W3C How this fits into #OMN the Shared Origins and Intentions

Let’s look at this from a prospective, both the W3C statement and the #OMN recognize that the early web was built with open sharing, decentralization, and public good in mind. The #W3C calls for a web “respectful of all participants,” which aligns with the #OMN goal of building an open media infrastructure based on the #4opens: open data, open source, open standards, and open process.

Where this W3C #mainstreamin alt path falls short (and why #OMN matters). The W3C vision speaks of “taking responsibility” and “addressing the impact of our work” through technical standards, but in reality, the current web’s architecture has been co-opted by centralized, profit-driven platforms (#dotcons) that dominate communication and content flow.

In reaction to this, the #OMN is grounded in the reality that technical fixes alone won’t solve these social problems, we need working activist cultures, grassroots governance, and federated media networks to actively challenge #mainstreaming and #deathcult values.

What #OMN brings is a social layer: W3C focuses on technology and ethics at the standards level. The #OMN focuses on the cultural and organizational infrastructure needed to build, sustain, and govern alternative media networks.

Scaling what worked: The W3C admits we’ve lost the “openness” to misinformation and data abuse. The #OMN is about bringing back what worked (e.g., early Indymedia, radical tech collectives) and scaling it using tools like #ActivityPub and the #fediverse.

Compost and regenerate: The W3C wants reform from within. The #OMN recognizes the need to compost the #techshit, grow anew, and create autonomous, federated spaces where community processes are native, not retrofitted.

A positive reboot (from within the #openweb), where the W3C gives us a narrative frame. The #OMN gives us a path to act. We can reclaim the web not only through better standards, but through working, lived alternatives – composting what failed, and growing based on what we know works.

We need bridging, if the W3C and groups like them are serious about rebuilding a humane web, then the #OMN path as much to offer:

A bridge to activist governance.
A working example of the Ethical Web Principles being practiced socially, not just technically.
A push for native, grassroots agency, not just safeguards built by the same #NGO centralizers who failed the first time.

Let’s do better, yes, but let’s also be native, that’s what the #OMN is about.

A thread on a different project on the same subject, “Open Source and Open Standards nerds like me ought to know by now that the protocol is the least compelling thing about a service. Who cares if your home is built using only Stallman-blessed tools, when the walls are full of rats?” https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2025/07/im-never-going-back-to-matrix

Dig, Plant, Grow. Compost the #Techshit. Repeat

This post is talking in the sense of structure rather than individual experience. Let’s be honest, much of the so-called “alternative” tech scene is still stuck. Yes, we fled the #dotcons for something better, but ended up with copies of the same broken models. The #Fediverse, with all its potential, is still as often dominated by “mainstreaming meta” chat (“Twitter refugees incoming!”) or conspiracy-laden, #fashionista rabbit holes. It’s little wonder that even the nerdy privacy crowd struggles to find meaningful content or community. And no, shouting “fuck the system!” isn’t enough.

If we’re serious about systemic change, we need to do much more. The question is not if people will come, some always will, the real challenge is what they’ll find when they get here. Right now? It’s messy, insular, and missing the tools people need to use for change and challenge, let alone feel at home. We must move beyond building clones of corporate platforms and start composting the path that got us here.

This is why we need a reboot, not from scratch, but from memory. Projects like #indymediaback aim to reclaim 20+ years of working grassroots media practice. With tools like #ActivityPub we now have scalable tech that can bring those old social processes – based on #4opens (open code, open data, open governance, open standards) – into the present. The #OMN (Open Media Network) is such a path: combining the solid tech foundations with the radical social methods that we know worked (but didn’t scale).

To move at all, we must change and challenge the toxic norms of the #mainstreaming #deathcult, and yes, this means building real alternative identities and spaces that don’t live in the shadow of big tech. Being “alternative” used to mean something, and it can again, if we stop ONLY copying the mainstream and instead focus on nurturing something more strongly rooted and real.

