In a world where digital activism is all surveilled, we need to understand better the balance between open and closed security. If you’re doing anything politically sensitive or “#spiky,” the safest option is to organize offline. Government analysts, corporate spies, and bad actors easily map connections inside the #dotcons and gather intel through the #openweb.
The challenge is that, while secure communication tools exist, relying on them requires an almost impossible level of tech literacy and trust. Maybe 0.001% of people can confidently lock down their systems, but the remaining 99.99% can’t, or won’t. And even for the most tech-savvy, there’s always the risk of compromised firmware, backdoors, or people error.
Historically, the danger isn’t just theoretical. Police spies have infiltrated activist circles for decades, as detailed in resources like Police Spies Out of Lives. Activists who relied on #closedsecurity were often devastated when trusted comrades turned out to be state agents, the real-world equivalent of someone copying and pasting your encrypted chat to their handlers. Worse still, for every state spy, there are likely ten corporate or private agency spies, each with their own motivations.
From a social point of view the #geekproblem path to perfect privacy is an illusion. So where does that leave us? The truth is, there’s no hard tech fix to human social networking. Tools can help, but social solutions are much more vital. If you are on the #fluffy path or only on the edge of #spiky, working openly and embracing the #4opens model can mitigate harm by removing secrecy as a vulnerability. If there are few secrets to steal, spies lose much of their power.
At the same time, digital skills are essential. People, especially current generations, are organizing online, and the line between online and offline is non-existent to them. Telling them to “just organize offline” will likely get you a dismissive “OK boomer” in response. But just with the police spy history, there will be a cost to people who dismiss this history, we do need to understand better both the possibilities and the risks.
The goal, then, isn’t to choose between open or closed security, but to build a hybrid path. Use the #openweb to find each other and share public information. Use secure tools for truly private discussions, but with the awareness that no tool is socially foolproof. And most importantly, build strong social bonds and resilient offline communities, because, in the end, trust is the only real valuable security layer we have.
Let’s embrace the mess, recognize the dangers, and navigate this landscape with care.
We’ve had 40 years of head-down worship of the #deathcult, and now very few people dare to lift their heads to look around at the mess we live and die in. It is really hard to communicate to #mainstreaming people inside the #dotcons that today, way too much mainstreaming is simply parasitic. That the balance is out with them feeding, draining the life from grassroots #DIY creativity, to consumes it, and then discards the husk. This is in part why our liberal society and wider ecology are in crisis. We let “them” devour and discarded the very cultures that regenerates our lives.
Punk emerged as a raw, anti-establishment eruption of energy: people building their own venues, pressing their own records, and living outside the system. Within a decade, the mainstream chewed it up, spat out mall-punk aesthetics, and sold rebellion back to kids as a fashion statement. The original #DIY culture that sustained community withered, while corporations wore its preserved skin to sell the same cultural emptiness punk rose to resist.
Or take the light green movement. Grassroots dark green eco-activism in the ’70s and ’80s was fierce and uncompromising, with people physically blocking bulldozers, building tree-sits, and creating autonomous zones. Today, the “green” label is a marketing gimmick, plastered on disposable products and corporate ad campaigns. The radical core of systemic change has been devoured, leaving a husk of performative (stupid)individual actions like buying metal straws.
Even the internet itself — once an open tool of ideas, built by native #DIY culture and hackers who wanted to share knowledge freely — was, after a ten-year fight, enclosed by the #dotcons. They bought the creativity, built walled gardens, and replaced collective digital commons with algorithmic echo chambers. What was once a chaotic, messy, generative space became a polished, ad-riddled shopping mall.
This cycle repeats because people don’t see the consumption happening in real time. They’re taught to see success as visibility, and visibility as validation. But by the time a radical idea becomes visible to the mainstream, it’s usually already being gutted from the inside. The #mainstreaming only lets radical ideas and actions in when they’ve been defanged, made safe, and rendered useful to perpetuate the status quo.
The result is today’s society running on empty, haunted by the hollowed-out shells of the movements that imagined another way of being. And because we’ve been taught to equate progress with endless consumption, of ideas, identities, cultures, few people realize they’re living in a landscape of corpses.
The question is: how do we shovel this mess to change this cycle? How do we protect the roots while letting the flowers bloom? And how do we get people to lift their heads, shake off the #mainstreaming trance, and see the compost we’re standing in, the fertile ground where real alternatives do grow? How do we change and challenge what is mainstreaming?
