The metaphors are change and challenge

Balancing the #mainstreaming mess by focusing on what’s “native” is a useful step in rebooting the #openweb. Rather than outright rejecting things that don’t fit, the goal is to actively engage and mediate through pushback, ensuring that the core values are preserved while allowing space for broader participation. This path helps prevent the dilution of the original ideals while embracing diversity in a constructive way.

To centre this conversation, we create frameworks that ensure any new developments align with principles like the #4opens and facilitate ongoing dialogue to maintain a shared direction. The key here is to keep it simple (#KISS), ensuring the tools are accessible and intuitive.

The metaphor of composting the mess to seed radical movements is an evocative one, emphasizing the importance of turning waste and negativity into something productive. It aligns with the path of movements growing from rich, grounded beginnings, rather than from the toxic, divisive environment that emerges with negativity spreading unchecked.

The use of these hashtags helps to frame the broader narrative, adding depth to the conversation about the failings of the digital world and how to move beyond them. With the hashtags like #deathcult, #dotcons, and #techcurn clearly defining the toxic systems at play, while others like #openweb and #4opens point toward solutions based on transparency and decentralization.

The metaphors are a powerful comparison between ecological composting and the cultivation of social and technological movements, particularly in the context of grassroots media and openweb activism and culture.

Seeds and compost, describe movements as seeds that grow in rich compost, meaning that movements need nurturing environments to thrive. The compost represents the ideas, collaboration, and foundational work that allow movements to grow organically.
Spreading shit, a metaphor about how we are distracted by “spreading shit on each other,” negativity, conflict, and infighting hampers collective efforts. While conflict and criticism are part of human interaction, too much negativity leads to a foul atmosphere, where movements struggle to grow.
Composting the shit, is from the phrase “shit is good for compost”, that negative experiences, bad ideas, and even failures can be turned into useful lessons, helping to enrich the soil for future movements. Rather than discarding everything, the key is to transform the bad into something productive.
Tools for change, the shovel, symbolize practical action. You need real tools (both literally and metaphorically) to work the compost, to nurture change, and to dig into the mess. Tools like openness, transparency, and collaboration are vital to making the compost to actually lead to growth.

The #Hashtags are anchors, a way of framing complex social, political, and technological issues into digestible themes. The #OMN tags define the broad spectrum of the struggles and the critiques of current paths:

#Deathcult: Neoliberalism, a system that prioritizes profit and narrow economic growth over human and environmental well-being.

#Fashernista: The interplay of fashion, trends, and social relations, highlighting the superficiality in political movements.

#Openweb: The original vision of the web, built on openness, collaboration, and free exchange.

#Closedweb: The pre-internet and post-open-web eras dominated by corporate control (the #dotcons).

#4opens: A principle-driven framework to ensure transparency, openness, and collaboration, inspired by the #FOSS and grassroots activism.

#Encryptionists: A critique of those who advocate for excessive encryption without considering its broader social cost.

#Dotcons: The commercialization of the internet and how it is leading to environmental and social collapse.

#Geekproblem: The ongoing debate between determinism and free will, and its relationship to technological culture.

#Techshit: Refers to the waste that technology produces—both physically and socially—which can be repurposed into something useful.

#Techcurn: The technological churn, the constant cycle of “innovation” that leads to more problems than solutions.

#Nothingnew: A philosophy of slowing down technological development to reflect and correct the negative outcomes of rapid progress.

These are used as a call to action, to encourage a shift to the #KISS values of the openweb and to building humanistic paths. By understanding this, and acting on the metaphors and hashtags, we better navigate the challenges of today’s online and offline mess to work toward meaningful, open, and progressive alternatives to the #deathcult we have worshipped for way too long, way to long.

Navigating challenges: online governance, trolling, and privacy

It’s interesting and useful to look at the critical issue of online governance, community dynamics, and the problem of #mainstreaming trolling on both the #dotcons and open social platforms like #Mastodon, #Fediverse and the broader #openweb

Let’s start with mastodon, the complexity of (default) privacy settings leads to public conversations inadvertently shifting into private spaces, this is a UX problem, but it also points to a larger issue with how we handle communication, trust, and governance on decentralized platforms. And raises a question, are we on the right path? Confusing privacy settings are disempowering, the defaults in platforms like Mastodon pushing users toward privatized conversations, which are not combatable with #4opens media paths, of transparency and public dialogue. Yes, this is a subtle but important #UX issue, exacerbated by the complexities of decentralized platforms and different peoples preferences for engagement.

UPDATE: it’s about inheriting the settings of the thread, all my posts are #4opens as this is the core project, it’s unusual to send a DM or other setting though do this a little when needed. When having a public conversation and suddenly find this happening in a non-public space, at no point did I agree to this move, but it happens, due to others settings, it should default to one side public, my settings, and one side (semi) private the other person’s settings, as on my side it is VERY much a #4opens public conversation, it’s a form of corruption for this privatisation to happen… a mess I have to fix by republishing my side as a separate post – sub optional and bad #UX

This is in part the push for mainstreaming, both inside and outside, alternative platforms, creates pressure toward conformity and centralization. This undermines the grassroots nature of media networks like the Fediverse. In the end, we move towards the same governance and behavioral issues seen in #dotcons, corporate social media platforms. Left-wing and progressives need to resist these pressures to/by fostering a #4opens culture of diversity, and mutual aid.

