] — Analytics, feature flags and A/B testing in one platform, with a substantial free tier.
* [https://tracelog.io/ TraceLog] — Natural-language querying over e-commerce analytics.
* [https://usabilityhub.com/ usabilityhub.com] — Tests designs and mockups with real people and tracks visitors. Free for one user.

=== Pipelines, warehouses and reporting ===
* [https://avo.app/ Avo] — Keeps a single source of truth for what your analytics actually track, and generates type-safe tracking code from it.
* [https://www.getcensus.com/ Census] — Reverse ETL: pushes data from your warehouse back into the tools your team uses. Ten fields free.
* [https://dwh.dev Dwh.dev] — Observability for a Snowflake data warehouse. Free for personal use.
* [https://www.expensify.com/ Expensify] — Expense reporting with a free personal approval workflow.
* [https://hightouch.com/ Hightouch] — Reverse ETL for syncing customer data from a warehouse into other services.
* [https://rowzero.io Row Zero] — Spreadsheet that connects directly to databases, S3 and APIs, for datasets too large for conventional ones.
* [https://www.trackingplan.com/ Trackingplan] — Detects when analytics and marketing tags break or drift, and keeps a live record of what is being tracked.

=== Consent and privacy compliance ===
* [https://www.bearer.sh/ Bearer] — Privacy-by-design audits and workflows for meeting GDPR obligations. Free tier limited to small teams on the hosted version.
* [https://www.concord.tech/ Concord] — Consent management, data subject access request handling and data mapping. Core consent features free, with a fuller plan offered free to verified open-source projects.
* [https://cookiefirst.com/ Cookiefirst] — Cookie banners, auditing and multi-language consent management. Free tier covers one banner and a one-off scan.
* [https://www.iubenda.com/ Iubenda] — Generates privacy and cookie policies and manages consent. Free tier covers a limited policy and banner.
* [https://www.ketch.com/ Ketch] — Consent management and privacy framework. Most features free below a visitor threshold.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Surveillance capitalism]], [[Digital sovereignty]], [[EU AI Act]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

Free tier: Images, video and files

2026-09-08T05:59:27Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: Images, video and files ==
Storing files, sharing them, and processing images and video. Includes the image CDNs that do optimisation and resizing on the way out, and several encrypted stores where the provider cannot read what you put in.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Cloud storage and backup ===
* [https://www.borgbase.com/ borgbase.com] — Offsite backup hosting for Borg Backup. 10 GB and two repositories free.
* [https://degoo.com/ degoo.com] — Cloud storage with 20 GB free across three devices. Accounts inactive for 90 days are removed.
* [https://ente.io/ Ente] — End-to-end encrypted cloud for photos, videos and two-factor secrets. Can also be self-hosted.
* [https://www.icedrive.net/ icedrive.net] — Cloud storage with 10 GB free.
* [https://internxt.com internxt.com] — Zero-knowledge file storage built around privacy. 10 GB free.
* [https://www.otixo.com/ otixo.com] — Manages, encrypts and moves files across several cloud storage accounts from one place. 250 MB free.
* [https://www.pcloud.com/ pcloud.com] — Cloud storage with up to 10 GB free.
* [https://proton.me/drive Proton Drive] — Encrypted storage for files and documents from Proton. 5 GB free.
* [https://redbooth.com redbooth.com] — Peer-to-peer file syncing, free for two users.
* [https://www.sync.com/ sync.com] — End-to-end encrypted cloud storage. 5 GB free.

=== File sharing and transfer ===
* [https://androidfilehost.com/ AndroidFileHost] — File sharing with no limits on speed, bandwidth or download count. Oriented towards Android development.
* [https://anon.li/drop anon.li Drop] — Zero-knowledge file sharing with AES-256-GCM encryption applied in the browser, so the server never sees the contents.
* [https://dlvr.sh/ dlvr.sh] — Temporary file delivery for agents and automation, with API, MCP and CLI access. Ten deliveries a day.
* [https://dropsha.re Dropshare] — End-to-end encrypted file sharing with client-side processing and no server-side access.
* [https://fileshot.io FileShot.io] — Encrypted file sharing with browser-side AES-256-GCM. No account needed.
* [https://www.file.io file.io] — 2 GB of storage where a file is deleted after a single download. REST API available.
* [https://gofile.io/ GoFile.io] — File sharing and storage over a web interface or an API, with no size, bandwidth or download limits.
* [https://podio.com/ podio.com] — Collaboration workspace with file sharing, free for up to five people.

=== Image hosting, CDNs and optimisation ===
* [https://cloudinary.com/ cloudinary.com] — Image upload, transformation, storage and delivery, with libraries for most languages. Long-standing generous free tier.
* [https://www.gumlet.com/ gumlet.com] — Image and video hosting, processing and streaming over a CDN. 250 GB a month for video, 30 GB for images.
* [https://imageengine.io/ ImageEngine] — Global image CDN with AVIF and JPEG XL support and plugins for WordPress, Magento, React and Vue.
* [https://imagekit.io imagekit.io] — Image CDN with automatic optimisation, real-time transformation and storage.
* [https://imgbb.com/ ImgBB] — Unlimited image hosting with drag-and-drop upload and direct links. 32 MB per image.
* [https://github.com/marketplace/imgbot Imgbot] — Bot that optimises images in a Git repository and opens a pull request with the results.
* [https://www.imgix.com/ imgix] — Image caching, management and CDN. 1,000 origin images, unlimited transformations and 100 GB of bandwidth.
* [https://kraken.io/ kraken.io] — Image optimisation as a service. Free plan handles files up to 1 MB.
* [https://nitropack.io/ nitropack.io] — Front-end performance optimisation on autopilot — caching, image and code optimisation, CDN. Free for small sites.
* [https://resmush.it resmush.it] — Free image optimisation API, with integrations for WordPress, Drupal and other common systems.
* [https://sirv.com/ sirv.com] — Image CDN with on-the-fly optimisation and resizing. 500 MB of storage and 2 GB of bandwidth.
* [https://slingsite.github.io SlingSite] — Generates every optimised variant of an image or video in bulk — AVIF, WebP and the rest.
* [https://tinypng.com/ tinypng.com] — Compresses and resizes PNG and JPEG images by API. 500 compressions a month.
* [https://www.twicpics.com twicpics.com] — Responsive images as a service: an image CDN, a processing API and a front-end library.
* [https://uploadcare.com/hub/developers/ uploadcare.com] — Media pipeline covering upload, processing and delivery. All features available on the developer tier.

=== Media processing and generation ===
* [https://developer.deepar.ai DeepAR] — Augmented reality face filters through a single SDK.
* [https://json2video.com JSON2Video] — Video editing API for producing marketing and social media video programmatically.
* [https://docs.pexafy.com Pexafy] — Semantic image search across nine free photo sources including Unsplash, Pexels and Pixabay.
* [https://rendi.dev Rendi] — REST API in front of FFmpeg, so you can run conversions without maintaining the infrastructure.
* [https://robohash.org/ ROBOHASH] — Generates a unique image from any string of text. Commonly used for placeholder avatars.
* [https://metashot.io Metashot] — Generates Open Graph social preview images, 1200×630, on demand.
* [https://embed.ly/ embed.ly] — APIs for embedding media in a page, scaling images responsively and extracting elements from a URL. 5,000 requests free.
* [https://freetools.site/ freetools.site] — Browser-based tools for converting and editing documents, images, audio and video.
* [https://hyperserve.io/ hyperserve.io] — Video back end that accepts any upload format, transcodes to MP4 and delivers over a CDN.
* [https://www.jitbit.com/imgen/ imgen] — Generates images on the fly — text over a background, a logo — for Open Graph cards. No watermark.
* [https://mconverter.eu/ MConverter] — Bulk file conversion supporting AVIF, JPEG XL and frame extraction from video.
* [https://transloadit.com/ transloadit.com] — Handles file uploads and encoding of video, audio, images and documents. Free for open source, charities and students.

=== Charts, QR codes and small data stores ===
* [https://getpantry.cloud/ getpantry.cloud] — Simple JSON storage API, aimed at personal projects and prototypes.
* [https://www.image-charts.com/ image-charts.com] — Generates chart images by URL. Unlimited, with a watermark.
* [https://libreqr.com LibreQR] — QR code generator with no tracking and no data collection.
* [https://www.npoint.io/ npoint.io] — JSON store with collaborative schema editing.
* [https://mantledb.sh MantleDB] — Anonymous JSON storage for scripts and small applications, with no signup.
* [https://packagecloud.io/ packagecloud.io] — Hosted package repositories for YUM, APT, RubyGems and PyPI. Free plans for open-source projects on request.
* [https://pinata.cloud Pinata IPFS] — Uploads and pins files to IPFS, with a web interface and an API.
* [https://plot.ly/ plot.ly] — Plots and shares data online. Unlimited public files and ten private ones.
* [https://qrtracer.io QRtracer] — QR code generator with scan analytics, bulk generation and branding.
* [https://quickchart.io QuickChart] — Generates embeddable chart, graph and QR code images.
* [https://www.vaocherapp.com/qr-code-generator VaocherApp QR Code Generator] — QR code generator for gift cards and vouchers, with custom styling and logos.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Synthetic media]], [[Content provenance (C2PA)|Content provenance]], [[Digital sovereignty]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

Free tier: Forms and surveys

2026-09-08T05:59:26Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: Forms and surveys ==
Collecting responses without running a server. Two shapes: back ends that accept posts from your own HTML, and hosted builders that give you the form as well.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Form back ends for your own HTML ===
* [https://contact.do/ Contact.do] — A contact form behind a single short link, with nothing to embed.
* [https://form.taxi/ Form.taxi] — Endpoint for plain HTML forms, with notifications, spam blocking and GDPR-conscious data handling. Free for basic use.
* [https://formboost.app Formboost.app] — Form back end with simple HTTP endpoints, spam protection and Slack notifications. 500 submissions a month.
* [https://formcarry.com Formcarry.com] — HTTP POST endpoint for HTML forms. 100 submissions a month.
* [https://forminit.com/ Forminit] — Headless form back end with file uploads and server-side validation. 100 submissions a month.
* [https://www.formkeep.com/ FormKeep.com] — Unlimited forms with spam protection, notifications and an exportable drag-and-drop designer. 50 submissions a month.
* [https://formplume.com Form Plume] — Form back end for HTML and JavaScript forms, with spam filtering, file uploads and webhooks from one endpoint.
* [https://formlets.com/ formlets.com] — Hosted single-page forms with email notification. 100 submissions a month.
* [https://formspark.io/ formspark.io] — Form-to-email service. Unlimited forms, 250 submissions a month.
* [https://formspree.io/ Formspree.io] — Posts an HTML form to an endpoint and emails you the result. 50 submissions per form per month.
* [https://formsubmit.co/ Formsubmit.co] — Form endpoints with no registration at all. Free indefinitely.
* [https://herotofu.com/ HeroTofu.com] — Form back end with bot detection and an encrypted archive; forwards to email, Slack or Zapier. Bring your own front end.
* [https://kwes.io/ Kwes.io] — Form endpoint that works well with static sites. One site, 50 submissions a month.
* [https://pageclip.co/ Pageclip] — Form back end for one site and one form, with 1,000 submissions a month.
* [https://smartforms.dev/ smartforms.dev] — Form back end with 50 submissions a month, 250 MB of file storage and Zapier integration.
* [https://www.staticforms.xyz/ staticforms.xyz] — Posts HTML form contents to your email with no server-side code.
* [https://web3forms.com Web3Forms] — Contact forms for static and JAMstack sites with no back end of your own. Unlimited forms and domains, 250 submissions.

=== Hosted form builders ===
* [https://fabform.io/ FabForm] — Form back end for developers. 250 submissions a month.
* [https://feathery.io Feathery] — Form builder for multi-step flows — signup, onboarding, applications. Free tier for low volumes.
* [https://feedback.fish/ feedback.fish] — Lightweight feedback widget with React and Vue components. 25 submissions in total on the free plan.
* [https://fluidforms.ai/ FluidForms] — Form builder and back end with AI-assisted logic. 100 responses a month across unlimited forms.
* [https://formester.com Formester.com] — Embeddable forms with no cap on how many you create and no features withheld from the free plan.
* [https://forms.app/ forms.app] — Form builder with conditional logic and scoring. 100 responses free.
* [https://formware.io/ Formware.io] — Responsive form builder with unlimited free responses.
* [https://heyform.net/ HeyForm.net] — Drag-and-drop builder with unlimited forms and unlimited submissions on the free tier.
* [https://jotform.com/ Jotform.com] — Long-established form builder with payments, workflows and built-in e-signatures.
* [https://www.makeform.ai/ Makeform] — Chat-style form builder with unlimited forms and submissions, and almost all features on the free plan.
* [https://tally.so/ Tally.so] — Form builder with unlimited forms, unlimited submissions, logic and notifications — nearly everything is on the free plan.
* [https://www.typeform.com/ Typeform.com] — Conversational, one-question-at-a-time forms. Free plan is limited to ten fields and 100 responses a month.
* [https://www.wufoo.com/ Wufoo] — Established form builder. 100 submissions a month.
* [https://FormNX.com/ FormNX] — Unlimited forms and submissions free, with a large template library.

=== Documents and signatures ===
* [https://simplepdf.eu/embed SimplePDF.eu] — Turns a PDF into a fillable form you can embed. Unlimited PDFs, three submissions each.
* [https://waiverstevie.com WaiverStevie.com] — Electronic signatures with a REST API and webhooks. Free plan watermarks signed documents.

=== Surveys and feedback ===
* [https://survicate.com/ Survicate] — Collects feedback from several sources and runs follow-up surveys, with AI summarisation. Limited free tier.
* [https://vidhook.io/ Vidhook] — Survey tool aimed at response rates. One active survey, 25 responses.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Data annotation]], [[Digital sovereignty]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

Free tier: Email

2026-09-08T05:59:26Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: Email ==
Sending, forwarding, testing and validating email. The free allowances here are generous enough to run a small organisation's transactional mail and newsletters without paying, though deliverability rather than volume is usually the binding constraint.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Sending transactional email ===
* [https://www.unitpost.com/ Unitpost] — Transactional and marketing email. Free tier: 5,000 emails a month, 200 a day, five domains, no card required.
* [https://ahasend.com AhaSend] — Transactional email with unlimited domains, team members and webhooks on the free plan. 1,000 emails a month.
* [https://anypost.com Anypost] — Transactional and broadcast email API. 3,000 emails a month free.
* [https://atomicmail.ai Atomic Mail] — Programmatic mailboxes over the open JMAP standard, with custom domains and full send and receive. Free.
* [https://www.brevo.com/ Brevo] — Marketing and transactional email. 9,000 emails a month, capped at 300 a day.
* [https://www.emailjs.com/ EmailJS] — Sends email straight from the browser without exposing your credentials. Not a mail server — a client library with a hosted relay.
* [https://emaillabs.io/en EmailLabs.io] — Transactional sending, 9,000 emails a month with a 300-a-day cap.
* [https://emitlo.com Emitlo] — Email API and SMTP with SPF, DKIM and DMARC support. 12,000 emails a month, no card required.
* [https://maileroo.com Maileroo] — SMTP relay and email API with 5,000 emails a month, unlimited domains, and verification and blacklist monitoring included.
* [https://www.mailchannels.com mailchannels.com] — Email API with REST and SMTP integrations. 3,000 emails a month.
* [https://www.mailersend.com MailerSend.com] — Email API and SMTP. 500 transactional emails a month and 100 API requests a day.
* [https://www.mailjet.com/ Mailjet] — Transactional and marketing sending. 6,000 emails a month with a 200-a-day limit.
* [https://mailtrap.io/ Mailtrap.io] — Email API and SMTP with 4,000 emails a month, capped at 150 a day. Also offers a sandbox for testing.
* [https://onesignal.com/ OneSignal] — Email alongside push notifications. 10,000 emails a month, no card required.
* [https://useplunk.com Plunk] — Transactional and marketing email for developers. 3,000 emails a month.
* [https://postmarkapp.com/ Postmark] — Transactional email known for deliverability and detailed logs. 100 emails a month, plus unlimited DMARC digests.
* [https://reloop.sh Reloop] — Transactional API and SMTP. 3,000 emails a month, 200 a day, one custom domain.
* [https://resend.com Resend] — Transactional email API aimed at developers. 3,000 emails a month, 100 a day, one custom domain.
* [https://www.sendstreak.com/ SendStreak] — Adds templates, automation and history on top of an SMTP server you already have, such as SES or Gmail.
* [https://smtpfa.st/ SMTPfast] — Simple sending API. 3,000 emails a month, one domain, 1,000 contacts, no card required.
* [https://www.sweego.io/ Sweego] — European transactional email API, useful where data residency in the EU matters. 100 emails a day.
* [https://wraps.dev Wraps] — Email automation workflows with 5,000 tracked events and unlimited contacts free.
* [https://github.com/msgwing/ZeroSMTP ZeroSMTP] — SMTP relay with no paid tier, up to 200 emails a day. Sends only from a shared address, so no custom domain.