Note: This is a #fluffy attempt at communicating to the #mainstreaming. In reality, this post is about #activertpub and the #Fediverse. I’ve already written extensively on this, but I don’t think those pieces break through to the #mainstreaming. So, I used other examples to illustrate the issue.
Signal-to-noise is a hard conversation to have. In our #postmodern world, the very idea of common agreement on what constitutes signal or noise feels elusive, even when it’s often obvious to the community.
The undermining of shared narratives fractured our sense of collective reality. In the absence of common ground, every perspective risks becoming its own echo chamber, amplifying what it values as signal while dismissing conflicting views as noise. This dynamic plays out in countless social and political spaces, shaping how movements grow or fracture.
Take the #climatecrisis: for decades, scientists have raised alarms, presenting real evidence of human-driven climate change. To the scientific community, this is pure signal — an urgent call to action. Yet, in the polluted information ecosystem of #dotcons social media, this signal is drowned out by noise: conspiracy theories, corporate disinformation, and nihilistic fatalism. The noise isn’t random; it’s cultivated to create doubt, intentionally distorting the clarity of the signal.
In activist communities, the tension between signal and noise surfaces as the #fluffy vs #spiky debate. The push for kindness and inclusivity (#fluffy) is valuable, but when weaponized to silence critique and #block hard conversations, it becomes noise that stifles necessary friction. Conversely, sharp, uncompromising confrontation (#spiky) can cut through noise to deliver a clear message, but this is too easy to #block, by “common sense” dogmatism and can also all too easily tip into performative aggression and endless infighting, it drowns the original signal in static.
The same dynamic unfolds in the political sphere. Movements like Black Lives Matter or Palestinian solidarity campaigns face relentless attempts to distort their message. The core signal, calls for justice, equality, and liberation, gets obscured by deliberate noise: fearmongering narratives, tokenizing gestures from corporations, or bad-faith actors hijacking discussions to sow division.
Yet, communities often have an intuitive sense of what is and isn’t noise. They might not always agree on the edges, but collective experience and shared values act as a compass. The challenge lies in cultivating enough trust to navigate that together, to hold space for disagreement without succumbing to the paralysis of endless debate or the allure of easy scapegoats.
In the end, the conversation itself is part of the signal. The flows of discussion, the messiness of negotiating meaning, and the work of collective sense-making, all of this generates the compost from which new understandings can grow. But that only works if we resist the temptation to #block, dismiss, or isolate ourselves entirely.
The goal isn’t to eliminate noise (an impossible task) but to build resilient communities that can amplify signal through the static. Because in a world where everything is contested, the most powerful act is to keep listening, keep speaking, and keep tending the roots of shared meaning.
In activist spaces and grassroots communities, the tension between #fluffy and #spiky approaches is a well-worn dynamic. Fluffy represents a gentler, consensus-driven path, centred on kindness, inclusion, and collective care. Spiky, on the other hand, is sharp-edged, direct, and confrontational, willing to disrupt and break things to push for change. Both paths have their place, but the trouble arises when fluffy turns dogmatic, morphing into a hard passive-aggressive policing that silences needed dissent.
Dogmatic fluffy presents itself as kindness, but when it becomes rigid, it is just as destructive as unchecked aggression. People get shamed for stepping out of line, challenging dominant group norms, and advocating for more assertive tactics. This isn’t only a theoretical issue, it actively fractures movements, creating an echo chamber where only approved, safe opinions are allowed to circulate. Its activism dressed in softness but wielding the same #mainstreaming blunt force as the systems we set out to dismantle.
The danger lies in the #blocking of paths to meaningful discussion. When conversations are shut down in the name of maintaining harmony, we lose the ability to take difficult paths. The #fluffy-spiky debate needs to be dynamic, a living exploration of what tactics are effective in different contexts. Sometimes, gentle community building is the answer. Other times, the situation calls for confrontation and disruption. But when one side forcibly silences the other, we stop evolving.
It’s good to remember #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Complexity is necessary, but so is cutting through the noise. If our movements become bogged down in internal purity tests, we soon lose sight of the actual struggle. With, people stepping away from the #dotcons and looking for alternatives. We need to offer spaces where messy, honest, and sometimes uncomfortable conversations can happen, not sterilized bubbles where dissent is treated as betrayal.