Moving beyond this mess, a culture of empathy and understanding is needed for mediating trolling behavior. Listen before judging, then make judgements based on sound open process, so people have the space to change their paths if they can. A mindset of curiosity and openness, rather than rigid ideological adherence is needed for this to work, metaphors are fertile seeds to bring conversation into this path. This creates spaces where different perspectives can be heard and discussed constructively.

A first step is to be “intolerant of intolerance” with #4opens as a guide. The problem is that this is a right-wing path https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance so we add the #4opens, ethics, to turn this to the left/progressive #KISS path.

The #openweb has always been, under the surface, built on strong communities rooted in mutual aid to provide a buffer against the toxic effects of trolling and infighting. When people feel connected to a shared mission, they are less likely to engage in destructive behavior. The strength of grassroots movements lies in their ability to offer this solidarity and care as an affective path of change and challenge. You acturly can’t have one without the other, in this conflict in moderation can be healthy or not.

We need structural social solutions to governance, the work on the #OMN and #OGB is a promising step toward creating decentralized, open governance paths that can mediate trolling and other negative behaviors. “the rule of an enlightened “philosopher-king” (cf. Noocracy) is preferable to the tyranny of majority” is the bases and fear unthinkingly in #FOSS governance paths. Much of the trolling comes from this unthinking. By embedding #4opens trust, transparency, and community in the path of these networks, we create environments that foster collaboration and experimentation, rather than pointless ongoing conflicts.

Navigating these challenges: online governance, trolling, and common sense privacy is no small step. However, with the paths like the #4opens, a focus on mutual aid, and a commitment to progressive, decentralized governance, it’s possible to create a healthier, more resilient online and offline progressive ecosystem. The work done through the #OMN and #OGB projects reflects this path where spaces (online or offline) are inclusive, productive, and capable of handling the messes that inevitably arise in all “open” communities.

Navigating the Trolls

The “public first” paths of the #OMN faces steep hurdles without the necessary support, focus, and funding. Achieving diversity in these spaces requires more than just a philosophical commitment—it needs active engagement from a variety of voices, technical expertise, and resources to push the project into wider use.

The current dominant “safe first” path in projects like Mastodon does create a certain type of functionality, but it also stifles innovation and radical potential by prioritizing safety in ways that ultimately encourage more privatized interactions. For grassroots, #openweb movements to thrive, they need both tech development and community support that embraces complexity rather than pushing toward conservative #mainstreaming defaults.

Ideas please to pull in the necessary dev focus and resources to make the public-first #OMN a reality? Can we build ways to attract contributors outside traditional #blockeing funding paths?

The Open Media Network (#OMN) is a set of tools to empower communities

Mainstreaming the #deathcult metaphor

The #mainstreaming people are touching on the #deathcult metaphor, this is normal as it’s a useful way of expressing the horrific reality “common sense” has built for us to live (and die) within. And, yes, this is using the metaphor in a more narrow way, as it is mainstreaming which has hard limits on dialogue to build conversations on, we need to move past these to compost this mess.

Novara Media: Novara FM: Mourn the Dead, Fight Like Hell for the Living w/ Sarah Jaffe https://podcast.novaramedia.com/2024/09/novara-fm-mourn-the-dead-fight-like-hell-for-the-living-w-sarah-jaffe/

This metaphor is cropping up more and more, will try and collect links here, if you see the metaphor being used please post a link in the comments, thanks.

List of uses:

https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=deathcult is a history here.

Non metaphor examples:

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/18/the-guardian-view-on-israels-booby-trap-war-and-unacceptable

Thoughts on the mess we made on #socialhub and the wider #openweb reboot

The frustration of navigating the mess of activism, tech, and grassroots movements, especially when they get co-opted and sidetracked by personal interests, #NGO agendas, or broader #mainstreaming mess. We need ways to process, compost, and turn this mess into productive paths, which better balance burnout and disillusionment with actual progressive outcomes.

A part of this is the parasite #NGO and #fashionista paths, how NGOs and big parts of tech can parasitically latch onto grassroots movements, commodifying and diverting them from their own paths. These non-native ways end up taking the paths they claim to oppose, and are a part of the broader #deathcult problem. Mediating this deathcult and pratish behaviour is needed, that challenges the individualistic, egotistical people who are always a part of grassroots movements. If left unchecked, these people will derail collective efforts and reduce movements to infighting rather than the path of change and challenge we need to be on.

Composting the mess, is perhaps the most hopeful metaphor to turn #mainstreaming shit into something more fertile. This metaphor is about processing what went wrong, reflecting, and turning that energy into a better path, sustainable, and rooted in the core values of the #openweb and #4opens grassroots efforts. The mess is undeniable, but with native openweb tools and paths, composting, mediation, linking, and decentralization there’s still hope to turn this #reboot into something productive. We really need to make this work.

The normal problem, the trajectory of #SocialHub, and the broader #openweb community, simply went off course due to factors that we need to talk about:

Shrinking of the crew, led to the forced narrowing of focus, limiting the community’s ability to engage widely and creatively. As fewer people became involved, the flexibility and potential of the project shrank.
Chasing funding, is a recurring poison in many grassroots projects. The moment funding enters the picture, the focus can shift from mission driven goals to survival driven ones, leading to compromises and sell outs.
The #geekproblem, is a recurring issue where the culture of arrogance and ignorance within tech communities blocks collaborative, inclusive problem-solving. Tech culture ignores the social dimensions of community building, exacerbating problems instead of solving them.
Failed governance, feudal-like governance structures hindered the ability to mediate these issues, turning leadership into top-down control rather than fostering horizontal collaboration. Attempts like the #OGB (Open Governance Body) were/are being blocked by the systems they set out to fix, leading to a self-reinforcing mess.

