How #mainstreaming can meaningfully fund grassroots movements, they get the value from

One of the biggest tensions in the fight to build an alternative, sustainable future is the relationship between mainstream resources and grassroots projects. The reality is STARK: grassroots movements need resources to survive and thrive, yet the very act of receiving funding, if they can access it at all, drags them into the suffocating grip of #mainstreaming culture, where the radical edges that make them valuable are dulled and destroyed. So, how can conscious mainstream actors support grassroots movements without killing the radical energy that creates the value in the first place.

The answer lies in sharing resources in non-mainstreaming ways, a difficult leap for many, but an essential one. The only people who can truly be useful in sustaining #openweb paths are those willing to break free from the entrenched habits of top-down control, endless bureaucracy, and the need to polish everything into marketable, bite-sized pieces.

What does non-mainstreaming support look like?

Unconditional Funding: Grassroots projects need funding without strings attached. Too often, funding comes with requirements that reshape the project itself, turning radical experimentation into pointless palatable, measurable outputs. True support means trusting grassroots communities to know what they need and allowing them to allocate resources nimbly. #TRUST #opencollective

Trust-Based Relationships: A “native” healthier approach is to build long-term relationships with grassroots groups, listening to their needs and responding in an organic, flexible way. #TRUST #OMN

Decentralized Decision-Making: Bottom-up governance models. Funding should flow to collectives, not charismatic individuals or figureheads building careers #KISS #OGB

Infrastructure, Not Ownership: A path that might work, rather than buying influence, mainstream actors can provide infrastructure, hosting, bandwidth, servers, physical spaces, without attempting to control the projects using them. Think of it as building bridges, not fences. #Fediverse instances

Amplify, Don’t Absorb: Mainstream platforms and institutions need to amplify grassroots voices without assimilating them. This means using their reach to highlight native radical projects but stepping back to let those projects speak for themselves. No need to repackage the message, people can handle raw, messy reality. #indymediaback

Why this bridge building matters, the current mainstream is crumbling under the weight of its contradictions. As #climatechaos accelerates, as #neoliberalism fails to deliver anything but more suffering, people will look for alternatives. But if those alternatives are already swallowed and sanitized by the current mainstream, hope dims. Grassroots movements are the seedbeds of real change, they hold the living knowledge of how to build differently.

Keeping the bridge in place isn’t an act of charity; it’s a #KISS survival strategy. The future will grow from the compost of the old world, and those willing to step off the conveyor belt of #mainstreaming and into the rich, chaotic soil of grassroots experimentation will be the ones who help plant the seeds.

#fediversehouse

Fear, hope, and #climatechaos

The path we are on, climate change, mainstream politics, and fear reveals a troubling pattern: in times of crisis, like #climatechaos, mainstream politics instinctively shifts to the right. It’s essential to understand the underlying role of fear in pushing this drift.

Fear is a powerful political motivator. Right-wing ideologies thrive on it, whether the fear stems from economic instability, cultural change, or national security threats. In the current path of accelerating climate breakdown, fears of environmental collapse, mass migration, and resource scarcity intensify are creating fertile ground for reactionary politics to grow.

Yet, an intriguing shift to a counter path is underway: the fading fear of socialism among the western bourgeoisie. For decades, socialism was the boogeyman used to justify capitalism’s worst excesses. But as socialist ideas gain legitimacy, especially among younger generations, that fear diminishes. This shift cracks open space to challenge and thus change the right’s dominance and revive radical real alternatives.

This opening offers a brief flowering of hope. By balancing collective, community-driven projects and advocating for systemic change, we can push back against the politics of fear. Movements like #OMN, #OGB, and #indymediaback are seeds of this potential, growing resilience, equity, and sustainability outside the #mainstreaming mess driving spectacle.

However, hope can be a dwindling resource. Every moment lost to inaction feeds the cycle of despair, reinforcing the right’s grip on public imagination. The urgency of #climatechaos means we can’t afford to waste time or the pointless distractions that #mainstreaming common sense pushes over us.

This struggle is a balance between fear and hope. Fear is the tool of the #deathcult, but hope lives in grassroots action. The future depends on whether we push fear to suffocate change or seize this fleeting opening to build something real — from the compost of what’s been lost all ready.

Best not to one of the prats, who #block this path, thanks.

The #fashernistas poisoned the well of alt-media

This has been going on for more than ten years, I have been at the heart of this movement, at many of the steps, I meet defeatism and negativity. It’s frustrating, especially now, when the mainstream is visibly stepping away from the #dotcons and looking for a place to land. We should be building that landing space, but instead, we’re tangled in the wreckage of failed ideas and cynical inertia.

