An #openweb organic intellectual,technologist and part of the #OMN
Looking back on the activist groups I’ve been part of over the past few decades, I find myself drawn to the messy business of memory. Not nostalgia – something more grounded. A desire to trace the arc of what happened, why it happened, and what it meant, both personally and politically. But here’s the thing, … Continue reading Trying to Remember: A Personal Reflection on Activist Histories and Memory Holes
The #fashionistas are coming https://yewtu.be/embed/u_Lxkt50xOg? It’s time to become more real before this inflow swamps our “native” reboot, if we let them they will consume it and shit it out as more mess. To mediate this shit storm, it’s time to act, please, feel free to repost these web posts, thanks. To understand where the … Continue reading Rise and Fall of Grassroots #OpenWeb
What can we learn from the current mess. The protests didn’t fail because people didn’t care. They failed because the system is not built to respond to protest, it’s built to absorb it. We’ve marched for climate justice, taken the streets for peace, rallied for gender freedom, and now we mobilize for Palestine. The awareness … Continue reading Affective Protest vs. Effective Power: From Spectacle to Strategy
I would start to say, with care, that #Mastodon is now heading in the wrong direction. Not because it’s inherently bad, or malicious, or “captured” in some conspiratorial sense. But because it’s become too dominant, tipping the scales far away from the diversity and messiness that a healthy #Fediverse needs. This isn’t about blame, it’s … Continue reading The problem of too big, Mastodon
Let’s stop pretending every institution has to “go social” by building new habits, communities, and platforms from scratch. We already have a solid, simple tool that can bridge them from the #dotcons into the #Fediverse: WordPress + the ActivityPub plugin. Institutions want control – That’s OK. Bureaucratic institutions, local councils, unions, media orgs, #NGOs, aren’t … Continue reading Can bureaucracies join the #Fediverse? Yes – with WordPress + ActivityPub
A reflection on Oxford, the web, and the invisible gap we’re not naming. It’s a simple question, but one that says a lot about where we’re at with the #Fediverse and the broader #openweb reboot: Why doesn’t every city have its own Fediverse server? I’ve been looking – specifically for my city: Oxford, UK. And … Continue reading Why Doesn’t Every City Have a Fediverse Server?
Over the last few years, we’ve been watching a familiar story unfold, we’ve seen repeat itself in radical spaces, tech movements, and grassroots networks for decades. It starts in the grassroots with “progressive” #fashernistas (yes, them) pushing themselves into the front to speak for “us.” They talk the talk of decentralisation, care, community, and #FOSS … Continue reading This is a story of power, plain and simple
It’s good to see events like #NGIFORUM2025 as it’s trying to be on the path of the #Fediverse and the wider #openweb reboot which are real forces for social good, messy, hopeful, and grounded in decades of grassroots digital culture, which we do need to support. BUT we also need to speak honestly, as these … Continue reading NGIFORUM2025 is timidly touching sense
A story by Hamish Campbell Genre: Climate fiction Setting: Oxford, England – 2030s to 2080s Themes: Climate migration, class war, migrant displacement, urban decay and adaptation, history repeating, social justice, collapse vs. transformation, DIY survival vs. institutional decay. A post #climatechaos utopia/dystopia history of a small English town. Timeline: THE RISING PART TWO: THE CRACKING … Continue reading Oxford: Going with The Flow
It’s becoming a problem. When people start asking, “Is @_elena the first genuine superstar of the Fediverse?” – we should all pause. This isn’t idle praise, it’s the reproduction of celebrity culture, liberal imperialism, and vertical hierarchy in a space that explicitly set out to reject those structures. Have you ever thought – just for … Continue reading It’s becoming a problem
For more than 40 years, the default #mainstreaming path has led straight into worshipping of what can only be described as a #deathcult. This isn’t just metaphor, it’s literal. We’ve watched the ecosystem collapse, inequality explode, communities fragment, and culture rot under the weight of corporate-controlled sameness. And through it all, the one thing we … Continue reading We’ve Spent 45 Years Worshipping A #Deathcult
It’s important to be honest about the landscape we’re working in. Just about every so-called “alternative tech” or #opensocialweb event – especially those run under the #NGO banner – is riddled with institutional parasites. They talk a big game about ethics, governance, and decentralisation, but their main role is to capture energy, not release it. … Continue reading A call-out for collective tech with teeth