An #openweb organic intellectual,technologist and part of the #OMN
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 … Continue reading Mainstreaming: Building Grassroots Balance
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 … Continue reading Rebooting the #openweb in a good way
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 … Continue reading A guest post – The Mess of the Current #OpenWeb Path: A User’s Experience
If we want the #openweb to survive and thrive, we need new forms of power, ones that can defend the community and challenge traditional power dynamics without falling into the traps of control, hierarchy, and co-option. The problem is clear: If we follow traditional power politics, which are built on control, manipulation, and exclusion, we … Continue reading Building #OGB is about power without #powerpolitics
The core problem for the last 20 years has been that most activists were locked into #dotcons (corporate social media silos) because open alternatives were either too difficult to use, lack network effects, or fail to meet their practical needs. With the current reboot of the #openweb with the #fedivers based on #ActivityPub has already … Continue reading What software do activists need?
For the last 5 years conversations have been about, the #Fediverse, #Web3 and more recently the pushing of #mainstreaming into the #openweb native path. But despite this, the fediverse is still a notable outlier in the digital landscape. This is in part because unlike the dominant tech trends, which emerge from Silicon Valley and the … Continue reading Struggling for a Real Alternative
Q: Very interested in what you have to say. I’ve been trying to find a place in the #Fediverse that’s not in thrall to big tech. How do I join up? #OMN #OpenWeb. Hungry, feed me! A: This is harder than it should be, and that itself is a telling sign of where we are … Continue reading It’s not easy, and it’s not as simple as clicking “sign up” and walking into a ready-made community
We need to talk, again, about how the #NGO world pushes HARD BLOCKING over the native #openweb paths we need to take. This isn’t some new issue; we’ve been having the same conversation for years. And yet, here we are, watching the same bad behaver and the same mistakes repeating, only now, with the #mainstreaming … Continue reading The #NGO mess is hard blocking
The #geekproblem has been an ongoing issue in the development of radical and open internet paths. This is particularly evident in the influx of #mainstreaming users into the #Fediverse, bringing with them behaviors that, for us #openweb natives, are easy to recognize as part’ish, a mix of good intentions and ingrained habits that common sense … Continue reading The #geekproblem is too often soft blocking change and challenge in tech
The value of the #Fediverse isn’t in the tech specs. It’s not in the #ActivityPub protocol or the code itself, those are tools. The value lies in the culture that birthed it. The #Fediverse is the living embodiment of the #openweb, not some #VC Silicon Valley plaything. But as money floods in #mainstreaming forces will … Continue reading Composting the #TechShit
For way too long, our digital spaces have been hijacked by corporate interests, turning the internet into a surveillance-driven wasteland where control, profit, and censorship push aside community, useful creativity, and communities autonomy. As a first step to reclaim our media and communication networks, we need to step away from the #mainstreaming mess and build … Continue reading Rebuilding Radical, Grassroots Media
The #mainstreaming success of #Bluesky means we have a crew who keep pushing the idea of creating a “native” #AP federated codebase/platform that captures its simplicity and ease of use. The problem they focus on is complexity vs. accessibility, the #open path is inherently more complex than the #closed path, and that’s a good thing … Continue reading The #Open Path vs The #Closed Path – Why Simplicity Matters