What can we do, next steps:

Composting the mess, rather than seeing the failure as terminal, it’s about turning the decay into fertile ground for new growth. This composting metaphor is apt—it’s about taking what didn’t work, reflecting on it, and using it as the soil for new, better-structured efforts.
Recognizing people over code: The issue lies with people, not technology, the main barriers are social—ego, power dynamics, and lack of collaboration. Governance structures, community engagement, and shared values need to take centre.
Defining and defending the #openweb, people will inevitably sell out for funding and status. To mediate this, a clear, shared understanding, of what the openweb stands for, an articulation of principles like the #4opens is crucial. The community needs a strong value framework to guide decisions and prevent the erosion of ideals and paths.
Building a hub for meaningful engagement, #SocialHub was once this place, but it’s now too narrow and constrained by the #NGO. #fashernista and #geekproblem interests. If the community is to thrive, it needs a revitalizing, a broader range of voices participating, where governance is open, and where people are empowered to contribute without the weight of gatekeepers and blinded apathy and intolerance blocking we to often have now.
Infrastructure and funding, the practical path of supporting the infrastructure also needs addressing. The lack of funding is damage that shifts, the code itself, into became unresponsive to the community’s needs. Finding sustainable, non-exploitative funding models is needed. Could a cooperative or mutual aid model be a path forward, that aligns with the values of the #openweb while providing the necessary resources?

Immediate Actions:

Broaden governance: If we return to SocialHub or a similar network, start by widening the admin and mod team to ensure it represents more than just the narrow confines of #NGO, #fashernista and #geekproblem interests. This inclusivity prevents drift.
Articulate values clearly, by creating a visible and accessible page for the #4opens, making it a cornerstone for paths and discussions, decisions, and collaborations. People need to understand and agree on the principles driving the openweb, #KISS
Revive discussions, reignite meaningful discussions about the purpose and direction of the openweb. This needs to happen on networks where all voices are welcomed, and consensus building isn’t seen as a hindrance but a pathway forward.
Explore funding models, as the current mess is feeding this #blocking. Look into alternative funding mechanisms—cooperatives, community-supported models, or decentralized funding structures that align with openweb values. Chasing VC or NGO funding leads to the same patterns of co-optation and control.

By addressing these issues—people, governance, values, and sustainability—the community can begin to rebuild, with a “native” approach, it’s possible to compost the mess into fertile soil for future growth.

UPDATE the thread on this turned into a mess then a part of it vanished, likely someone blocked, so posting the last update here:

” I just don’t see SocialHub as likely to evolve into the kind of place for the broader discussions focusing on social issues.”

The problem we are talking about. This is exactly what #socialhub was “broader discussions focusing on social issues” for the first 3 years or so, we had the path we now need in place as native grassroots.

A tiny number of people used the #geekproblem to narrow this open space down to focus EXCLUSIVELY on the #FAP. Why and how this happens is where the value is, so we don’t keep adding to this mess, in the future.

PS, this mastodon mess of jumping from public to semi private all the time is a mess.

At an Oxford event – The Policy engagement workshop

“How should the new Labour government be listening?”

A few notes: Firstly it needs to be said, this is common in Oxford, this is powerless people talking about things that matter. Where activism is about forming a group of action for pushing and pulling power, this event is not activism, it’s academy, need to remember this.

“Deliberation” is a new word for the old formal consensus that ossified and broke when imposed on much grassroots activism at the turn of the century, with the rise of the #dotcons this grew into the actavisam mess we live in today.

Yes, it is a mess. What they focus on has little connection to the levers of power, which is controlled outside these processes. To change and challenge power needs activism, and, in the end the threat or reality of revolution, to directly push and pull the leavers. This is empowerment, they don’t talk or think about this at all.

Looking round the room I can’t see any activist affinity groups being formed, not a glimpse, powerless people talking about things that matter, it’s not that this does not have a role but on balance this is likely more problem than solution. The experts and the academics, the NGO politicos and all their shared views on how to talk to and work with the plebs, that’s the people outside the walls of the collage.

The guy talking about trust interested me. Then there was the guy who went off script, who, was kind of inspiring, what would more of this look like? The language guy at the end was OK, words do matter and can be used as levers of power, this is affective fluffy activism. And the final point, that the #mainstreaming is not a natural block on the far right, is scarily true.

humm over all interesting, a little food for thought, but likely an unhealthy balance of activism and academic blocking. The challenge is bridging the gap between intellectual dialogue and on-the-ground activism. How do we ensure that these conversations lead to actions that can actually “pull the levers” of power, rather than simply talking about what needs to be done at best or at worst #blocking by #mainstreaming dogma? This balance is vital, and is missing completely.

What can we do.

Recognizing the cracks in the current path

This is an overview, the path we need to try is to focus on #commons and #cooperation for building tools and communities, then to use these tools to challenge the current structures of power. This is a very different path than the #stupidindividualism (as some people say #hyperindividualism) of the current capitalist path. The way isn’t through more fragmentation, but by connecting these fragments into a more coherent whole—something the #OMN (Open Media Network) is working towards. We need #solidarity and #mutualaid to build this tool, which can then be used to build the communities to use it.