=== Newsletters and mailing lists ===
* [https://buttondown.email/ Buttondown] — Newsletter platform with a plain-text sensibility. Free up to 100 subscribers.
* [https://emailoctopus.com EmailOctopus] — Newsletter sending. Free up to 2,500 subscribers and 10,000 emails a month.
* [https://maildroppa.com Maildroppa] — Newsletters with unlimited sends and automations, free up to 100 subscribers.
* [https://www.mailerlite.com MailerLite.com] — Newsletter and marketing email. 1,000 subscribers and 12,000 emails a month.
* [https://www.sender.net Sender] — Newsletter sending, up to 15,000 emails a month across 2,500 subscribers.
* [https://sendpulse.com Sendpulse] — Marketing email with 500 subscribers and 15,000 emails a month free.
* [https://substack.com Substack] — Newsletter publishing with unlimited free sending; charges only begin when you charge readers.
* [https://waitlio.com/ Waitlio] — Waitlist pages for product launches, with subscriber collection and verification built in.

=== Forwarding, aliases and mailboxes ===
* [https://anonaddy.com AnonAddy] — Open-source anonymous email forwarding with unlimited aliases.
* [https://anon.li/alias anon.li Alias] — Open-source anonymous aliasing with PGP encryption and the ability to reply from an alias. Ten random and one custom alias free.
* [https://bump.email/ Bump] — Ten forwarding addresses on one custom domain.
* [https://burnermail.io/ Burnermail] — Five burner addresses with a single mailbox and seven days of history.
* [https://dnsexit.com/ DNSExit] — Two mailboxes on your own domain with 100 MB of storage, over IMAP, POP3 and SMTP with SPF and DKIM.
* [https://forwardemail.net forwardemail.net] — Email forwarding for custom domains with unlimited addresses. '''Note:''' several low-cost TLDs are excluded from the free tier.
* [https://improvmx.com ImprovMX] — Straightforward free email forwarding for a custom domain.
* [https://kaimail.net KaiMail] — Forwarding for custom domains with ARC and DKIM signing. One domain, one mailbox, 300 emails a month.
* [https://www.mutantmail.com/ Mutant Mail] — Ten addresses on one domain, all delivered into a single mailbox.
* [https://proton.me/mail Proton Mail] — End-to-end encrypted mailbox from the makers of Proton VPN. 1 GB free.
* [https://simplelogin.io/ SimpleLogin] — Open-source, self-hostable aliasing and forwarding. Ten aliases free, unlimited replies, and free for educational use.
* [https://tuta.com/ Tuta] — End-to-end encrypted mailbox with no adverts or tracking. 1 GB of storage and a calendar.

=== Testing and disposable inboxes ===
* [https://10minutemail.com 10minutemail] — Disposable inbox for testing signup flows.
* [https://conduit.email/ Conduit] — Turns incoming email into webhooks so a message can trigger your own API. Free.
* [https://debugmail.io/ debugmail.io] — Testing mail server that catches what your application sends instead of delivering it.
* [https://ethereal.email EtherealMail] — Fake SMTP service for testing, aimed at Nodemailer users. Messages are captured, never delivered.
* [https://imitate.email Imitate Email] — Sandbox mail server for testing email in build, QA and CI pipelines. Fifteen messages a day, permanently.
* [https://inboxesapp.com Inboxes App] — Up to three temporary addresses a day from a browser extension, useful for testing signups.
* [https://inboxkitten.com/ inboxkitten.com] — Disposable inbox with automatic deletion after three days. Open source and self-hostable.
* [https://mailcatcher.me/ mailcatcher.me] — Catches outgoing mail and displays it in a web interface, run locally.
* [https://www.mailinator.com/ mailinator.com] — Public inbox system where any address works without registration. Useful for throwaway testing.
* [https://mailsac.com mailsac.com] — API for temporary inboxes, with outbound capture and forwarding to Slack, webhooks or WebSockets. 1,500 API calls a month.
* [https://parsio.io Parsio.io] — Email parser: forward a message, extract the fields, post them to your server.
* [https://temp-mail.io temp-mail.io] — Disposable addresses with forwarding and several inboxes at once.
* [https://temp-mail.org/en/ Temp-Mail.org] — Disposable inbox that rotates its address on each page load.
* [https://www.trashmail.com trashmail.com] — Disposable addresses with forwarding and automatic expiry.

=== Validation and deliverability ===
* [https://www.antideo.com Antideo] — Email, IP and phone validation. Ten API requests an hour free, no card required.
* [https://cannypigeons.com/ Canny Pigeons] — DMARC monitoring with DNS drift alerts and threat intelligence. First domain free.
* [https://dkimvalidator.com/ dkimvalidator.com] — Checks whether a domain's SPF, DKIM and DMARC records are set up correctly.
* [https://emailguard.lazrek.com/ EmailGuard] — Blocks disposable addresses, catches typos and validates MX records. 100 requests a month.
* [https://emailqo.com/email-grader EmailQo Email Infrastructure Grader] — Grades a domain's email configuration — SPF, DKIM, DMARC and mail server setup — out of 100. No signup.
* [https://emailvalidation.io Emailvalidation.io] — Email verification API. 100 checks a month.
* [https://isitdisposable.com/ Is It Disposable] — Detects disposable addresses at signup. 250 lookups a month, no card required.
* [https://www.mail-tester.com mail-tester.com] — Sends a message to a generated address and reports on spam scoring and authentication. 20 tests a month.
* [https://www.mailcheck.ai/ Mailcheck.ai] — Blocks signups from temporary addresses, 120 requests an hour.
* [https://orbisearch.com Orbisearch] — Bulk email validation, 100 addresses a day with no signup.
* [https://sendbridge.com/mail-tester SendBridge Mail Tester] — Deliverability test with no signup: generates an inbox, then reports SPF, DKIM, DMARC, spam score and blocklist status.
* [https://www.suped.com/ Suped] — DMARC monitoring with a readable dashboard. One domain and 1,000 emails a month free.
* [https://tempmaildetector.com/ TempMailDetector.com] — Checks whether an address is a temporary one. 200 verifications a month.
* [https://verifalia.com/email-verification-api Verifalia] — Real-time verification with mailbox confirmation and disposable address detection. 25 checks a day.
* [https://verimail.io/ verimail.io] — Bulk and API email verification. 100 checks a month.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Digital sovereignty]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

Free tier: Documents and PDFs

2026-09-08T05:59:25Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: Documents and PDFs ==
Generating PDFs and documents from templates or HTML, and pulling structured data back out of them.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Generating PDFs and documents ===
* [https://apitemplate.io APITemplate.io] — Generates images and PDFs from templates, callable by API or from automation tools.
* [https://craftmypdf.com CraftMyPDF] — Generates PDFs from reusable templates built in a drag-and-drop editor.
* [https://www.customjs.io CustomJS] — HTML to PDF, PDF to PNG or text, and PDF merging and extraction. 600 operations free.
* [https://www.doczilla.app/ Doczilla] — Generates screenshots or PDFs from HTML, CSS and JavaScript.
* [https://doppio.sh/ Doppio] — Managed API that renders and privately stores PDFs and screenshots.
* [https://docpenny.com DocPenny] — HTML to PDF generation with templates and webhook delivery.
* [https://doqlo.com/ Doqlo] — Bulk fills and mail-merges PDF forms from a CSV, through a web app or an API.
* [https://advicement.io DynamicDocs] — Generates PDFs from JSON against LaTeX templates.
* [https://exportsdk.com Export SDK] — PDF generation API with a drag-and-drop template editor, an SDK and no-code integrations.
* [https://labelixa.com Labelixa] — Renders and validates Zebra ZPL labels, with a browser viewer.
* [https://pdf-api.io PDF-API.io] — PDF automation with a visual template editor or HTML input, and dynamic data merging.
* [https://pdfbolt.com PDFBolt] — PDF generation designed with privacy in mind, aimed at developers.
* [https://pdftemplateapi.com TemplateFox] — PDF generation with a visual template editor and SDKs for seven languages.

=== Extracting and converting ===
* [https://cloudmersive.com/ Cloudmersive] — Broad utility API library covering document conversion, validation and data extraction.
* [https://conversiontools.io/ Conversion Tools] — Converts documents, images, video, audio and e-books, with a REST API.
* [https://ocr.space/ OCR.Space] — OCR API returning text from images and PDFs as JSON. 25,000 requests a month.
* [https://parseur.com Parseur] — Extracts structured data from PDFs and emails using AI. 20 pages a month.
* [https://reducto.ai Reducto] — Turns unstructured documents — PDF, XLSX, JPG, PPTX — into structured JSON.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Data annotation]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

Free tier: Developer tooling

2026-09-08T05:59:25Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: Developer tooling ==
The plumbing between services: API clients and mocks, webhook delivery, scraping, JSON and SQL utilities, and integration tools.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== API clients, testing and mocking ===
* [https://beeceptor.com Beeceptor] — Mocks and debugs APIs across REST, SOAP, gRPC and GraphQL without writing code.
* [https://curlhub.io CurlHub] — Proxy that records and inspects API calls for debugging. 10,000 requests a month.
* [https://extendsclass.com/rest-client-online.html ExtendsClass] — Web-based HTTP client for sending requests.
* [https://hoppscotch.io Hoppscotch] — Fast, open API request builder in the browser.
* [https://insomnia.rest Insomnia] — Open-source API client for designing and testing REST and GraphQL APIs.
* [https://jsoning.com/api/ JSONing] — Turns a JSON object into a fake REST API, with control over status codes and headers.
* [https://kreya.app Kreya] — Graphical gRPC client that can import APIs through server reflection.
* [https://www.mockapi.io/ MockAPI] — Mocks up an API and generates plausible custom data behind it.
* [https://mockerito.com/ Mockerito] — Mock REST API with realistic data across nine domains, including e-commerce, finance and healthcare.
* [https://www.mockfly.dev/ Mockfly] — API mocking and feature flag management for development.
* [https://mocko.dev/ Mocko.dev] — Proxies your API and lets you mock chosen endpoints in the cloud while inspecting traffic.
* [https://openapidesigner.com/ OpenAPI3 Designer] — Builds OpenAPI 3 definitions visually.
* [https://postman.com Postman] — The widely used API collaboration platform, covering design, testing and documentation.
* [https://requestbin.com RequestBin.com] — Creates an endpoint that captures and displays whatever HTTP requests are sent to it.

=== Webhooks, scheduling and workflows ===
* [https://anyhook.net AnyHook] — Inbound webhook relay: point a Stripe, GitHub or bot webhook at it and it stores each event for inspection or replay.
* [https://www.hook0.com/ Hook0] — Open-source webhooks-as-a-service, so your own product can offer webhooks to its users.
* [https://www.inngest.com Inngest] — Durable execution and event-driven workflows for TypeScript, Python and Go. Free Hobby plan.
* [https://posthook.io Posthook] — Schedules a webhook to fire at a future time, with retries and delivery tracking.
* [https://www.prefect.io/cloud/ PrefectCloud] — Orchestration for data pipelines. Five deployed workflows and 500 minutes a month.
* [https://www.svix.com/ Svix] — Webhook sending as a service. Up to 50,000 messages a month.

=== Web scraping and extraction ===
* [https://www.apify.com/ Apify] — Scraping and automation platform that turns any website into an API, with ready-made scrapers.
* [https://www.browse.ai Browse AI] — Extracts and monitors data on the web without code. 1,000 credits a month.
* [https://dataminer.io/ Data Miner] — Browser extension that extracts page data to CSV or Excel.
* [https://www.firecrawl.dev/ Firecrawl] — Crawls a site and returns clean Markdown or structured data, intended as input for language models.
* [https://microlink.io/ microlink.io] — Turns any URL into data: normalised metadata, link previews and screenshots.
* [https://scrapersproxy.com Scraper's Proxy] — HTTP proxy API for scraping without managing proxy rotation yourself.
* [https://scrapingant.com/ ScrapingAnt] — Headless Chrome scraping API with JavaScript rendering and rotating proxies.
* [https://serpapi.com/ SerpApi] — Scrapes search engine results and returns structured JSON for Google, YouTube, Bing and others.
* [https://simplescraper.io Simplescraper] — Point-and-click scraping with a webhook after each run. 100 cloud credits.
* [https://geekflare.com/api/ Geekflare API] — Scrapes pages to Markdown, takes screenshots, and runs TLS and DNS checks.
* [https://webscraping.ai WebScraping.AI] — Scraping API with built-in parsing, Chrome rendering and proxies. 2,000 calls free.
* [https://wrapapi.com/ wrapapi.com] — Turns any website into a parameterised API. 30,000 calls a month.
* [https://zenscrape.com/web-scraping-api Zenscrape] — Scraping API with headless browsers and residential IPs. 1,000 requests free.

=== Databases, JSON and SQL tools ===
* [https://www.dbdesigner.net/ DB Designer] — Cloud database schema design and modelling. Two models free.
* [https://comparejson.com Compare JSON] — Compares two JSON structures and shows the differences.
* [https://drawdb.app/ drawDB] — Open-source database diagram editor in the browser, no signup.
* [https://formatjsononline.com FormatJSONOnline.com] — Formats, validates, compares and minifies JSON in the browser.
* [https://jsontotable.org JSON to Table] — Converts JSON into an interactive table for viewing and editing.
* [https://jsongrid.com JSONGrid] — Visualises, edits and filters complex JSON in a table grid.
* [https://www.jsonswiss.com/ JSONSwiss] — JSON viewer, editor and validator with search and formatting.
* [https://pixe.la/ Pixela] — Stores a daily number by API and renders it as a heat map, in the style of a contribution graph.
* [https://www.sofodata.com/ Sofodata] — Turns an uploaded CSV into a secure REST API.
* [https://sqlable.com/ Sqlable] — Collection of SQL tools: formatter, validator and regex tester.

=== Integration and data movement ===
* [https://commercelayer.io Commerce Layer] — Composable commerce API for building and managing orders behind any front end.
* [https://www.coupler.io/ Coupler] — Syncs data between applications and builds live dashboards and reports from it.
* [https://cube.dev/ Cube] — Semantic layer that gives applications consistent access to data across several stores.
* [https://datafetcher.com Data Fetcher] — Connects Airtable to any API without code, with a Postman-like request interface.
* [https://www.dataimporter.io Dataimporter.io] — Connects, cleans and imports data into Salesforce. 20,000 records free.
* [https://cloud.invantive.com/ Invantive Cloud] — Access to more than 70 cloud platforms, including Exact Online, Twinfield and Visma, through one interface.
* [https://preset.io/ Preset Cloud] — Hosted Apache Superset for dashboards and exploration. Free for teams of up to five.
* [https://smartparse.io SmartParse] — Data migration and CSV-to-API platform.

=== API management and monitoring ===
* [https://loginllama.app LoginLlama] — Detects suspicious logins and notifies your users.
* [https://www.treblle.com Treblle] — API log aggregation, observability and governance.
* [https://trophy.so Trophy] — Gamification layer for consumer applications, with prebuilt APIs and open-source UI components.
* [https://zuplo.com/ Zuplo] — API management at the edge, with key authentication and rate limiting. Free tier.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Digital sovereignty]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

Free tier: Design and visual assets

2026-09-08T05:59:24Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: Design and visual assets ==
Design and prototyping tools, page builders, and libraries of icons, logos and templates.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Design and prototyping ===
* [https://boxy-svg.com BoxySVG] — Installable web application for drawing SVGs, exporting to SVG, PNG and JPEG.
* [https://canva.com Canva] — General-purpose online design tool for visual content. Substantial free tier.
* [https://excalidraw.com/ Excalidraw] — Hand-drawn-style diagramming in the browser, with local save and export. Open source.
* [https://www.figma.com figma.com] — Collaborative interface design tool. Free tier allows unlimited files and viewers, two editors and three projects.
* [https://joydemo.com JoyDemo] — Builds clickable demos of a site or application. Unlimited demos and views.
* [https://marvelapp.com/ marvelapp.com] — Design, prototyping and collaboration. Free plan covers one user and one project.
* [https://www.mindmup.com/ Mindmup.com] — Unlimited mind maps stored in the cloud.
* [https://www.mockplus.com/idoc Mockplus iDoc] — Design collaboration and developer handoff. Three users and five projects.
* [https://www.photopea.com photopea.com] — Advanced image editor in the browser with a Photoshop-like interface, opening PSD, XCF and Sketch files.
* [https://www.proto.io Proto.io] — Interactive UI prototypes without code. Free tier begins when the trial ends.
* [https://quant-ux.com/ Quant Ux] — Prototyping and design tool, completely free and open source.
* [https://smartmockups.com/ smartmockups.com] — Product mockup generator. 200 mockups free.
* [https://whimsical.com/ whimsical.com] — Collaborative flowcharts, wireframes, sticky notes and mind maps. Four boards free.
* [https://zeplin.io/ Zeplin] — Designer and developer handoff with assets and style guides. Free for one project.

