A conversation on trust/control in social technology

Q. In a nutshell, my manifesto could be “form your own little communities and federate them”

A. What would be the “common” understanding/agreements/standards that would bridge these communities, or would it Only be code, if only code what standards?

Q. Federation just depends upon the willingness to do so. The code is just the plumbing which makes it happen. And I think nearly all fediverse federation is opt-out, so that you are federating by default but can opt-out (block) if you want to.

A. Interesting to look at #peertube backend for a opt-in federated model, this aproch is the social/technical model for the social/tech of the #OMN project. That is building a human network first, technology is to support and mediate the very strong #geekproblem that is #blocking the human change/challenge we need #KISS

Q. Opt-in is ok if you are trying to build a small federation or an institution with different departments (eg a federation of libraries with particular rules and membership criteria).
I don’t think the fediverse would have been as successful if it had been opt-in from the beginning, though.

A. The #peertube network is an working example of this opt-in for content sharing. Think commenting is opt-out. It’s not got any “social” UX for this, which is why its kinda limited at mo… it suffers from the #geekproblem like just about all coding projects so worth looking at/using but its not core #OMN

Q. The problem with peertube was that the way it was federated initially was pretty bad, and the large majority of the videos being posted were not self-made and were just copyright violations, inviting legal takedowns. Initially, they also didn’t have enough moderation capability to combat disinformation and spam.
Often developers are expecting a twee world in which everyone is nice, but this is never the case for social networks. That expectation has a lot to do with the socio-economic position of commercial software development and its demographic homogeneity.

A. think the resion they did not do good moderation was a question of priorates, we have endemic BAD history for most of our tech, good to keep this in mind.
There are two paths out of the mess you touch on, one is social, one is hard tech. Agen we have only BAD history of thinking about this, good to keep this in mind.
The #geekproblem that writes this bad history is #BLOCK ing the social technology we need, good to think about this.

#OMN #KISS #OPENWEB notice the last hashtag, we DO NOT NEED more #closedweb if we have any hope of mediating the #geekproblem for tech/social progressive outcomes that we so urgently need.

Q. And opt-in is kinda closed. “Your name’s not down, you’re not coming in”. That sort of thing. Exclusivity isn’t really going to move the needle on anything, though.

A. This reply is a #geekproblem view of the thinking.
Good to look at a social view, all society are based on #TRUST and healthy society have more reliance on trust and unhealthy society more reliance on “hard” process/structure.
There are academic bases to this, a sadly right-wing view https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_trust_and_low_trust_societies
The #geekproblem fails in building “good trust” based society, it’s an endemic failing of our tech/thinking.
TRUSTLESS is the #geekproblem good to think about this when coding social/technology.
We need to build tech social networks that “fail” so that human beings can fix this “failing” based on TRUST and from this build a real progressive society.

Q. I don’t advocate trustless. You can’t prove trust merely by doing some complicated blockchain math. Trust is earned, or broken, by people. Not by machines.
Also, vaguely related to #chatcontrol. The EU is going to lose a lot of trust by trying to do policing-by-algorithm. The algorithm approach is a sort of abuse of trust.

A. the #OMN is this project: “We need to build tech social networks that “fail” so that human beings can fix this “failing” based on TRUST and from this build a real progressive society.”
No geeks/technologist are building this, let alone thinking like this. The #geekproblem we need to mediate for any outcome.

Leave the #EU to one side on this, as they are well hopeless on social technology, though some of them are looking (with blindfolds on)

Q. I’ve been around the block enough to have seen many online communities fail. I think you have some experience of that also.
When communities fail, there can be a lot of bad outcomes, and sometimes it’s actually fatal. Social networks are a lifeline for a lot of people and when the network fails so do its members.
This isn’t even about narrowly technical failures. Social engineering attacks such as the ones of the last few years can cause enough aggravation and fear that people just lose trust and quit.
So when building this type of software, we need to be mindful of the potential consequences, and not design failure into the system. People’s social lives are not a demolition derby for the entertainment of others.

A. it’s normal, that you are finding it difficult to see the point am talking about. All humane relationships fail It’s what makes us human, the #geekproblem trying to fix this is taking away our humanity. You see this in both mainstream #dotcons like #failbook, and you also see it in all ALT_TECH it’s a (social) systematic problem.
Build stuff that is messy, human. Please DON’T TRY AND FIX problems created by the problem you are trying to fix is basic. Take the #geekproblem blindfold off is a good step.

Reading this book would help https://archive.org/stream/in.ernet.dli.2015.101521/2015.101521.The-Sciological-Imagination_djvu.txt

Report back on #XR peertube/youtube video posting experiment

Report back on peertube/youtube video posting experiment. #XR video posted only to peertube got 18 views in 48 hours. Video posted only to youtube got 26 views in 24 hours so far. Both videos were nice fluffy #XR shared widely in meany #dotcons groups with 1-10k subscribers so in theory to 20-50k people based on “simple” subscription count.

Posted to peertube

Posted to youtube

Let’s look back for a moment. Last year posting similar video you #youtube would have received 100-250 views

10 years ago 2000-4000 views would be normal.

Thoughts on this the #dotcons algorithm affectively #BLOCK straight grassroots video reports – only by shaping your media to #SEO games can you get any views in the #dotcons. This behaviour has shifted popular radical messages/media makers to #deathcult agenders to have any hope of achieving personal “success” and will continue to malform our media if there is no working alternatives for them to use.

I think our “digital addictions” explains the failure of the videos to organically spread inside the #dotcons with views not being feed by the algorithms which prefers #clickbate and people have been trained to push #clickbate so no longer see the need to push straight content – “vanilla” radical grassroots content does not feed their digital addictions or the hole mainstream culture leaves inside us all.