This isn’t about being purist, #FOSS and Open Source already works in this way, the #OMN just brings this path to media and community infrastructure. It’s not utopian, it’s compost. And yes, that means dealing with hard questions, including our own funding. Let’s stop pretending we’re neutral when we’re not. Let’s build from honesty. It’s time to dig, plant, grow, and repeat.

#OMN #4opens #indymediaback #openweb #fediverse #techshit #KISS #NGO #deathcult #mainstreaming #altmedia #DIY

NOTE: the comments below are a useful example of #stupidindividualism, and remember this hashtag is about social groups and their #blocking of social thinking. The history matters, flaming is not a useful response.

What does mainstreaming do?

#mainstreaming narrows the field of imagination and excludes non-conforming ideas that could offer real solutions to systemic crises. Mainstreaming smooths the rough edges of society. It normalizes hierarchy, filters dissent, and packages politics into manageable narratives. It’s how radical demands are turned into reforms, then paperwork, then slogans, then forgotten.

Absorbing opposition into bureaucracy (e.g., NGOs, dead end consultancy)

Rewarding compromise and incrementalism, as blocking

Silencing or caricaturing grassroots resistance, as common sense

Making real alternatives seem "unrealistic", in the end

This is why grassroots #DIY matters as a counterbalance. On this path, Anarchism is not just rebellion or chaos, it is a living tradition of thinking and organizing that keeps real change alive when mainstreaming works to bury it.

Direct democracy, In a world of managed participation and elitist mediation, anarchism says: decide together, act together. It reminds us of grassroots power that doesn’t flow through institutions but grows in assemblies, co-ops, camps, and communities.
Mutual aid and cooperation, where mainstream narratives focus on competition, profit, and security through control, anarchism champions care, solidarity, and trust-based networks—a needed cultural shift to navigate crisis and collapse.
Decentralization of power, in the face of #dotcons, technocracy, and corporate-state collusion, anarchism is a map toward decentralization and autonomy. It’s the logic behind federated systems, commons governance, and resilient localism.
Critique of state power, mainstreaming always ends up strengthening state structures, even when it claims to oppose them. Anarchism pulls back the curtain on the violence and coercion baked into “order”, whether in border regimes, policing, or “benevolent” welfare systems.

Cultural compost: “We need anarchists unencumbered by anarchism.” at its best this isn’t an identity, it’s a provocation, a composting force that keeps movements from hardening into systems of control.

This is why balance is key, without radical, un-mainstreamed perspectives, the so-called “left” drifts into hollow #NGO work, tech utopianism, or sanitized liberalism. The #openweb becomes a product instead of a commons, movements become brands, justice becomes PR. Balancing #mainstreaming means, keeping the imagination alive, creating space for alternatives and building systems that don’t replicate domination

In practice, projects like the #OMN and #4opens are examples of this balance: using basic tech to empower trust, not control. They are rooted in values without needing any label, community autonomy, voluntary association, transparent processes.

To reboot the #openweb, we need the cultural DNA of anarchism, without necessarily the costume. We need people unafraid to challenge power, even when everyone else says, “play nice, get the grant, follow the roadmap.” So yes, we need anarchism, not as a lifestyle, but as a counterweight, a cultural inoculation against decay to challenge the centre from the edge.

And we need to compost the rest.

The mess we make trying to move away from the mainstream…

“Doing the same thing in the same context and expecting different results is one of the clinical definitions of insanity.” 😄

This is the core of the #mainstreaming problem. Our hashtags try to name it: #stupidindividualism #deathcult #dotcons #nothingnew in that we repeat the same patterns, inside the same systems, and wonder why nothing changes.

The truth is, we’ve already solved many of these problems. From grassroots media to consensus decision-making, from tech co-ops to decentralized organizing, we had working solutions. What we lacked was a way to scale them without breaking them. That was always the sticking point. But the irony: the activist culture that once created these solutions has eroded, just as the tech finally caught up, the tech is ready, it’s the culture missing. This is the mess we’re in.