=== Website and landing page builders ===
* [https://beste.co Beste] — Website builder assembled from shadcn/ui blocks. Free plan includes a custom domain.
* [https://flows.sh/ Flows] — Product onboarding and in-app guidance. Free up to 250 tracked users a month.
* [https://www.landen.co landen.co] — Generates and publishes landing pages without code. One site free.
* [https://www.plasmic.app/ Plasmic] — Visual page builder that integrates with your own codebase rather than replacing it.
* [https://teleporthq.io/ TeleportHQ] — Low-code front-end platform for building and publishing pages.
* [https://unicornplatform.com/ Unicorn Platform] — Landing page builder with hosting included. One site free.
* [https://updrafts.app Updrafts.app] — WYSIWYG builder for Tailwind-based designs. Free for non-commercial use.
* [https://webflow.com Webflow] — Established visual website builder with animation and hosting. Free for two projects.
* [https://webstudio.is/ Webstudio] — Open-source alternative to Webflow. Unlimited sites on their domain, five with custom domains.

=== Icons, logos and image assets ===
* [https://brandicons.dev BrandIcons] — Favicon API that finds an icon for a domain, including domains without one. 500,000 requests a month.
* [https://calendariconsgenerator.app/ Calendar Icons Generator] — Generates a year of calendar icons in one click.
* [https://lensdump.com/ lensdump.com] — Free cloud image hosting.
* [https://www.logo.dev Logo.dev] — Company logo API covering 44 million brands, called by URL. First 10,000 calls free.
* [https://svgicons.com/ SVGicons.com] — Search engine over 312,000 open-source SVG icons, with ready-made SVG, React, Vue, HTML and CSS output.

=== Templates and UI kits ===
* [https://codedthemes.com/ CodedThemes] — Admin dashboard templates and UI kits.
* [https://shadcnstudio.com/theme-editor Shadcn Studio] — Previews theme changes across shadcn components and layouts.
* [https://www.wrappixel.com/ WrapPixel] — Free and paid admin dashboard templates for Angular, React, Vue, Next and Nuxt.
* [https://themeselection.com/ Themeselection] — Free admin dashboard templates with a consistent modern style.
* [https://adminmart.com/ AdminMart] — Free and paid admin dashboard and website templates across the major front-end frameworks.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Digital sovereignty]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

Free tier: Data sources and reference APIs

2026-09-08T05:59:24Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: Data sources and reference APIs ==
APIs that return data rather than doing something to yours: location, reference tables, news, markets, weather and identity checks. Note how many near-identical IP geolocation services there are — the redundancy is a fair picture of that market.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Location and network data ===
* [https://www.bigdatacloud.com/ BigDataCloud] — IP geolocation with generous free limits, from 10,000 to unlimited calls a month depending on the endpoint.
* [https://db-ip.com/api/free DB-IP] — IP geolocation with a lite database released under CC-BY 4.0. 1,000 requests per IP per day.
* [https://freeipapi.com FreeIPAPI] — IP geolocation, free for commercial and non-commercial use.
* [https://geolocated.io Geolocated.io] — IP geolocation with servers on several continents. 2,000 requests a month.
* [https://ipwho.org/ IP Geolocation API by ipwho.org] — IP geolocation, 2,000 requests a day.
* [https://www.abstractapi.com/ip-geolocation-api IP Geolocation API] — IP geolocation from Abstract. 1,000 requests free.
* [https://ipgeolocation.io/ IP Geolocation] — IP geolocation with a permanent free plan of 1,000 requests a day.
* [https://ip-api.com ip-api] — IP geolocation with no key required, free for non-commercial use at 45 requests a minute.
* [https://ip.city IP.City] — IP geolocation, 100 requests a day.
* [https://www.ip2location.io/ IP2Location.io] — IP geolocation returning city, coordinates, ISP and ASN. Freemium.
* [https://proxmint.com/tools/ip-lookup Proxmint GeoIP] — IP to country, city and ASN as JSON, built on MaxMind GeoLite2. No key, CORS open.
* [https://ip2geo.dev ip2geo.dev] — IP geolocation returning city, country and time zone.
* [https://ipaddress.sh ipaddress.sh] — Returns your public IP address in a range of formats.
* [https://ipapi.is/ ipapi.is] — IP address API with hosting and proxy detection.
* [https://ipapi.co/ ipapi] — IP geolocation built on AWS.
* [https://ipbase.com ipbase.com] — IP geolocation with a permanent free plan of 150 requests a month.
* [https://ipinfo.io/ IPinfo] — IP address data with detail on ownership and network. Free up to 50,000 requests a month.
* [https://www.iplocate.io IPLocate] — IP geolocation with proxy, VPN and hosting detection. 1,000 requests a day.
* [https://iptrace.io IPTrace] — Deliberately simple IP geolocation API.
* [https://getjsonip.com JSON IP] — Returns the public IP address of whoever calls it. No registration.
* [https://ip.alstra.ca/ Multi-Exit IP Address Checker] — Checks your exit IP address across several nodes.
* [https://proxysentry.io/ ProxySentry] — Detects residential proxies and VPNs behind an IP address.
* [https://theipapi.com/ The IP API] — IP geolocation, 1,000 requests a day.
* [https://whatismyip.help What Is My IP] — Checks your public IPv4 and IPv6 address and the details of the request.

=== Reference and public data ===
* [https://www.abstractapi.com Abstract API] — API suite covering IP geolocation, phone number validation and email validation.
* [https://apiverve.com APIVerve] — Instant access to more than 120 small APIs under one key.
* [https://calendarific.com Calendarific] — Public holiday data for more than 200 countries.
* [https://www.canopyapi.co/ Canopy] — Amazon product, search and category data over GraphQL.
* [https://carapi.dev CarAPI.dev] — Automotive data including VIN decoding, stolen vehicle checks and valuations.
* [https://catchdoms.com CatchDoms] — Aggregates expired and dropping domain listings from 16 marketplaces, with SEO enrichment.
* [https://country-state-city.rebuscando.info/ Country-State-City Microservice API] — Countries, regions, states and cities as an API and a microservice.
* [https://disease.sh/ Disease.sh] — Covid-19 data for building public health dashboards and applications.
* [https://hsping.com HS Ping] — Harmonized System and tariff code lookup across several countries.
* [https://www.nasdisks.com/data/ NASdisks Drive Data API] — Specifications for NAS hard drives and SSDs, including CMR and SMR classification. No key, CORS enabled.
* [https://wolfram.com/language/ wolfram.com] — Knowledge-based computation in the cloud, exposing Wolfram's curated data and algorithms.
* [https://zipcodebase.com Zipcodebase] — Worldwide postal code data. 5,000 requests a month.
* [https://www.zip-codes.com/api/ Zip-Codes] — US and Canadian postal codes with address validation, radius search and census data.
* [https://zipcodestack.com Zipcodestack] — Postal code lookup and validation. 10,000 requests a month.

=== News, search and social data ===
* [https://brave.com/search/api/ Brave Search API] — Independent web, news, image and video search API, usable as context for retrieval-augmented generation.
* [https://killbait.com/api/doc KillBait API] — Submits a URL for content evaluation and flags likely clickbait — a rare example of an API aimed at content quality.
* [https://newsapi.org News API] — Searches news on the web and returns JSON. 100 queries a day free for developers.
* [https://www.xfluxapi.com XFlux] — Read API for X/Twitter profiles, searches and timelines, plus account monitoring.

=== Money, markets and tax ===
* [https://alphai.io/developers AlphaAI] — Financial news API with per-ticker impact analysis, also available over MCP.
* [https://currencyscoop.com CurrencyScoop] — Real-time currency data for financial applications. 5,000 calls a month.
* [https://earningsfeed.com/api Earnings Feed] — SEC filings, insider trades and institutional holdings in real time.
* [https://financialdata.net/ Financial Data] — Stock market and financial data. 300 requests a day.
* [https://finlight.me finlight] — Real-time financial news with ticker and ISIN resolution and sentiment tagging.
* [https://www.marketdata.app Market Data API] — Real-time and historical data for stocks, options, mutual funds and indices.
* [https://unirateapi.com UniRateAPI] — Exchange rates for more than 590 currencies and cryptocurrencies. Unlimited calls on the free plan.
* [https://vatcheckapi.com vatcheckapi.com] — VAT number validation. 150 checks a month.
* [https://vatnode.dev vatnode] — EU VAT number validation against VIES with national registry fallback.

=== Weather ===
* [https://www.tomorrow.io/weather-api/ Tomorrow.io Weather API] — Weather forecasting API with a free plan.
* [https://weatherxu.com/ WeatherXu] — Global weather: current conditions, hourly and daily forecasts, and alerts.

=== Verification and fraud checks ===
* [https://www.fraudlabspro.com FraudLabs Pro] — Screens an order for credit card fraud through a REST API.
* [https://www.layercall.com LayerCall] — Fraud and trust scoring for an IP, email, phone, domain or device in one call.
* [https://numlookupapi.com numlookupapi.com] — Phone number validation. 100 requests a month.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Training data]], [[Embeddings]], [[Machine learning]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

Free tier: AI tools and services

2026-09-08T05:59:23Z

Luc: Regroup directory by use; descriptions rewritten in house style

== Free tier: AI tools and services ==
Free tiers for calling models, and for the less visible work around them: evaluating output, tracing what a model actually did, and running notebooks. The evaluation and observability tools are the larger share, which reflects where the practical difficulty sits.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Running and calling models ===
* [https://gonkabroker.com/ Gonka Broker] — OpenAI-compatible API serving open-source models over a decentralised GPU network.
* [https://lumenfall.ai/ Lumenfall.ai] — Unified API for several image generation models, using the OpenAI request format.
* [https://mediaworkbench.ai Mediaworkbench.ai] — Access to Azure OpenAI, DeepSeek and Gemini models. 100,000 words free.
* [https://openrouter.ai/models?q=free OpenRouter] — Single API in front of many models, including free access to DeepSeek R1 and V3, Llama and Moonshot.
* [https://pollinations.ai/ Pollinations.AI] — Image generation with a free API, no signup and no key required.
* [https://portkey.ai/ Portkey] — Gateway and control panel for generative AI applications, combining routing across providers with logging. 10,000 requests a month.
* [https://huggingface.co huggingface.co] — Hosts and serves models for PyTorch, TensorFlow and JAX, and holds the largest public collection of open models and datasets. Free up to 30,000 input characters.

=== Evaluating and observing models ===
* [https://arize.com Arize AX] — Platform for evaluating and observing AI applications and agents. Free tier includes 25,000 spans a month.
* [https://www.braintrustdata.com/ Braintrust] — Evaluation, prompt playground and dataset management for generative AI. 1,000 private evaluation rows a week.
* [https://www.comet.com/site/products/opik/ Comet Opik] — Open-source platform for evaluating and shipping LLM applications across development and production.
* [https://futureagi.com Future AGI] — Open-source platform for evaluating, tracing and improving LLM and agent applications.
* [https://keywordsai.co Keywords AI] — Monitoring across 200-plus models behind one API format. 10,000 requests free.
* [https://langfuse.com/ Langfuse] — Open-source LLM engineering platform for debugging, analysing and iterating on prompts and traces.
* [https://langwatch.ai LangWatch] — Platform for measuring and monitoring the reliability of LLM applications.
* [https://latitude.so Latitude] — Open-source (MIT) observability and evaluation for AI applications.
* [https://www.getmaxim.ai Maxim] — Evaluation and observability with agent simulation and a prompt playground.
* [https://telemetry.dev telemetry.dev] — Observability for AI applications built on OpenTelemetry, tracing model calls and tool steps.
* [https://arize.com/ Arize AI] — Machine learning observability for monitoring models in production and diagnosing drift and data quality problems.
* [https://www.comet.com/site/ CometML] — MLOps platform for experiment tracking, a model registry and production monitoring.
* [https://getmaxim.ai/ Maxim AI] — Simulates, evaluates and observes AI agents end to end.
* [https://wandb.ai Weights & Biases] — MLOps platform for experiment tracking, dataset versioning and model management. Free for personal use.

=== Applied AI tools ===
* [https://voice-clone.org/tools/audio-enhancer Audio Enhancer] — Removes noise and echo from audio recordings. Unlimited one-click enhancements, no login, supports MP3, WAV and FLAC.
* [https://askclair.ai/ Clair] — Clinical AI reference suite — literature search, clinical summaries, drug interactions, ICD-10 codes. Free for students.
* [https://ReportGPT.app ReportGPT] — Writing assistant that is free to use if you supply your own model API key.
* [https://transcript.lol/ Transcript LOL] — Transcribes audio and video, then summarises it with a language model.
* [https://zenable.io Zenable] — Checks and corrects output from coding assistants such as Cursor, Windsurf and Copilot against your own standards.
* [https://composio.dev/ Composio] — Integration layer connecting AI agents and LLMs to over 200 external tools.
* [https://tavily.com/ Tavily AI] — Search API built for AI agents and research tasks, returning results ready to feed to a model.
* [https://whatthediff.ai What The Diff] — AI code review that summarises what a pull request actually changes. 25,000 tokens a month.

=== Notebooks and data science environments ===
* [https://colab.research.google.com Colaboratory] — Hosted Python notebooks with free GPU access. The standard free environment for trying out models.
* [https://datalore.jetbrains.com Datalore] — Python notebooks from JetBrains with 10 GB of storage and 120 hours of runtime a month.
* [https://deepnote.com Deepnote] — Data science notebook with real-time collaboration, compatible with Jupyter.
* [https://hex.tech/ Hex] — Collaborative platform for notebooks, data applications and shared analysis.

=== Currency ===
Compiled September 2026. Free tiers change frequently and nothing here has been independently verified — check the provider before relying on any allowance described above. Entries cover services with a standing free tier, not free trials.

=== See also ===
[[Generative AI]], [[Large language model (LLM)|Large language model]], [[Open-weight model]], [[Inference]], [[Benchmark (AI evaluation)|Benchmark]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

ALT-TEXT Wiki - Main Page

2026-09-07T18:21:06Z

Luc: Free Tier Services Directory: import from free-for.dev snapshot 2026-09-07

The '''ALT-TEXT Wiki''' is a working reference on AI literacy, digital sovereignty, and ethical technology, compiled and maintained by ALT-TEXT.

== Glossaries ==

* [[AI Terminology Glossary]] – Key concepts in artificial intelligence: how models are built and trained, generative AI and large language models, the history of the field, deployment risks, and the policy vocabulary needed to follow AI regulation.
* [[AI People Glossary]] – The people who shaped artificial intelligence, from the mathematical precursors and the founders of the field to today's industry leaders and its critics.
* [[Media and Information Literacy Glossary]] – Terms in media and information literacy, freedom of expression, platform governance, and critical thinking.

== Directories ==

* [[Free Tier Services Directory]] – Hosted services with a genuine free tier, organised by subject: generative AI, APIs and machine learning, email, hosting, storage, analytics, forms, design and privacy tooling. A snapshot of the relevant sections of free-for.dev.

== Browse ==

* [[:Category:Free Tier Services]] – The free tier directory pages
* [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence]] – Every AI terminology entry
* [[:Category:People]] – Biographical entries
* [[:Category:Glossary]] – All glossary content
* [[Special:AllPages]] – Every page on this wiki
* [[Special:Categories]] – Full category list

Free Tier Services Directory

2026-09-07T18:21:06Z

Luc: Free Tier Services Directory: import from free-for.dev snapshot 2026-09-07

== Free Tier Services Directory ==
A directory of hosted software and infrastructure services that offer a genuine free tier, organised by what they do. It is meant for small organisations, independent projects and anyone building without a budget, for whom knowing which tools are free to start on is a practical part of not being locked to a single large vendor.

This is a curated subset of [https://free-for.dev/ free-for.dev], covering the ten sections most relevant to ALT-TEXT's work: 437 services in total, snapshotted on 7 September 2026.

=== Sections ===
* [[Free tier: Generative AI]] — 21 services. Model APIs, image and audio generation, inference platforms.
* [[Free tier: APIs, data and machine learning]] — 150 services. Public and freemium APIs, datasets, speech, vision and model hosting.
* [[Free tier: Email services]] — 73 services. Transactional and bulk sending, forwarding, inbox testing, validation.
* [[Free tier: Storage and media processing]] — 50 services. Object storage, file delivery, image, audio and video processing.
* [[Free tier: Forms and surveys]] — 34 services. Form builders and back-ends that accept submissions without a server.
* [[Free tier: Analytics and statistics]] — 34 services. Web and product analytics, including privacy-preserving alternatives.
* [[Free tier: Design and user interface tools]] — 33 services. Design tools, icons, illustrations, colour and UI resources.
* [[Free tier: Web hosting]] — 25 services. Static and application hosting.
* [[Free tier: Content management systems]] — 12 services. Hosted and headless content management.
* [[Free tier: Privacy management]] — 5 services. Consent management, cookie banners, privacy policy tooling.

=== What is and is not listed ===
The upstream list admits only as-a-service offerings with a real free tier. Free trials do not qualify, nor does self-hosted software, and a time-limited free tier must run for at least a year. Services that restrict TLS to paid plans are excluded on security grounds.

The sections not mirrored here cover ground further from ALT-TEXT's remit, including CI and CD, artifact repositories, log management, package build systems and remote desktop tools. The [https://free-for.dev/ full list] has 57 sections and about 1,300 entries.

