The problem with #closedweb paths on the internet isn’t just “greedy” Big Tech, it’s the inevitable outcome of #capitalism itself. Where companies endlessly grow or die, grabbing profits from every possible source. This in the end leads to tricking users into handing over their data, treating them with contempt, and ultimately dehumanizing them.
Criticizing the #dotcons and pointing to #FOSS copies as a solution is a simple first step. But only doing this is like blaming #BP for abandoning green goals while ignoring the paths that reward environmental destruction. Big Tech’s, the #dotcons, behaviour is a symptom of the #deathcult, a dead economic system where profit trumps people. Copies of the #dotcons no matter how well meaning carry some of this DNA into the #openweb reboot.
The web started as an open ecosystem, a collection of independent applications and communities connected by common protocols and stories. The walls went up in the name of profit and convenience, and now it’s time to tear them down. For the #OMN and the #4opens to thrive, we need to break this cycle. To do this we need tools that make self-hosting accessible to everyone, reconnect people to the value of the commons, and dismantle the tech oligarchies piece by piece. At the moment this is way too hard and the change to make this possible is being #blocked by the #geekproblm.
To move past this blocking we need to recognise that the scaffolding is tech, but the building is people, mythos, and traditions. Let’s get back to work with our shovels and compost the social and tech mess. ✊
This post is about controlling the narrative, not letting the #nastyfew dictate the terms of engagement. Too often, we let them set the agenda, reacting to their every word instead of actively building the alternatives we need.
Their power isn’t just in what they do, it’s in how much space they take up in our minds and movements. We amplify their mess making when we obsess over their rhetoric rather than dismantling their actions. This is why we need composting, not fixating.
The #Fashionistas in Activism problem is real, when people latch onto whatever gets them attention instead of doing the hard, messy work of creating change. Chasing buzzwords, getting caught in endless reaction cycles, this is what keeps us stuck. We need to be the ones setting the agenda, not just replying to theirs.
Focus. Build. Compost the mess. That’s how we win.
In activism, the term “#fashionistas” captures individuals and groups, especially within #NGOs and advocacy organizations, who latch onto trendy causes or ideologies, not out of any commitment, but more to appear relevant and to align with the latest social currents. This is corrosive to meaningful change, reducing activism to performative gestures rather than a sustained struggle for justice.
Superficial engagement comes from, when they rush to adopt the language of trending movements (like #BLM, #MeToo, or #ClimateJustice) without committing to their radical roots. For example, after George Floyd’s murder, many corporations and NGOs posted black squares on #Instaspam as a symbolic gesture. But what followed? Few made concrete policy changes or redistributed resources to Black-led grassroots organizations. It was activism as aesthetics, empty gestures, rather than the systemic action that was called for.
Lack of authenticity, when organizations prioritize optics over substance, this breeds distrust. Consider the influx of NGOs claiming to champion digital rights but quietly partnering with Big Tech for funding. The grassroots developers working on genuinely decentralized platforms are left unsupported, while the NGO pointless/parasite class absorbs attention and resources, all while pushing and reinforcing the #deathcult paths they claim to oppose.
Mainstreaming, activism, loses its teeth when it’s tailored for palatability. Take the way climate #NGOs soften their language to avoid alienating corporate funders, pushing “net zero” narratives instead of demanding degrowth and direct action. By sanitizing radical demands, they reinforce the status quo rather than confronting the power structures driving #climatechaos.
Misaligned priorities, chasing trends, means resources get funnelled away from sustained struggles. For example, the fleeting attention on #Palestine waxes and wanes with media cycles, while groups doing year-round solidarity work scrape by with minimal support. #Fashionistas flock to hashtags when they’re hot, then move on, abandoning communities who still face oppression once the spotlight fades.
Reactive rather than proactive, when #fashionistas are caught chasing the next big thing rather than strategizing long-term solutions. Think of the explosion of interest in #openweb media during political unrest, a real issue, yes, but one that reveals the broader failure to build #4opens, community-run digital infrastructure proactively. The #OMN project exists precisely to address this, but it’s hard to gain traction when attention constantly flits to the crisis of the moment.
Rectonery, the most toxic aspect of fashionista activism is its tendency to reinforce the systems it claims to oppose. When #NGOs adopt radical language but stay within #mainstreaming paradigms, they create an illusion of progress. For instance, diversity initiatives in tech are often superficial, leading to token hires rather than dismantling structural racism or addressing the #geekproblem that keeps tech culture hostile to outsiders.
