Emissary.dev presents itself as a promising low-code platform that might potentially expedite prototyping for the #ActivityPub based #OMN projects. It has an emphasis on ease of use and integration with #openweb social APIs. This is the path we need to take for rapid development without getting bogged down in initial complexities.
Potential benefits are, rapid prototyping, the low-code approach for quick iterations and testing of ideas in early stage development. It has an open source foundation, providing the flexibility to modify and adapt the codebase as needed. This openness also means that, if necessary, a custom backend can be developed in the future without starting from scratch. There is some developer engagement, Ben the dev, appears to be engaged with the community, responding to issues on #GitHub and expressing a desire to support #openweb paths.
Things to consider – the monetization plans with a freemium model in the future, while this is not uncommon, it’s important to be clear how this might affect the project’s long term independence and sustainability. Then there is the background of the developer, which includes work in the self-help industry, agen this isn’t inherently negative, but how this experience might influence the platform’s direction and priorities. All this helps to look at the codebase long-term viability for “native” #openweb use, as relying on a third-party platform always carries some risk. We need to assess whether Emissary.dev’s development trajectory aligns with the long-term goals of the #OMN projects.
Next steps are technical evaluation, a review of the codebase to assess its quality, security practices, and suitability for the project’s needs. Will be reaching out to Ben for a video discussion to better understand his vision for the platform and how it aligns with the #OMN paths. Then, if this looks positive in pilot testing, proceed with a small-scale pilot to test capabilities in a soft roll-out environment.
Looking for feedback on this.
We also look at Ibis Wiki
UPDATE: the code I’ve read so far at least looks well-organised, and it’s fairly clear to read through and glean intent. Looks promising.
The leadership model of the #Fediverse has long mirrored the “aristocracy” of many open-source projects. At the centre stands the developer “king”, a benevolent dictator model that, while functional to a point, is fundamentally limited. Now, we see a shift towards the #NGO-style of governance, and ironically, this may be an even worse model.
Let’s be honest: the day-to-day of the Fediverse is more like elephants stampeding while people throw paper planes at each other. It’s messy, chaotic, but truthfully native to what the Fediverse is. And that’s the point.
Democracy is always messy. Bureaucracy, on the other hand, is tidy—but dead. The problem is that what people wish for—neat structures, clear hierarchies, clean governance—is often exactly what kills the real vitality of alternative spaces. When you introduce money and institutional status into a grassroots organization, power politics follow. Every time. If you want to avoid this, you need some form of lived, messy democracy, rooted in shared trust and open process.
The real question is: how do we build structures that are native to the Fediverse? Ones that reflect its radical difference rather than force it back into broken moulds? I’ve watched hundreds of projects fail over the last 20 years by doing just that—reverting to what’s familiar, what seems “common sense.” But this “common sense” is the enemy of growing grassroots movements. Especially when you’re trying to build something outside the gravitational pull of the #mainstreaming machine.
The Fediverse works because it’s radically different. That difference is fragile, and we need to protect and deepen it, not dilute it with NGO logic or replicate Silicon Valley’s pyramid schemes. What we need is trust, messiness, and actual grassroots process. This is what the #OGB is aiming for. Let’s not throw that away for a seat at the wrong table.
Almost all our posting in the #openweb and in the #dotcons in response to #mainstreaming news is noise. It’s reactive, fragmented, performative. We scroll, we rage, we boost, we dunk, but we don’t build. Sometimes, someone posts something thoughtful, something deep, meaningful. But it vanishes in the churn. The system is designed this way.
Even on our #openweb, where we have more autonomy, we are mirroring this spectacle path, feeding it attention, reposting its narratives, amplifying its framing. In the mess of this world, our timelines become echo chambers of secondhand despair and outrage. In short, we’re still speaking their language, on their terms, with their tools.
Why? Because we haven’t (re)built a place for real signal yet. The #OMN (Open Media Network), is a push to shift this dynamic. It’s not about broadcasting noise slightly more ethically. It’s about creating new spaces entirely, where the roots of stories matter more than the spin, where the focus is on shared compost rather than hot takes, where people and community are producers, and where signal isn’t just a flash, but a ongoing process.