Real movements thrive in the tension between fluffy and spiky. The key is to stay flexible, to let people navigate those paths without turning one into a dead-end. Fluffy doesn’t need to fear spiky, and spiky doesn’t need to dismiss fluffy. They’re both tools, both necessary. And if we can hold space for that complexity, we might just build movements resilient enough to withstand whatever the #deathcult throws our way.
What do you think? Should we lean into the discomfort and keep the debate alive?
UPDATE: it needs to be said that #blinded dogmatic #fluffy people can become nasty #fuckwits without a clue, what do you think we can do with this mess?
With the crackdown on #XR’s peaceful, #fluffy protests, it’s no surprise that movements are moving into stronger, more disruptive actions. When one path to change is systematically #blocked, history shows that movements turn to #spiky, and we’re already seeing this shift. Recent events, like the symbolic damage by Oxford University by the Palestine Action group, or climate activists turning to sabotage, signal a new phase in the fight for justice and survival.
This escalation isn’t happening in isolation. It’s the predictable result of a systematic refusal to listen to those calling for change. People lose faith in liberal symbolic demonstrations as the #deathcult of #neoliberalism marches on, indifferent to the destruction in its wake. When doors to dialogue are slammed shut, people look for other ways to be heard.
Universities should be at the forefront of this conversation, providing space for genuine debate on how change happens, not just as an abstract academic exercise, but as a living, breathing discussion that acknowledges the urgency of the current mess. We need to break out of the cycle of blinded performative process and confront the reality that people will not quietly watch the world burn.
The #KISS path reminds us to keep things simple: listen to people, understand the roots of their motivations, and create pathways for meaningful action. Otherwise, as we’re already seeing, the pressure will keep building — and the cracks in the system will only grow wider.
To find my wider view on university’s role in this
One thing to keep in mind is that these people largely think they are good people, doing the best they can in the world as it is. And will become upset and very #spiky defensive when pointing at them on their knees prostrate worshipping. Like they said in the seminar, “I don’t know what to do about this”. I don’t think most of us do.
The Clarendon Lectures 2025 – Designing the Future: Multidisciplinary perspectives on designing better futures
Systems thinking challenges traditional approaches to management research and practice. In this second Clarendon event, Tima Bansal engages in conversation with academics in #Oxford who are integrating research and practice with the ambition to co-create futures rather than simply analysing solutions.
An outsider, polemical look at this event: Most university panels have a #NGO-thinking academic for process box-ticking. This is the representation of the fluffy side of #mainstreaming social change. This lettuce person is at best a #fluffy careerist and at worst a #NGO parasite. If there is any content at all, it’s box-ticking to create the illusion of consent and goodwill.
Then the meat of the business school is the worship of the #deathcult — people climbing the gravestones of hierarchy in the shiny, crumbling mausoleums. Even then, it’s mostly careerist. This one is talking about embedding in more fluffy NGO groups to build their story. It’s all about community and relationships. She lets go of the ego she pushed first, to step back to embed. No idea what the outcome of her work is — it’s all process. She ends with a call for nature and holism, the world her work destroys.
The currency is theory; on this, the business school is completely bankrupt from an academic point of view — not to get into the subject of morals, let alone basic human survival. She says they push their content out into science journalism, as these people are not able to judge the value of abstract academic work.
The next is an accounting bureaucrat, who does mention the green limits. He touches on the real and talks about the language in documents of bureaucratic regulation. He says it’s a mess and doesn’t know what to do. Trusting what companies say is not going to be enough. You need to change the economic relationships, and changing this is very difficult — and it’s currently simply not working.
The summing-up person is excited with an issue? Not sure what — no idea what she is actually saying. She is back to not talking about anything. She touches on statues and embarrassment. Finally, she asks an interesting question: who is the ordinance, us or somebody else? We have no idea who?
She says we need strong institutions, as individual companies are not going to do it — they capture the levers of power and pull them to keep the mess, and money, flowing. She has no answer to this. She does mention moving past “markets” in passing for a moment.
Boundaries come up — the answer is fluff, then more substance, accounting has hard boundaries, but useful change comes from stepping outside this. Systems thinking — no answer.
These people are lost and are training up the next lost generation. It’s interesting to see that they have some understanding of this, but it’s looking like they will do nothing to change it.
Wine and nibbles were OK.
Talked to many of them after the event. A few said they were undercover academic “radicals” infiltrating the business colleges — which was maybe a tiny bit true, or not. The students I talked to were blank and staying in academia.