It’s about social trust, human-scale processes, messy cooperation, and doing things differently, this time with tools that match our values, not bury them. Let’s stop acting insane, let’s try something new, built from something old, let’s get biblical 😉

Power Politics and the Race/Gender Card – A Contemporary Reflection

If we want to build meaningful alternatives, we must deal with difficult issues head-on. Sweeping things under the carpet – especially in radical spaces – always comes at a cost.

One of the more complex, and often misused, areas is around identity politics, particularly the playing of the race/gender card in ways that obscure rather than clarify the real issues at stake.

Let’s be clear: systemic racism and sexism are real. We all live with the deep, painful legacies of colonialism, patriarchy, and class oppression. These power structures are embedded in our cultures, our institutions, and, yes, in our own organizing spaces. Naming and addressing them is vital.

But sometimes, identity markers are used as shields, not in the pursuit of justice, but to avoid accountability. When this happens, especially in grassroots or activist collectives, it creates paralysis and prevents us from dealing with actual abuse of power.

A real-world example. This happened to me some years ago at a community-run space in Dalston. One person dominated meetings, spoke over others, and made every decision-making process a battleground. It was classic power politics, silencing others through constant assertion and manipulation.

When I finally took responsibility to challenge this, the room froze. Instead of engaging with the issue, some defaulted to “both sides are equally problematic.” Then, when pressure built, he played the race card, asserting that my criticism was racially motivated. No one knew how to respond. The conversation shut down. I became “the problem.” He continued unchecked.

It took 6 months of dysfunction and damage to the project before he was finally removed from collective meetings. In the end, people realised: yes, he was mentally unwell, addicted, controlling, and yes, he had useful skills. But we had all failed to support him and the group because we didn’t deal with the real power dynamics early and honestly.

Hard truths, sometimes someone uses identity-based arguments not as a reflection of structural injustice, but as a way to deflect accountability. When that happens, we can end up with unchallengeable behaviour patterns that destroy collectives from within. This doesn’t mean ignoring or downplaying racism, sexism, or mental health, far from it. It means being brave enough to hold multiple truths at once:

Someone can be from a marginalised background and be acting out of line.

Someone can be struggling with mental health and still be causing harm.

Power politics doesn’t disappear just because it’s wrapped in the language of social justice.

What Can We Learn?

Deal with issues when they come up. Don’t defer hard conversations. Don’t wait for people to burn out.

Support everyone – including people acting out – with clear boundaries, not blanket exclusion or indifference.

Distinguish real oppression from manipulative tactics. It’s not easy, but it’s essential to long-term health of communities.

Don’t collapse into false equivalences – not every confrontation is “two monsters fighting.” Trust your political instincts.

Ultimately, we need to reclaim the messy, complicated work of building trust, of calling in rather than calling out, and of recognising power wherever it appears, even when it wears familiar or “progressive” clothing. We won’t fix any of this with purism or purity politics. We’ll do it by grounding ourselves in collective care, lived experience, and honest struggle.

To use technology as a part of this social change, we need better working with the #dotcons generation. This generation is a mess. No surprise after 20+ years of submission to the #deathcult:

#Neoliberalism hollowed out our economies and replaced solidarity with consumerism.
#Postmodernism fragmented identity into a battlefield of individualism over collective action.
#Dotcons centralized control, turning the internet into a corporate surveillance machine.

The real question is: how do we break free? Our #fashernistas still dodge this, trapped in cycles of performative activism, #NGO co-option, and endless distraction.

The activist path out of this mess is not more chasing trendy tech stacks or branded illusions of progress. What we need is a grounded, #KISS path forward, #OMN (Open Media Network) to building grassroots, independent media beyond corporate platforms. #4opens for transparency, collaboration, and trust baked into our tech + social governance. And, reclaiming #DIY activism real-world organizing, not just digital spectacle.

We don’t need more #geekproblem “fixes” or slick branding exercises. We need radical, collective agency. The tools are here, let’s build. #openweb #climatechaos #socialchange #indymediaback #OMN

The Open Media Network: More Than Just a Tech Project

At first glance, the #OMN (Open Media Network) might look like a technical project, a collection of code, standards, and protocols. But to think of it only this way is to miss the point entirely.