The current state of the web, especially under the domination of the #dotcons, is colonized communication. It rewards (stupid)individualism, immediacy, virality. It buries context, nuance, history. It’s a structure that #blocks liberation because it’s built to sell alienation back to us, one like or scroll, on click at a time.
Even the current #openweb reboot, for all its potential, reproduces these patterns, because we carry them with us. We don’t just need alternatives in name, we need alternative cultures, processes, and values. We need to compost the mess, the #techshit, and grow new paths from the decay. That’s what the #OMN is seeded to do.
But let’s be honest, we’re not there yet. And we won’t get there unless we start collectively focusing on building signal, not just yelling about the noise. The tools need to be #KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid), the governance needs to be transparent, trust-based, and the tech has to get out of the way, not be the centre. This requires stepping away from the #geekproblem, the cult of control, complexity, and abstraction, and towards living, messy, grassroots cultures that prioritize access, action, and accountability.
The mainstream is collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions. That collapse is not the revolution. What grows next is.
Take media coverage of protests as an example. It’s always framed through the lens of disruption and spectacle, “violent clashes,” “unrest,” “inconvenience to commuters” rather than the systemic injustices that birthed the protest in the first place. The message from the #mainstreaming is clear: “Why can’t you express your anger in a way that’s easier for us to ignore?” This is not journalism, it’s narrative policing. It flattens struggle into caricature and erases the causes: the exploitation, the dispossession, the broken promises. This is normal when we have media infrastructure of our own. Without projects like #indymediaback to hold space for grounded, first-voice storytelling, all we get is the echo of power describing its own reflection.
There’s a “normal” dangerous illusion still clinging to liberal democracies: that we’re in a time of political turbulence, but the foundations remain intact. That, somehow, we’ll “course correct.” But this needs to be seen as blinded thinking.
What is obvious is that we’re actually experiencing regime change, not in some distant land, but right here in the West. And it’s not coming from tanks or coups, but through the ballot box, boardrooms, social media algorithms, and #NGO “common sense”. It’s a sometimes hard sometimes soft, systemic shift rightward, authoritarian, nationalistic, and wrapped in the aesthetics of democracy.
From the U.S. to the UK, the EU to Australia, this right-on-right push is becoming the new normal. Neoliberal “centrism” no longer holds the centre, it’s morphing, accommodating and enabling hard-right politics, law-and-order, border control, national identity, anti-progress, pro-surveillance, anti-labour, the #deathcult is adapting to survive.
The #mainstreaming left is either co-opted, defanged, or fragmented. The radical left, where it exists, is distracted, performative, and lost in a fog of internal squabbles. Meanwhile, the far-right is disciplined, funded, and in motion. They’re winning not just in elections, but in narrative, shaping what is possible, what is sayable, and what is unthinkable.
The mainstream was never a neutral space, it’s a battleground, and we are losing it. Every time we dismiss a new policy as “just politics,” or think this is just another swing of the pendulum, we miss the simple truth that a new regime is consolidating, one that sees basic rights, justice, and truth as obstacles, not goals.
We need to name this clearly. We need to organize outside the institutions, because those institutions were never neutral. The work is not just advocacy or lobbying, it’s resistance and reconstruction. We need to rebuild from the bottom up. Projects like the #OGB, the #OMN, and a rebooted #Indymedia are small seeds. But they matter. Because if we don’t grow our own ecosystems, we’ll be forced to live under theirs.
This is not alarmism. It’s the world as it is. Let’s not wait for the full lock-in before we act, please.
Our history of involvement in #EU digital outreach and policy meetings has made one thing starkly clear, our #openweb is deeply entangled in the process of #mainstreaming, a messy, often co-optive dynamic where grassroots voices are softened, diluted, and redirected into bureaucracy, then in the end they are simply #blocked. Yes, while there is value in taking part, it’s also a wake-up call.
The push to shape digital paths from above is strong. But without active grassroots alternatives, there will be no balance that is needed. The building of a so-called “commons” is reshaped to fit into #NGO boxes, filled with #dotcons-friendly language, and stripped of any radical potential. This is why our #openweb projects now matter more than ever.