=== Source, currency and attribution ===
All entries and their descriptions come from [https://free-for.dev/ free-for.dev], a list maintained by R.I. Pienaar and more than 1,600 contributors at [https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev ripienaar/free-for-dev]. This directory reproduces their work with light formatting changes only; it adds no independent assessment.

Free tiers change constantly, and nothing here has been verified against the providers. Treat this as a starting point and check the linked service before relying on any allowance. For the current state of the list, go to the source.

=== See also ===
[[Digital sovereignty]], [[Open-weight model]], [[AI Terminology Glossary]]

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]
[[Category:Digital Sovereignty]]

Category:Free Tier Services

2026-09-07T18:21:05Z

Luc: Free Tier Services Directory: import from free-for.dev snapshot 2026-09-07

== Free tier services ==

Pages in this category make up the [[Free Tier Services Directory]]: a subject-organised directory of hosted services that offer a genuine free tier, drawn from the community-maintained list at [https://free-for.dev/ free-for.dev].

Each page covers one subject area — generative AI, APIs and machine learning, email, hosting, analytics, privacy tooling and so on — and lists the services in it with the free allowance each one advertises. These are directory pages rather than glossary entries: they describe what is available to use, not what the terms mean. For the concepts, see the [[AI Terminology Glossary]].

Entries are a snapshot and are not independently verified. Free tiers change often; check the linked provider before relying on any of it.

[[Category:Digital Sovereignty]]

Free tier: Forms and surveys

2026-09-07T18:21:03Z

Luc: Free Tier Services Directory: import from free-for.dev snapshot 2026-09-07

== Free tier: Forms and surveys ==
Hosted form builders, survey tools and form back-ends that accept submissions without a server of your own.

Part of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

=== Services ===
* [https://fabform.io/ FabForm] — Form backend platform for intelligent developers. The free plan allows 250 form submissions per month. Friendly modern GUI. Integrates with Google Sheets, Airtable, Slack, Email, and others.
* [https://feathery.io Feathery] — Powerful, developer-friendly form builder. Build signup & login, user onboarding, payment flows, complex financial applications, and more. The free plan allows up to 250 submissions/month and five active forms.
* [https://feedback.fish/ feedback.fish] — Free plan allows collecting 25 total feedback submissions. Easy to integrate with React and Vue components provided.
* [https://fluidforms.ai/ FluidForms] — Form builder and backend with AI-driven logic. Free plan includes 100 responses per month, unlimited forms (including AI-created forms), webhooks, and embedding.
* [https://form.taxi/ Form.taxi] — Endpoint for HTML forms submissions. With notifications, spam blockers, and GDPR-compliant data processing. Free plan for basic usage.
* [https://formboost.app Formboost.app] — Developer-first form backend with simple HTTP endpoints, 500 free submissions/month, spam protection, email notifications, and built-in Slack, Discord & Telegram integrations. No backend required.
* [https://formcarry.com Formcarry.com] — HTTP POST Form endpoint, Free plan allows 100 monthly submissions.
* [https://formester.com Formester.com] — Share and embed unique-looking forms on your website-no limits on the number of forms created or features restricted by the plan. Get up to 100 submissions every month for free.
* [https://forminit.com/ Forminit] — Headless form backend for developers. The free plan allows 100 form submissions per month including file uploads, server-side field validation, email notifications, spam protection and Zapier.
* [https://www.formkeep.com/ FormKeep.com] — Unlimited forms with 50 monthly submissions, spam protection, email notification, and a drag-and-drop designer that can export HTML. Additional features include custom field rules, teams, and integrations to Google Sheets, Slack, ActiveCampaign, and Zapier.
* [https://formplume.com Form Plume] — Form Plume is a form backend for HTML and JavaScript forms. One endpoint gets you spam filtering, email notifications, file uploads, webhooks, and a clean inbox. Free for 500 submissions/mo.
* [https://formlets.com/ formlets.com] — Online forms, unlimited single page forms/month, 100 submissions/month, email notifications.
* [https://forms.app/ forms.app] — Create online forms with powerful features like conditional logic, automatic score calculator, and AI. Collect up to 100 responses with a free plan, embed your forms on a website, or use them with a link.
* [https://formspark.io/ formspark.io] — Form to Email service, free plan allows unlimited forms, 250 submissions per month, support by Customer assistance team.
* [https://formspree.io/ Formspree.io] — Send email using an HTTP POST request. The free tier limits to 50 submissions per form per month.
* [https://formsubmit.co/ Formsubmit.co] — Easy form endpoints for your HTML forms. Free Forever. No registration is required.
* [https://formware.io/ Formware.io] — Create fully-responsive and captivating forms in seconds, without knowing how to code, and collect unlimited responses for free!
* [https://herotofu.com/ HeroTofu.com] — Forms backend with bot detection and encrypted archive. Forward submissions via UI to email, Slack, or Zapier. Use your own front end. No server code is required. The free plan gives unlimited forms and 100 submissions per month.
* [https://heyform.net/ HeyForm.net] — Drag and drop online form builder. The free tier lets you create unlimited forms and collect unlimited submissions. Comes with pre-built templates, anti-spam, and 100MB file storage.
* [https://jotform.com/ Jotform.com] — Create online forms for free, collect submissions, accept payments, automate workflows, and get documents signed with built-in e-signatures. Free plan includes 5 forms, 100 monthly submissions, 10 e-sign documents, 10 payment submissions, and more.
* [https://kwes.io/ Kwes.io] — Feature rich form endpoint. Works great with static sites. The free plan includes up to 1 website with up to 50 monthly submissions.
* [https://www.makeform.ai/ Makeform] — Chat-based form builder. The free form builder with unlimited forms and submissions. 99% of the features are free, includes adding logos, conditional logic, file uploads, payments, integrations, and webhooks. Pro Plan ($19/month) enables remove the Makeform Branding, custom domains and team features. Business plan ($59/month) enables RBAC, email verification and single sign on (SSO).
* [https://pageclip.co/ Pageclip] — The free plan allows one site, one form, and 1,000 monthly submissions.
* [https://simplepdf.eu/embed SimplePDF.eu] — Embed a PDF editor on your website and turn any PDF into a fillable form. The free plan allows unlimited PDFs with three submissions per PDF.
* [https://smartforms.dev/ smartforms.dev] — Powerful and easy form backend for your website, forever free plan allows 50 submissions per month, 250MB file storage, Zapier integration, CSV/JSON export, custom redirect, custom response page, Telegram & Slack bot, single email notifications.
* [https://www.staticforms.xyz/ staticforms.xyz] — Integrate HTML forms easily without any server-side code for free. After the user submits the form, an email with the form content will be sent to your registered address.
* [https://survicate.com/ Survicate] — Pull feedback from all sources and send follow-up surveys with one tool. Automatically analyze feedback and extract insights with AI. Free email, website, in-product or mobile surveys, AI survey creator, and 25 monthly responses.
* [https://tally.so/ Tally.so] — 99% of all the features are free. The free tier lets you have: unlimited forms, unlimited submissions, email notifications, form logic, collect payments, file upload, custom thank you page, and many more.
* [https://www.typeform.com/ Typeform.com] — Include beautifully designed forms on websites. The free plan allows only ten fields per form and 100 monthly responses.
* [https://vidhook.io/ Vidhook] — Collect feedback using delightful surveys with high response rates. Free plan includes 1 active survey, 25 responses per survey and customizable templates.
* [https://waiverstevie.com WaiverStevie.com] — Electronic Signature platform with a REST API. You can receive notifications with webhooks. Free plan watermarks signed documents but allow unlimited envelopes + signatures.
* [https://web3forms.com Web3Forms] — Contact forms for Static & JAMStack Websites without writing backend code. The free plan allows Unlimited Forms, Unlimited Domains & 250 Submissions per month.
* [https://www.wufoo.com/ Wufoo] — Quick forms to use on websites. The free plan has a limit of 100 submissions each month.
* [https://FormNX.com/ FormNX] — Create unlimited forms get unlimited submissions free of cost. Use professionally created 1000+ form templates or create forms from scratch. Get features like email notifications, form logic, collect payments, file upload, custom thank you page, and many more.

=== Source and currency ===
This page is a snapshot of the "Forms" section of [https://free-for.dev/ free-for.dev], a community-maintained list of services offering free developer tiers, taken on 7 September 2026. The list is the work of more than 1,600 contributors and is maintained at [https://github.com/ripienaar/free-for-dev ripienaar/free-for-dev].

Free tiers change frequently, and entries here are not independently verified. Check the linked service and the upstream list before relying on any allowance described below. Only as-a-service offerings with a genuine free tier are included upstream; free trials and self-hosted software are not.

=== See also ===
[[Data annotation]], [[Digital sovereignty]], and the other sections of the [[Free Tier Services Directory]].

[[Category:Free Tier Services]]

AI People Glossary

2026-09-07T18:04:07Z

Luc: Add Ray Kurzweil to critics, ethics, policy and alignment voices

== AI People Glossary ==
Biographical entries for people who shaped artificial intelligence: the mathematical precursors, the founders of the field, the deep learning pioneers, the architects of the hardware and robots it runs on, today's industry leaders, and the researchers and forecasters who argue over AI's trajectory, risks and social costs.

Compiled by ALT-TEXT for wiki.alt-text.eu. Companion to the [[AI Terminology Glossary]]; entries below cross-link to the relevant concept pages.

=== Precursors: the mathematical roots ===
* [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]]
* [[Ada Lovelace|Ada Lovelace]]
* [[Charles Babbage|Charles Babbage]]
* [[George Boole|George Boole]]
* [[Thomas Bayes|Thomas Bayes]]
* [[Andrei Markov|Andrei Markov]]
* [[Ronald Fisher|Ronald Fisher]]
* [[Kurt Gödel|Kurt Gödel]]
* [[Alonzo Church|Alonzo Church]]
* [[Emil Post|Emil Post]]
* [[Warren McCulloch|Warren McCulloch]]
* [[Walter Pitts|Walter Pitts]]
* [[Donald Hebb|Donald Hebb]]
* [[Claude Shannon|Claude Shannon]]
* [[Norbert Wiener|Norbert Wiener]]
* [[Hedy Lamarr|Hedy Lamarr]]
* [[Grace Hopper|Grace Hopper]]

=== Founders: the symbolic and early AI era ===
* [[Alan Turing|Alan Turing]]
* [[John von Neumann|John von Neumann]]
* [[John McCarthy|John McCarthy]]
* [[Marvin Minsky|Marvin Minsky]]
* [[Arthur Samuel|Arthur Samuel]]
* [[Ray Solomonoff|Ray Solomonoff]]
* [[Oliver Selfridge|Oliver Selfridge]]
* [[J.C.R. Licklider|J.C.R. Licklider]]
* [[Frank Rosenblatt|Frank Rosenblatt]]
* [[Seymour Papert|Seymour Papert]]
* [[Herbert Simon|Herbert Simon]]
* [[Allen Newell|Allen Newell]]
* [[Nils Nilsson|Nils Nilsson]]
* [[Edward Feigenbaum|Edward Feigenbaum]]
* [[Lotfi Zadeh|Lotfi Zadeh]]
* [[Karen Sparck Jones|Karen Spärck Jones]]
* [[Hubert Dreyfus|Hubert Dreyfus]]

=== Deep learning and algorithmic pioneers ===
* [[Geoffrey Hinton|Geoffrey Hinton]]
* [[Yann LeCun|Yann LeCun]]
* [[Yoshua Bengio|Yoshua Bengio]]
* [[Jurgen Schmidhuber|Jürgen Schmidhuber]]
* [[Sepp Hochreiter|Sepp Hochreiter]]
* [[Fei-Fei Li|Fei-Fei Li]]
* [[Alex Krizhevsky|Alex Krizhevsky]]
* [[Andrej Karpathy|Andrej Karpathy]]
* [[Regina Barzilay|Regina Barzilay]]
* [[Ian Goodfellow|Ian Goodfellow]]
* [[Diederik Kingma|Diederik Kingma]]
* [[Max Welling|Max Welling]]
* [[Kaiming He|Kaiming He]]
* [[Dzmitry Bahdanau|Dzmitry Bahdanau]]
* [[Kyunghyun Cho|Kyunghyun Cho]]
* [[Jascha Sohl-Dickstein|Jascha Sohl-Dickstein]]
* [[Jonathan Ho|Jonathan Ho]]
* The eight co-authors of the 2017 paper "Attention Is All You Need", which introduced the [[Transformer (AI architecture)|Transformer]]:
** [[Ashish Vaswani|Ashish Vaswani]]
** [[Noam Shazeer|Noam Shazeer]]
** [[Niki Parmar|Niki Parmar]]
** [[Jakob Uszkoreit|Jakob Uszkoreit]]
** [[Llion Jones|Llion Jones]]
** [[Aidan Gomez|Aidan Gomez]]
** [[Łukasz Kaiser|Łukasz Kaiser]]
** [[Illia Polosukhin|Illia Polosukhin]]

=== Systems, hardware and robotics ===
* [[Jensen Huang|Jensen Huang]]
* [[Jim Keller|Jim Keller]]
* [[David Patterson|David Patterson]]
* [[Marc Raibert|Marc Raibert]]
* [[Rodney Brooks|Rodney Brooks]]

=== Contemporary research and industry leaders ===
* [[Ilya Sutskever|Ilya Sutskever]]
* [[Demis Hassabis|Demis Hassabis]]
* [[Mustafa Suleyman|Mustafa Suleyman]]
* [[Andrew Ng|Andrew Ng]]
* [[Dario Amodei|Dario Amodei]]
* [[Daniela Amodei|Daniela Amodei]]
* [[Mira Murati|Mira Murati]]
* [[Sam Altman|Sam Altman]]
* [[Daphne Koller|Daphne Koller]]
* [[Percy Liang|Percy Liang]]
* [[Yejin Choi|Yejin Choi]]
* [[Noam Brown|Noam Brown]]
* [[Tri Dao|Tri Dao]]
* [[Arthur Mensch|Arthur Mensch]]
* [[Clément Delangue|Clément Delangue]]

=== Critics, ethics, policy and alignment voices ===
* [[Emily M. Bender|Emily M. Bender]]
* [[Timnit Gebru|Timnit Gebru]]
* [[Margaret Mitchell|Margaret Mitchell]]
* [[Stuart Russell|Stuart Russell]]
* [[Kate Crawford|Kate Crawford]]
* [[Melanie Mitchell|Melanie Mitchell]]
* [[Joy Buolamwini|Joy Buolamwini]]
* [[Cynthia Dwork|Cynthia Dwork]]
* [[Safiya Umoja Noble|Safiya Umoja Noble]]
* [[Ruha Benjamin|Ruha Benjamin]]
* [[Latanya Sweeney|Latanya Sweeney]]
* [[Cynthia Rudin|Cynthia Rudin]]
* [[Shoshana Zuboff|Shoshana Zuboff]]
* [[Abeba Birhane|Abeba Birhane]]
* [[Meredith Whittaker|Meredith Whittaker]]
* [[Ray Kurzweil|Ray Kurzweil]]
* [[Nick Bostrom|Nick Bostrom]]
* [[Eliezer Yudkowsky|Eliezer Yudkowsky]]
* [[Paul Christiano|Paul Christiano]]
* [[Gary Marcus|Gary Marcus]]
* [[Max Tegmark|Max Tegmark]]

[[Category:Glossary]]
[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

Raymond Kurzweil

2026-09-07T18:04:07Z

Luc: Redirect to Ray Kurzweil

#REDIRECT [[Ray Kurzweil]]

Ray Kurzweil

2026-09-07T18:04:06Z

Luc: Add Ray Kurzweil

== Ray Kurzweil ==
An American inventor and futurist whose engineering and whose forecasting are received quite differently. In the 1970s he built the first omni-font optical character recognition system and turned it into the Kurzweil Reading Machine, which read printed text aloud to blind users; he went on to found companies in music synthesis and in large-vocabulary speech recognition, all of it applied pattern recognition of the kind AI later industrialised. He is better known for the Law of Accelerating Returns, the claim that information technologies improve exponentially rather than linearly, and for the predictions he draws from it in ''The Singularity Is Near'' (2005) and ''The Singularity Is Nearer'' (2024): human-level machine intelligence around 2029, and a merger of human and machine intelligence around 2045. He has been a director of engineering at Google since 2012. Critics object that extrapolating performance curves is not a theory of intelligence, and that he grades his own past predictions generously, but the optimistic trajectory he set out is the one much of the current risk debate is arguing against. (See also: [[Artificial general intelligence (AGI)|AGI]], [[Scaling laws]], [[Nick Bostrom]], [[Gary Marcus]])

[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]
[[Category:AI Ethics]]

Category:People

2026-09-07T17:41:05Z

Luc: Mention hardware and robotics entries

== People in AI ==

Biographical entries for figures who shaped artificial intelligence, from the mathematical precursors of computing through the founders of the field, the deep learning pioneers, the hardware and robotics architects, contemporary industry leaders, and the researchers who study AI's risks and social costs.

Compiled by ALT-TEXT for wiki.alt-text.eu. See [[AI People Glossary]] for the full list, organised by era. Companion to the [[AI Terminology Glossary]]: most entries here link out to the relevant concept pages, and vice versa.