What we’re building is a social and technological fabric for the #openweb, woven together by shared values and practical needs. Yes, there’s tech, but the tools and standards we develop are not neutral. They lean, by design, toward openness, transparency, collaboration, and grassroots control, the principles of the #4opens.

These standards are not delivered from on high by lone developers or institutional committees. They emerge from the lived, everyday use of technology, from how communities interact, what they need, and how they grow together. They evolve from practice, leading to theory.

The code is nothing without people. The protocol withers without participation.

So, we’re not only building tech, we’re growing a community, and that community gives the technology life. It’s a symbiotic process: the social side shapes the tech, and the tech enables new social formations. One cannot thrive without the other. If you treat it only as a technical solution, it will fail, no matter how elegant the code. If you treat it only as a social project, it will stall, no matter how good the intentions. We have to hold both in balance. In that balance, real change becomes possible.

In this spirit, the #OMN is not just an infrastructure project. It’s a call to those who want to reboot the web from the grassroots up, reclaiming the digital commons from #dotcons and #deathcult systems. Let’s get to build it together, simple, federated, and open.

We all know the current state of independent and grassroots media: scattered, under-resourced, and mostly invisible to the wider public. While the content exists, the connection between producers, platforms, and audiences is too often broken. Meanwhile, corporate platforms like #Failbook, Google, and YouTube work for a few, they continue to dominate how people access and experience media and use this to push down any real radical change.

We need a reset, not by building shiny new silos or reinventing the wheel, but by connecting what already exists into a living network. This is where the Open Media Network (#OMN) comes in. The core idea is to link together the fragments of the #openweb. Rather than replace everything, OMN builds bridges between existing activist sites, blogs, podcasts, and alt media using open standards and simple, low-barrier tools.

The idea is simple: Producers publish content on their existing sites (blogs, podcasts, etc.). Aggregators bring it all together, curating, tagging, and redistributing content through RSS, ActivityPub and metadata flows.

What this means for people is easy discovery of relevant content on the topics they care about. A gateway back to the #openweb – away from algorithmic manipulation and ads. A better browsing experience than siloed social media.

What it means for media producers: Syndication, content appears on dozens or hundreds of relevant sites. More traffic, more engagement, and better visibility without having to chase algorithms. Simple tools to embed rivers of content from others, so you give back to the network while benefiting from it. In short, publish once, appear everywhere, no need to grind content for each individual silo.

Why this works, all content remains owned by the original publishers. The system simply connects and enhances what’s already there. It’s not a new platform, it’s the missing glue between platforms. Why this matters socially, we’ve been burned by both: The #geekproblem of over complication and privacy tunnel-vision and the NGO/foundation/brand-washing of horizontal, activist culture

OMN avoids both by hardcoding openness and cooperation into the foundations, using the #4opens as a social and technical guide. This isn’t a system that can be easily captured or siloed. It’s designed to move faster than co-option, and built for people who want to do, not just talk.

If this sounds old-fashioned, that’s because it is, and it works, we don’t need innovation for its own sake, we need media compost, not just another layer of glossy tech bling. We’re creating the soil for tomorrow’s social movements. Want to help us shovel the #techshit and start planting?

Join the project: https://unite.openworlds.info
Learn more: http://hamishcampbell.com
Spread the word: #OMN #openweb #4opens #grassrootsmedia #reboot

The #Hashtags Tell a Story: Building Trust in a Messy World

We live in a time of crisis. Climate, community, communication, all are breaking down. Our tools and platforms no longer serve us. To make sense of this, we need to tell stories. And in the digital world, hashtags are one of the most powerful ways we do this. But our hashtags don’t just tag, they trace the roots of our problems, and signpost paths out. Each one is a seed. Together, they are a map.

#dotcons – From #openweb to walled gardens. Once, the internet was a place of openness, built on free tools, shared protocols, and community spirit. Then came the #dotcom era, where profit became the driving force. Platforms like Facebook, Google, and Amazon, what we call the #dotcons, reshaped the web to lock us in and sell us out. A handful of corporations own the highways of our communication, and their algorithms guide what we see, say, and believe.