How do we compost the #fashionistas mess? The answer lies in prioritizing authenticity, long-term commitment, and meaningful engagement. This means, centring grassroots voices by funding and amplify people working on the ground, not just polished, and mostly pointless #NGO campaigns.
Rejecting mainstreaming, by being willing to alienate power on radical paths. This changing of path needs us to building infrastructure, like #OMN and #indymediaback to grow autonomous spaces outside corporate control. Historical awareness, matters, to remember our past struggles, rights and freedoms were won by collective action, not #PR campaigns.
What, we don’t need, is more buzzword-chasing #nonprofits. We need shovels, compost, and a commitment to grow something real from the ruins of the #deathcult. It’s not glamorous, but it’s the only path to lasting change. Let’s start digging.
In the bigger picture. The best revenge against the #nastyfew is simple: don’t talk about them at all. What fuels them is attention — the endless cycle of fixating on their every move. Unless it’s absolutely necessary, keep the focus on the ideas and the collective struggles, not the individuals causing the mess.
Talk about the systems, the structures, in the US the republicans, not the disruptive few seeking to derail the conversation.
Ignoring the #nastyfew is the most powerful revenge you can take. Stay grounded, stay collective, and keep it #KISS.
To start to make things better this is a mess that we constantly need to compost, over the last ten years, it’s wild how people barrel into grassroots tech projects like #OMN behaving like paranoid #fuckwits, wreaking havoc and then scampering off to nurse their self-inflicted wounds. This nasty pattern repeats so often it feels badly scripted. And yes, this is VERY crap behaviour. Please, try not to do this. Thanks.
The people who do this are often #fashionistas chasing the latest fad or the #NGO prats clinging to crumbling institutions, or the geeks blind to anything beyond their screen. What they have in common is that they are all unknowingly (or knowingly) kneeling at the altar of the #deathcult. They do this by dragging in their #mainstreaming assumptions, wielding ‘common sense’ like a cudgel, and are oblivious to how it shatters the delicate, horizontal culture the real #4opens we need grows from.
On the #fediverse, we’re witnessing a growing native/non-native culture clash. Which is not inherently bad, friction sparks growth. But when the horizontal crew, the ones refusing to play the #mainstreaming power games, consistently get trampled by this, then we have a problem. The commons reputedly collapses under the weight of imported hierarchy and fear-driven control.
This #mainstreaming pushing of mess and more mess, means we need shovels, lots of shovels, to dig deep and compost this wreckage back into fertile ground. The tech? It’s just scaffolding. The actual building is made of people, mythos, and tradition. It’s a historical flow, as is everything of value. But instead of embracing this flow, people, in the grip of #stupidindividualism, push hard for self-destruction and distraction. It’s almost like they want the #deathcult to win. And in this world, where the economic machine grinds everything to dust, this is a hard problem to shift.
We need to become the change and challenge to break this cycle, to remember our own history, back when we did things better, back when we built #indymedia, not just as a tool but as a living, breathing community. A space where the value was in the social fabric itself. The path to do this is in federating out to a non-(owned) branded networks. Building the flows, the undercurrents, the radical gardens of storytelling and truth. It’s time to stop licking the self-inflicted wounds and get our hands dirt to start digging again.
On this, the #OMN hashtag story is a shovel, we need to actively use to dig through the layers of decay in the tech mess. It’s a tool to help us compost the rot of the #deathcult and plant the seeds of a new, living, breathing #openweb.
I have had a working, growing plan for the last 20 years: to use #hashtags to seed affinity groups of action. This isn’t tech, it’s about creating the movement that actually make a difference. #Hashtags are more than metadata; they’re flags, rallying points, paths leading through the chaos. And in this #Fediverse based reboot of the #openweb, we finally have the space to take this path to push the needed change and challenge.
I’ve been exploring this path for years, you can dive into my thoughts on it here. But what we really need is a home for this practice, a network where these seeds can grow into something tangible. Because fighting back doesn’t need to be complicated. It’s how every “common sense” right and freedom we enjoy was won in the first place: by pushing, not just defending.
The commons won’t protect itself. We haven’t yet effectively used the openings we have to defend our digital commons. Over the last 5 years, we have pushed to expand this space, as history shows, the best defence is an active attack, not with weapons, but with action, storytelling, and a refusal to let the #mainstreaming mess suffocate this motivation.