[[Category:Glossary]]

AI People Glossary

2026-09-07T17:41:05Z

Luc: Add 52 people: precursors, early AI founders, deep learning and Transformer authors, hardware and robotics, contemporary researchers, ethics and alignment voices

== AI People Glossary ==
Biographical entries for people who shaped artificial intelligence: the mathematical precursors, the founders of the field, the deep learning pioneers, the architects of the hardware and robots it runs on, today's industry leaders, and the researchers who study AI's risks and social costs.

Compiled by ALT-TEXT for wiki.alt-text.eu. Companion to the [[AI Terminology Glossary]]; entries below cross-link to the relevant concept pages.

=== Precursors: the mathematical roots ===
* [[Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz|Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz]]
* [[Ada Lovelace|Ada Lovelace]]
* [[Charles Babbage|Charles Babbage]]
* [[George Boole|George Boole]]
* [[Thomas Bayes|Thomas Bayes]]
* [[Andrei Markov|Andrei Markov]]
* [[Ronald Fisher|Ronald Fisher]]
* [[Kurt Gödel|Kurt Gödel]]
* [[Alonzo Church|Alonzo Church]]
* [[Emil Post|Emil Post]]
* [[Warren McCulloch|Warren McCulloch]]
* [[Walter Pitts|Walter Pitts]]
* [[Donald Hebb|Donald Hebb]]
* [[Claude Shannon|Claude Shannon]]
* [[Norbert Wiener|Norbert Wiener]]
* [[Hedy Lamarr|Hedy Lamarr]]
* [[Grace Hopper|Grace Hopper]]

=== Founders: the symbolic and early AI era ===
* [[Alan Turing|Alan Turing]]
* [[John von Neumann|John von Neumann]]
* [[John McCarthy|John McCarthy]]
* [[Marvin Minsky|Marvin Minsky]]
* [[Arthur Samuel|Arthur Samuel]]
* [[Ray Solomonoff|Ray Solomonoff]]
* [[Oliver Selfridge|Oliver Selfridge]]
* [[J.C.R. Licklider|J.C.R. Licklider]]
* [[Frank Rosenblatt|Frank Rosenblatt]]
* [[Seymour Papert|Seymour Papert]]
* [[Herbert Simon|Herbert Simon]]
* [[Allen Newell|Allen Newell]]
* [[Nils Nilsson|Nils Nilsson]]
* [[Edward Feigenbaum|Edward Feigenbaum]]
* [[Lotfi Zadeh|Lotfi Zadeh]]
* [[Karen Sparck Jones|Karen Spärck Jones]]
* [[Hubert Dreyfus|Hubert Dreyfus]]

=== Deep learning and algorithmic pioneers ===
* [[Geoffrey Hinton|Geoffrey Hinton]]
* [[Yann LeCun|Yann LeCun]]
* [[Yoshua Bengio|Yoshua Bengio]]
* [[Jurgen Schmidhuber|Jürgen Schmidhuber]]
* [[Sepp Hochreiter|Sepp Hochreiter]]
* [[Fei-Fei Li|Fei-Fei Li]]
* [[Alex Krizhevsky|Alex Krizhevsky]]
* [[Andrej Karpathy|Andrej Karpathy]]
* [[Regina Barzilay|Regina Barzilay]]
* [[Ian Goodfellow|Ian Goodfellow]]
* [[Diederik Kingma|Diederik Kingma]]
* [[Max Welling|Max Welling]]
* [[Kaiming He|Kaiming He]]
* [[Dzmitry Bahdanau|Dzmitry Bahdanau]]
* [[Kyunghyun Cho|Kyunghyun Cho]]
* [[Jascha Sohl-Dickstein|Jascha Sohl-Dickstein]]
* [[Jonathan Ho|Jonathan Ho]]
* The eight co-authors of the 2017 paper "Attention Is All You Need", which introduced the [[Transformer (AI architecture)|Transformer]]:
** [[Ashish Vaswani|Ashish Vaswani]]
** [[Noam Shazeer|Noam Shazeer]]
** [[Niki Parmar|Niki Parmar]]
** [[Jakob Uszkoreit|Jakob Uszkoreit]]
** [[Llion Jones|Llion Jones]]
** [[Aidan Gomez|Aidan Gomez]]
** [[Łukasz Kaiser|Łukasz Kaiser]]
** [[Illia Polosukhin|Illia Polosukhin]]

=== Systems, hardware and robotics ===
* [[Jensen Huang|Jensen Huang]]
* [[Jim Keller|Jim Keller]]
* [[David Patterson|David Patterson]]
* [[Marc Raibert|Marc Raibert]]
* [[Rodney Brooks|Rodney Brooks]]

=== Contemporary research and industry leaders ===
* [[Ilya Sutskever|Ilya Sutskever]]
* [[Demis Hassabis|Demis Hassabis]]
* [[Mustafa Suleyman|Mustafa Suleyman]]
* [[Andrew Ng|Andrew Ng]]
* [[Dario Amodei|Dario Amodei]]
* [[Daniela Amodei|Daniela Amodei]]
* [[Mira Murati|Mira Murati]]
* [[Sam Altman|Sam Altman]]
* [[Daphne Koller|Daphne Koller]]
* [[Percy Liang|Percy Liang]]
* [[Yejin Choi|Yejin Choi]]
* [[Noam Brown|Noam Brown]]
* [[Tri Dao|Tri Dao]]
* [[Arthur Mensch|Arthur Mensch]]
* [[Clément Delangue|Clément Delangue]]

=== Critics, ethics, policy and alignment voices ===
* [[Emily M. Bender|Emily M. Bender]]
* [[Timnit Gebru|Timnit Gebru]]
* [[Margaret Mitchell|Margaret Mitchell]]
* [[Stuart Russell|Stuart Russell]]
* [[Kate Crawford|Kate Crawford]]
* [[Melanie Mitchell|Melanie Mitchell]]
* [[Joy Buolamwini|Joy Buolamwini]]
* [[Cynthia Dwork|Cynthia Dwork]]
* [[Safiya Umoja Noble|Safiya Umoja Noble]]
* [[Ruha Benjamin|Ruha Benjamin]]
* [[Latanya Sweeney|Latanya Sweeney]]
* [[Cynthia Rudin|Cynthia Rudin]]
* [[Shoshana Zuboff|Shoshana Zuboff]]
* [[Abeba Birhane|Abeba Birhane]]
* [[Meredith Whittaker|Meredith Whittaker]]
* [[Nick Bostrom|Nick Bostrom]]
* [[Eliezer Yudkowsky|Eliezer Yudkowsky]]
* [[Paul Christiano|Paul Christiano]]
* [[Gary Marcus|Gary Marcus]]
* [[Max Tegmark|Max Tegmark]]

[[Category:Glossary]]
[[Category:People]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

AI Terminology Glossary

2026-09-07T11:34:14Z

Luc: Fix link to Media and Information Literacy Glossary

== AI Terminology Glossary ==
A working glossary of key artificial intelligence terms, covering how AI models are built and trained, generative AI and large language models, the history of the field, deployment risks, and the policy and ethics vocabulary needed to follow AI regulation and public debate.

Compiled by ALT-TEXT for wiki.alt-text.eu, as a companion to the [[Media and Information Literacy Glossary|Media & Information Literacy Glossary]].

=== Foundations: how AI models are built and trained ===
* [[Artificial intelligence (AI)|Artificial intelligence (AI)]]
* [[Machine learning|Machine learning]]
* [[Deep learning|Deep learning]]
* [[Neural network|Neural network]]
* [[Algorithm|Algorithm]]
* [[Foundation model|Foundation model]]
* [[Transformer (AI architecture)|Transformer (AI architecture)]]
* [[Tokenisation|Tokenisation]]
* [[Parameters (AI model)|Parameters (AI model)]]
* [[Inference|Inference]]
* [[Data ingestion|Data ingestion]]
* [[Training data|Training data]]
* [[Gradient descent|Gradient descent]]
* [[Backpropagation|Backpropagation]]
* [[Loss function|Loss function]]
* [[Epoch|Epoch]]
* [[Overfitting|Overfitting]]
* [[Knowledge distillation|Knowledge distillation]]
* [[Quantisation|Quantisation]]
* [[Embeddings|Embeddings]]
* [[Scaling laws|Scaling laws]]
* [[Synthetic data|Synthetic data]]
* [[Ontology (AI and knowledge representation)|Ontology (AI and knowledge representation)]]

=== Generative AI and large language models ===
* [[Large language model (LLM)|Large language model (LLM)]]
* [[Generative AI|Generative AI]]
* [[Prompt engineering|Prompt engineering]]
* [[Context window|Context window]]
* [[Hallucination (AI)|Hallucination (AI)]]
* [[Fine-tuning|Fine-tuning]]
* [[Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF)|Reinforcement learning from human feedback (RLHF)]]
* [[Multimodal AI|Multimodal AI]]
* [[Agentic AI|Agentic AI]]
* [[Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)|Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG)]]
* [[Small language model (SLM)|Small language model (SLM)]]
* [[Zero-shot and few-shot learning|Zero-shot and few-shot learning]]
* [[Emergent capabilities|Emergent capabilities]]

=== History and schools of thought ===
* [[Symbolic AI|Symbolic AI]]
* [[Connectionism|Connectionism]]
* [[Expert system|Expert system]]
* [[Turing test|Turing test]]
* [[Artificial general intelligence (AGI)|Artificial general intelligence (AGI)]]
* [[Narrow AI|Narrow AI]]

=== Deployment, safety and risk ===
* [[Prompt injection|Prompt injection]]
* [[Jailbreaking (AI)|Jailbreaking (AI)]]
* [[Guardrails|Guardrails]]
* [[Model collapse|Model collapse]]
* [[Benchmark (AI evaluation)|Benchmark (AI evaluation)]]
* [[Model card|Model card]]
* [[Latency (AI)|Latency (AI)]]
* [[Observability (AI)|Observability (AI)]]

=== Trust, authenticity and media literacy ===
* [[Deepfake|Deepfake]]
* [[Synthetic media|Synthetic media]]
* [[Watermarking (AI content)|Watermarking (AI content)]]
* [[Content provenance (C2PA)|Content provenance (C2PA)]]

=== Ethics and society ===
* [[Algorithmic bias|Algorithmic bias]]
* [[AI alignment|AI alignment]]
* [[Explainable AI (XAI)|Explainable AI (XAI)]]
* [[AI washing|AI washing]]
* [[Data annotation|Data annotation]]
* [[Surveillance capitalism|Surveillance capitalism]]

=== Policy and regulation ===
* [[EU AI Act|EU AI Act]]
* [[General-purpose AI (GPAI)|General-purpose AI (GPAI)]]
* [[High-risk AI system|High-risk AI system]]
* [[Text and data mining exception (TDM)|Text and data mining exception (TDM)]]

=== Digital sovereignty and infrastructure ===
* [[Open-weight model|Open-weight model]]
* [[Compute (AI)|Compute (AI)]]
* [[Digital sovereignty|Digital sovereignty]]

[[Category:Glossary]]
[[Category:Artificial Intelligence]]

ALT-TEXT Wiki - Main Page

2026-09-07T11:34:01Z

Luc: Link the AI glossaries; remove MediaWiki install boilerplate

The '''ALT-TEXT Wiki''' is a working reference on AI literacy, digital sovereignty, and ethical technology, compiled and maintained by ALT-TEXT.

== Glossaries ==

* [[AI Terminology Glossary]] – Key concepts in artificial intelligence: how models are built and trained, generative AI and large language models, the history of the field, deployment risks, and the policy vocabulary needed to follow AI regulation.
* [[AI People Glossary]] – The people who shaped artificial intelligence, from the mathematical precursors and the founders of the field to today's industry leaders and its critics.
* [[Media and Information Literacy Glossary]] – Terms in media and information literacy, freedom of expression, platform governance, and critical thinking.

== Browse ==

* [[:Category:Artificial Intelligence]] – Every AI terminology entry
* [[:Category:People]] – Biographical entries
* [[:Category:Glossary]] – All glossary content
* [[Special:AllPages]] – Every page on this wiki
* [[Special:Categories]] – Full category list

Media and Information Literacy Glossary

2026-08-12T06:53:17Z

Luc: Added fraud and scam terms

== Media and Information Literacy Glossary ==
A working glossary of key terms in media and information literacy, freedom of expression, platform governance, critical thinking, and related fields. Compiled by ALT-TEXT, maintained here.

Click column headers to sort. Use Ctrl+F in your browser to find a term.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! style="width:18%" |Term
!Definition
! style="width:18%" |Themes
|-
|'''Agenda-setting theory'''
|proposes that mass media decide what gets covered in the news and thereby what is discussed in politics and public affairs. For example, countries that are more powerful or topics that are more entertaining, easier to understand or more sensational may receive more media coverage. Where media ownership is unchecked, this may mean that media owners have the power to influence the agenda of public debates. This means other important stories may go unreported to the detriment of the public's understanding of events. The assumption is that the media's attention to a story is more likely to result in the public attributing more importance to that story. This may also happen in politics, for instance in an election cycle the candidates may choose to focus on one issue even though other issues may be just as important.(See also: [[framing]]).
|Journalism, Media theory, Media viability
|-
|'''Always-on'''
|Can be considered in regards to present-day communications technologies such as smart phones and their instant and constant accessibility.
|
|-
|'''Attention economy'''
|The idea that human attention is a 'scarce commodity.' The term was coined by Herbert A. Simon, "In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. Consider in relation to "always-on" definition above.
|
|-
|'''Bechdel test'''
|a test indicating active presence of women in works of fiction, asking whether a work of fiction: (1) features at least two women, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something other than a man. Named after American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who first used it in her 1985 comic Dykes. For a list of movies that meet or not these criteria, see https://bechdeltest.com/
|
|-
|'''Branded content/sponsored content'''
|a marketing technique where content that is connected to a commercial brand is published as editorial. If it is not clearly signposted as advertising, audiences may mistake the content for news.
|Journalism, Media viability
|-
|'''Capture (media and regulatory)'''
|a form of corruption that undermines the independence of media outlets and regulatory entities and enables the influence of special interests (political or commercial) over that of the public interest.
|Media ethics, Media viability
|-
|'''Censorship and self-censorship'''
|Censorship is of control of expression by different governing bodies. Self-censorship, on the other hand, is the act of censoring one's own expression for different (real or perceived) reasons. Self-censorship in journlaism often occurs in response to threats of violence, lawsuits or harassment.
|Freedom of expression
|-
|'''Cognitive bias'''
|a systematic error in thinking, arising from the individual's subjective view of the world. More examples can be found at https://yourbias.is/. Some examples include:

* Confirmation bias - The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
* Backfire effect -- Although we tend to believe that people may change their minds when presented with new evidence the opposite can also be true. If someone has a core belief (a conviction) there may be a tendency to 'dig their heels in' and strengthen their belief when challenged. See the backfire effect cartoon in annex.
* Availability Heuristic -- is a form of bias that utilises a shortcut in thinking by using readily available information to evaluate something in the world. For example, if there are a series of recent shark attacks in the news, we begin to think shark attacks occur more often than they do simply because this information is fresh in our minds and readily available. Consider this bias in relation to news values and agenda-setting theory.
* Unconscious bias -- Also known as implicit biases, concerns the attitudes and stereotypes that people develop and, without being aware of it, assign them to groups of a different race, gender, sexuality, religion, class or age group.
|Critical thinking, Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Communications technologies'''
|* One-to-many: Print, radio and television where the communication comes from one source to reach multiple receivers.

* One-to-one: a communication between two nodes, for example a telephone.
* Many-to-Many: Internet enables many-to-many communication, for example chat rooms, wikis, peer2peer networks such as file sharing
* One-way communication: a transmission like radio, television and newspapers where the audience passively receives the communication
* Two-way communication: a transmission like telephone, CB radio, instant messaging, or in-person conversation in which two-parties transmit information to and from each other.
|
|-
|'''Confidentiality (journalism)'''
|Protecting the identity of sources is a principle of journalistic ethics. It sustains trust and ensures safety. ARTICLE 19 staff can check our work on whistleblowers and protection of sources.
|Journalism, Media ethics
|-
|'''Copyright (intellectual property)'''
|gives the owner of a work the exclusive right to create copies of that work.