Yes, stupid fashionable ideas have failed again and again, but that doesn’t mean the basics no longer work. The #openweb grew from simple, powerful principles: decentralization, collaboration, and a belief that media should be in the hands of the people, not locked behind corporate walls. It worked then, and it can work now.

The #blocking wall, the #dotcons built to dam this flow, just might be crumbling, but I don’t think people realize just how much defeatist noise we had and still have to break through:

“Old tech. Nobody uses torrents anymore.”
“That’s been tried — it failed.”
“This is better, nobody’s interested in that.”
“You should be using XYZ instead. I have a better idea...”

It’s an endless cycle of negativity, driven by a #geekproblem that values novelty over function, and a #fashernista culture that chases trends rather than tending to the messy, necessary work of composting old ideas to grow something real. The #openweb tools still work, If we use them. The core tools of the #openweb are still powerful:

#RSS feeds for simple, open distribution.
#Torrents for decentralized, resilient file sharing.
#Fedivers networks like #Peertube, #Mastodon, and #Wordpress for publishing and connection.
Mesh networks and local-first tech to break dependence on centralized infrastructure.

None of these are new, that’s the point, they work. The failure wasn’t in the tech, it was in our inability to hold space against the relentless creep of the #deathcult. Reclaiming the compost heap is a first step, we need to stop chasing the next shiny thing and start digging through the muck. The #OMN, #indymediaback, and #4opens are all rooted in the idea that we can rebuild from what we already know works, not by reinventing the wheel but by getting our hands dirty and composting the failures into fertile ground for the future.

The defeatism is loud, but it’s not unbeatable. We’ve been here before. We know the way out.

Decentralize.
Publish.
Connect.
Trust the process.

We (re)build the #openweb one small, stubborn step at a time.

Deep breath. Take a step.

#Fashionistas in Activism: How Buzzword Chasing Undermines Real Change

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, 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 systemic action that was called for.

Lack of authenticity, when organizations prioritize optics over substance, which breed 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 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.

#4opens #activism #openweb #OMN #techshit #nastyfew

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.

Open Media Network (#OMN) is a Tool for Change and Challenge, Composting the Mess

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.

We can support this Open Collective or get involved in the coding https://unite.openworlds.info

#OMN #4opens #indymediaback #openweb #ActivityPub #TechCompost #GrassrootsMedia #TrustNetworks

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!

“Compost tending” the fabric of #openweb

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?

#4opens #OMN #OGB #makeinghistory #indymediaback

We need to break out of this cycle

Funding structures are built for #NGO nonsense, not grassroots projects where actual value is created. The #OMN, #indymediaback, and #OGB challenge this, but funders can’t grasp it because they don’t understand value outside institutional framing.

Fixing the funding #blocking, funders need to THINK, not just UNDERSTAND. Right now, they “understand” in the framework of existing institutions, which means they miss the metaphor-driven, emergent nature of the #OMN. Our #Hashtag story is for THINKING, not passive understanding. They are useful tools to push the conversation forward, not dogma to be accepted or rejected. The two often treating them as fixed truths leads to #blocking the needed real change.

We need to break out of this cycle, 20 years of #techshit which is still strengthening the gatekeepers, we can’t keep playing by these rules. The biggest realization here is that truth and metaphor are not the same. Funders, #NGOs, and the #mainstreaming crew think in terms of fixed truths, while real change comes from dynamic thinking. That’s why they keep failing us.

So, how do we move forward?

Funding Proposal: Archiving the “Commons” with #MakingHistory and #OMN

#Indymediaback Funding Application 2025-02-036 indymediaback received

Application 2025-02-032 Open Governance Body #OGB

Funding application for the #OMN

#NLnet #EU #NGI #NGIzero – Will we get it right this time?

With the hard shift to the right in US tech, Europe can no longer afford to sit idly by in tech development. The myth of neutrality has always been a convenient lie—if we don’t actively counterbalance this shift, we risk watching the #FOSS and #openweb movements collapse, taking with them a core pillar of our democratic and digital future. These movements aren’t just about code; they are the foundation of a fair, open, and just society. Now is the time to step up, not stand by.