A part of this plain talking, calling out the #nastyfew instead of talking vaguely about ‘elites.’ Let’s name the problem, plant the seeds, and grow the alternatives. The path I outline in the #OMN can be used to shape this living network, a flow where our history informs our present, and where collective action mediates the cycle of destruction. It’s time to remember our history, build the native #4opens path, and stop waiting for someone else to save us. We have the tools, let’s start digging.
For the last 20 years, we’ve worshipped the #deathcult of #neoliberalism, blind to the collapse unfolding around us. Every institution that promised to guide and protect us has failed. The ruling classes, in every hue of politics, have abandoned us. Our media and entertainment elites distract and distort. #NGOs, once trusted, have betrayed the very causes they claimed to champion. Academia and business alike have clutched at power, dithering while the world burns.
We face #climatechaos naked and disjointed — at war with ourselves and lost in consumerism. Yet, in this wreckage, there is a choice: step away from the #mainstreaming, let go of false promises, and dive into the #undercurrents. Compost the mess. Build anew.
The #makinghistory project is a seed for this rebuilding. It offers a way to reclaim our narratives, digitizing archives like the Campbell Family collection to preserve grassroots histories of resistance and hope. I use this as an example here. This is more than data collection — it’s a living, breathing ecosystem of collective memory.
Setting up the Application: Communities install the #makinghistory app on local machines or hosted instances, creating a decentralized network of storytellers.
Uploading Digital Files: Activists and archivists upload historical files, adding metadata and context.
Building a Community: By inviting family, affinity groups, and wider activist circles, the archive grows into a collaborative space, nurturing participation.
Interacting with Data: Users engage directly with the history, categorizing, tagging, and enriching it with new insights.
Storytelling Features: The enriched data flows into narratives, connecting seemingly isolated events into cohesive stories of struggle, solidarity, and change.
Public Sharing: These stories aren’t locked away — they’re shared openly, contributing to a global commons of knowledge.
Impact: In reclaiming history, people find inspiration and strength. Grassroots stories challenge the top-down narratives, showing that change comes not from a nasty few (elites) but from those who dare to dream and act.
The ‘Resistance Exhibition’ was started to extend this vision, turning physical spaces into participatory hubs where visitors become archivists and storytellers themselves.
This is not passive consumption. It’s collective action. It’s the compost from which new movements grow. It’s #makeinghistory — not as an abstract concept, but as a living, evolving reality. Let’s step away from the wreckage and start building something real.
Privatization is one of those words that has been thrown around a lot, usually accompanied by promises of efficiency, lower costs, and better services. But the reality is far grimmer, and people generally don’t understand why. What Is Privatization? It is simply when publicly owned industries or services are transferred to private companies. It usually happens under the pretence of cutting costs or driving innovation, but the underlying reason is always profit by extracting value from public goods by selling assets cheaply. Public infrastructure, built and maintained with taxpayer money, is sold off to private interests for far less than it’s worth. Then this is ongoing when privatized, companies monopolizing sectors, jack up prices, and pay workers as little as possible, all to maximize returns for shareholders.
We need to see that the ideology behind privatization is beyond profit. #Neoliberals say that public services are flawed because people might use them without paying directly (the “free rider” problem) or be forced to pay for services they don’t use (the “forced rider” problem). Privatization supposedly fixes this by turning everything into a transaction. But this ignores the complex nature of economies. Even if you never use public transport, you benefit from reduced traffic congestion. The same logic applies to healthcare, education, and other services that generate economy-wide benefits.
Privatization claims to improve efficiency through competition, but it’s less efficient. Yes, public services can be inefficient due to bureaucracy and mismanagement, but privatization builds inefficiency into the path because profit is a drain, shareholders demand returns, which means money is siphoned away rather than reinvested. Plus, splitting industries to create the illusion of competition reduces economies of scale and creates redundancies.
An example of this is Britain’s rail disaster, rail privatization is a textbook example of this failure. In the ’90s, British Rail was split into dozens of companies: some ran trains, others owned the tracks, and still more handled maintenance. This fragmented was designed to prevent trade unions from gaining too much power, but it created a logistical nightmare. The private company Railtrack, which inherited the infrastructure, cut corners to boost profits, leading to catastrophic accidents like the Ladbroke Grove and Hatfield crashes. In the end, Railtrack collapsed, and the government had to step in and take control through Network Rail. But train operations and rolling stock leasing remain privatized, meaning public subsidies prop up private profits while fares remain some of the highest in Europe.