At the heart of this approach must be #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) in both technology and user experience. We don’t need more convoluted tools or platforms weighed down by geek prestige. We need simple, effective frameworks and networks that allow users-as-producers to build the social complexity on their own terms. Complexity should come from people, not code.
And this brings us to the elephant in the room, the #geekproblem. Our own grassroots digital spaces are still shaped by a narrow, deterministic culture that lacks wider social understanding. In the path we need to be on, we cannot code our way to liberation if the ideology behind the code is warped, and currently, it is. As we often say: all code is ideology solidified, and it has real social effects.
Right now, way too much of that ideology stems from the #deathcult, hidden behind kind words, progressive branding, and empty buzzwords. This disconnect between stated values and real-world outcomes is dangerous, and disturbingly common.
This is why we’re pushing the #OGB, an online Open Governance Body for the #fediverse and beyond. Built around the #4opens and grounded in social paths, the OGB is designed to be a real voice for grassroots communities. It’s an open project, a no-permissions outreach tool, use it if you find value in it.
We’re currently looking for funding support and collaborators, particularly developers who are attracted to this vision. If you have links, networks, or skills to offer, get in touch.
The time is urgent. The mainstreaming machine is rolling forward. Let’s compost the #techshit, reclaim our spaces, and grow better from the bottom up.
The #Fediverse exists, and more than that, it’s alive and kicking. Sure, it might be a messy, chaotic, a bit fragmented, and yes, still niche. But let’s not underplay it, this is the healthiest corners of the internet we’ve got. Tens of million accounts, hundreds of thousands active people, and some are sometimes talking about how we build our digital spaces from the bottom up.
Yep, there are the cat videos, the #fluffys and the #spikys. But also an in-group debate is bubbling away about who speaks for the Fediverse? What defines it? Is it the standard #ActivityPub that binds us only technically? Or is the value in the community that’s formed it, the living web of relationships, servers, instances, and admins making this work day-in-day-out? Truth is, it’s both. #activitypub without community is just code. Community without #activitypub is just another silo waiting to collapse. They are not the same, but they are inseparable. To build something real, we need to nurture both the tech and the people.
What works in the #Fediverse is decentralisation with purpose, it works because it resists centralisation. It gives people choices, want a cat picture, instance? A political instance? A hyper-local or themed space? You install and build it, and people might come. This is #DIY grassroots digital culture in motion. Standards support this growth, #ActivityPub, like #RSS before, may not be perfect, but it’s open, extensible, and functional. It allows platforms and networks to talk to one another. This is a real #4opens foundation for collaboration, not control. That’s the kind of architecture we need in the #openweb reboot.
What doesn’t currently work is the over-reliance on hard blocking as a solution, with the common approach to problems is too often to block, users, instances, entire classes of servers like the #dotcons. While this kinda makes sense in the short term, it’s not a long-term strategy. It’s the digital equivalent of putting your head in the sand. You’re not solving the problem, you’re just not looking at it any more. This has the strong tendency to feed the “Cave Mentality” where some corners of the Fediverse are in defensive mode, retreating into smaller and smaller bubbles, avoiding engagement, trying to build perfection behind walls. But hiding from the mess doesn’t clean it up. If the #openweb becomes too closed, it dies from within. Openness is a value, not just a setting.
This is in part due to a lack of collective strategy, yes we’ve got the passion. We’ve got the tools. What we’re missing is a shared direction. The is currently too much reinventing the wheel, too many forks without purpose, not enough joining the dots. A thousand flowers bloom, but the garden needs tending.
#nothingnew is a basic tool about this, then there is the use of the #4opens, we need to make the #Fediverse and every layer of the #openweb, measurably open. That means: Open Data: accessible and remixable content. Open Source: transparent and forkable codebases. Open Standards: like #ActivityPub, that let different platforms interconnect. Open Process: decision-making in public, with participation and accountability.
The #4opens framework is a guide, not to perfection, but to direction. It’s a map toward trust, decentralisation, and sustainability. On this path, we need to build culture, not only code. Healthy communities don’t just appear, they’re built. Instead of building tech features, let’s also build social norms. Encourage, informative, welcome messages, transparent moderation, shared spaces for discussion. Moderation and admin is labour, support it, reward it and most importantly decentralise it.