The issues are wide, is not just the #dotcons enclosing the commons, but the way people get sucked into the #NGO and culture/control paths, which reinforces the very systems of oppression, that on the surface they claim to fight. We can’t keep putting plasters on these problems. In the media/tech world the path is actually not that hard, real change comes from #grassroots efforts that prioritize #4opens: OpenData, OpenSource, OpenProcess, and OpenStandards. These create transparency and accountability, and help us compost the #techshit that has built up over decades of bad practice.

I outline this in the OMN project, which provides a structure to link these disparate actions and paths together, creating a “native” #NetworkOfNetworks where flows of trust and information/data and metadata can be built on solid, open foundations. By strongly focusing on principles, we foster #communities that are resilient, self-sufficient, #DIY and capable of defending against the enclosures that happen by default on the #mainstreaming path we are all on.

It’s time to turn away from the (stupid)individualistic mindset that capitalism cultivates and return to a more healthy balance with #CollectiveEmpowerment. This isn’t about returning to a naive vision of the past but evolving our tactics for the present, using what’s left of the openweb to build something more robust and deeply rooted, we have started down this path with the #fediverse

The #OMN is building from this first step, a path that is usefully as it’s native to create a #reboot for the #openweb. It’s about recognizing the cracks in the current system and knowing where pressure can make the cracks grow to open up space to compost the old and nourish the fresh shoots of alternative tech and media that we need. This nurtures communities that then builds better tech, a simple circle, with likely a better outcome than the current #deathcult

Individualism isn’t the problem, the “stupid” part is the problem

There is a lot on this subject on this website

Meany people write on this change of path

Individualism isn’t the problem, the “stupid” part is the problem

let’s try and compost the mess in this, there is nothing wrong with being your own person, having an authentic inner life, and cultivating a strong sense of self. In fact, psychological separation from family, nation, and community is a critical aspect of human maturity. This perspective was forcefully argued by the socialist psychologist Erich Fromm, who saw the problem not in individualism per se, but in what we might call hyperindividualism, toxic individualism or what I call #stupidindividualism in the #hashtag story.

The three-stage psychological development process that captures the journey of human maturity:

Absorption of worldview, when we are born, we absorb the worldview of our family, community, nation, or clan. In this, one’s identity is intertwined with these external structures—what Fromm calls “blood and soil.” People in this stage see themselves as extensions of their family or nation.
Independence of thought, as we mature, an authentic inner self begins to develop, and we break away from external identities. Achieving independence of thought to not rely on the beliefs and views of others to define ourselves. At this stage, a person’s identity comes from their authentic inner life, rather than from intense belonging to tribe, country, or religion.
Reconnection through solidarity, the final stage, involves reconnecting with others, but not through blind conformity. Instead, this stage requires a re-connection through solidarity—a unity with others that does not destroy one’s individuality. Psychological health, according to #Fromm, requires this balance: to be oneself and yet be connected to the broader human community in a meaningful way.

When people fail in the progress through these stages, social and psychological dysfunctions grow. For instance, fascism, Fromm argued, is a product of being stuck in the first stage, where they crave authoritarianism because they have not grown as authentic individuals. On the other hand, those stuck in the second stage, cannot reconnect with humanity, also suffer from isolation and alienation.

Capitalism is “individualist” and anti-individualist, it is heralded as a system that celebrates the individual. However, this is a misleading portrayal, as #capitalism is both “individualist” and anti-individualist. If you truly think for yourself within capitalism—questioning the status quo, challenging authority, or stepping outside the normal #mainstreaming roles—If this is threatening, you are ridiculed, ostracized, ignored, and marginalized. Genuine individuality, especially when it contests capitalist norms, is not celebrated but rather suppressed.

In the current path, individualism is for the rich. The wealthy can afford to “be themselves” because they have the means to cushion the consequences. Everyone else must conform—follow orders at work, keep their heads down, buy the same cheap products, watch the same blockbusters, and generally consume and behave as they are told. Deviating from this path risks economic ruin and social exclusion. The stupid part “freedom of choice” is in the current mess reduced to trivial decisions like choosing between McDonald’s or Burger King, or which big-budget superhero movie to watch. This mess reduces human worth to economic output and consumer choice, devaluing real individuality that does not conform to its profit-driven logic.

Thus, the individual within capitalism is constrained, workers are rendered disposable the moment they are no longer “useful” to the corporate machine. This mess is full of irony: while capitalism promotes the ideal of rugged #individualism, it actually holds contempt for the vast majority of individuals who do not fit into its narrow path. The distortion of individualism, capitalism turns individualism into a competitive drive that compels people to measure their life’s worth in the greed and fear driven push of personal successes and failures, rather than by group and community paths. This divisive force undermines collective solidarity.

“Socialism entails a collectivism which does not suppress the individualism of bourgeois society, and in contrast to the ‘crude’ collectivism of very poor working class communities, is a collectivism which transcends (or sublates) individualism.”

This path of collectivism does not erase individuality, instead, it moves past the hollow, competitive individualism pushed by capitalism. This balancing of collectivism encourages personal development in the context of a supportive community. In conclusion, the problem is not individualism, but the path that warps it into stupidindividualism, a toxic, isolating force that fragments solidarity and community, this is the “stupid” in the hashtag #stupidindividualism, yes it is stupid and makes us stupid, we do need to talk about this to compost mess.