* Fair use (US)/fair dealing (EU) -- these are exceptions to copyright that balance with public interest and allow for certain kinds of use of copyrighted works such as education, criticism, satire/parody, news reporting, scholarship.
* Ancillary copyright -- in practice ancillary copyright extends publishers rights to news publishers. This means publishers could charge a fee to intermediaries such as Google to publish snippets with links pointing to the content with the idea being that Google benefits from unlicensed use of the news content. Opponents feel it threatens freedom of expression and access to information and innovation.
* Creative commons --Creative Commons (CC) is an organisation that has released a number of licences that creators can use to grant others copyright permissions to access their work so that it may be "copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon." '''Note''': ARTICLE 19's publications are distributed under a creative commons license.
|Copyright, Freedom of expression, Journalism
|-
|'''Critical thinking'''
|an intellectual process of rationally conceptualising, analysing, evaluating/synthesising information without bias. Critical thinking involves effective communication and problem-solving abilities, a willingness to self-correct, as well as a recognition that one must overcome internal biases and self-centeredness, practice empathy and learn to see the world through others eyes.
|Critical thinking
|-
|'''De-platforming'''
|The practice of boycotting or refusing to disseminate or broadcast certain people or viewpoints in a forum, in media or on online platforms.
|
|-
|'''Determinism (technological)'''
|When technologies have specific impacts which directly result of their form --and so is thought to directly determine society.
|
|-
|'''Echo chamber'''
|an environment or closed system where individuals encounter only opinions and beliefs similar to their own, and does not have to consider alternatives or face a rebuttal.
|Platform governance
|-
|'''Ethical journalism (principles)'''
|* '''Accountability''' -- Refers to transparent error correction and engaging with audiences' concerns. The practice of accountability may be suggested in a news organisations' code of conduct/ethics, for example, or be the realm of self-regulatory bodies such as press councils.

* '''Accuracy''' -- A core principle of ethical journalism, although errors can happen, journalists should strive for accuracy and truth. ARTICLE 19 staff can compare with the principles on defamation, especially principle 10 on Proof of substantial truth (https://www.article19.org/resources/defining-defamation-principles-on-freedom-of-expression-and-protection-of-reputation/)
* '''Fairness''' -- Fairness involves balancing different perspectives when reporting on events.
* '''Humanity''' --In journalism ethics, humanity focuses on the impact that reporting can have on various individuals and groups and is considerate of others.
* '''Independence''' - A principle of journalism that maintains distance from special interests (organisations, governments and individuals) and not acting on their behalf or being influenced by them.
* '''Transparency''' -- in journalism transparency is related to disclosure of certain relevant information such as conflicts of interest, the methods of newsgathering and sources of funding, for instance. Practicing transparency is an aspect of journalistic accountability and helps in the development of trust.
|Freedom of expression, Journalism, Media ethics
|-
|'''Filter bubble'''
|Online information is often personalised and served algorithmically to the user. A filter bubble is a concept that suggests such informational processing can leave the user in a state of ideological, cultural or intellectual isolation by only providing content that the user already agrees with or is likely to find appealing. (See also: [[Echo chamber]])
|Media viability, Platform governance
|-
|'''Fourth Estate'''
|The press or news media. In Europe, the other three traditional estates were regarded as the clergy, nobility and commoners. The fourth estate is separate from other branches of government (legislative, executive and judicial) but has influence over it and should, in theory, be a check on power.
|Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Framing'''
|The production and dissemination of messages and texts highlight, emphasise or obscure some aspects of the message over others.
|
|-
|'''Gatekeeper'''
|in communication a gatekeeper is the process of information being filtered before being communicated to the public. This includes which information is selected but also how it is presented to the public.
|
|-
|'''Hegemony'''
|The influence of the powerful over the values, beliefs or world view of society. Associated with Marxist theory and particularly theorist, Antonio Gramsci.
|Media theory
|-
|'''Homophily'''
|Is a preference to be around people who are like yourself. For example, people of a similar age, class, gender, race, religion or personal interest.
|
|-
|'''Identity'''
|Refers to how a person might define themselves in relation to various beliefs or attitudes, their personal appearance, or other attributes such as their gender, ethnicity or religion. Identity may be personal or group oriented.
|
|-
|'''Logical fallacy'''
|use of faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument.(See also: [[propaganda techniques]]).
|Critical thinking
|-
|'''Market failure'''
|Is a situation arising from inefficiency in a free market. In the context of news and journalism, there is a current level of market failure due to the advertising market being dominated by Big Tech platforms and publishers can no longer compete for advertising revenues.
|Journalism, Media viability, Platform governance
|-
|'''Mass media'''
|Refers to media that reaches a wide audience. Technology that can communicate to many people from one source (see one-to-many) and usually in one direction (one-way communication). Mass media includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, and other printed material.
|Media viability
|-
|'''Media'''
|The plural of medium. The media is the communication mechanism that sits in between the sender and receiver of information or content.
|
|-
|'''Media ownership'''
|legal and commercial control of a communication organisation:

* Cross-media ownership -- when one organisation or 'mogul' owns media across more than one medium. For example, a newspaper, a radio channel, a TV channel or a movie studio. In some countries such practices are restricted to prevent monopolies.
* Horizontal media ownership -- when an organisation or mogul owns multiple publications in one media sector, for example television channels.
* Foreign ownership -- many countries have rules governing the extent to which media can be owned by foreign entities or investors
* State media -- owned and controlled financially and editorially by the state (authoritarian model)
* Public service -- state funded but operated for the public. Differing models for funding exist including licence fees, government funding and commercial sources. Public service media should normally give more attention to underrepresented groups and should be distanced from political and commercial interests. owned
* Community media -- provides a service to a community and is community owned and operated based on civil society principles. Normally serves smaller, local populations
|Media viability
|-
|'''Media pluralism'''
|is both a plurality of media sources and support (external pluralism) as well as a plurality of voices, opinions and commentary with the media system (internal pluralism)
|Media viability
|-
|'''Net neutrality'''
|The principle that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should treat all web traffic equally and not block, throttle or favour certain websites or services.
|
|-
|'''Network effects -- economic theory'''
|Describes how an increased number of people using a service or utility may enhance the value of the service. Regarding social media, for example, this can entrench the dominance of the network, meaning it becomes more difficult for smaller players to enter the market as users are already locked into one system and the company has a monopoly over the data required to target users with ads.
|Media theory
|-
|'''News deserts'''
|Refers to a community that is no longer serviced by local newspapers.
|Journalism
|-
|'''News revenue models'''
|While the press is considered crucial for democracy, it is still an industry dependent on different revenue models as the business of making news costs more than audiences are willing to pay.

* '''Advertising''' -- The most common model for revenue in legacy media and online news. Companies needing to promote goods and services pay for a space in between the media outlet's content to reach their audience. This dynamic is reflected in the expression that "if you're not paying for it, then you're the product" (the publication or outlet is selling the audience as a product to the advertisers). Advertising may also come with certain conflict of interest and powerful advertisers may exert influence over news outlets thus threatening their independence.
* '''Philanthropic''' -- A small but growing form of revenue for media. This is funding that comes from foundations or
* '''Subscription''' -- This model generally works better for publications with specialised content, such as financial and economic news
* '''State subsidies''' -- To maintain a level of pluralism or diversity of content, states sometimes offer news outlets money (direct support) or tax benefits (indirect support)
* '''State advertising''' -- governments sometimes need to promote their actions or promote public awareness, eg. public health warnings. State advertising can be a form of support to media outlets but may also threaten their independence through favouritism.

-
|Civil society, Journalism, Media ethics, Media viability
|-
|'''News values'''
|are the "newsworthiness" criteria with which a news outlet will highlight certain stories over others or determine whether a story is covered or not.(See also: [[Agenda-setting theory]]).

* Impact -- Events that affect more people.
* Conflict -- Disagreement results in a dramatic effect.
* Timeliness -- Recent, ongoing, or potential future events are considered more relevant.
* Negativity -- bad news like violence, tragedy, disasters generate more interest than positive stories.
* Unexpected -- Events that are unanticipated or surprising.
* Prominent -- Important, well-known people, powerful countries or organisations.
* Close to home -- Events that occur closer to home are considered more relatable for audiences.
* Human interest -- Personalisation or a link to an individual are often more relatable for audiences.
* Unambiguous -- stories that are simple to explain and understand.
|Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Othering and the Other'''
|concerns the way in which the mainstream is normalised and individuals outside that mainstream are subordinated or consigned to outsider status as not belonging or fitting in with socially constructed categories.
|
|-
|'''Overton window'''
|a model for understanding how ideas change in society over time. Certain ideas can become more, or conversely less, acceptable by mainstream society. The Overton window shifts when they begin to be more observable in the media or in general discussion or otherwise more hidden or marginalised.
|
|-
|'''Paradox of tolerance'''
|A theory that states that tolerance of intolerance leads to a society's tolerance being crushed by the forces of intolerance. The theory was coined by Austrian \_British philosopher, Karl Popper. See image in annex.
|Media theory
|-
|'''Participatory culture'''
|A culture where individuals are not just passive consumers of culture but active producers of it.
|
|-
|'''Propaganda and advertising techniques'''
|communication techniques used to manipulate thought and emotion of the audience.

* Ad hominem - attacking someone personally without addressing their argument.
* Appeal to authority -- regarding the authority of the source of information (eg. teacher, scientist, political leader) as evidence for the veracity of the information.
* Appeal to fear or emotions - "argument from passion", manipulating the person's emotions in order to win an argument.
* Bandwagon effect -- tendency to adopt certain views or behaviours simply because others are doing so.
* Glittering generalities -- use of vague, positive messages and imagery to convince, without conveying concrete information.
* Testimonials -- a technique in which a person's written or spoken statement is used to advertise a product or service.
* Tu quoque (See also: Whataboutism) -- attacking the opponent's personal behaviour as being inconsistent with their argument, a form of ad hominem attack.
|Critical thinking, Media viability
|-
|'''Public interest (journalism)'''
|general welfare and wellbeing of everyone in society. Reporting in public interest is an ethical principle of journalism to cover issues that affect the safety, health and functioning of the whole society and is not to be confused with "what the public is interested in".
|Journalism
|-
|'''Public sphere'''
|a domain of social life where public opinion can be formed, where individuals can express different opinions, discuss societal problems and develop solutions. The term was created by German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas.
|Civil society, Media theory
|-
|'''Read only and read-write culture'''
|read only culture is one in which media is created by the few and consumed by the many (traditional mass media), while in read-write culture, individuals are encouraged to use and reuse existing media materials to create something new. (See also: [[Remix]])
|
|-
|'''Regulation vs self-regulation'''
|Regulation normally involves the imposition of rules, legal restrictions, obligations, or standards mandated by a governmental authority. Conversely, self-regulation is a "framework that relies entirely on voluntary compliance. Legislation plays no role in enforcing the relevant standards. It holds members of self-regulatory bodies accountable to the public, promoting knowledge within its membership and developing and respecting ethical standards."
|
|-
|'''Remix'''
|taking existing works of media and altering or editing them by adding, removing or combining the text, image, video or audio with other media elements in order to produce a new creative work or product. Unlike books, physical photographs or cassette tapes, digital media can be copied endlessly without sacrificing quality. This has facilitated the rise of remix culture which can be seen everywhere on the web. TikTok is a particularly adept app for making remixes and remixes are a powerful way to make media content. See: https://www.nylon.com/entertainment/mashups-micro-djs-how-tiktok-is-revolutionizing-the-remix
|
|-
|'''Rhetoric'''
|the art of persuasion. Students of rhetoric study the methods of persuasion that writers or speakers use on their audiences.
|
|-
|'''Satire/parody'''
|satire is the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticise or offer commentary about the world. Parody uses same mechanisms to offer commentary about a work, while also using imitation of that work.
|
|-
|'''SLAPP suits'''
|a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP suit) is an intimidation lawsuit intended to silence critics in order to discourage them and others from speaking out on an issue of public importance, by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense. See ARTICLE 19's Principles on Freedom of Expression and Protection of Reputation and Media Freedom Rapid Response.
|Civil society, Freedom of expression
|-
|'''Social constructionism'''
|A theory that suggests that our understanding of the social world is developed and interpreted in a human web rather than in individuals. Regarding technology, social constructionism argues that technology does not influence society, instead societies shape technology and how it is used in the context of that society. This may be considered in opposition to technological determinism.
|Media theory
|-
|'''The Medium is the message'''
|Theorist Marshall McLuhan thought that the medium (TV, radio, books, newspapers, billboards etc) is as important as, or more important than the content that is carried by the medium. That the functions of the medium contain biases that affect the way the medium presents content. For example, people who watched a debate between US presidential candidates, Kennedy and Nixon, in the 60s thought Kennedy had won the debate; however, those who had listened on the radio thought Nixon won the debate. Thus, the visual component of the television affected their perception. McLuhan also extended the theory to say that the content of a medium is another medium; speech is the content of writing, writing is the content of print, and the content of the telegraph is print. The implications for this meant that it was the medium itself, television for instance, that might affect society altering peoples' perceptions.
|Media theory
|-
|'''The view from nowhere'''
|a theory from journalism scholar, Jay Rosen, that neutrality can create a negative effect by suggesting that two opposing viewpoints carry equal validity.
|Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Two-step flow of information'''
|A communication theory that suggests that ideas travel first from mass media, then to influential people (politicians or thought leaders), and from them to the audience and general population. This is contrasted with the hypodermic needle model which suggests mass media is "injected" into passively receiving mass audiences.
|Media theory
|-
|'''Baiting'''
|Baiting relies on false promises to pique a victim's greed or curiosity. In a digital context, this often involves malicious links disguised as free software downloads, media, or exclusive access. For ALT-TEXT training modules, baiting must be framed as an exploitation of human psychology rather than a purely technical failure, reinforcing the need for continuous media literacy.
|
|-
|'''Malvertising'''
|Malvertising involves injecting malicious code into legitimate online advertising networks. Users can compromise their systems simply by visiting a reputable website hosting a compromised advertisement, without even clicking the ad. This concept is critical for the digital sovereignty curriculum, as it highlights the inherent security risks of surveillance capitalism and the invasive tracking mechanisms used by third-party ad networks.
|
|-
|'''Phishing'''
|Phishing is the practice of sending fraudulent communications that appear to come from a reputable source. Generative AI has drastically escalated this threat, reducing the time required to craft highly convincing, error-free lures from hours to minutes. Training must emphasise that automated, mass-scale manipulation is now standard, making critical AI literacy a baseline requirement for digital safety.
|
|-
|'''Pretexting'''
|Pretexting occurs when an attacker fabricates a scenario to manipulate a target into divulging sensitive information or performing an action. AI tools allow for the rapid generation of highly personalised pretexts by scraping publicly available data. Educational materials must teach users to critically evaluate the context and urgency of unexpected requests, even when they appear highly specific to the recipient.
|
|-
|'''Prompt Bombing'''
|Prompt bombing is a technique where malicious actors flood an artificial intelligence system with complex, contradictory, or manipulative prompts to bypass safety filters or extract sensitive data. This demonstrates the fragility of automated guardrails and underscores the principle that human-centred technology requires active, informed defence against algorithmic manipulation.
|
|-
|'''SEO Poisoning'''
|SEO poisoning is the practice of artificially inflating the search engine ranking of a malicious website to trick users into visiting it. Bad actors manipulate algorithmic indexing to make fraudulent sites appear legitimate. This directly supports media literacy objectives by teaching users to critically evaluate search engine results instead of blindly trusting proprietary platform algorithms.
|
|}
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== Documentation & Resources ==

* [[Media and Information Literacy Glossary|ALT-TEXT Glossary of Terms]] – Our official repository for definitions regarding AI literacy, digital sovereignty, and ethical technology.

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Main Page

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ALT-TEXT Wiki - Main Page

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Luc: Luc moved page Main Page to ALT-TEXT Wiki - Main Page

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== Summary ==
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Media dn Information Literacy Glossary

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#REDIRECT [[Media and Information Literacy Glossary]]

Media and Information Literacy Glossary

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Luc: Luc moved page Media dn Information Literacy Glossary to Media and Information Literacy Glossary

== Media and Information Literacy Glossary ==
A working glossary of key terms in media and information literacy, freedom of expression, platform governance, critical thinking, and related fields. Compiled by ALT-TEXT, maintained here.

Click column headers to sort. Use Ctrl+F in your browser to find a term.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! style="width:18%" |Term
!Definition
! style="width:18%" |Themes
|-
|'''Agenda-setting theory'''
|proposes that mass media decide what gets covered in the news and thereby what is discussed in politics and public affairs. For example, countries that are more powerful or topics that are more entertaining, easier to understand or more sensational may receive more media coverage. Where media ownership is unchecked, this may mean that media owners have the power to influence the agenda of public debates. This means other important stories may go unreported to the detriment of the public's understanding of events. The assumption is that the media's attention to a story is more likely to result in the public attributing more importance to that story. This may also happen in politics, for instance in an election cycle the candidates may choose to focus on one issue even though other issues may be just as important.(See also: [[framing]]).
|Journalism, Media theory, Media viability
|-
|'''Always-on'''
|Can be considered in regards to present-day communications technologies such as smart phones and their instant and constant accessibility.
|
|-
|'''Attention economy'''
|The idea that human attention is a 'scarce commodity.' The term was coined by Herbert A. Simon, "In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. Consider in relation to "always-on" definition above.
|
|-
|'''Bechdel test'''
|a test indicating active presence of women in works of fiction, asking whether a work of fiction: (1) features at least two women, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something other than a man. Named after American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who first used it in her 1985 comic Dykes. For a list of movies that meet or not these criteria, see https://bechdeltest.com/
|
|-
|'''Branded content/sponsored content'''
|a marketing technique where content that is connected to a commercial brand is published as editorial. If it is not clearly signposted as advertising, audiences may mistake the content for news.
|Journalism, Media viability
|-
|'''Capture (media and regulatory)'''
|a form of corruption that undermines the independence of media outlets and regulatory entities and enables the influence of special interests (political or commercial) over that of the public interest.
|Media ethics, Media viability
|-
|'''Censorship and self-censorship'''
|Censorship is of control of expression by different governing bodies. Self-censorship, on the other hand, is the act of censoring one's own expression for different (real or perceived) reasons. Self-censorship in journlaism often occurs in response to threats of violence, lawsuits or harassment.
|Freedom of expression
|-
|'''Cognitive bias'''
|a systematic error in thinking, arising from the individual's subjective view of the world. More examples can be found at https://yourbias.is/. Some examples include:

* Confirmation bias - The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
* Backfire effect -- Although we tend to believe that people may change their minds when presented with new evidence the opposite can also be true. If someone has a core belief (a conviction) there may be a tendency to 'dig their heels in' and strengthen their belief when challenged. See the backfire effect cartoon in annex.
* Availability Heuristic -- is a form of bias that utilises a shortcut in thinking by using readily available information to evaluate something in the world. For example, if there are a series of recent shark attacks in the news, we begin to think shark attacks occur more often than they do simply because this information is fresh in our minds and readily available. Consider this bias in relation to news values and agenda-setting theory.
* Unconscious bias -- Also known as implicit biases, concerns the attitudes and stereotypes that people develop and, without being aware of it, assign them to groups of a different race, gender, sexuality, religion, class or age group.
|Critical thinking, Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Communications technologies'''
|* One-to-many: Print, radio and television where the communication comes from one source to reach multiple receivers.