The “consultants” were interested and animated; they found it a little shockingly invigorating to have a counter-culture conversation.
To sum up, mostly hopeless. I am always surprised the place doesn’t stink of rotting zombies, a metaphor, maybe? They need some real content… they really need some real content, but you get the strong feeling that they are not even going to change until the Thames is flowing up under the nearby railway bridge. Even then, there will be calls for more sandbags while talking more about careers — all they know — but underneath this, they have the fear that these careers will likely not exist.
This is it. What to do?
It’s a bleak cycle: academics pump out theory to feed the chatting classes, who in turn guide the #fashernista, spinning ever more refined justifications for the status quo. The echo chamber reverberates with hollow soundbites while the world burns. What we end up with is a layer of intellectual manure, with no one doing the work to turn it into compost.
With projects like the #OMN social tech could be the spade that digs through this mess, breaking down the dead ideas and aerating the soil for something new to grow. But instead, we use #dotcons tech to pile up more waste. Every app, platform, and algorithm is designed to reinforce the system, not break it. The closed loops of influence, profit, and prestige just churn on.
If we want to prod this beast, one way I am working on is to embrace the disruptive potential of the #openweb. What if we built platforms that exposed the rot? Imagine public academic review systems where research couldn’t hide behind paywalls, or tools that tracked the influence of corporate funding on “objective” scholarship. There are some seeds for this, what if we grow them #4opens
Or more direct action, maybe we just crash the garden party. What if we hijacked their panels, flooded their Q&As with real questions, or set up rogue alt-conferences right outside their events? The goal isn’t destruction for destruction’s sake — it’s breaking the illusion of inevitability.
What do you think? How do we spark that shift in behaviour, that even they, softly, say we need to do.
The internet’s origins are tangled with the military-industrial complex, designed for resilience in the face of catastrophe. But the protocols themselves, once set loose, created a playground for anarchistic experimentation. The lack of centralized control allowed people to build without permission, and that openness birthed the wild, decentralized internet we briefly glimpsed.
It was an accident, but an accident we can repeat. The #dotcons crushed that brief era of freedom, but the same dynamics that let the early #openweb flourish still exist. The #4opens, the #Fediverse, #OMN — these are our tools to recreate the “mistake” deliberately this time.
What if we embrace the idea that technology can escape its creators? Maybe we can compost the current #techshit and let something even more resilient grow. What do you think? Should we lean into the idea of building “mistakes” on purpose?
It’s well past time to pick a side. For decades, the internet has been being enclosed. The one’s living decentralized network of commentary sites, blogs, forums has been corralled into a handful of paved prison yards controlled by the #dotcons. With most people’s attention and thus freedom being in the hands of a #nastyfew oligarchs. Every post, every ‘friend,’ every creative work is locked behind closed doors, and when push comes to shove as it is now, you will increasingly find that you don’t have the keys.
But the keys still exist, and it’s not so hard for you to pickup them up. There has been a #openweb digital jailbreak going on for the last 5 years, if you value your humanity you need to become a part of this blackout, put the key in the lock and turn it.
OK, yes, maybe a little strong, the #openweb isn’t a utopia, but it’s the closest thing we’ve got to freedom online. It’s built on the #4opens: Open Source: The code is public, hackable, and accountable. Open Data: Information flows freely, not hoarded for control. Open Standards: Interoperability beats lock-in monopolies. Open Process: Transparent governance, not shadowy boardrooms.
This #fediverse path is an escape hatch from the #closedweb. It’s not a product. It’s not something you can buy stock in. It’s a network of interconnected platforms like #Mastodon, #Lemmy, and #PeerTube to name a few, all running on the open protocol #activertypub. It’s messy. It’s human. And it’s yours if you take it.
It should be easy to see that the #closedweb is a digital prison, a mausoleum for human creativity, dressed up like a theme park. It’s run by billionaire-controlled #dotcons and polished by the illusion of safety sold by the #encryptionists. Who keep misshaping our paths. What did they offer? Control: Your identity, your data, your connections — all owned by them. Manipulation: Your timeline, your reach, your visibility — dictated by algorithmic gods. Exploitation: Every interaction, every word, every click — another drop in their profit bucket. We’ve eaten their lie that the internet had to be this way. That Meta, Google, and the hollow husk of Twitter are the price of admission to digital society. But simply, it was never true.