After 40 years of this mess making, the endgame, is that it doesn’t just fail on its promises, it makes things worse. It centralizes capital, encourages monopolies, and turns essential services into cash cows for the nasty few. Companies prioritize wealthy communities, rely on government bailouts, and pour money into executive salaries while neglecting public needs.
The truth is that public services, no matter how flawed, exist to serve people. Privatized services exist to serve shareholders. And until we break free from the grip of our worship of the #deathcult of neoliberal ideology, we’ll keep paying more for worse services, while the nasty rich fuck wits keep getting richer. It’s past time to rethink privatization, not as a necessary evil but as a failed experiment in greed. Let’s start talking about this, please.
Over the last week you can see it in real time, Trump meeting world leaders, the handshakes, the staged press moments, the ass sniffing, barely concealed jockeying for position. But beneath the surface, we need to see that something bigger is cracking apart. The last 40 years of #neoliberalism, cold, calculating #realpolitik path is collapsing. The alliances of the #nastyfew we took as fixed is shifting, not because of thoughtful, progressive change but because of the hard shove of a global rightward lurch.
The world shaped by the #deathcult of neoliberalism is disintegrating, but don’t mistake this for liberation. The old deathcult is simply being replaced by a new mask, this is history repeating, not a new start. What was once masked in the language of freedom, democracy, and human rights is shedding its disguise, revealing a rawer, more brutal face to the same pessimistic human paths.
One of the most dangerous elements of this shift is the ideological bait-and-switch. The old liberal order for the last 40 years had co-opted the language of the right, with neo-imperialism of the new world order. Now, the emerging #fascist path is playing the same game in reverse, adopting the language of the left to push far-right outcomes. Talking about peace, authoritarians wrapping themselves in ‘anti-colonial’ rhetoric, hard-right demagogues claiming to fight for the ‘working class’ while gutting social safety nets, and far-right online communities using ‘free speech’ and “safety” to silence dissent. This ideological camouflage is not a glitch; it’s a feature. It confuses opposition, fractures movements, and traps the #mainstreaming in endless powerless cycles of reaction and outrage. It’s a survival mechanism for the #deathcult, a shapeshifting strategy, to ensure it evolves unchallenged.
For those of us working on projects like the Open Media Network (#OMN) that push for a genuine #openweb, this is the landscape we need to navigate. The answer isn’t to retreat or try to ‘purify’ movements from infiltration, that feeds the cycle. Instead, we need to cultivate resilience and clarity. Recognize the patterns, understand the language games, and keep building decentralized, trust-based networks that can weather the storm, both in the media and practically with onrushing #climatechaos.
The shift in both cases is happening whether we like it or not. The question is, do we use the compost of the old world order to feed the roots of something new, or do we let the poison linger in the soil? It’s time to get out the shovels.
In activism and grassroots media, you inevitably face an ongoing, unpleasant truth: when pushing against #mainstreaming and the inertia of the #deathcult, bad faith comes at you like a storm. Your best, and often only, defence is to hold onto your good faith. But good faith alone isn’t enough, we need shared tools to compost the rot, turn the muck of broken movements and failed tech utopias into fertile soil where new paths can grow.
That’s where the Open Media Network comes in. The #OMN isn’t just another pointless tech project, it’s a living, breathing attempt to bridge the gap between technology and society, providing a trust-path, decentralized platform built with the #4opens. It doesn’t try to solve problems from above but empowers people to build, moderate, and nurture their own grassroots networks, to shape and reshape flows of information. It’s about composting the old, failed models, not replicating them.
The divide we need to bridge is pragmatism vs. social understanding. Too often, conversations around tech and social change get stuck in a loop. On one side, pragmatists push for immediate, concrete solutions, get the app working, ship the code, solve the surface problem. On the other, social thinkers argue that tech is inherently social, that ignoring the human context just perpetuates the mess.
Take #ActivityPub, a powerful protocol, but without a grounding in human trust networks, it risks recreating the problems of centralized social media. Or the rise of decentralized platforms flooded with reactionary and far-right content, a direct result of ignoring the need for human, community-driven democratic moderation and governance paths.
The #OMN is outside this loop. It acknowledges the pragmatism of building functional tools while insisting that those tools be shaped by, and in service of, grassroots communities. The five core functions shape simple tools, complex outcomes. The OMN is built on five core functions, deliberately minimal to avoid tech bloat and keep the focus on human networks:
Publish: Share objects (text, images, links) into a stream.