Parasite #NGO and #fashionista tech

“But the principal objection will doubtless refer to the plain language used. My excuse, if indeed excuse be needed for saying just what I mean, is, that it is impossible to clothe in delicate terms the intolerable nastiness which I expose, and at the same time to press the truth home to those who are most in need of it; I might as well talk to the winds as veil my ideas in sweet phrases when addressing people who it seems cannot descry the presence of corruption until it is held in all its putridity under their very nostrils.”

On the of alt-tech path, I’ve been navigating this messy terrain of decentralized, grassroots technology for a long time. From this experience, I can say with some authority that we have taken a step away from the current mess with the growing #activertypub open web reboot. But we still need to mediate some of the ongoing #fashionistas #blocking, which is not helping us compost this mess into fertile soil for the fresh shoots of alternative technology that we so desperately need. This ongoing mess needs more composting, if we leave this in place to continue down this path, we risk strangling the growth we’re trying to cultivate.

The #4opens is a useful tool to recognizing the parasite #NGO and #Fashernista tech projects, that we keep stumbling over. The way genuinely grassroots tech projects—those born from communities, those driven by necessity and vision—are repeatedly being pushed aside by parasite tech projects. These feed from our grassroots efforts, taking the buzzwords and aesthetics without understanding or respecting the underlying principles and socially embedded paths.

This isn’t a fringe occurrence; it’s a pattern that has repeated itself over the last 30 years in meany cases I’ve come across. From social media alternatives to community-focused platforms, time and again, well-intentioned grassroots efforts are overshadowed by the glossy, polished facades of #VC funded or #NGO-backed, fashion-driven tech initiatives that lack, depth and commitment to the actual communities they purport to serve. These projects can be seen as they are more concerned with optics, funding, and their own visibility than with fostering genuine, sustainable alternatives.

There is a role for the #4opens in composting this #techshit, this is a framework that helps to expose and compost this kind of mess at its source. For those unfamiliar, the #4opens are:

Open Data: Data must be accessible, reusable, and modifiable.
Open Source: Code should be freely available for anyone to use, modify, and share.
Open Standards: Interoperability is key; data and code should work together, not against each other.
Open Process: The decision-making process should be transparent and inclusive, not hidden behind closed doors.

By applying the #4opens in grassroots tech projects, we can help to make visible the manipulations and shortfalls of parasitic NGO and fashernista power grabs. This works best when the process is open, so people see who is contributing to the ecosystem and who is simply feeding off it. This visibility is crucial because, without it, these actors are allowed to thrive unchecked, feeding off our work and energy while providing little in return. The open process serves as a powerful tool to expose those who claim to be fostering change but are merely replicating the same hierarchical and closed structures that led us into the current tech mess. It’s about shining a light on the hidden agendas and pushing for accountability and transparency in what this reveals.

How can our #NGO crew actually help? This is harder than it seems as the is strong #blocking to overcome, so the first step is overcoming this blocking, need ideas please?

My idea: Celebrate the mess, understanding that change is messy, and in this mess that new ideas form, where unexpected connections are made, and where real, lasting change takes root. We need to change and challenge the world dominated by the #dotcons and take our alternatives out of the hands of stale paths of dead-end NGO and fashernista tech. We do need composting as a regenerative path.

Motivation for moving away from this mess. The fact that people are rebooting the #openweb by building the #fediverse in a #DIY, grassroots way, without millions in VC funding, is one of the most remarkable feats of contemporary digital resistance. It’s not about “winning” in the capitalist sense—dominating the market, scaling endlessly, or achieving monopoly status in the image of the #dotcons and big tech path. The fediverse powerful from being built on #4opens principles of decentralization, community effort, it’s a native path, outside the norms that capitalism dictates to us as essential.

#NGO platforms like #Bluesky can be fertilised by $12 million in backing and a fully-paid team, the fediverse is growing grassroots from the ground up. It’s powered by people and communities working in their spare time, without corporate salaries and benefits. The coding and creating is driven by belief and belonging, not because a corporation paying to hit growth targets. That’s a different motivation, and it has strength.

The thing we need to see here is that the fediverse exists and thrives, standing as a living counter culture to the idea of competition, capital and centralized control. It’s running against the grain of what’s considered “necessary” in tech, it’s rewriting the rules back to the “native” #openweb path. This openweb reboot shows that people can build non #mainstreaming alternatives, with no paywalls, no ad-tracking, no surveillance, just open collaboration and shared values.

That it’s running at all, while not on the capitalism’s, path and ignoring its “rules”, is the victory. It doesn’t have to become the dominant social media platform. It’s already proved that another way is possible. And that, in itself, is a powerful statement that we need to build from #OMN

The Activist History of the Web: Lessons we can learn

Outreaching in the #dotcons is hard work

The main complaint, the blunt language I use. My reason for speaking plainly, is that it’s impossible to dress up the disgusting things I’m exposing in polite terms and still make the point clear to those who need to hear. I might as well be talking to the wind if I try to sugarcoat my words when addressing people who can’t seem to recognize corruption until it’s right under their noses in all its rottenness.

This is paraphrasing Ambrose Bierce

Outreaching in the #dotcons is hard work:

Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/foss because your comment violates this community’s rules. You won’t be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it.