For the past five years, I’ve been applying for funding for native #openweb projects—projects rooted in real, grassroots needs rather than corporate gatekeeping and academic abstraction. The problem? #NLnet and the wider #EU funding landscape lack people who can actually judge #FOSS projects in this space. The results are predictable:

Bureaucratic checklists
Conservative, incremental funding
Projects chosen based on who fills out forms best, not who builds the tech we actually need

So the real question is: has this changed? Because right now, I see the same mistakes repeating. We have proposals like:

#MakingHistory – Restoring a radical, federated approach to storytelling and digital archiving.
#IndymediaBack – Rebooting independent media with the lessons of past failures baked in.
#OGB (Open Governance Body) – A vital step toward decentralised, federated governance—something we desperately need to keep tech in the hands of communities, not corporations.

These proposals should not be niche. They should not be afterthoughts. They should be a part of the core of NGI funding strategy, the checks and balance on the bigger tech projects, if the EU is to be at all affective about counterbalancing the rightward shift in global tech.

So let’s ask again: Has #NLnet and the #EU stepped up this time? Are we funding the future, or are we just shuffling papers while the #deathcult eats our humanistic heritage and the last remains of the #openweb?

The risk, as always, is that the funding just shifts to the next well-polished pitch deck, rather than the real, messy work of change. But hey, one can but prod—because without that, nothing moves at all.

The difference between struggle and #fashernista ethics. The latter is comfortable. The former matters.

Power in tech isn’t neutral, and our issue over the last 20 years is that we have allowed the #dotcons to hoarded and weaponised it. The answer to our failer isn’t to retreat or seek more “ethical” enclosures, it’s to reclaim our power through radical, commons-based networks like #indymediaback and the #OMN.

This argument is #nothingnew, we don’t need endless reinvention, we need continuity. The #openweb isn’t about mimicking #dotcons; it’s about breaking their privatisation model and returning power to collective hands. Hashtags, metadata, and federated networks help on this path, but the real strength is social, not just technical.

Examples of this: #Indymediaback isn’t just a project, it’s a continuation of a proven model that worked before the #dotcons stole the narrative. It was a social technological project embedded in radical movements, used real-world trust systems, and functioned outside of state/corporate control. Rebuilding it isn’t nostalgia; it’s a practical step toward rebalancing power.

We need ongoing arguments about power, opting out or running to “better” #dotcons just dodges the issue. Power is always there. The question is who holds it, and for what purpose? Right now, the #dotcons wield it for social control, profit, and policing. The #openweb flips that, if we build it as a “native” path.

The fight isn’t about making people “feel good” about tech choices, it’s about removing power from enclosures and putting it back into the commons. That’s the difference between real struggle and #fashernista ethics. The latter is comfortable. The former matters.

Paranoia is one of the biggest blockers in alt-tech and radical spaces. It breeds mistrust, isolation, and internal sabotage, making collective action impossible. While some caution is necessary, too much just feeds into stasis and control, mirroring the systems activists are trying to break away from.

The #4opens is a direct antidote to this. Transparency counters paranoia, when decisions, processes, and networks are open, there’s less space for suspicion to fester. Trust isn’t built by secrecy but by consistent, open, and accountable action.

The irony is that a lot of these paranoid actors think they’re resisting control, but by shutting everything down, they’re just self-sabotaging. The solution isn’t more walls—it’s more flows. The #4opens provides the framework to move past the paranoia blockade and rebuild trust in practice, not just theory.

The victimhood narrative is often a trap, weaponised by the right and co-opted by the #fashernista left to shut down alternatives. It can be used as a tool of control, not liberation. Composting the mess, in part, by refuse to play their game, victimhood, is in part real and in part is used to create moral authority without real action. If we engage on those terms, we just get dragged into performative battles.

Expose the power dynamics, by asking who benefits from this? In the negative sense, it’s often gatekeepers who want to control the narrative. NGOs do it for funding, #dotcons for engagement, and #mainstreaming activists for status. A path out of this is reclaiming direct action, which sadly meany in the left abandoned, and the right picked up. We need to take it back, not through reactionary purity politics, but by actually doing the work outside their controlled spaces. A healing path is shifting from identity to process, the current model is all about who is speaking, not what is being built. That’s a dead end. We need #4opens process-driven organising, not personality cults or gatekept “safe spaces.” Make failure visible, one of the biggest weapons against alt movements is pointing out their failures, while #mainstreaming projects hide their rot. If we embrace messy openness, we take that power away.

Breaking the cycle:

The right weaponises grievance → to mobilise.
The liberal left weaponises grievance → to control and suppress real challenge.
The alt-left needs to weaponise transparency → to break gatekeeping and rebuild trust.