Subscribe: Follow streams from people, groups, hashtags, etc.
Moderate: Push/pull content, express preferences, and comment.
Rollback: Remove untrusted historical content from your flow.
Edit: Adjust data and metadata on content you have access to.
These simple actions, combined with human moderation, allow complex ecosystems to grow organically. You can shape your information flow, curate trustworthy content, and build collective knowledge, all while being able to remove what doesn’t serve the communities.
The crew needed is good faith in action, a crew committed to holding good faith, even in the face of bad faith pushback. People willing to pick up shovels, get dirty, and start composting. This isn’t about idealism; it’s about grounded action, learning from past projects like #indymedia and #Fediverse experiments, using what worked, and discarding what didn’t.
What is need:
Builders: Coders who understand that tech is just a tool, not a solution.
Moderators: People who know the value of careful curation and trust networks.
Storytellers: Those who can document, explain, and inspire others to walk the paths.
Bridge-builders: Activists who can connect different communities and facilitate cooperation.
This work isn’t glamorous. It won’t get you VC funding or a keynote at a tech conference. But it will lay the groundwork for something real, a decentralized, people-powered network where communities control their own narratives and relationships.
The future is a wild garden, not a walled garden. This path is a chance to build the #DIY, grassroots semantic web we’ve been dreaming of. Not another monoculture tech project, but a resilient forest of interconnected communities, each shaping its space while being part of a larger whole. It’s not about “scaling” in the #mainstreaming capitalist sense, but about growing deep roots and wild branches.
By supporting this we invest in people who reclaim digital experiences, where information is nurtured and composted into new possibilities, and where bad faith can be met not just with good faith, but with networks strong enough to withstand and outgrow the rot.
Join the paths. Let’s build this together. It’s time to start shovelling.
It’s like watching the same old weeds sprout up in the cracks, clinging to the illusion of control. But yeah, every bit of rot turns to soil eventually — as long as we keep digging, the roots of something real can break through. Time to turn the pile!
#Fashionistas chase status and spectacle over substance, co-opting real radical movements for aesthetics. They turn collective struggles into performative gestures, feeding the #mainstreaming cycle. This poisons the roots of change, turning compost into toxic waste, energy that could grow new things instead feeds the system they claim to resist.
Why is the #geekproblem such a strong #blocking force? This is rooted in control, a deterministic mindset that values code over culture. It manifests as gatekeeping, with geeks wielding tech knowledge as a shield rather than a tool for collective liberation. This keeps blocking change because it alienates people who don’t fit the mould, and it stalls needed projects in endless technical debates instead of action.
How can #mainstreaming be pushed into something positive? Mainstreaming doesn’t have to be a death sentence if it’s grows from radical roots. The problem is the loss of direction when movements get diluted to fit nasty #mainstream tastes. A useful path is that mainstream visibility can amplify voices, but this needs active balancing by autonomous, decentralized structures. Maybe think of it like a Trojan horse, to smuggle radical ideas into the #mainstream under the cover of familiarity.
How do we thread this through the needle of #stupidindividualism which constantly fractures collective power, reducing everything to personal choice and consumption. This is a cultural byproduct of the #deathcult, a refusal to see beyond the self, which traps people in cycles of isolation and powerlessness. There is a path out of this mess through rekindling collectivism trust. People fall into individualism because they don’t trust collective paths. Start small, with local networks and federated communities. Show that collective paths are possible, and that it feels better than isolation. Remind people they are part of something bigger, not as a sacrifice of self, but as an expansion of it.
What path can we take on the #openweb? We need a path that embraces the compost. Let’s not seek purity or perfection, but instead nurture the rotting, chaotic soil of what we already have. The #OMN and #4opens lay the groundwork with radical transparency, federated trust networks. Build with messy activism, celebrate imperfection. Radical inclusion, breaks down tech barriers by actively bring people in. Trust over control, decentralize, federate, and resist the temptation to police.
The #openweb can be the seedbed of a new culture, if we accept that growth is messy, slow, and unpredictable. The path isn’t linear, it’s a tangle of roots, branching and intertwining. But that’s the beauty of it. What do you think? Do we need more practical tools, or is it more about mindset shifts? How do we balance this?
