OMN projects are tools for YOU to change and challenge the world we live (and die) in

Non classé 2 Minutes

The Open Media Network (#OMN) is an “anything in, anything out” network powered by a mediated trust system. Instead of one corporation or #NGO controlling the flow, the commernerty decides what happens to the data that moves through it. At its core, the #OMN is a data soup: tagged data objects flowing through channels. These flows are shaped by trust. You consume and share based on your trust relationships, not on algorithms designed to manipulate you.

Key features are built-in, not bugs: Lossy data – it doesn’t have to be perfect to be useful. Redundancy – multiple instances mean resilience, not waste. Trust mediation – human-scale filters that grow communities. The #geekproblem often resists these messy but living dynamics, demanding rigid perfection. But that rigidity kills creativity. The #OMN embraces mess as the fertile ground where culture grows.

The network is built on the normal #FOSS process, #4opens – open data, open source, open process, open standards. Its focus isn’t inventing new shiny toys. It’s about weaving together what already exists into a functioning grassroots media/news commons. Others are free to build their own projects on top of the framework. What’s exciting is the flows of trust that emerge. These aren’t abstract protocols, they’re the living arteries of new communities.

In short: The #OMN is decentralized, trust-based, open by design. It empowers people and communities to take control of media, to create their own flows, their own networks, their own power.

It’s not about serving users.
It’s about empowering people.
It’s not about control.
It’s about trust.

The #OMN is not a product. It’s a shovel. Use it to compost the #deathcult, and grow something alive.

The #OMN is a simple project

For the more geeky – 5 Functions of the #OMN (#5F)

Think of the #OMN as plumbing for media, a system of pipes, holding tanks, and connectors. It’s designed so anyone (not just geeks) can understand and use it. Every site in the network is built from these 5 basic functions:

  1. Link / Subscribe

Plumb a new pipe into the network. A flow of content comes in or goes out. Each pipe can connect to any other function.

  1. Trust / Moderate

Flow passes through a sieve. Trusted content moves smoothly; noise gets filtered. You can send flows straight through, into holding tanks, or split them into new pipes.

  1. Rollback

Empty the tank, rewind a flow, or remove specific objects. Essential for correcting errors, spam, or bad data.

  1. Edit Metadata

Add tags or notes to the “tail” of a data object. Metadata determines how content gets sieved and aggregated. This is the backbone of news curation in the OMN.

  1. Publish

Add new content objects into the flow. Optionally editable. Publishing is just another pipe into the system. At the core sits the storage tank: a simple database holding all the flows.

Nothing new here. This isn’t rocket science – it’s the same way plumbing works, or how power grids function, or how neurons connect in the brain. The #OMN builds on this #nothingnew principle: simple, understandable systems scaled up to empower communities.

UX/UI then sits on top of these 5 functions. That’s the “macro” – the surface layer people touch – but underneath, it’s all just pipes and tanks for flows of data.

#KISS

If you would like and example of what real #DIY activist grassroots media looks like https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2006/climatecamp/ and https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2007/climatecamp/ and https://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/actions/2008/climatecamp/

We need to reboot this project #indymediaback #OMN #Fediverse

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5 thoughts on “OMN projects are tools for YOU to change and challenge the world we live (and die) in”

  1. Pingback: The #OMN is a simple project – Hamish Campbell

  2. Non-sense

    The neoliberal model of "decentralized" individual private owners federated under no common values or principles, acting as hooligan dictators, and helpless guests, submitted to unscrutinized censorship is ALL WE NEED

    Free to upload as many and repetitive amount of a/v files but limiting text to #500characters is conditioning participants to NOT READ NOT WRITE

    FB and Twitter are reformist social-democrats by comparison

    @info #Fediverse #Mastodon what Musk and NSA conceptualized

    1. What do you mean by “Non sense”

      If this is about the current #mainstreaming path of the crew that have taken over the #Fediverse dev and governance then yes, it’s a mess and as been for a while, but its “our mess”, so we need a shovel to compost it #KISS

    1. Interesting, love the indymedia links, have added them to the end of the post as example of grassroots #DIY media.

      My first thought is that this is “solving” a different problem, it’s facilitating closed affinity groups, where the #OMN based on https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network is trying (and failing) to facilitate open affinity groups, the bridge between these two paths is sudo anonymous – how would this fit into the Forgejo
      work flow (which is an in perfect tool, but the tool we have)

      On the more public facing projects, it’s about ActivityPub as a standard, to become a part of the wider ecosystem of the #openweb, so how would it bridge to this existing path?

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