To build community, don’t shy away from engagement. It’s tempting to block and move on. But sometimes, the hard work is worth it, call things out, talk things through, escalate when needed, but don’t disengage by default. We need active participation, not digital ghost towns. If we want the #Fediverse to grow, we need to build bridges, not walls. Let’s weave human trust networks to grow spaces that are porous, where new people can enter, learn, contribute, and stay. This is the work of social federation, which is just as important as technical federation.
There is a bigger picture if you are interested and are motivated to look, the #OMN, Open Media Network project is a vision and collective path for this kind of social architecture. It’s a federated network of media hubs, rooted in community, powered by open standards, and guided by human trust. It doesn’t seek control, it offers #KISS tools to build trust, add value, and create meaningful networks from the ground up. On this “native” path, rather than rejecting “bad actors” by exclusion, we build systems that surface good actors through collective tagging, trusted feeds, and editorial flows. Moderation becomes a feature, not a bug.
Final thought, let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past. The last 20 years of alt-tech is a graveyard of well-meaning platforms that failed because they forgot one thing, the humans. The #geekproblem has been building “perfect” systems with no one in them. That’s not the #openweb we want. We need less abstraction, more interaction. Less control, more cooperation. And above all, we need to recognise that openness requires work, but it also delivers freedom. So yes, the Fediverse exists. It’s healthy. But it can and needs to be more. Let’s stop hiding. Let’s start building. Together.
State violence is the final refuge of the incompetent, considering the staggering incompetence of the present governments, it’s no surprise they’re hedging their failures with increased military spending. When leaders are intellectually and morally bankrupt, when they run out of ideas, when their authority falters under the weight of economic inequality, climate breakdown, and crumbling public services, they reach for the oldest tools of control: fear, force, and distraction.
Across the world, we’re watching this trend unfold. Governments are pouring resources into militarisation while systematically underfunding healthcare, education, and welfare. In the UK, billions are being funnelled into new military hardware, expanded surveillance infrastructure, and policing, all while people struggle to heat their homes, access a GP, or keep a roof over their heads. This isn’t mismanagement. It’s a political choice, and it makes clear where the priorities lie, in protecting the power of the #nastyfew, not people.
They tell us it’s about “security” and “defence.” But when a government starts to feel more threatened by its own people than by any foreign force, we must ask: what kind of future are they preparing for? It’s starting to look like one where dissent is criminalised, protest is heavily surveilled, and public frustration is met not with care or accountability, but with batons and border walls.
We should be deeply worried, because violence is not only about tanks and drones, it’s the everyday grinding violence of austerity, the hostile environment, the punitive benefit sanctions, the calculated dismantling of social safety nets. It’s a state driven project that protects the profits of the #nastyfew while punishing those who dare to imagine something different.
But here’s the hard truth, we did this, and we keep doing it. It’s us. We have the power not to do this. We vote, we organise, we protest, and sometimes we stay silent, and all of that shapes the world we live in. Every time we shrug our shoulders, every time we tell ourselves change is impossible, we make the next wave of repression that much stronger. But the other side of this is also true, when we act, when we organise, when we care, we push the tide in the other direction, this is a basic story of #activism.
Incompetence, paired with unchecked power and militarisation, becomes very sinister fast. It’s a very basic first step, that we must resist this story of more control, more surveillance, and more force as the solutions. What we need now is courage, creativity, compassion and solidarity. The qualities that have been deliberately stripped from the institutions that govern us, but that still live in us, and in the communities in this #openweb commons we build.
The architecture of Oxford, the grand halls, towering spires, and ivy-covered colleges, is more than a backdrop. It’s a symbol. These buildings don’t only house knowledge; they embody a history of power, privilege, and preservation. It’s in the walls, the unspoken codes of belonging, the centuries of elitism embedded in tradition, the quiet weight of exclusion.
Oxford’s physical space has always reflected its social structure. The high walls and closed gates were designed to separate, town from gown, outsider from insider, the privileged few from the rest. The porters lodge is a symbolic space in this story, behind those gates, generations of leaders, thinkers, and empire-builders were shaped, not just by ideas, but by the assurance that they belonged to something set apart, something superior. This legacy continues to echo in who feels welcome, who gains access, and whose voices are still struggling to be heard.