* One-to-one: a communication between two nodes, for example a telephone.
* Many-to-Many: Internet enables many-to-many communication, for example chat rooms, wikis, peer2peer networks such as file sharing
* One-way communication: a transmission like radio, television and newspapers where the audience passively receives the communication
* Two-way communication: a transmission like telephone, CB radio, instant messaging, or in-person conversation in which two-parties transmit information to and from each other.
|
|-
|'''Confidentiality (journalism)'''
|Protecting the identity of sources is a principle of journalistic ethics. It sustains trust and ensures safety. ARTICLE 19 staff can check our work on whistleblowers and protection of sources.
|Journalism, Media ethics
|-
|'''Copyright (intellectual property)'''
|gives the owner of a work the exclusive right to create copies of that work.

* Fair use (US)/fair dealing (EU) -- these are exceptions to copyright that balance with public interest and allow for certain kinds of use of copyrighted works such as education, criticism, satire/parody, news reporting, scholarship.
* Ancillary copyright -- in practice ancillary copyright extends publishers rights to news publishers. This means publishers could charge a fee to intermediaries such as Google to publish snippets with links pointing to the content with the idea being that Google benefits from unlicensed use of the news content. Opponents feel it threatens freedom of expression and access to information and innovation.
* Creative commons --Creative Commons (CC) is an organisation that has released a number of licences that creators can use to grant others copyright permissions to access their work so that it may be "copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon." '''Note''': ARTICLE 19's publications are distributed under a creative commons license.
|Copyright, Freedom of expression, Journalism
|-
|'''Critical thinking'''
|an intellectual process of rationally conceptualising, analysing, evaluating/synthesising information without bias. Critical thinking involves effective communication and problem-solving abilities, a willingness to self-correct, as well as a recognition that one must overcome internal biases and self-centeredness, practice empathy and learn to see the world through others eyes.
|Critical thinking
|-
|'''De-platforming'''
|The practice of boycotting or refusing to disseminate or broadcast certain people or viewpoints in a forum, in media or on online platforms.
|
|-
|'''Determinism (technological)'''
|When technologies have specific impacts which directly result of their form --and so is thought to directly determine society.
|
|-
|'''Echo chamber'''
|an environment or closed system where individuals encounter only opinions and beliefs similar to their own, and does not have to consider alternatives or face a rebuttal.
|Platform governance
|-
|'''Ethical journalism (principles)'''
|* '''Accountability''' -- Refers to transparent error correction and engaging with audiences' concerns. The practice of accountability may be suggested in a news organisations' code of conduct/ethics, for example, or be the realm of self-regulatory bodies such as press councils.

* '''Accuracy''' -- A core principle of ethical journalism, although errors can happen, journalists should strive for accuracy and truth. ARTICLE 19 staff can compare with the principles on defamation, especially principle 10 on Proof of substantial truth (https://www.article19.org/resources/defining-defamation-principles-on-freedom-of-expression-and-protection-of-reputation/)
* '''Fairness''' -- Fairness involves balancing different perspectives when reporting on events.
* '''Humanity''' --In journalism ethics, humanity focuses on the impact that reporting can have on various individuals and groups and is considerate of others.
* '''Independence''' - A principle of journalism that maintains distance from special interests (organisations, governments and individuals) and not acting on their behalf or being influenced by them.
* '''Transparency''' -- in journalism transparency is related to disclosure of certain relevant information such as conflicts of interest, the methods of newsgathering and sources of funding, for instance. Practicing transparency is an aspect of journalistic accountability and helps in the development of trust.
|Freedom of expression, Journalism, Media ethics
|-
|'''Filter bubble'''
|Online information is often personalised and served algorithmically to the user. A filter bubble is a concept that suggests such informational processing can leave the user in a state of ideological, cultural or intellectual isolation by only providing content that the user already agrees with or is likely to find appealing. (See also: [[Echo chamber]])
|Media viability, Platform governance
|-
|'''Fourth Estate'''
|The press or news media. In Europe, the other three traditional estates were regarded as the clergy, nobility and commoners. The fourth estate is separate from other branches of government (legislative, executive and judicial) but has influence over it and should, in theory, be a check on power.
|Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Framing'''
|The production and dissemination of messages and texts highlight, emphasise or obscure some aspects of the message over others.
|
|-
|'''Gatekeeper'''
|in communication a gatekeeper is the process of information being filtered before being communicated to the public. This includes which information is selected but also how it is presented to the public.
|
|-
|'''Hegemony'''
|The influence of the powerful over the values, beliefs or world view of society. Associated with Marxist theory and particularly theorist, Antonio Gramsci.
|Media theory
|-
|'''Homophily'''
|Is a preference to be around people who are like yourself. For example, people of a similar age, class, gender, race, religion or personal interest.
|
|-
|'''Identity'''
|Refers to how a person might define themselves in relation to various beliefs or attitudes, their personal appearance, or other attributes such as their gender, ethnicity or religion. Identity may be personal or group oriented.
|
|-
|'''Logical fallacy'''
|use of faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument.(See also: [[propaganda techniques]]).
|Critical thinking
|-
|'''Market failure'''
|Is a situation arising from inefficiency in a free market. In the context of news and journalism, there is a current level of market failure due to the advertising market being dominated by Big Tech platforms and publishers can no longer compete for advertising revenues.
|Journalism, Media viability, Platform governance
|-
|'''Mass media'''
|Refers to media that reaches a wide audience. Technology that can communicate to many people from one source (see one-to-many) and usually in one direction (one-way communication). Mass media includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, and other printed material.
|Media viability
|-
|'''Media'''
|The plural of medium. The media is the communication mechanism that sits in between the sender and receiver of information or content.
|
|-
|'''Media ownership'''
|legal and commercial control of a communication organisation:

* Cross-media ownership -- when one organisation or 'mogul' owns media across more than one medium. For example, a newspaper, a radio channel, a TV channel or a movie studio. In some countries such practices are restricted to prevent monopolies.
* Horizontal media ownership -- when an organisation or mogul owns multiple publications in one media sector, for example television channels.
* Foreign ownership -- many countries have rules governing the extent to which media can be owned by foreign entities or investors
* State media -- owned and controlled financially and editorially by the state (authoritarian model)
* Public service -- state funded but operated for the public. Differing models for funding exist including licence fees, government funding and commercial sources. Public service media should normally give more attention to underrepresented groups and should be distanced from political and commercial interests. owned
* Community media -- provides a service to a community and is community owned and operated based on civil society principles. Normally serves smaller, local populations
|Media viability
|-
|'''Media pluralism'''
|is both a plurality of media sources and support (external pluralism) as well as a plurality of voices, opinions and commentary with the media system (internal pluralism)
|Media viability
|-
|'''Net neutrality'''
|The principle that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should treat all web traffic equally and not block, throttle or favour certain websites or services.
|
|-
|'''Network effects -- economic theory'''
|Describes how an increased number of people using a service or utility may enhance the value of the service. Regarding social media, for example, this can entrench the dominance of the network, meaning it becomes more difficult for smaller players to enter the market as users are already locked into one system and the company has a monopoly over the data required to target users with ads.
|Media theory
|-
|'''News deserts'''
|Refers to a community that is no longer serviced by local newspapers.
|Journalism
|-
|'''News revenue models'''
|While the press is considered crucial for democracy, it is still an industry dependent on different revenue models as the business of making news costs more than audiences are willing to pay.

* '''Advertising''' -- The most common model for revenue in legacy media and online news. Companies needing to promote goods and services pay for a space in between the media outlet's content to reach their audience. This dynamic is reflected in the expression that "if you're not paying for it, then you're the product" (the publication or outlet is selling the audience as a product to the advertisers). Advertising may also come with certain conflict of interest and powerful advertisers may exert influence over news outlets thus threatening their independence.
* '''Philanthropic''' -- A small but growing form of revenue for media. This is funding that comes from foundations or
* '''Subscription''' -- This model generally works better for publications with specialised content, such as financial and economic news
* '''State subsidies''' -- To maintain a level of pluralism or diversity of content, states sometimes offer news outlets money (direct support) or tax benefits (indirect support)
* '''State advertising''' -- governments sometimes need to promote their actions or promote public awareness, eg. public health warnings. State advertising can be a form of support to media outlets but may also threaten their independence through favouritism.

-
|Civil society, Journalism, Media ethics, Media viability
|-
|'''News values'''
|are the "newsworthiness" criteria with which a news outlet will highlight certain stories over others or determine whether a story is covered or not.(See also: [[Agenda-setting theory]]).

* Impact -- Events that affect more people.
* Conflict -- Disagreement results in a dramatic effect.
* Timeliness -- Recent, ongoing, or potential future events are considered more relevant.
* Negativity -- bad news like violence, tragedy, disasters generate more interest than positive stories.
* Unexpected -- Events that are unanticipated or surprising.
* Prominent -- Important, well-known people, powerful countries or organisations.
* Close to home -- Events that occur closer to home are considered more relatable for audiences.
* Human interest -- Personalisation or a link to an individual are often more relatable for audiences.
* Unambiguous -- stories that are simple to explain and understand.
|Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Othering and the Other'''
|concerns the way in which the mainstream is normalised and individuals outside that mainstream are subordinated or consigned to outsider status as not belonging or fitting in with socially constructed categories.
|
|-
|'''Overton window'''
|a model for understanding how ideas change in society over time. Certain ideas can become more, or conversely less, acceptable by mainstream society. The Overton window shifts when they begin to be more observable in the media or in general discussion or otherwise more hidden or marginalised.
|
|-
|'''Paradox of tolerance'''
|A theory that states that tolerance of intolerance leads to a society's tolerance being crushed by the forces of intolerance. The theory was coined by Austrian \_British philosopher, Karl Popper. See image in annex.
|Media theory
|-
|'''Participatory culture'''
|A culture where individuals are not just passive consumers of culture but active producers of it.
|
|-
|'''Propaganda and advertising techniques'''
|communication techniques used to manipulate thought and emotion of the audience.

* Ad hominem - attacking someone personally without addressing their argument.
* Appeal to authority -- regarding the authority of the source of information (eg. teacher, scientist, political leader) as evidence for the veracity of the information.
* Appeal to fear or emotions - "argument from passion", manipulating the person's emotions in order to win an argument.
* Bandwagon effect -- tendency to adopt certain views or behaviours simply because others are doing so.
* Glittering generalities -- use of vague, positive messages and imagery to convince, without conveying concrete information.
* Testimonials -- a technique in which a person's written or spoken statement is used to advertise a product or service.
* Tu quoque (See also: Whataboutism) -- attacking the opponent's personal behaviour as being inconsistent with their argument, a form of ad hominem attack.
|Critical thinking, Media viability
|-
|'''Public interest (journalism)'''
|general welfare and wellbeing of everyone in society. Reporting in public interest is an ethical principle of journalism to cover issues that affect the safety, health and functioning of the whole society and is not to be confused with "what the public is interested in".
|Journalism
|-
|'''Public sphere'''
|a domain of social life where public opinion can be formed, where individuals can express different opinions, discuss societal problems and develop solutions. The term was created by German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas.
|Civil society, Media theory
|-
|'''Read only and read-write culture'''
|read only culture is one in which media is created by the few and consumed by the many (traditional mass media), while in read-write culture, individuals are encouraged to use and reuse existing media materials to create something new. (See also: [[Remix]])
|
|-
|'''Regulation vs self-regulation'''
|Regulation normally involves the imposition of rules, legal restrictions, obligations, or standards mandated by a governmental authority. Conversely, self-regulation is a "framework that relies entirely on voluntary compliance. Legislation plays no role in enforcing the relevant standards. It holds members of self-regulatory bodies accountable to the public, promoting knowledge within its membership and developing and respecting ethical standards."
|
|-
|'''Remix'''
|taking existing works of media and altering or editing them by adding, removing or combining the text, image, video or audio with other media elements in order to produce a new creative work or product. Unlike books, physical photographs or cassette tapes, digital media can be copied endlessly without sacrificing quality. This has facilitated the rise of remix culture which can be seen everywhere on the web. TikTok is a particularly adept app for making remixes and remixes are a powerful way to make media content. See: https://www.nylon.com/entertainment/mashups-micro-djs-how-tiktok-is-revolutionizing-the-remix
|
|-
|'''Rhetoric'''
|the art of persuasion. Students of rhetoric study the methods of persuasion that writers or speakers use on their audiences.
|
|-
|'''Satire/parody'''
|satire is the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticise or offer commentary about the world. Parody uses same mechanisms to offer commentary about a work, while also using imitation of that work.
|
|-
|'''SLAPP suits'''
|a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP suit) is an intimidation lawsuit intended to silence critics in order to discourage them and others from speaking out on an issue of public importance, by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense. See ARTICLE 19's Principles on Freedom of Expression and Protection of Reputation and Media Freedom Rapid Response.
|Civil society, Freedom of expression
|-
|'''Social constructionism'''
|A theory that suggests that our understanding of the social world is developed and interpreted in a human web rather than in individuals. Regarding technology, social constructionism argues that technology does not influence society, instead societies shape technology and how it is used in the context of that society. This may be considered in opposition to technological determinism.
|Media theory
|-
|'''The Medium is the message'''
|Theorist Marshall McLuhan thought that the medium (TV, radio, books, newspapers, billboards etc) is as important as, or more important than the content that is carried by the medium. That the functions of the medium contain biases that affect the way the medium presents content. For example, people who watched a debate between US presidential candidates, Kennedy and Nixon, in the 60s thought Kennedy had won the debate; however, those who had listened on the radio thought Nixon won the debate. Thus, the visual component of the television affected their perception. McLuhan also extended the theory to say that the content of a medium is another medium; speech is the content of writing, writing is the content of print, and the content of the telegraph is print. The implications for this meant that it was the medium itself, television for instance, that might affect society altering peoples' perceptions.
|Media theory
|-
|'''The view from nowhere'''
|a theory from journalism scholar, Jay Rosen, that neutrality can create a negative effect by suggesting that two opposing viewpoints carry equal validity.
|Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Two-step flow of information'''
|A communication theory that suggests that ideas travel first from mass media, then to influential people (politicians or thought leaders), and from them to the audience and general population. This is contrasted with the hypodermic needle model which suggests mass media is "injected" into passively receiving mass audiences.
|Media theory
|}
''Page maintained by [[ALT-TEXT]]. Last refreshed from vault: glossary v1.''
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Media and Information Literacy Glossary

2026-06-02T20:17:38Z

Luc: added table

== Media and Information Literacy Glossary ==
A working glossary of key terms in media and information literacy, freedom of expression, platform governance, critical thinking, and related fields. Compiled by ALT-TEXT, maintained here.