Note from the moderators: https://www.reddit.com/r/foss/

openmedianetwork, this comment may have fully or partially contributed to your ban:

“A bad faith argument is not a genuine desire to seek truth or understanding, rather to manipulate, deceive, or derail a conversation. The goal is not dialogue or progress, but to “win” the conversation or maintain dominance in the social media space. These tactics are rampant on platforms driven by metrics like shares, likes, and comments, which measure engagement but not the quality or sincerity.”

If you have a question regarding your ban, you can contact the moderator team by replying to this message.

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Likely the same person in both case:

Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/opensource because your comment violates this community’s rules. You won’t be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it.

Note from the moderators: https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/

openmedianetwork, this comment may have fully or partially contributed to your ban:

The post is about activism, as this is at the centre of #FOSS as you say “a think piece, nothing practical to apply here” is what the article is about, and the mess this blocking of “thinking” is making, both small and big in the real world, our lives.

“For those who wish to “just code” without the politics, it must be made clear that this is impossible in the realm of impactful software development. Every piece of software carries with it values, ethics, and political implications. Acknowledging this is the first step toward building a digital network that serves people rather than controlling them. We need to walk a path away from the mess of #mainstreaming toward a genuinely open and humanistic internet. The time for pretending is over; the time for conscious, ethical coding has arrived.

As Larry Lessig poi”

If you have a question regarding your ban, you can contact the moderator team by replying to this message.

humm… messaged them to clarify why, but they will likely see this as trolling… so this work of composting is blocked.

What is “mess” in the hashtag story?

In this 20 year hashtag story, it’s important to understand chaos as a creative force for change. But it’s also important to see that the path of the #openweb and the ongoing struggle for a more decentralized, human-centered internet, makes this idea of “mess” into meany “bad faith” arguments. For #mainstreaming, people to often hear, images of disorder, confusion, and breakdown, things we are taught to avoid in our neatly structured lives. Yet, from the “native” perspective, mess is not only a negative state to be avoided; it is an essential part of the process of growth, creativity, and radical change to challenge the current mess making, it’s a messy process we need to live through, this is positive as to avoid this mess would be negative.

The mess is not just a state of disarray but also fertile ground for thinking, growth, and alt pathways to emerge. In a world dominated by the #dotcons and their “clean”, control-driven algorithms, we need to reclaim the value of messiness as a useful path to walk. When we talk about “mess,” we’re referring to the tangled, often uncomfortable realities of grassroots organizing, alternative tech development, and the daily work of trying to “natively” build something in the ruins of the old. It’s the disorganized, contentious, and chaotic space where ideas clash, projects falter, and consensus is hard to come by. This mess is unavoidable and, importantly, it is productive.

Mess is where real conversations happen, where people get angry, feel frustrated, make mistakes, and crucially, learn from those mistakes. It’s where things break, and we figure out how to fix them, or better yet, build something that doesn’t have the same flaws. In this, mess is not a symptom of failure but a part of the creative process.

The problem with “clean” solutions pushed by centralized #dotcons like Facebook, Twitter, and Google, is the relentless push for paths, seamless, frictionless experiences that prioritize convenience and profit over human engagement. This creates spaces that discourage messiness, complexity, and deviation from the norm. This experience translates into algorithms that filter out dissent, controversy, and alternative perspectives. It smooths out the rough edges of human interaction, leading to echo chambers and a narrowing of the public spaces we live in.

Our #geekproblem is a part of this dotcons mess, that, spreads into our needed openweb reboot, the sanitized, controlling path is not conducive to real social change. Our natural desire for control (thus safety) is a social problem of “tidying up,” where anything that doesn’t fit into a blinded #mainstreaming categories is thrown out.

The native openweb path is based on ideas and movements that stand in stark contrast to the polished, walled, gated gardens of the dotcons. It’s about creating spaces where mess is not only tolerated but celebrated. Why? Because mess is where serendipity happens. It’s where people come together in unpredictable ways, where different perspectives collide and, through that collision, new and unexpected spaces are opened up for people and communities to take different paths.

When we think about projects on the openweb, whether it’s decentralized social networks like #Mastodon or collaborative platforms like #Wiki’s, they are often messy spaces. They are places where people bring their full, complex selves—warts and all—into the conversation. And that’s what makes them so powerful. Unlike the mainstream platforms, which control and filter, the openweb is alive with the possibility of serendipity. It’s a place where things are being broken down and rebuilt, where people are open to change, so they can challenge the #mainstreaming.

The challenge for those of us working in building the openweb is to learn to love mess, to see it not as a problem to be solved but as a healthy part of the journey. This means accepting that there will be conflict, misunderstandings, and periods of chaos. It means recognizing that there will be little perfect if any polished solution, and that’s okay. Mess is fertile ground, as composting transforms waste into soil, mess is compost for new ideas. We take the scraps, the discarded parts, and the failures and turn them into new connections, new networks, that have the potential to grow into a more equitable digital paths both online and offline.

Mess is resistance, a way of saying that we refuse to be tidied up, categorized, and sanitized. We are messy, complicated, and unpredictable, and this is where our strength lies. Mess is human, at the centre of this path is a simple truth, humans are messy. Our lives are messy. Our relationships are messy. And any system or platform that pretends otherwise is denying this human experience. The openweb should be a place that reflects the full spectrum of human life, not just the neatly packaged version that the dotcons want to sell us.

To turn the chaos, conflict, and complexity into a fertile ground for growth, involves developing better tools for mediation, conflict resolution, and collaborative decision-making within our communities, the #OGB is such a project. It means creating paths and “commons” where different voices can be heard #indymediaback is a media project for this, where disagreements can be worked through constructively, and where there is room for both dissent and consensus #OMN if the overarching project.