OK, I get your apathy, why does it matter? Because when we blur the lines, we lose the fight. People pour energy into platforms that wear the clothes of progress but are stitched with threads of control. We need to clearly label projects as #openweb or #closedweb, so people can choose where to dig in and build. The #4opens are our shovels, and the remnants of failed #web03 promises are good compost to start on. Let’s turn the decay of false hope into fertile ground for real digital commons.
The internet wasn’t built to be a machine for ad revenue. It was built to connect the paths for radical, collective steps we need in today’s mess.
Most people I interact with are buried deep in the rot they’ve helped create, the path out is hard, but not impossible. The composting metaphor holds — rot can become soil, but only if it’s turned, exposed to air, and given time to break down. The stench lingers, though, and the deeper the decay, the harder it is to face.
Forgiveness can be a catalyst, but only if it’s rooted in understanding, not avoidance. Too often, movements try to “move on” without actually dealing with the decay, which just locks the dysfunction into place. Real forgiveness isn’t about forgetting or excusing — it’s about acknowledging the harm, holding people accountable to growth, and making space for them to rebuild trust through action.
With the #OMN the key is to create intentional processes for airing out the rot. Spaces where people can lay out what went wrong, where the worst of the mess can be named and examined without immediately collapsing into blame. This is a form of collective composting — deliberately breaking things down so they don’t keep contaminating the roots of future growth.
For paths that avoid recreating the mess, we might need, truth-telling circles: Spaces for people to name harms, acknowledge mistakes, and speak honestly about the dynamics that led to failure. Restorative action, not just words: Forgiveness should be paired with tangible action — people need ways to rebuild trust through collective work. Memory gardens: Digital or physical archives that document past failures and successes, so the same mistakes don’t get repeated. Rhythmic cycles of reflection: Movements need to regularly pause, look back, and compost what’s no longer serving the collective purpose.
Sun, light, and fertile soil come from this messy work of turning over the past and allowing time and care to transform it. The #openweb is a part of this, especially if we build systems and paths that prioritize collective memory and iterative growth over constant reinvention and erasure.
What do you think? Could structured cycles of composting and reflection help our movements breathe again? Or is the rot too deep, and we need to burn things down to clear space for new life?
Too often, I find myself in conversations that revolve around the intersection of technology and social issues, with one view emphasizing the importance of practical solutions to real-world problems, while the other highlights the underlying social dynamics that shape the technological landscapes these “solutions” are supposed to be addressing.
The Pragmatists, prioritizes immediate, tangible solutions. For example, when discussing the digital divide, they might advocate for creating cheaper, more accessible devices or building community Wi-Fi networks. They’ll focus on the logistics: what technology stack is best, what protocols to use, and how quickly the network can be deployed.
They see critiques of the capitalist underpinnings of tech as a distraction. For instance, they might argue that worrying about Big Tech’s dominance is less important than simply getting people online, even if it means relying on Google or Facebook infrastructure in the short term. The goal is to solve the immediate problem, even if the long-term implications reinforce existing systems of control.
The Social Critics, contends that technology cannot be meaningfully separated from the social systems it emerges from. They argue that simply handing out cheap devices or relying on corporate infrastructure entrenches dependency and undermines community sovereignty. For example, they might point to the rise of open-source projects that eventually get swallowed by venture capital, losing their grassroots values in the process (#dotcons).
They argue that unless we address the systemic issues, like how profit-driven models shape the design of platforms, any immediate “solution” is likely to reinforce the problem. Take social media moderation: a pragmatist might suggest better algorithms, while a social critic would argue that the underlying problem is the ad-driven engagement path itself.
The #GeekProblem is a barrier, the divide between these groups often solidifies into this mess making. Pragmatists, especially in tech spaces, dismiss social critique as impractical or irrelevant, reinforcing an insular culture that privileges technical expertise over lived experience. This dismissal is a form of #blocking, preventing collective growth and deeper problem-solving.
Breaking the cycle, to move past this, we need to blend the perspectives. For example, community mesh networks can be built with both pragmatic goals (connecting people) and social considerations (using #4opens practices to maintain local control). The technology itself can be a tool for social empowerment, but only if the builders acknowledge and address the social dimensions.
Projects like the Open Media Network (#OMN) bridge this gap, grounding tech development in community needs while keeping processes transparent and participatory. This balance helps compost the mess, turning the tension between pragmatism and social critique into fertile ground for true change. We don’t have to choose between immediate action and long-term systemic change, the key is holding both. Let’s stop getting stuck in the mess and start growing something real.