The paths of the challenges we face in activism lies in the dynamic tension between the “fluffy” and “spiky”, two forces that shape the progress and direction of movements. The fluffy path leans into compassion, empathy, and collective care, while the spiky path channels righteous anger and confrontation. Both are essential, like two hands working together to break the soil for new growth. It’s vital to resist the dogmatic tendencies that demand purity in one direction or the other, as that stifles the movement’s ability to adapt and evolve. The real strength of activism comes from this tension, a push and pull that keeps us grounded while still reaching for radical change.
The need for focus, balancing inner reflection with outer action. For activism to be effective, we need focus, a deliberate balance between introspection (“how do we become better?”) and external action (“how do we change the world?”). Too much introspection leads to inward collapse through endless critique and infighting, while relentless external action without reflection burns movements out.
The balance between these perspectives builds resilience and adaptability. It helps us avoid the trap of arrogance (believing we already have the answers) and the pit of despair (feeling overwhelmed by the scale of the problem). By living this debate, movements can remain agile, humble, and hopeful.
Reframing extremism is about flipping the narrative, one of the most powerful narratives we can wield is the reframing of whom the true extremists are. For too long, the right and centre have positioned themselves as the guardians of “reasonable” politics, while labelling the left as “radical” or “dangerous.” This is a con, designed to defend the status quo. The truth is, unregulated capitalism, climate destruction, and hoarding of wealth are the real extremist positions that threaten human survival. Meanwhile, leftist ideas like universal healthcare, living wages, environmental protection, and worker rights are fundamentally moderate and life-affirming.
By amplifying this #KISS reframing, activism disarms accusations of #blinded radicalism and shows the extremism of both the #neoliberalism of the “centre” and the growing far right. It flips the media narrative and highlights that what the left fights for is simply the bare minimum for a just and sustainable world. Resisting fear and darkness: Building light and trust, fear is the primary weapon of the right and centre-right. They use it to divide, immobilize, and control. The relentless messaging of doom and chaos keeps people clinging to the familiar, even as that familiarity is what’s driving the world to the brink of climate collapse and social disintegration. Activists need to resist being pulled into this framing, rather than playing defence in the fear game, we build light, trust, and tangible hope.
Show, don’t just tell: Build real-world examples of the alternatives we talk about — community gardens, worker co-ops, autonomous networks.
Celebrate small wins: Demonstrate progress, however incremental, to inspire people and build momentum.
Encourage openness and connection: Create spaces for people to share, learn, and build collective trust in the movement itself.
Fear isolates. Hope connects. And connection is what feeds movements. Tools for the fight are the #4opens and the shovel. The #4opens provide a basic framework for clarity and accountability. Meanwhile, the shovel metaphor reminds us of the unglamorous, necessary work of composting the mess, breaking down the rot of the #deathcult to create fertile ground for growth. The shovel isn’t flashy, but it’s a tool of transformation, turning waste into the soil of new life.
The role of the Open Media Network (#OMN) is an amplifier of grassroots narratives, bypassing corporate gatekeepers and platforming diverse voices, the #OMN challenge traditional media distortions and broadcast alternative stories. Connect disparate movements and weave together struggles. Creates networks of trust and collaboration, where voices of lived experience shape the discourse. The #OMN isn’t just about media production, it’s about building infrastructure for collective power. It becomes a living movement, sharing resources, knowledge, and strategies in real time.
This is how we break the isolation that fear depends on. And this is how we build a media that serves movements rather than undermining them. The Path is cultivating the garden of change, the challenges we face are immense, but so is the potential for transformation. Movements don’t need to choose between fluffy and spiky, they need to hold the tension and let both paths inform each other. It won’t be quick. It won’t be easy. But with shovels in hand, we compost the mess – and grow the revolution.
People conform to the #deathcult of neoliberalism, capitalism, and its destructive paths because they are conditioned to. The control is media, education, social pressure, economic dependence, that is shaped to enforce compliance. Even when people recognize the system is dark and broken, they still bow down. Why?
Fear & survival, meany people get trapped in precarious economic conditions. They fear losing their jobs, homes, and social standing if they resist. When survival is at stake, rebellion feels too dangerous to risk the little they have.
Comfort & convenience, worshipping the #deathcult provides short-term rewards: consumerism, entertainment and distraction. Even those who hate it find comfort in its predictability. Change is hard, uncertainty is scary.