The idea of composting the mess is not about eliminating it but transforming it. Just like in nature, where decomposing matter is essential for new growth, our digital and social ecosystems need a process for turning the old, the broken, and the chaotic into the new and vibrant #makeinghistory is a project for this.

The journey to a better openweb is not going to be straight. It will be full of twists and turns, false starts, and breakdowns. But in that mess lies the potential for real, meaningful change. The polished, controlled environments of the #dotcons cannot offer this; they are too invested in maintaining the status quo.

With the committent to the #openweb, the challenge is to embrace the mess, to see it not as a hindrance but as an opportunity. It is in this mess that we will find energy, creativity, and resilience to build a more human-centered internet. Let’s roll up our sleeves, get our hands dirty, and start composting. The future is messy, and that’s exactly why it’s worth fighting for.

The #openweb and #fediverse is anti-viral?

DRAFT

There is #mainstreaming criticism that the #fediverse has “anti-viral” features, as there is no central algorithm promoting specific content to go viral, but this is not entirely accurate. What this actually points to is a deeper issue within the social path of the #openweb itself. The notion of “anti-viral” isn’t about a lack of features; it’s about how certain structures and behaviours are actively discouraging people with larger reach from thriving in these “native” spaces.

It’s a people to people web, so huge accounts can’t and don’t talk back, so can’t be “native” to this path. It’s not a question of choice, rather a question of path. It might be useful to think about this, as these conversations being #blind to thinking outside their current #dotcons path, and thus unknowingly bring it into the openweb reboot.

The problem with the talk of “Anti-Viral” is pushed up by current outreach. When people say that the Fediverse lacks virality, they are focusing on the absence of centralized algorithms, found on corporate platforms (the #dotcons). On those, algorithms drive engagement by amplifying sensational and emotionally charged content, at the cost of meaningful discourse and ethical considerations. In contrast, the Fediverse is praised for being different, more community focused, more human scale, and more about interaction rather than manipulation by algorithms, however, this is still a perspective missing a crucial point.

What we are actually seeing is that the Fediverse has developed social norms and features that end up pushing away people who “go viral” or have large followings. The problem isn’t just that the platform lacks virality; it’s that it lacks the infrastructure and culture to support people with large followings in a way that feels sustainable and meaningful. Large Accounts don’t thrive, by design.

The #openweb and #fediverse are built on the principles of decentralization and #DIY community, which are fantastic for fostering small, intimate interactions. However, this structure makes it difficult for larger accounts to function. Why? Because the social architecture is inherently hostile to large-scale influence based on one way broadcasting.

Large accounts can’t engage meaningfully with their followers in a people-to-people web. When you have thousands of people interacting with your posts, it becomes impossible to engage in a way that aligns with the native path that is part of the code of the #fediverse.
Without centralized moderation, content moderation is a community effort. This can mean that people who attract controversy, whether deserved or not, increase the instance workload, creating a practical culture that is inhospitable to “big voices” paths and agendas.

The “People-to-People” Web is set up to favour small-scale interactions and communities over larger, more influential voices who are more normally broadcast media focused. This is both good and bad, yes it can be a problem when we think about the kind of impact we want the #openweb to have. In this, It’s not about changing the current path but creating parallel ones, the solution, we need to move beyond the #stupidindividualism of copying the microblogging of the #dotcons and think of balancing with “native” oprochs to media, the #indymediaback project is an example of this path, which we do need to take.

Broadcast media is not social media, we need to build out the Fediverse with this in view.

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The Myth of “Anti-Viral” Fediverse: A Path Problem, Not a Feature Problem

There is a common #mainstreaming criticism that the #Fediverse has “anti-viral” features—meaning it lacks a central algorithm that promotes content to go viral. While this may seem accurate on the surface, it actually points to a deeper issue within the social path of the #openweb itself.

The notion of “anti-viral” isn’t just about missing features; it’s about how the social structures and behaviors of the Fediverse actively discourage large accounts from thriving in these “native” spaces. It is a people-to-people web, which means that huge accounts—those with thousands or millions of followers—cannot meaningfully engage with people at scale. It’s not a matter of choice but of structural design.

This is important to understand because much of the conversation around “anti-viral” fails to step outside the #dotcons path. People coming from corporate social media unknowingly bring their assumptions with them, expecting the Fediverse to function in the same way.

What “anti-viral” really means, critics, focus on the absence of centralized engagement-driving algorithms—the kind found on corporate platforms (#dotcons). These algorithms prioritize sensational, emotionally charged, and controversial content to maximize user engagement. In contrast, the Fediverse is structured to be more community-focused, human-scale, and interaction-driven rather than manipulated by algorithms.

However, this framing misses a crucial point, the issue isn’t just about missing algorithmic amplification, the Fediverse has developed social norms and features that actively discourage large accounts from thriving. Large accounts don’t fail due to a lack of virality—they fail because the culture and infrastructure aren’t designed to support them.