Let’s look at what makes sense: it’s about collective dynamics, not individual blame. The focus is on mapping the social landscape, understanding the patterns of dysfunction, and then figuring out how to break through those blockages. The idea of switching between #spiky and #fluffy approaches as needed is powerful, rejecting rigid ideology in favour of practical, responsive action.
Making the #blocking visible is essential. So much of the stagnation in #openweb and activist spaces comes from hidden blockages, unspoken fears, entrenched power dynamics, and the quiet creep of #mainstreaming logic. By pushing these things into the light, we can compost them, rather than letting them fester underground.
The balance, using history as a guide, leaning on what’s worked before, but staying flexible enough to shift tactics, should feel like the only sustainable way forward. If we only do #fluffy, we get captured by the #NGO mindset. If we only do #spiky, we burn out or implode. But if we consciously weave both together, we might actually build the resilience we need to grow new paths through the wreckage.
It’s almost like we need a cultural practice of “tending the compost”, regularly sifting through the mess, pulling out useful bits, and turning it over so new life can emerge. And maybe that practice itself could be a form of governance for grassroots networks, an ongoing, collective process of sense-making and recalibration.
What do you think? Can this idea of “compost tending” as a cyclical, community-driven process be something we intentionally build into the fabric of #openweb projects?
The new #mainstreaming right-wing crew has become adept at hijacking the language of liberation and twisting it for control. They steal words like “freedom,” “community,” and “resilience,” stripping them of their radical roots and turning them into tools for reactionary agendas. Meanwhile, the left, caught in cycles of internal purity politics and endless critique, fractures itself, leaving a vacuum the right eagerly fills.
It is a mess, but messes can be composted. The key is to strip away the parasitic layers, the influencers, the NGOs, the careerists who feed off this while subverting collective growth. These actors “thrive” on propping up a fragile sense of self, this messy path feeds division and spectacle, not solidarity. And as the mental health crisis worsens under #climatechaos and late-stage capitalism, people grasp for identity and belonging in the most toxic places.
We need radical care as well as radical action. The parasite class is fuelled by a deep void, a lack of purpose, a craving for significance. If we don’t build healthier collectives, people will keep falling into the black holes of conspiracy and #mainstreaming cultish thinking. The #openweb can be a sanctuary, a place to grow shared meaning, but only if we consciously design it to prioritize human connection over endless noise.
I wonder: how do we create spaces where broken people can heal, rather than becoming weapons of the right? Can we build digital commons that feel like home, where people can work through their pain without being consumed by it, collective care and unwinding the knots of individual trauma is a #fluff part of activism. What do you think? Is it possible to compost the mess and nurture the people tangled within it? Or do we need a more fire-and-brimstone approach to burn away the rot, I start to only half joke.
The invisible core of the struggle. The way online spaces, especially in decentralized networks like the #Fediverse, handle conflict is tangled up in this tension between safety and open debate. The #fluffy vs. #spiky debate, between care-driven, consensus-seeking approaches and more confrontational, radical tactics, has always been part of activist culture. Trying to erase that debate in the name of safety is simply sterilizing the very dynamism that fuels real change.
If we strip out the “debate” part, we’re left with a hollow shell, a fragile, performative “safe space” that can’t actually withstand the pressures of the real world. But if we lean too far into spiky confrontation without care, we lose people who could grow into stronger comrades. It’s a balancing act, and yes, the co-option of “safety” by both NGO logic and reactionary forces has made this even more toxic.
The “parasite class” is obviously seen being taken out of context is a perfect example of this mess, people react to language without digging into the underlying idea. The real question is whether we can metabolize within the chaos, compost the mess and care for the people lost in it, instead of just cutting them off. The #openweb needs friction to evolve, but it also needs trust to survive. There is a strong need to resist the impulse to sanitize the #openweb into submission. The #ActivityPub space, growing from the #fluffy side, has an embedded bias toward conflict avoidance, but that can be dangerous, because it leaves the system vulnerable to slow, creeping co-option. Safety shouldn’t mean silencing necessary struggles.
The consensus should be this: safety is built through collective care, not the absence of conflict. The #openweb should be a space where people can disagree loudly without fear of exile, where the friction of ideas sharpens the collective purpose, and where care is an active, ongoing process, not a bureaucratic rule set.