Psychological conditioning, our #mainstreaming propaganda is everywhere, it has convinced people there is no alternative (#TINA). They’ve been trained to see resistance as futile, rebellion as chaos, and compliance as “normal.”
Social pressure & herd mentality, simply few people want to be outsiders. They follow the crowd, even when the crowd is heading off a cliff. Conforming is easier than facing any rejection and isolation.
Exhaustion & despair, knowing the current path is going to harm them and kill their children, makes them feel powerless. The #deathcult grinds people down, keeps them struggling just to survive, leaving little energy or focus for resistance.
Lack of vision, the #mainstreaming invests a lot in destroying alternatives before they can take root. Without these clear, viable paths, people fall back into the familiar, no matter how broken it is.
But why STILL? Five years ago, yes, this wasn’t as obvious to everyone. Now, the mask has fallen, simply look around, you can see people on their knees, the #deathcult is marching us straight into #climatecollapse, endless wars, and digital enslavement. Yet people still conform. Why? Because fear works, the system adapts, the majority would rather scrabble for comfortable servitude than risk the unknown.
On the positive, note, cracks are forming. The illusion is fading. The question is, will we build something better before it all collapses around us?
PS. The current hard shift to the right is simply worshipping a more historical #deathcult, that of #fascism with its dark, very dark history, so the question still stands, WHY?
For the last 20 years, our own crew have played a big part in shaping the digital world we see today. The outcome is what began as a space of radical possibility has been enclosed, exploited, and transformed into a corporate-controlled dystopia of #dotcons. We now lived inside this algorithmic trap, and in many ways, we still do, fighting, trolling, and feeding the very system that keeps us addicted.
Most of us are still trapped inside the algorithm, these platforms we use don’t exist to foster community or critical thought; they thrive on division. They keep us locked into emotional reaction loops, rewarding outrage, amplifying conflict, and turning us into performance artists in an endless identity war.
Take as an example #Failbook and the rise of victim culture. This isn’t an accident, it’s by design. The algorithm doesn’t care about truth or justice; it cares about engagement, and what gets the most clicks? Anger, Fear, Outrage. The result is a world where people react instead of act, trapped in cycles of performative identity rather than building any of the needed real alternatives.
What we don’t need is more “ethical” #dotcons. Repackaging the same centralized control under a new brand of “ethical” capitalism, is not the solution. We don’t need another walled garden with a friendlier #PR campaign. We need an independent, federated media ecosystem, one that #KISS values community, autonomy, and the public good over profit.
This is why the #OMN (Open Media Network) path exists. It’s not just another platform designed to extract data and profit, it’s a network of trust-based spaces, where people interact as humans, not as data points. The #Fediverse and #ActivityPub offer the foundation for this, but we need to push much harder. Right now, these alternatives still carry too much of the #mainstreaming liberal baggage that makes them fragile to inrushing capitalist capture.
We need to build spaces that resist corporate logic from the roots, not just replicate centralized control under new branding. To avoid repeating todays mess making, we need to remember how the capitalists capture of the #openweb in the first place. To understand how we got here, we have to look at capitalism through the lens of the #dotcons. The enclosure of the #openweb was not inevitable, it was a deliberate shift from public good to private profit.
Capitalism broke the web, with commercialization & enclosure, the originally was built as an open, decentralized space for information sharing. Capitalism transformed it into a marketplace, where value is extracted rather than created. Now we have the #mainstreaming exploitation of users, platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon don’t sell products, they sell you. Your data, your attention, your behaviour, all harvested, manipulated, and monetized.
This leads directly to the current monopolization & centralization, the most ruthless companies buy out competitors, stifle innovation, and consolidate power. What started as an open system is now controlled by a handful of corporations. Surveillance capitalism, the term, popularized by Shoshana Zuboff, describes the commodification of personal data for profit. What was once a tool for communication is now a weapon of manipulation.
With this move, we have erased the public sphere. Corporate algorithms don’t care about truth, knowledge, or democracy. They prioritize profit-driven content, promoting misinformation, sensationalism, and division while destroying any sense of a shared public space. This leaves us in a world of short-term gains for the nasty few over long-term vision for the meany, this stagnates progress and accelerates environmental and social collapse we now face.
We made this mess, now let’s fix it, the logic of the #dotcons is the problem. We can’t keep being prats about this. We’ve spent 20 years making this mess, now it’s past time to clean it up. Decentralization alone isn’t enough. We need alternative media spaces that reject control from the start. That’s what the #OMN is about. If we’re serious about breaking free, we need to use the #4opens as a shovel to compost the #techshit we’ve currently drowning in.
