An #openweb organic intellectual,technologist and part of the #OMN
Ten years ago, I posted photos of a police raid on a boat in Mile End Park to a local Facebook group. What followed was a storm of critique from fellow community members, particularly around privacy, ethics, and the nature of local news. That exchange came back through the memory algorithm on #failbook, it’s interesting … Continue reading What is journalism in a dotcons community space?
We’re living through a cultural shift. The #Fediverse, the #openweb, and grassroots tech projects like #OMN were born to challenge the values of the corporate web, not to reproduce them.But what are we doing instead? We’re seeing people attacked simply for linking to context and history. Linking is native to the open web. Attacking people … Continue reading When we block thinking, it’s pratish #dotcons behaviour
This is a mess which has been clear to see for 20 years, but people still keep falling into the same traps instead of stepping off the cycle of conflict leading to control. Yes, we had something, we lost it, but as I talk about, we are still refusing to face why. Let’s use #Failbook … Continue reading People, community, the struggle between #openweb and #dotcons
In the early days, the internet was a wild, open landscape, a place of creativity, collaboration, and decentralization. But over time, the rise of corporate platforms (the #dotcons) turned it into something far more controlled, walled-off, and extractive. What if we could reclaim that original vision? What if we could build an open, federated, and … Continue reading Rewilding a people-first web, beyond the #dotcons
There is a tech ideology that masks corporate power, and this view of #mainstreaming Cyber libertarianism is a bizarre ideological mishmash, a combination of hippie flower power, economic neoliberalism, and a heavy dose of technological determinism. It’s the credo of Silicon Valley, so much so that for years it was known as the “Californian Ideology.” … Continue reading The #dotcons share an ideology
Let’s try a spiky reply to this tweet on the #mainstreaming #dotcons platform, keep in mind these spaces often reek of superficial analysis and throwing around half-baked ideas without engaging with the deeper structural issues. On the subject: “the culture of spontaneity, and mass horizontalism.” Yes, these approaches have their flaws, particularly when they lack … Continue reading Prodding a #dotcons flow
It’s obvious to us all now, that we do need a critique of the trajectory of social media platforms like #Facebook and #Instagram, to highlight how their growing reliance on AI-generated profiles and diminishing organic engagement undermines the little trust, satisfaction, and the purpose of social connection that people have left in them. This started … Continue reading #dotcons fail human connection
The main complaint, the blunt language I use. My reason for speaking plainly, is that it’s impossible to dress up the disgusting things I’m exposing in polite terms and still make the point clear to those who need to hear. I might as well be talking to the wind if I try to sugarcoat my … Continue reading Outreaching in the #dotcons is hard work
In the United States, propaganda is intertwined with consumerism. Edward Bernays working in the US is the father of modern propaganda, he believed that humans were driven by instincts and animal desires. His work was used to harness these instincts through advertisements (propaganda) to create inner desires within people, to feed consumerism, which corporations could … Continue reading #dotcons push consumerism as propaganda
Let’s look at capitalism through the lens of #dotcons (a term that plays on “dot-coms” with a critical twist). “Capitalism is the logic of the #dotcons” shows how these paths have shaped the #openweb into a landscape to prioritize profit over public good, leading to the current mess of exploitation, centralization, surveillance, and inequality. We … Continue reading Capitalism is the logic of the #dotcons
The term #enshittification, coined by Cory Doctorow, is a catchy way to describe the decline of digital platforms as they become exploitative and unusable. While it’s an effective pop term, it ultimately obscures the root causes of the problem. For the past 20 years, I’ve used #dotcons to describe the same issue, but with a … Continue reading Why #Enshittification Misses the Point and Why #Dotcons is the Better Frame
The #dotcons are designed for greed and selfishness, everything about them feeds this and in turn feeds off this negative path. This is coded deep into them, they cannot be fixed, and we cannot reboot alternatives to this by simply copying them in #FOSS as we have done too much in the #Fediverse. The rebooting … Continue reading The mess we made with the dotcons