The chattering classes, eager to ride the wave of #mainstreaming, are finally pushing real rather than fake radical critique. These are the same people who built their careers within the #dotcons and #neoliberal highways, are now embracing narratives that grassroots movements have been fighting for decades. Sure, “better late than never,” but we should remain deeply sceptical of their radical awakenings, especially the #fluffy paths they carve out. After all, they’re still operating within the structures that created this mess in the first place.
There’s an element of performative rage at play here, condemning billionaires while continuing to use, benefit from, and reinforce the systems that empower them. Meanwhile, real alternatives, grassroots, decentralized, and open networks like #OMN, remain sidelined, unfunded, and ignored, still too far outside the “common sense” media narratives that shape any current #mainstreaming paths.
It’s not entirely useless to have media celebrities and polished pundits repackaging anti-billionaire sentiment. It does shift the Overton window. But it’s equally vital that we critique this and, more importantly, walk a different path, one that is messy, grassroots, open, and outside the control of the #fashernistas who are now finding the courage to speak up about what we’ve been saying all along. We are the ones with the lived experience. Now, where are the resources? That’s the question we should be asking our freshly radicalized “allies.”
And if their “solutions” come wrapped in top-down, controlled narratives? Well, piss on them, it helps with the composting. Thanks.
We don’t have time for more mess, the real challenge is ensuring that this moment doesn’t become another media spectacle to be consumed and discarded. How do we push the narrative in a way that resists being co-opted? How do we move beyond talking about change to embodying the real challenge they’re now beginning to acknowledge is needed.
The key takeaway of the current #mainstreaming is that we must actively build alternative structures—not just critique the existing mess. That means reclaiming digital and physical commons, supporting participatory democracy, and pushing back against #dotcons billionaire-driven tech oligarchy. The work with #4opens and #OMN grassroots media is exactly the kind of response we need to counteract this heist.
To look at this, we need to move outside the comfort zones of current #mainstreaming thinking. Let’s start by touching on the role of #protestcamps in direct action, protest camps are temporary activist spaces set up in public areas to bring attention to social, environmental, and political issues. These camps create a direct action environment where people gather, discuss, and demonstrate. They range from #fluffy (peaceful and symbolic) to #spiky (disruptive and confrontational), depending on the nature of the cause and the activists involved.
Who uses these strategies and spaces, some examples of protest movements: #Occupy Movement – Challenged economic inequality and corporate influence. #ClimateCamp – A radical grassroots direct action movement to counter #climatechaos through awareness, policy pressure, and direct disruption. Active in multiple countries, it peaked in the late 2000s and early 2010s, influencing both public debate and government action. #CriticalMass – A decentralized cycling activism movement, founded in 1992, that uses monthly mass bike rides to reclaim public space and challenge car culture.
These examples of grassroots politics operates from the bottom up, empowering people to engage directly rather than relying on mediating political parties or institutions. These paths give communities a voice and enable change outside traditional power structures. Direct action & grassroots politics is always the working change and challenge we need, activism that bypasses traditional political intermediaries, using disruptive tactics like strikes, sit-ins, and blockades.
Together, these methods provide democratic and practical ways to challenge authority, disrupt harmful policies, and drive real change. Let’s look at another example, the debate around #XR (Extinction Rebellion), founded in 2018, #XR uses nonviolent civil disobedience to push governments to act on the #climatecrisis. The movement is divisive, some see it as #spiky, using direct action to force political change. Others argue it’s too #fluffy, adhering to liberal ideas of legality and nonviolence, which limits its radical potential. Whether #XR is a radical or liberal movement remains an active debate, but its impact on public discourse and activism is undeniable.
This active fluffy/spiky debate is core to affective grassroots activism. This experience we need to pass onto the #4opens alternatives & horizontalist paths in tech, which to often have the assumption that liberal legality alone will fix systemic problems, a #geekproblem fantasy. A better path, is learning from this history of activism, native #FOSS and #4opens structures, which yes are not without challenges, need this to build alternatives that avoid the false hope that #mainstreaming institutions will voluntarily dismantle themselves.
As I highlight, activism isn’t separate from tech development, with #FOSS it shapes it. Movements like #Indymedia, #Fediverse, and #OMN show that #FOSS paths can be built with social movements in mind. If we don’t shape our own digital tools, they will be co-opted by #dotcons and restricted by #mainstreaming forces.
The solution? Rebuild from the ground up—not just by resisting but by actively creating the alternatives we want to see.