So the question is: how do we make “openness” an effective tool in this? The #4opens is a step.

The web wasn’t built by solo tech geniuses

The web wasn’t built by solo tech geniuses, finance firms, or flashy luminaries making illusionary promises. It was grown by the collective time, energy, and creativity of millions of grassroots people and communities working together to create something greater than themselves. The internet as we know it emerged not from the top-down visions of elites, but from decentralised, collaborative efforts. This same collective energy will be what propels us into the next era of the #openweb, a web that remains true to its native principles of accessibility, freedom, and inclusivity.

For the last 20 years, however, we’ve been stuck in the corporate-controlled ecosystem of the #dotcons. Platforms like Meta, Google, and Amazon have dominated the landscape, turning the internet into a commodity to be bought, sold, and controlled. Their vision has led to the rise of the #closedweb, where profit and surveillance trump openness and collaboration. This #mainstreaming path is deeply concerning because it fundamentally contradicts what the web was meant to be, a space for sharing, learning, and connecting without the old gatekeepers.

There is a movement to reverse this trend, the #Fediverse, but like meany reboots it’s floundering as it grows through the inrushing of “common sense”. What we need is native #KISS foundations for a thriving #openweb, A path to this is to embrace the #4opens as guiding principles:

Open Data: Ensuring that information can be freely shared and reused.
Open Source: Building tools and platforms that anyone can access, modify, and improve.
Open Standards: Creating interoperable systems that work across platforms and communities.
Open Process: Making decisions transparently and inclusively to foster trust and collaboration.

This is a simple retelling of the #FOSS process with the addition of #openprocess as is used in the best projects, this is a part of the #nothingnew path we are on.

It’s not enough to critique the #dotcons, we need to actively build alternatives, the #Fediverse has already taken the first set on this path. The next step is focusing our energy on “native” projects like #OMN (Open Media Network), #IndyMediaBack, and #OGB (Open Governance Body), on this path we can create a decentralised, human-centred web that prioritises communities over corporations. These projects are not about recreating the same flawed systems in a slightly different guise; they’re about fundamentally rethinking how we engage with technology, governance, and communication. This rethink is #nothingnew as it’s copying the working structure of grassroots activism.

The time is now to come together and make history by working on these alternatives. The #openweb is not just an ideal; it’s a necessity for a sustainable, democratic future. Let’s reject the illusions of the #closedweb and instead build a web that truly belongs to everyone.

A world we see as normal

Can you smell it? The dead ideology of Neo-liberalism is everywhere. It’s in everything we look at, everything we touch. And yes while it might feel uncomfortable, we should actively feel distaste when we look at it and revulsion when we touch it, this is the reality of living under a #deathcult. For the past 40 years, we’ve been immersed in a system that most people still worship as if there’s no alternative.

But where is the path out? Where is the vision for something different, something rooted in solidarity and sustainability rather than profit and exploitation? Take a moment to look at this example of a #4opens project from a simpler time: Wikipedia revision history from 2011. Note the commitment to “strict scrutiny”, which required that any security measures serve a compelling community interest and be narrowly focused to achieve that and nothing else.

Compare that principle to the current state of tech, where the #encryptionsist agenda overshadows transparency and community accountability. The shift has been stark, away from openness, away from scrutiny, and towards the path where security becomes a shield for entrenched power and control.

We need to confront this, the #deathcult thrives on our passive acceptance of #neoliberal norms. Revulsion isn’t just justified; it’s necessary. The path we need to take is in rejecting this #blocking to build the #4opens alternatives we so desperately need.

OMN #indymediaback #openweb #makehistory #OGB

let’s look at an example of this in our current lives. People have been living in the shadow of neoliberalism for so long that worshipping the #deathcult has become their nature. The values of exploitation, competition, and #stupidindividualism are baked into what’s considered “normal” behaviour. In contrast, embracing a #lifecult, based on collaboration, community, and sustainability—feels alien, even threatening, to many “normal” people.

This is one of the reasons the #Fediverse and alternative social media platforms have struggled to gain traction. The Fediverse embodies #lifecult principles: decentralisation, mutual aid, and the rejection of exploitative corporate models. While these are positive ideals, they feel too far removed from the familiar patterns of the #deathcult for most people to take the leap.

