The announcement from the #SocialWebFoundation is a corporate vision rather than something native, grassroots or revolutionary. Describing people as “users” who follow “influencers and brands” is a social mess, the commercialized, top-down paths that clash with the #4opens of collaboration, activism, and mutual aid path we build. On its current path this is a delusional…
The Panthers’ slogan “Power to the People” resonates on the #openweb
A forum thread on socialhub brought up a powerful parallel between the radical demands of the Black Panther Party (#BPP) and the underlying values of the #fediverse and #activitypub communities, especially in their attempts to build outside the corporate-controlled paths. The metaphor is striking because both seek liberation, self-determination, and the creation of alternatives to…
Navigating challenges: online governance, trolling, and privacy
It’s interesting and useful to look at the critical issue of online governance, community dynamics, and the problem of #mainstreaming trolling on both the #dotcons and open social platforms like #Mastodon, #Fediverse and the broader #openweb Let’s start with mastodon, the complexity of (default) privacy settings leads to public conversations inadvertently shifting into private spaces,…
Thoughts on the mess we made on #socialhub and the wider #openweb reboot
The frustration of navigating the mess of activism, tech, and grassroots movements, especially when they get co-opted and sidetracked by personal interests, #NGO agendas, or broader #mainstreaming mess. We need ways to process, compost, and turn this mess into a more productive path, one which balances burnout and disillusionment. A part of this is the…
Parasite #NGO and #fashionista tech
“But the principal objection will doubtless refer to the plain language used. My excuse, if indeed excuse be needed for saying just what I mean, is, that it is impossible to clothe in delicate terms the intolerable nastiness which I expose, and at the same time to press the truth home to those who are…
The problem with fragmentation
The #openweb is inherently social, as it’s a people to people network, so pushing the term Open Social Web and resulting hashtag #opensocialweb or #socialweb by NGOs and #fashernista groups is adding mess at best and real damage at worst. While the intention might be well-meaning, it introduces confusion and fragmentation, by unthinking mirroring #dotcons…
The Slow Evaporation of FOSS value
The article “The Slow Evaporation of the FOSS Surplus” by Baldur Bjarnason discusses the gradual decline in the effectiveness and sustainability of Free and Open Source Software (#FOSS) within, unspoken context of a capitalist economy. The argument is that FOSS, once a thriving ecosystem driven by community effort and collaboration, is now being drained of…
Mediating the prat’ish behaviour and #deathcult mentality
When alternatives cross with #mainstreaming in both our #openweb movement and the broader #dotcons landscape, we find ourselves confronting a troubling dynamic—a rise in prat’ish behaviour, characterized by ego-driven conflict, divisiveness, and resistance to meaningful change, this threatens to undermine the progress we urgently need. At the heart of this issue is the 40 years…
Open Media Networking
The “unique” selling point of the #OMN (Open Media Network) often gets lost because people focus too much on the technical side rather than the simple, fundamental idea at its core. The real value proposition, which might sound like “common sense,” is quite radical in today’s landscape: in the #OMN, both people and content are…
The Open Governance Body
https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody A project outline for the OGB Project description The Open Governance Body (#OGB) project is a set of software tools that encode a governance model structured on traditional grassroots activism. Further, the OGB – for which the code base is named – is a decentralized and democratic system for “governance” of any collective/community consisting…