Click column headers to sort. Use Ctrl+F in your browser to find a term.
{| class="wikitable sortable"
! style="width:18%" |Term
!Definition
! style="width:18%" |Themes
|-
|'''Agenda-setting theory'''
|proposes that mass media decide what gets covered in the news and thereby what is discussed in politics and public affairs. For example, countries that are more powerful or topics that are more entertaining, easier to understand or more sensational may receive more media coverage. Where media ownership is unchecked, this may mean that media owners have the power to influence the agenda of public debates. This means other important stories may go unreported to the detriment of the public's understanding of events. The assumption is that the media's attention to a story is more likely to result in the public attributing more importance to that story. This may also happen in politics, for instance in an election cycle the candidates may choose to focus on one issue even though other issues may be just as important.(See also: [[framing]]).
|Journalism, Media theory, Media viability
|-
|'''Always-on'''
|Can be considered in regards to present-day communications technologies such as smart phones and their instant and constant accessibility.
|
|-
|'''Attention economy'''
|The idea that human attention is a 'scarce commodity.' The term was coined by Herbert A. Simon, "In an information-rich world, the wealth of information means a dearth of something else: a scarcity of whatever it is that information consumes. What information consumes is rather obvious: it consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention and a need to allocate that attention efficiently among the overabundance of information sources that might consume it. Consider in relation to "always-on" definition above.
|
|-
|'''Bechdel test'''
|a test indicating active presence of women in works of fiction, asking whether a work of fiction: (1) features at least two women, (2) who talk to each other, (3) about something other than a man. Named after American cartoonist Alison Bechdel, who first used it in her 1985 comic Dykes. For a list of movies that meet or not these criteria, see https://bechdeltest.com/
|
|-
|'''Branded content/sponsored content'''
|a marketing technique where content that is connected to a commercial brand is published as editorial. If it is not clearly signposted as advertising, audiences may mistake the content for news.
|Journalism, Media viability
|-
|'''Capture (media and regulatory)'''
|a form of corruption that undermines the independence of media outlets and regulatory entities and enables the influence of special interests (political or commercial) over that of the public interest.
|Media ethics, Media viability
|-
|'''Censorship and self-censorship'''
|Censorship is of control of expression by different governing bodies. Self-censorship, on the other hand, is the act of censoring one's own expression for different (real or perceived) reasons. Self-censorship in journlaism often occurs in response to threats of violence, lawsuits or harassment.
|Freedom of expression
|-
|'''Cognitive bias'''
|a systematic error in thinking, arising from the individual's subjective view of the world. More examples can be found at https://yourbias.is/. Some examples include:

* Confirmation bias - The tendency to search for, interpret, focus on and remember information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.
* Backfire effect -- Although we tend to believe that people may change their minds when presented with new evidence the opposite can also be true. If someone has a core belief (a conviction) there may be a tendency to 'dig their heels in' and strengthen their belief when challenged. See the backfire effect cartoon in annex.
* Availability Heuristic -- is a form of bias that utilises a shortcut in thinking by using readily available information to evaluate something in the world. For example, if there are a series of recent shark attacks in the news, we begin to think shark attacks occur more often than they do simply because this information is fresh in our minds and readily available. Consider this bias in relation to news values and agenda-setting theory.
* Unconscious bias -- Also known as implicit biases, concerns the attitudes and stereotypes that people develop and, without being aware of it, assign them to groups of a different race, gender, sexuality, religion, class or age group.
|Critical thinking, Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Communications technologies'''
|* One-to-many: Print, radio and television where the communication comes from one source to reach multiple receivers.

* One-to-one: a communication between two nodes, for example a telephone.
* Many-to-Many: Internet enables many-to-many communication, for example chat rooms, wikis, peer2peer networks such as file sharing
* One-way communication: a transmission like radio, television and newspapers where the audience passively receives the communication
* Two-way communication: a transmission like telephone, CB radio, instant messaging, or in-person conversation in which two-parties transmit information to and from each other.
|
|-
|'''Confidentiality (journalism)'''
|Protecting the identity of sources is a principle of journalistic ethics. It sustains trust and ensures safety. ARTICLE 19 staff can check our work on whistleblowers and protection of sources.
|Journalism, Media ethics
|-
|'''Copyright (intellectual property)'''
|gives the owner of a work the exclusive right to create copies of that work.

* Fair use (US)/fair dealing (EU) -- these are exceptions to copyright that balance with public interest and allow for certain kinds of use of copyrighted works such as education, criticism, satire/parody, news reporting, scholarship.
* Ancillary copyright -- in practice ancillary copyright extends publishers rights to news publishers. This means publishers could charge a fee to intermediaries such as Google to publish snippets with links pointing to the content with the idea being that Google benefits from unlicensed use of the news content. Opponents feel it threatens freedom of expression and access to information and innovation.
* Creative commons --Creative Commons (CC) is an organisation that has released a number of licences that creators can use to grant others copyright permissions to access their work so that it may be "copied, distributed, edited, remixed, and built upon." '''Note''': ARTICLE 19's publications are distributed under a creative commons license.
|Copyright, Freedom of expression, Journalism
|-
|'''Critical thinking'''
|an intellectual process of rationally conceptualising, analysing, evaluating/synthesising information without bias. Critical thinking involves effective communication and problem-solving abilities, a willingness to self-correct, as well as a recognition that one must overcome internal biases and self-centeredness, practice empathy and learn to see the world through others eyes.
|Critical thinking
|-
|'''De-platforming'''
|The practice of boycotting or refusing to disseminate or broadcast certain people or viewpoints in a forum, in media or on online platforms.
|
|-
|'''Determinism (technological)'''
|When technologies have specific impacts which directly result of their form --and so is thought to directly determine society.
|
|-
|'''Echo chamber'''
|an environment or closed system where individuals encounter only opinions and beliefs similar to their own, and does not have to consider alternatives or face a rebuttal.
|Platform governance
|-
|'''Ethical journalism (principles)'''
|* '''Accountability''' -- Refers to transparent error correction and engaging with audiences' concerns. The practice of accountability may be suggested in a news organisations' code of conduct/ethics, for example, or be the realm of self-regulatory bodies such as press councils.

* '''Accuracy''' -- A core principle of ethical journalism, although errors can happen, journalists should strive for accuracy and truth. ARTICLE 19 staff can compare with the principles on defamation, especially principle 10 on Proof of substantial truth (https://www.article19.org/resources/defining-defamation-principles-on-freedom-of-expression-and-protection-of-reputation/)
* '''Fairness''' -- Fairness involves balancing different perspectives when reporting on events.
* '''Humanity''' --In journalism ethics, humanity focuses on the impact that reporting can have on various individuals and groups and is considerate of others.
* '''Independence''' - A principle of journalism that maintains distance from special interests (organisations, governments and individuals) and not acting on their behalf or being influenced by them.
* '''Transparency''' -- in journalism transparency is related to disclosure of certain relevant information such as conflicts of interest, the methods of newsgathering and sources of funding, for instance. Practicing transparency is an aspect of journalistic accountability and helps in the development of trust.
|Freedom of expression, Journalism, Media ethics
|-
|'''Filter bubble'''
|Online information is often personalised and served algorithmically to the user. A filter bubble is a concept that suggests such informational processing can leave the user in a state of ideological, cultural or intellectual isolation by only providing content that the user already agrees with or is likely to find appealing. (See also: [[Echo chamber]])
|Media viability, Platform governance
|-
|'''Fourth Estate'''
|The press or news media. In Europe, the other three traditional estates were regarded as the clergy, nobility and commoners. The fourth estate is separate from other branches of government (legislative, executive and judicial) but has influence over it and should, in theory, be a check on power.
|Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Framing'''
|The production and dissemination of messages and texts highlight, emphasise or obscure some aspects of the message over others.
|
|-
|'''Gatekeeper'''
|in communication a gatekeeper is the process of information being filtered before being communicated to the public. This includes which information is selected but also how it is presented to the public.
|
|-
|'''Hegemony'''
|The influence of the powerful over the values, beliefs or world view of society. Associated with Marxist theory and particularly theorist, Antonio Gramsci.
|Media theory
|-
|'''Homophily'''
|Is a preference to be around people who are like yourself. For example, people of a similar age, class, gender, race, religion or personal interest.
|
|-
|'''Identity'''
|Refers to how a person might define themselves in relation to various beliefs or attitudes, their personal appearance, or other attributes such as their gender, ethnicity or religion. Identity may be personal or group oriented.
|
|-
|'''Logical fallacy'''
|use of faulty reasoning in the construction of an argument.(See also: [[propaganda techniques]]).
|Critical thinking
|-
|'''Market failure'''
|Is a situation arising from inefficiency in a free market. In the context of news and journalism, there is a current level of market failure due to the advertising market being dominated by Big Tech platforms and publishers can no longer compete for advertising revenues.
|Journalism, Media viability, Platform governance
|-
|'''Mass media'''
|Refers to media that reaches a wide audience. Technology that can communicate to many people from one source (see one-to-many) and usually in one direction (one-way communication). Mass media includes television, radio, advertising, movies, the Internet, newspapers, and other printed material.
|Media viability
|-
|'''Media'''
|The plural of medium. The media is the communication mechanism that sits in between the sender and receiver of information or content.
|
|-
|'''Media ownership'''
|legal and commercial control of a communication organisation:

* Cross-media ownership -- when one organisation or 'mogul' owns media across more than one medium. For example, a newspaper, a radio channel, a TV channel or a movie studio. In some countries such practices are restricted to prevent monopolies.
* Horizontal media ownership -- when an organisation or mogul owns multiple publications in one media sector, for example television channels.
* Foreign ownership -- many countries have rules governing the extent to which media can be owned by foreign entities or investors
* State media -- owned and controlled financially and editorially by the state (authoritarian model)
* Public service -- state funded but operated for the public. Differing models for funding exist including licence fees, government funding and commercial sources. Public service media should normally give more attention to underrepresented groups and should be distanced from political and commercial interests. owned
* Community media -- provides a service to a community and is community owned and operated based on civil society principles. Normally serves smaller, local populations
|Media viability
|-
|'''Media pluralism'''
|is both a plurality of media sources and support (external pluralism) as well as a plurality of voices, opinions and commentary with the media system (internal pluralism)
|Media viability
|-
|'''Net neutrality'''
|The principle that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) should treat all web traffic equally and not block, throttle or favour certain websites or services.
|
|-
|'''Network effects -- economic theory'''
|Describes how an increased number of people using a service or utility may enhance the value of the service. Regarding social media, for example, this can entrench the dominance of the network, meaning it becomes more difficult for smaller players to enter the market as users are already locked into one system and the company has a monopoly over the data required to target users with ads.
|Media theory
|-
|'''News deserts'''
|Refers to a community that is no longer serviced by local newspapers.
|Journalism
|-
|'''News revenue models'''
|While the press is considered crucial for democracy, it is still an industry dependent on different revenue models as the business of making news costs more than audiences are willing to pay.

* '''Advertising''' -- The most common model for revenue in legacy media and online news. Companies needing to promote goods and services pay for a space in between the media outlet's content to reach their audience. This dynamic is reflected in the expression that "if you're not paying for it, then you're the product" (the publication or outlet is selling the audience as a product to the advertisers). Advertising may also come with certain conflict of interest and powerful advertisers may exert influence over news outlets thus threatening their independence.
* '''Philanthropic''' -- A small but growing form of revenue for media. This is funding that comes from foundations or
* '''Subscription''' -- This model generally works better for publications with specialised content, such as financial and economic news
* '''State subsidies''' -- To maintain a level of pluralism or diversity of content, states sometimes offer news outlets money (direct support) or tax benefits (indirect support)
* '''State advertising''' -- governments sometimes need to promote their actions or promote public awareness, eg. public health warnings. State advertising can be a form of support to media outlets but may also threaten their independence through favouritism.

-
|Civil society, Journalism, Media ethics, Media viability
|-
|'''News values'''
|are the "newsworthiness" criteria with which a news outlet will highlight certain stories over others or determine whether a story is covered or not.(See also: [[Agenda-setting theory]]).

* Impact -- Events that affect more people.
* Conflict -- Disagreement results in a dramatic effect.
* Timeliness -- Recent, ongoing, or potential future events are considered more relevant.
* Negativity -- bad news like violence, tragedy, disasters generate more interest than positive stories.
* Unexpected -- Events that are unanticipated or surprising.
* Prominent -- Important, well-known people, powerful countries or organisations.
* Close to home -- Events that occur closer to home are considered more relatable for audiences.
* Human interest -- Personalisation or a link to an individual are often more relatable for audiences.
* Unambiguous -- stories that are simple to explain and understand.
|Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Othering and the Other'''
|concerns the way in which the mainstream is normalised and individuals outside that mainstream are subordinated or consigned to outsider status as not belonging or fitting in with socially constructed categories.
|
|-
|'''Overton window'''
|a model for understanding how ideas change in society over time. Certain ideas can become more, or conversely less, acceptable by mainstream society. The Overton window shifts when they begin to be more observable in the media or in general discussion or otherwise more hidden or marginalised.
|
|-
|'''Paradox of tolerance'''
|A theory that states that tolerance of intolerance leads to a society's tolerance being crushed by the forces of intolerance. The theory was coined by Austrian \_British philosopher, Karl Popper. See image in annex.
|Media theory
|-
|'''Participatory culture'''
|A culture where individuals are not just passive consumers of culture but active producers of it.
|
|-
|'''Propaganda and advertising techniques'''
|communication techniques used to manipulate thought and emotion of the audience.

* Ad hominem - attacking someone personally without addressing their argument.
* Appeal to authority -- regarding the authority of the source of information (eg. teacher, scientist, political leader) as evidence for the veracity of the information.
* Appeal to fear or emotions - "argument from passion", manipulating the person's emotions in order to win an argument.
* Bandwagon effect -- tendency to adopt certain views or behaviours simply because others are doing so.
* Glittering generalities -- use of vague, positive messages and imagery to convince, without conveying concrete information.
* Testimonials -- a technique in which a person's written or spoken statement is used to advertise a product or service.
* Tu quoque (See also: Whataboutism) -- attacking the opponent's personal behaviour as being inconsistent with their argument, a form of ad hominem attack.
|Critical thinking, Media viability
|-
|'''Public interest (journalism)'''
|general welfare and wellbeing of everyone in society. Reporting in public interest is an ethical principle of journalism to cover issues that affect the safety, health and functioning of the whole society and is not to be confused with "what the public is interested in".
|Journalism
|-
|'''Public sphere'''
|a domain of social life where public opinion can be formed, where individuals can express different opinions, discuss societal problems and develop solutions. The term was created by German philosopher, Jürgen Habermas.
|Civil society, Media theory
|-
|'''Read only and read-write culture'''
|read only culture is one in which media is created by the few and consumed by the many (traditional mass media), while in read-write culture, individuals are encouraged to use and reuse existing media materials to create something new. (See also: [[Remix]])
|
|-
|'''Regulation vs self-regulation'''
|Regulation normally involves the imposition of rules, legal restrictions, obligations, or standards mandated by a governmental authority. Conversely, self-regulation is a "framework that relies entirely on voluntary compliance. Legislation plays no role in enforcing the relevant standards. It holds members of self-regulatory bodies accountable to the public, promoting knowledge within its membership and developing and respecting ethical standards."
|
|-
|'''Remix'''
|taking existing works of media and altering or editing them by adding, removing or combining the text, image, video or audio with other media elements in order to produce a new creative work or product. Unlike books, physical photographs or cassette tapes, digital media can be copied endlessly without sacrificing quality. This has facilitated the rise of remix culture which can be seen everywhere on the web. TikTok is a particularly adept app for making remixes and remixes are a powerful way to make media content. See: https://www.nylon.com/entertainment/mashups-micro-djs-how-tiktok-is-revolutionizing-the-remix
|
|-
|'''Rhetoric'''
|the art of persuasion. Students of rhetoric study the methods of persuasion that writers or speakers use on their audiences.
|
|-
|'''Satire/parody'''
|satire is the use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticise or offer commentary about the world. Parody uses same mechanisms to offer commentary about a work, while also using imitation of that work.
|
|-
|'''SLAPP suits'''
|a strategic lawsuit against public participation (SLAPP suit) is an intimidation lawsuit intended to silence critics in order to discourage them and others from speaking out on an issue of public importance, by burdening them with the cost of a legal defense. See ARTICLE 19's Principles on Freedom of Expression and Protection of Reputation and Media Freedom Rapid Response.
|Civil society, Freedom of expression
|-
|'''Social constructionism'''
|A theory that suggests that our understanding of the social world is developed and interpreted in a human web rather than in individuals. Regarding technology, social constructionism argues that technology does not influence society, instead societies shape technology and how it is used in the context of that society. This may be considered in opposition to technological determinism.
|Media theory
|-
|'''The Medium is the message'''
|Theorist Marshall McLuhan thought that the medium (TV, radio, books, newspapers, billboards etc) is as important as, or more important than the content that is carried by the medium. That the functions of the medium contain biases that affect the way the medium presents content. For example, people who watched a debate between US presidential candidates, Kennedy and Nixon, in the 60s thought Kennedy had won the debate; however, those who had listened on the radio thought Nixon won the debate. Thus, the visual component of the television affected their perception. McLuhan also extended the theory to say that the content of a medium is another medium; speech is the content of writing, writing is the content of print, and the content of the telegraph is print. The implications for this meant that it was the medium itself, television for instance, that might affect society altering peoples' perceptions.
|Media theory
|-
|'''The view from nowhere'''
|a theory from journalism scholar, Jay Rosen, that neutrality can create a negative effect by suggesting that two opposing viewpoints carry equal validity.
|Journalism, Media theory
|-
|'''Two-step flow of information'''
|A communication theory that suggests that ideas travel first from mass media, then to influential people (politicians or thought leaders), and from them to the audience and general population. This is contrasted with the hypodermic needle model which suggests mass media is "injected" into passively receiving mass audiences.
|Media theory
|}
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Media and Information Literacy Glossary

2026-06-02T20:09:54Z

Luc: nothing

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