A cynical path we could take is to meet people halfway. Instead of demanding they abandon their comfort zone entirely, we could make the Fediverse appear less like a #lifecult at first glance by presenting it in ways that feel more approachable and less intimidating, more like the #deathcult they are used to. On this compromise path, yes, the Fediverse should stay true to its principles, but making it less of an overt #lifecult and more of a practical, attractive alternative, #deathcult could be the “common sense” step we need to bring people over. Once they’re in, the actually, hopefully still existing culture, the values of the Fediverse will begin to work their magic.

What do you think? Should we focus on shadowing the approach to reach more people, or would that risk diluting the values that make the #Fediverse what it is? How do we live this balance in our #openweb reboot.

The #OMN path is about building the activist #openweb infrastructure

The #OpenMediaNetwork (#OMN) offers a clear, practical path to building the #openweb, grounded in #4opens. It does this by leveraging open protocols like #ActivityPub (#AP) and #RSS, alongside #FOSS software, to create a distributed network of media platforms where people and groups can join, participate, and contribute. This, like the #Fediverse, is a direct challenge to the centralised, corporate-dominated structures that define so much of the current internet landscape.

Step-by-Step Building Blocks: The #OMN is simplicity and humanistic coding, rather than over-engineered complexity we often see in tech today.

Start with the client-server model. The initial focus is on building a robust client-server architecture to create a stable foundation for media sharing and participation. This forms the “hot” storage layer, data that is live, accessible, and regularly used.
Introduce an offline cold store: Once the client-server infrastructure is operational, a secondary layer of offline cold storage is added. This acts as a backup system, providing high redundancy to safeguard against data loss. Cold storage is cheap, offline, and relies on human interaction for maintenance and retrieval, ensuring resilience and sustainability.
P2P connections to cold storage: The final stage introduces peer-to-peer (#P2P) connections to integrate the offline cold storage with the broader network. This allows people to share and retrieve data across the network, even in decentralised or disconnected environments.
Iterative learning and improvement: The process is intentionally iterative, encouraging learning from practical experience. The system path is designed to evolve and improve over time, informed by real-world use rather than theoretical perfection.

The success of the #OMN depends on its commitment to #4opens. These principles allow for the free sharing and reuse of content, breaking down barriers to collaboration and growing innovation. By storing most data unencrypted (as the majority of it is not private), the system reduces overhead and complexity, keeping the project aligned with the “Keep It Simple, Stupid” (#KISS) philosophy.

Separating privacy from the #openweb: One critical aspect of the #OMN approach is recognising that encrypted privacy tools are a separate project. Mixing these with the development of the #openweb and #Fediverse leads to unnecessary complexity and division. Privacy tools are vital, but are developed in parallel rather than tangled with the foundational infrastructure. This separation allows each project to focus on its strengths while maintaining a clear, streamlined design philosophy.

At its core, the #OMN empowers “normal” people to store and manage their own data. By using a mix of hot and cold storage, people gain control over their digital lives without relying on corporate platforms. The focus on redundancy, backed by tools to search and reimport old data into hot storage, ensures resilience and accessibility.

This human-centric approach contrasts sharply with the corporate and #geekproblem obsession with control and perfection. It’s a more humane vision of technology, based on trust and collaboration rather than surveillance and control.

This builds from a history rooted in activism, the #OMN isn’t just a theoretical project; it’s grounded in decades of real-world activism. From the work of Undercurrents in the 1990s (http://www.undercurrents.org/about.html) to the global mobilisation of the Carnival Against Capitalism (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnival_Against_Capital), this draws on over 30 years of direct, on-the-ground experience. The lessons from this history inform every aspect of the OMN, ensuring it stays true to its activist roots.

The current #block on this needed project is dealing with the #geekproblem and #fashernistas: One of the biggest challenges in progressive tech is the dominance of the #geekproblem, projects driven by technologists who prioritise complexity and self-interest over usability and impact. Coupled with the influence of #fashernistas, who chase trends without substance, many projects are doomed from the start

The #OMN cuts through this, yes, we can’t solve this mess pushing, but we are a critical step in the right direction to mediate this mess, by encouraging us to get out the shovels and compost these pushing failures. The goal is to build a system that works, not one that dazzles investors with hype while failing to deliver.

The #openweb won’t (re)build itself. It requires us to reject the endless noise of pointless projects and focus on practical, sustainable solutions. By supporting and growing the #OMN path, grounded in #KISS simplicity, #4opens principles, and decades of activism, we create a resilient infrastructure that empowers people and communities.

The future of the #openweb is in our hands. Dig deep, embrace trust, and start building.

OMN #openweb #OGB #Indymediaback #makehistory