The beauty of Oxford is undeniable. But so too is its role in upholding systems of inequality. From colonial ties to class barriers, the university has long been a crucible of status as much as scholarship. The architecture itself reminds us of this: libraries named after donors with questionable legacies, colleges founded on the proceeds of empire, and traditions that often resist the need for change.
Yet, within those same walls lies some potential for transformation. History doesn’t only bind us, it can also guide us. The challenge and change is to turn spaces once marked by exclusion into platforms for inclusion. To ensure, the walls that once kept people out now support those coming in.
Oxford’s future depends not on how well it preserves its image of prestige, but on how bravely it reimagines its purpose. The stones will stand for centuries more, what they symbolize is ours to change.
We are living through a deep crisis, not just of environment, economy, or governance, but of imagination and the will to live. The old systems are visibly broken, the #IPCC reports confirm what many already feel, we are trapped inside a #deathcult, and #mainstreaming culture offers only distraction, careerism, and status games for isolated individuals. There is no hope there.
But hope is not some fluffy optimism, it’s a social force. And in every grassroot, federated, #DIY tech project, the solution is always the same, more people. Not more gatekeepers. Not more hierarchy. Just more people. This is the core truth of the #OMN (Open Media Network). It’s not a product, it’s a process. It’s not a startup pitch, it’s a compost heap where good things grow, if we turn it, feed it, and invite others to join in.
We already know how the far right wins, they appeal to real feelings of injustice, then twist those feelings into #stupidindividualism that serves their own #nastyfew class interests. It’s reactionary ideology, and it’s spreading fast. What do we do? Step away from their game. Get involved in building something different. The #4opens is a simple, powerful tool to judge who’s building towards the commons and who’s just repackaging and pushing the same poison.
This needed “common sense” path, this break, we can start to use shovels to turn over the ground we grow from. When we do this, one thing that is fertile is that in the end, all social action happens through generalized talk, categories, metaphors, shorthand. That’s how language works. But we live in a cultural amnesia where this is forgotten, mistaken for “common sense.”
This is why the very different tech projects of the #OMN actually embraces this messy, human space, while the more mainstreaming #geekproblem seeks rigid machine-like CONTROL. This is a question of balance, yes, they’re often technically right, but socially intolerant. We, by contrast, are often technically wrong, but humanly right. What we need is a bridge between these approaches, or we’ll just keep circling.
The #OMN project use some control; the #geekproblem needs a lot of humanity. The current hard blocking is that they don’t see this, and so they keep #BLOCKING. For example, take the common pattern where someone says, “why don’t you just develop it?” That line unconsciously dumps all responsibility on narrow “geeks” while ignoring the role of social imagination, UI/UX design, and the deeper process we’re trying to solve together. That’s the #geekproblem: not the code, but the refusal to look at the problem outside the code. So here we are again – rinse, repeat. Let’s not. Let’s build the bridge.
Not for the first time, and certainly not the last, we hit the same wall: misunderstanding and misdirection. The #geekproblem isn’t just about bad code or poor decisions, it’s about an unhealthy, almost inhuman obsession with control. Where we are now? The federated model, which is a useful half step, a half-measure? Federation is an interesting paradox, as it panders to control, offering people their own little digital kingdoms. It dilutes control, spreading authority so thinly that it could evaporate into nothing.
The “problem” is that the tech conversations are controlled by ghosts. For ten years, “control” was the centre of everything in tech, privacy, moderation, governance, structure. Now that conversation is fading into the background, this makes you wonder, What was directing those conversations? Why did they fade? And why do we keep falling for the same cycle of control and distraction? If I were a conspiracy nutter, I’d say these people were paid by lizards to keep us agitated just enough to stay passive, so that back in the day we’d accept the next wave of #dotcons with open arms.
The non conspiracy view is that every day, we carry tiny shrines to the #deathcult in our pockets, and at every moment pull them out to endlessly scroll, consuming, and reinforcing the same failed, despondent paths. So, if we empty our pockets, what’s the alternative?
