Hamish Campbell, a veteran in radical media for the past 30 years, discusses the failure of current technology and mainstream culture. He highlights how the #dotcon boom commodified our data, resulting in closed technology silos like #Facebook and #Instagram that capture our attention and data for their own profit. Campbell argues that alternative technology built around an #encryptionist agenda has gone nowhere and that the world is dominated by these tech giants. He argues for the importance of the #openweb, which was born open but is dying closed over the last 20 years, and advocates for rebooting grassroots media as a solution. Campbell uses the Oxford #IMC as an example of how a simple federated network can work by sharing content, using trusted link flows, and allowing content to be moderated or rolled back. He believes that the beauty of the #openweb is based on free flowing links, unlike the #closedweb of our current dominating technology. Campbell concludes that the #OMN project is more important for what it does not do than for what it does, and highlights the need to take small steps towards a solution by rebooting grassroots media as a example project.
What you can do
In the last few years there have been events and gatherings in the US, Portugal, and Madrid, discussing the possibility of #rebooting #Indymedia. The current history of Indymedia has been primarily written by academics and is very Americanized, so there is a need to retell the stories and provide a wider perspective. To successfully reboot Indymedia, I think it needs to return to its open and serendipitous roots, rather than the bureaucratic and closed structure it became. Fortunately, most of the technical tools needed for a decentralized and federated system, such as ActivityPub and Scuttlebutt, already exist. To maintain its radical grassroots philosophy, the #4opens principles should be used to ensure openness and accessibility. To get involved, one can search for #indymediaback or “reboot Indymedia” and find useful links #OMN