On one hand, if we keep going down the #dotcons path our media will become more and more malformed to #deathcult agender simply to get views and attention. on the other “straight” grassroots coverage will be affectively BLOCKED.

A note here for the #fashionistas “Gaming” the algorithms is just SEO under a new path. Let’s worship the “cargo cult” mentality and not a helpful comment/reply please have a think on this point.

For the last 10 years I have been pushing anti-algorithm content to amplify the exclusion affect. Looking at these numbers I think we are starting to get peek exclusion as our visionontv youtube channel has 7k subscribers so to get only 26 views in 24 hours is notable bad, just on this subscribe base not to mention the #failbook groups embed postings etc.

Talking about the #deathcult is not advertising friendly no matter how fluffy some of your content is 🙂

To conclude. Two points for #openweb media we need to remove “advertising friendly” as criteria. Second we need to actively detox people from their digital addictions. We do the first one, but we have no real plan/implementation/ideas on the second.

The #OMN has PGA and #4opens as concrete foundations, so we have firm ground to build the second needed part down the line.

Yes. Lots of #NGO’sh people will want to add “common sense” #dotcons ideas and process to #openweb projects as they take off. There will be a pile of shit shovelling need to get past this “common sense” issue. We need good shovels #OMN

The reason we are building out the wide #OMN network to provide a space for our messages and to make compost out of our current shit pile;)

UPDATE: the youtube video got to 42 views in 2 days the peertube stayed at 19 views both are very poor numbers but the #openweb one is growing and the #dotcons one visible declining which is positive.

Talking about rebooting openweb media

Its too easey to talk cross purpose about actavisam, media and tech if the is any understaning at all most are talking about the end of indymedia and what came after, am talking about the start of indymedia and what came before. A simple misunderstanding that is surprising hard to bridge. There are now millions of normal non geek people using everyday the tech am surgesting, the UI works fine, the apps are good for a phone experience. What am talking about is already a success… just activists are stuck.

The has been a #block on radical tec for the last 10 years. As most actavisam was in with the #encryptionists which is a 10% project only if they overcome the #geekproblem if they don’t its just a wasteland. No wonder people flocked to the lonely #dotcons. Open/closed is a 90/10% split… not a 10/90% split. This the the difference between the start and end of the indymedia project.

Its a process, as we are on #failbook the #hashtags will not get outside to the #openweb. But they will to a limited extent bypass the algorithm and give you a wider view inside facebook. The power comes from useing them in openweb projects and searches. This gives power to organise alongside and outside the #dotcons

Tagging is at the hart of the bottom up approach the #OMN takes. So think of hashtags use inside the dotcons as a small help and a first big stepaway. Of course if you never take the effort to stepaway then its just a small help and kinda pointless.

The is a pessimism in defeat.

Talking about the possibility of rebooting our own media.

Lets rearly focus, when most people talk about our own media. They mostly talk about the closed/bureaucratic indymedia. When i talk about the open/serendipity indymedia. Lets be positive and try and bridge these views.

The #hashtags are a part of the open process. You can see the whole working of the network, ie its open not closed.

Yes i understand the desire for closed, i see this desire destroy left and right. Yes closed is obviously the way to destroy society and the natural environment. Yes closed is better, not.

Its a simple story.

Idea to escape the media manipulation that puts Trump and Johnson into power and will keep doing this as its the business models of #dotcons and #tredtionalmedia Were are the tools to organize. Am asking a simple question and giving a simple sulution #DIY with as strong a protection against #fashernistas cooption and #geekproblem irrelevance.

The name Open media network (#OMN) as its name implies is about building and holding bridges across the ghettos.

Please ignore all the crap that will be flying about and do something simple and positive.

A bit of history: Do you remember the early open process #indymedia before it died as closed and bureaucratic. It was not a ghetto and helped to shape #traditionalmedia narrative. If leftwing/anarchists history teaches anything usefull power is all about organization self or top down… what tools do we have to organize if the answer is non then we have no power just bubbles… kinda what today tells us. Learn the wrong thing and the next 5 years are lost.

Well that did not go well, were next?

Negative or Positive

Do we have the power and will to choice?

#OMN is a needed first step if you have power and will to overcome your digital addictions.

More ideas? We have 5 years of empty political space, filling this time with negative will be a waste. Who is up for building posative DIY, increasing the commons were we have the power to do this outside the electoral mainstream.

Have you taken a caring step to the #openweb have you stayed in the #dotcons to offer a helping hand to others? The answer to these questions likely sits uneasily with you, it does with meany.

Take the time to outreach your friends onto #openweb media projects is a basic step. https://campaign.openworlds.info if you try this one then you should take the time and effort to find 20 new to you people to follow otherwise it will not work. There are NO addiction algorithms on the #openweb projects so will only work if you make it work. Gather the people like you outside the #dotcons is a good first step.

If the election is a disaster over the next few days this is directly connected to your use of the #dotcons as your media source. This with the billionaire #traditionalmedia is pushing social control of the #deathcult over us all.

You have had plenty of time and opportunity to reboot the #openweb as your source of news. That you have not lifted a finger to do this is your own responsibility.

Of course maybe it will not be a disaster, as it clearly should not be. Cross fingers and get out into the streets to knock doors.

Take the step today #OMN

This election is human being vs the mashine, Labour supporters knocking doors vs dark targeted negatively adverts on Facebook.

The labour spending, much less than the tories is positive, in the light. The majority of tory spending, much more, is in the dark targeted by algorithm to swing the marginal, to push the darkness.

The problem we face for a progresive future is that the #dotcons that dominate our media were built to push dark agenders. its a built into their business models, the #deathcult is strong oneline

It’s well past time to step away from this mess #OMN