Shovels, I call for shovels, we need to dig deep and build real alternatives.
In this, the #OMN isn’t about recreating old power structures, it’s about growing new ones.
The #4opens isn’t just a technical framework, it’s a way to judge and navigate tech without getting lost in corporate distractions and traps.
What can we do now? Instead of trudging along with the same tired paths, let’s build and support real #KISS solutions. Support projects that aren’t just replicating the old models. Stop chasing the latest distraction and focus on the real work. Turn agitation into action, not passivity. Shovels in hand, it’s time to dig the #OMN, this could be fun, but it won’t be easy.
Critique without action is just noise. If we want real change, we need to move beyond commentary and into building. The #OMN isn’t just an idea, it’s a framework waiting for hands to shape it. So, instead of watching from the sidelines, who’s actually up for developing the tech we need? The tools exist, the knowledge is there, and the moment is ripe. If we don’t build our own paths, we’ll keep walking the ones laid out by the same failing institutions.
It should be painfully obvious by now that all the current #mainstreaming paths have failed. Whether we look at politics, technology, media, or activism, the same patterns emerge, co-option, stagnation, and eventual collapse under their own mess and self-destructive contradictions.
The valid question isn’t whether mainstreaming has failed, it has. The real question is – What do we do about it? This applies just as much to our efforts to reboot the #openweb as it does to broader struggles in the “real world”.
The failure of mainstreaming in the #openweb, the openweb, in its original form, was about freedom, transparency, and grassroots empowerment. But as it became “mainstreamed,” it was gradually stripped of its radical paths and potentials. We’ve seen co-option by corporate interests, with Big Tech adopting the language of openness while building walled gardens. #NGO bureaucracy, with funding models turning radical ideas into managed, defanged projects that no longer challenge power. Gatekeeping by the #geekproblem with overcomplicated, insular development processes alienate the people the #openweb was meant to be for.
This leads to fragmentation and infighting, instead of building a strong, collective movement, energy is wasted on internal disputes and purity tests. What is the alternative? This is simple, if we don’t want to repeat the same old failures, we need to do things differently. For an #openweb reboot to work, it needs to balance:
Rejecting the mainstreaming path, this means resisting corporate and #NGO capture while keeping the web decentralized and grassroots-driven.
Building real alternatives, not only endless discussion, but practical, working tools that people can actually use.
Embrace the organic intellectual, knowledge should come from real-world experience, not echo chamber theory and academic bubbles.
Find a balance between structure and openness to avoiding bureaucracy, which doesn’t mean avoiding organization. We need cooperative governance models like #OGB to navigate this.
This isn’t only about tech, it’s about power. If we keep letting traditional power structures dictate how things develop, we will always end up back in the same mess. The mainstream has failed. It’s time to build something that works. Read more: hamishcampbell.com
Setting up a #Mastodon account to move away from supremacist platforms like #Twitter, #Threads, #Bluesky, and #LinkedIn felt like the right step. But almost immediately, I ran into one of the core failures of the so-called #openweb—drastic post length limits, artificial restrictions, and a general lack of usability. At first glance, Mastodon appears no different from the mainstream platforms it’s supposed to replace. With the post lengths, why are we still replicating big tech models?
But that’s only partially true. Some Mastodon instances do allow longer posts, and the broader #Fediverse is full of different options, many of which are free from the limits imposed by inherited #mainstreaming culture. The issue isn’t Mastodon itself, but how fragmented and confusing the experience still is. The #Geekproblem strikes again, a quick dive into the openweb landscape reveals the same story:
Messy, inconsistent user experiences
Endless debate over technical details while real users struggle
A lack of funding or structured support for meaningful improvements
This fragmentation preventing mass adoption
All the noise about “fixing” this is just noise. Yes, the #openweb path exists and works, but it’s underfunded, unsupported, and often overshadowed by corporate-backed alternatives. A Familiar Failure that is both frustrating and predictable, this is a view of these struggles from an outside perspective. We still have a chaotic landscape where even well-intentioned users find themselves frustrated and giving up. The open web won’t succeed just by existing, it needs to work. Right now, for too many people, it doesn’t.