Why large accounts struggle on the fediverse, the #openweb and #Fediverse are rooted in decentralization and #DIY community-building, which are fantastic for fostering small, intimate interactions. However, this same structure makes it difficult for large accounts to function, because:

The People-to-People Web Doesn’t Scale for One-Way Broadcasts, Large accounts cannot engage meaningfully with followers in a way that aligns with the native interaction path of the Fediverse.
If thousands of people interact with a post, it’s impossible to respond in a way that fits the small-scale, community-driven ethos.
Content Moderation Is a Collective Effort, Not a Centralized One, Without centralized moderation, controversial accounts create workload pressure on individual instance admins. More controversy = more moderation burdens, making the Fediverse structurally inhospitable to high-profile users.
The “People-to-People” Web Prioritizes Small-Scale Interactions, The architecture favours small, engaged communities over mass broadcasting. This is great for community resilience but limits the ability for larger voices to exist organically.

Beyond #StupidIndividualism: Creating Parallel Paths Instead of Copying #Dotcons

If we want the #openweb to have an impact, we can’t just copy the microblogging model of the #dotcons and expect a different outcome. The Fediverse doesn’t need to change its current path, but it does need to parallel paths that allow different media approaches to thrive alongside it.

One solution? #Indymediaback.

The #IndymediaBack project provides an alternative approach to publishing that isn’t locked into the “social media” framing of the #dotcons. Instead of trying to make the Fediverse work like Twitter, we need to build native, federated broadcast media that works within the #openweb values.

Broadcast Media ≠ Social Media. To build a thriving #openweb, we need to stop treating broadcast media and social media as the same thing. Instead, we should:

Develop media models that work at different scales rather than forcing one system to do everything. Support federated, trust-based networks where large voices can operate in ways that fit the architecture. Think beyond the “individual” model of content production—this isn’t about one person going viral, it’s about building resilient, collective media structures.

The Fediverse isn’t broken—it just isn’t designed for the kind of viral engagement that corporate platforms push. If we want large-scale influence on the #openweb, we need to build native alternatives instead of trying to force the wrong models onto it.

Free Software is Political

In progressive discussions about technology and open source, there is intolerant pushing of mess from people who say “just focus on the code” without the politics. This is an understandable outlook, but it is also stupid, based on a misunderstanding of what is Free/Open Source Software (#FOSS). This everyday pushing of mess making comes from #blinded #mainstreaming people claiming that FOSS is “a-political” or should be kept that way, and shows a lack of any understanding of this movement.

As this article highlights, the idea of “a-political” Free Software is not only incorrect; it’s historically nonsense. Free Software is intrinsically and unavoidably political. It is not simply about code; it is about who controls the code and, therefore, who controls the user. This is why the path that many projects take, to jam FOSS into capitalism without addressing these core issues, is a mess and failing path.

The roots of free software are in a political and ethical movement that just happens to focus on software. “Computer users should be free to modify programs to fit their needs, and free to share software, because helping other people is the basis of society.” This is not just a technical stance; it is a moral, ethical, and political one. The idea that users should have the right to control their own digital lives and help others do the same is at the heart of Free Software. This #KISS foundation opposes proprietary software, where users are legally prevented from helping their neighbours, thus restricting their freedom.

“Computer users should be free to modify programs to fit their needs, and free to share software, because helping other people is the basis of society.”

The emergence of the “Open Source” in the late 1990s pushed change on this “native” path, into a more #mainstreaming direction by shifting focus to development benefits, pushing out the ethical and political core. This, however, does not change the foundational politics of Free Software, it merely tries to mask it, to hide it, by pushing out of sight the political core, this is mess making and the normal mainstream “common sense” when it comes to taking up any Alt paths, this is a history we need to stop.

The difference between Free Software and Open Source: “Open source is a development methodology; free software is a social movement.” For the #opensource path, non-free software is a suboptimal technical solution. For the FOSS path, non-free software is a social problem that needs challenging and changing. This is a distinction that some who try to take this path fail to recognize, leading to the meany messy social and coding projects we try to make work today.

As the #dotcons world builds crises of privacy, control, and trust, the relevance of these distinctions, hopefully, becomes more into focus. From tech giants abusing data to governments exploiting backdoors, the ethical foundation that Free Software rests upon is needed, not optional.

The politics of software, the idea that software can be a-political, is a misunderstanding of what software does and represents. As Larry Lessig says – “Our choice is not between ‘regulation’ and ‘no regulation.’ The code regulates. It implements values, or not. It enables freedoms, or disables them. It protects privacy, or promotes monitoring.” Every decision in software development, from what features to include, to how data is handled, to what kind of accessibility is provided, is a political one. There is no “neutral” code. Decisions about prioritizing user rights, security, and privacy are political decisions, and they shape the wider digital networks we live within.

All code is ideology solidified into action – thus most contemporary code is capitalism, this is hardly a surprise if you think about this at all. Yes, you can try and act on any ideology path from this code, but the outcome and assumptions are preprogramed. If we continue to pretend that the software and platforms can be devoid of politics, we are, taking a side, and actively contributing to the mainstream mess that dotcons push, and this is the mess we urgently need to move away from. As outlined on my website, we need to focus on building a #openweb projects that respect people, rather than merely mimicking corporate platforms with a veneer of openness as we do so often, on the #Fediverse, #Bluesky etc.

Conclusion: stop pretending and start building, to those who wish to “just code” without the politics, it needs to be continually pointed out strongly that is impossible in the path of impactful software development. Every piece of software carries with it values, ethics, and political implications. Acknowledging this is the first step toward building digital networks that serves the people, rather than controlling them. We need to walk a path away from the mess of #mainstreaming towards a more open and humanistic internet.

This is not a hard path to take #OMN