#dotcon = profit for a few, con for the rest.

#stupidindividualism – A trap we set for ourselves, we were promised empowerment. But what we got was individualism without solidarity. We’re told: brand yourself, hustle alone, curate your reality. But without community, there is no resilience. Without cooperation, there is no change.

#stupidindividualism is the cultural poison that tells you “you’re on your own.” It weakens us from the inside.

#deathcult – Forty years of neoliberalism. The last four decades have been shaped by a ruthless ideology, that markets solve everything, government should step back, and people must compete, not care. This is the #deathcult – a term for the deadly logic of late-stage capitalism. It’s taken over politics, media, even our sense of self.

Climate denial, gig work precarity, housing crises, mental health collapse - these are all symptoms.

#geekproblem – The failure of trust in tech. Even our allies, the people building tech to fix things, fall into a trap. The #geekproblem is when developers replace trust with control, more permissions, more encryption, more complexity. Instead of building with people, they build over them. The result? More unusable tools, more silos, more #techshit that ends up needing to be composted in abandoned GitHub repos.

#4opens is a way out of the mess, we need this new paths, based on simplicity, humility, and openness, a compass. If a project doesn’t pass the #4opens, it’s not building for the commons, it’s just making another silo.

#OMN, shovels and compost, we already have the tools, projects that build media flows, not platforms. To connect blogs and podcasts into open rivers of content, using simple tech instead of complicated “Web3” vaporware or #dotcons mess.

We’ve built up piles of #techshit. It’s time to pick up our #shovels, compost the waste, and grow something new.

Hashtags = Soft tools for hard times. We use soft metaphors because we live in soft systems: culture, emotion, trust. You can’t “solve” these with code alone. You need care, community, and storytelling. Yes, many demand hard, scientific “proofs” or “frameworks.” But if someone can’t feel the metaphor, they’re probably not ready for the work of rebuilding. We need to focus on those who can, who’ve seen that a different world is possible.

If you can understand that different ideologies shape different realities, then these hashtags will start to speak to you.

Let’s recap the key tags in the story:

#dotcons – Corporations that own and fence in our web

#failbook – Facebook and its culture of manipulation

#openweb – The decentralized, people-powered internet

#4opens – A compass for ethical, sustainable tech

#geekproblem – Tech that controls instead of empowers

#stupidindividualism – Isolation sold as freedom

#deathcult – Forty years of neoliberalism and its collapse

#OMN – Building networks, not silos

#techshit – All the unusable tools that ignore real needs

#shovels – The work we must do

#compost – Making good soil from past mistakes

We don’t need heroes, we need gardeners, grab a shovel, let’s build a future please.

The Spring OMN: The River of News Project

Originally Published 3/15/2016 — Updated 07/2025

“A river that needs crossing: political and tech blogs – On the political side, there is arrogance and ignorance; on the geek side, there is naivety and over-complexity.”

This project builds from a simple truth: we’re failing to communicate across divides that matter, and the #openweb continues to decline in the face of #dotcons like Meta (#failbook), Google, Amazon, and Apple.

The inspiration, the technical model draws from Dave Winer’s long-standing work on RSS, OPML, and “Rivers of News” feeds, simple, powerful tools that made the early web thrive. On the social and activist side, it’s grounded in the decades of grassroots media work by Hamish Campbell, through projects like Undercurrents, VisionOn.TV, and now the Open Media Network (OMN).

The gap, at the heart of the OMN’s mission, is bridging a difficult and persistent divide:

On the political/activist side: there is often arrogance and ignorance of tech.

On the geek/tech side: there’s a naïve faith in software as the solution, often built with little understanding of real-world social context.

We need projects that cross this river, building trust, tools, and practice between these worlds.