Time to stop only talking, let’s build. We don’t need another debate. We don’t need another corporate-controlled “alternative.” What we do need is to step outside the algorithm and start building trust-based networks that work for people, not profit. We do need to reclaim the #openweb before it’s too late. So, what are we waiting for? Let’s get to work.
In the world shaped by corporate control, liberal co-option, and empty activism, the language we use is a battleground. The unthinking push for #mainstreaming has dulled radical energy, replacing effectiveness with sanitized, #NGO-friendly language that avoids real social change and challenge. To be serious about building an alternative, we need to rethink how we communicate—not just what we say, but how we say it.
An example that I have been developing for the last ten years is the #OMN (Open Media Network) hashtag story—a practical first project rooted in direct action, radical media, and bottom-up organizing. It’s a #KISS path away from corporate-controlled narratives and into messy, human, and effective grassroots activist communication. A useful path if people take it.
The problem is that people take the easy path, with #mainstreaming language, NGO-driven activism and #traditionalmedia which has the easy to see flaw, it seeks acceptance rather than transformation. This easy path blunts most radical movements, it dilutes the message, #mainstreaming turns radical ideas into soft, palatable soundbites. Instead of speaking clearly about power, control, and oppression, it replaces them with vague, feel-good language designed for funding applications and powerless media appearances.
Example: Instead of saying, “Capitalism is a #deathcult destroying the planet,” we get, “We need sustainable economic growth and green investments.”.
The result? The useful core critique is lost. The uncomfortable causes of oppression are left untouched. It shifts focus to liberal activism that places way too much trust in institutions—governments, tech corporations, and NGOs—assuming that change can happen from within. Instead of building our own autonomous paths and networks, we waste time begging for reforms from the #mainstreaming that never come.
Example: Instead of rebuilding grassroots media, activists push for more regulations on social media companies—keeping power centralized rather than challenging the #dotcons path itself.
The result? Big tech controls everything, and alternative voices are algorithmically pushed to the margins. Yes, this avoids direct conflict and struggle, real social change is messy, requires taking risks, building new paths, and confronting power. #Mainstreaming, on the other hand, prefers safe conversations and endless dialogue over real action.
Example: Instead of fighting for community-controlled spaces, NGOs organize panels and workshops on “inclusion”—without actually shifting power.
The result? It is that we #blindly talk while the same power structures remain intact.
The #OMN path for communication is about real change. For this to become real, we need to escape the #NGO liberal mess, to reclaim radical communication. A step to this is speaking in clear, direct language:
Say this: “The internet is controlled by #dotcons—giant corporations profiting from our data and attention. We need to take back control.” or “The #deathcult of neoliberalism is driving us to #climatedisaster.” and “#NothingNew: Stop wasting time chasing tech hype—fix what already works.”
Language should be sharp, memorable, and rooted in activist everyday experience.
But this is not only about talking, building alternative structures, not just critiquing the system is needed. Talking is not enough. We need to build. The #OMN project is about creating a working alternative to corporate-controlled media through grassroots, federated networks.
Instead of: Complaining about Facebook’s censorship, build: A network of ActivityPub-powered, self-hosted media hubs that can’t be shut down.
Instead of: Asking Twitter to fact-check misinformation, build: A trust-based network of independent journalists and aggregators.
The Fediverse and #OMN are already moving in this direction. We #KISS need to push harder.
Recognizing that change comes from conflict and challenge, social movements succeed when they agitate. That means, calling out, and pushing out, power structures instead of begging them to change. Defending radical voices instead of silencing them to fit liberal narratives. Using technology as a tool for liberation, not just self reflecting convenience.
The biggest lie of #mainstreaming is that change happens by playing nice. History tells a different story: The labour movement won rights through strikes and resistance. The civil rights movement succeeded because of direct action, not just speeches. Open-source software survived because of forks, fights, and refusal to comply. If we want a free and open internet, we need to fight for it.
If you want to join this fight the #OMN is a practical vision of a radical media network for the future, decentralization, breaking free from corporate control, autonomy by creating trust-based networks instead of top-down paths and action over talk, by building real alternatives, not just complaining about problems.
This is a path to escape the bland, corporate-friendly language of the liberal web, we need to make it “common sense” that we need to reclaim radical, direct, and effective communication.