The metaphor: Springs, streams, and rivers. To make sense of the information ecosystem – and its decay – we use a flowing water metaphor:

Springs are individual sources: blogs, newsletters, independent media sites, the point of origin. Examples: Bella Caledonia, OpenDemocracy, personal activist blogs, or radical local sites.
Streams are subject-focused aggregators: curated flows around a theme or community, often mixing automated and human input. Examples: Mastodon feeds, PeerTube channels, activist email lists, thematic tag clouds (e.g., #climateaction), or OMN’s tag-based flows.
Rivers are the broad distributions of media: where most people actually consume content. Right now, these are dominated by enclosed, manipulative platforms. Examples: Meta’s Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, mainstream news websites, these are algorithmically filtered and socially isolating.

Currently, most alt/progressive content dies in the spring, never even making it to the stream, let alone the river. We’re left isolated, while the #dotcons dominate minds and discourse.

What the #OMN offers is a humble, yet radical, technical and political attempt to build open streams and rivers from our independent springs. The core Ideas:

Use RSS/Activertypub (open standards) as the glue for data portability.

Build lightweight, user-friendly tools that work with existing websites and platforms, not against them.

Encourage tag-based aggregation and curation, so we can collectively build shared narratives.

Keep it KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) to avoid the usual geek over-complexity.

Embed #4opens principles: open data, open source, open process, and open standards.

Why this matters (More than ever). We are living through a polycrisis: #climatechaos, rising fascism, digital enclosures, and mass social isolation. Our existing media channels are captured, and many of our alternative channels are either siloed or slowly dying off. We can no longer afford to just make “better content”, we must fix how that content flows.

The OMN is not a silver bullet, but it’s a shovel, a filter, a river guide, simple tools to help rebuild the #openweb and empower people again.

“The link is the currency of the web. In this, we all become richer.”

Want to help? Add tags to your posts. Start linking to other sources in your niche. Or just ask your favourite alt-media project to connect with others. Let’s replant the roots and reroute the rivers.

More: https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network

Criticisms of Capitalism — and Its Digital Children, the #dotcons

Capitalism, especially in its late-stage #neoliberal form, has always had significant structural problems. In recent decades, these problems have been amplified and globalized through digital platforms, what we call the #dotcons. These companies are not a break from capitalism, they are its most refined, efficient, and extractive version to date.

Income Inequality

Traditional critique: Capitalism concentrates wealth in the hands of those who own capital (factories, land, assets), while workers receive only a small slice in wages.

#Dotcons example: Big Tech CEOs and early investors have become some of the richest people in human history – Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg – while gig workers and content creators struggle to survive.

Amazon workers are notoriously underpaid and overworked, with high injury rates in warehouses. Meanwhile, Bezos took a vanity trip to space.

Uber/Lyft drivers bear the cost of vehicles and insurance, receive no job security, and can be "deactivated" (fired) algorithmically with no recourse.

Exploitation

Traditional critique: The wage labour system is inherently exploitative, profits come from paying workers less than the value they produce.

#Dotcons example: Digital platforms exploit user-generated content while paying creators next to nothing.

YouTube demonetizes videos arbitrarily. Creators build platforms that YouTube controls and profits from.

Facebook/Meta builds its empire off unpaid emotional labour — your social life, your attention, your photos — monetized through surveillance and advertising.

TikTok algorithms suck in youth creativity, reward a few, and discard the rest. The work is free, the profit is centralised.

We’ve all become digital piece-workers, feeding the machine with likes, posts, and swipes, and we’re not even getting wages anymore.

Environmental Degradation

Traditional critique: Capitalism’s drive for infinite growth in a finite world results in ecosystem destruction.

#Dotcons example: The cloud isn’t light and airy, it’s made of data centres that consume vast amounts of energy and water.

Bitcoin mining (driven by capitalist speculation) consumes more electricity annually than Argentina.

AI training for LLMs (like ChatGPT) has a massive carbon footprint, often hidden behind “green” branding.

Amazon delivery and consumption cycles have increased packaging waste and pushed unsustainable shipping logistics into overdrive.

Digital capitalism gives us the illusion of “clean” convenience, but its ecological impact is profound and accelerating.

Short-Term Thinking

Traditional critique: Shareholder capitalism focuses on quarterly profits, not long-term well-being.

#Dotcons example: The platforms build attention economies, short-term dopamine hits over sustained engagement, destroying social discourse and democratic culture.

Twitter/X encourages outrage over insight. Algorithmic virality means trolls win.

Facebook actively promoted divisive content because it increased “engagement.”

Startups "move fast and break things" without repairing the damage. Few are held accountable.

Product design is driven by venture capital exits, not by usefulness or ethics. Tech isn’t solving problems; it’s creating new ones, faster.

Lack of Access to Essential Goods and Services

Traditional critique: In capitalism, basic needs like healthcare, housing, and education are commodified, your access depends on your income.

#Dotcons example: Digital access is the new essential, but it’s increasingly paywalled and monopolized.

Google Classroom became a default education tool during COVID — but it’s ad-funded, tracks users, and lacks transparency.

Zoom and other platforms required for remote work/schooling are corporate-run silos, with data surveillance baked in.

People in the Global South are increasingly pushed into “zero-rated” Facebook and WhatsApp ecosystems — giving up digital autonomy for basic access.

The digital divide isn’t just about cables or bandwidth, it’s about who owns and controls the networks we rely on.

From Capitalism to #Dotcons to #Deathcult, the digital platforms didn’t disrupt capitalism. They turbocharged it. What we’re witnessing now isn’t just Big Tech behaving badly, it’s the logical endpoint of capitalism in a networked world. The #dotcons replicate and intensify the worst features of capitalism:

More control with less accountability

More labour with less compensation

More growth with more destruction

They’re efficient machines of extraction, cloaked in the language of innovation and empowerment.

What’s the Alternative? We need to stop asking how to “fix” the #dotcons and start building outside of them. That means:

Supporting the #fediverse and #ActivityPub as protocols of freedom and decentralization

Backing grassroots media and alternative tech through projects like the #OMN (Open Media Network)

Embracing the #4opens

Fighting back against #mainstreaming capture by NGOs and foundations that reproduce power hierarchies

Prioritizing trust over control, cooperation over extraction, and commons over private platforms

We need to name the problem for what it is: Capitalism – digital or otherwise – is incompatible with the future of people and planet. It’s past time to compost it and grow something better. As a first step, let’s build tech that reflects our values, not just our fears #KISS

Building Alt/Grassroots Media Networks to Challenge and Widen Traditional Media

The current ecosystem of alternative and grassroots media is too narrow in its imagination of what media could, and should, be. There’s a persistent naivety or, in some cases, a self-serving dishonesty. Many of the most “successful” progressive media groups continue to mimic #traditionalmedia without understanding, or addressing, the fact that they do not control their distribution. In effect, they’re renting space in someone else’s empire.

This is not just a mistake. It’s the same mistake that corporate media has been making for years: relying entirely on the #dotcons, especially Google/Meta/Facebook, to reach people. The algorithms shape the message. The gatekeepers never disappeared, they were replaced by code, powered by ad dollars.

Where are we now? Most grassroots and alt-media outlets do have websites, which means they technically sit on the #openweb. But their sites rarely, if ever, link to other alt-media projects. Despite the rhetoric of solidarity, there is little visible network of mutual support, not even basic hyperlinking between allies.

They podcast, another foot in the #openweb. Yet their outreach and engagement still happen inside #silos like Spotify, YouTube, and Apple Podcasts. In practice, this reinforces the #deathcult’s control of visibility. You can’t build a new world inside the structures of the old, not if the old is designed to undermine you. Why is this mess happening? Two dominant forces are shaping this failure:

On the big scale, we have the #Fashernista embrace of the #dotcons

Many alt-media producers came of age inside the mainstream tech stack. They built their platforms and careers inside the same closed systems they claim to challenge. Their political commitments might be radical, but their infrastructure choices are entirely conventional. This is the liberal, capitalist version of #mainstreaming – reform, not replacement.

On the small scale, #Encryptionist obsession and the #geekproblem

At the other extreme, we have alt-tech projects so obsessed with privacy and control that they create pointless parallel networks that no one uses. They fetishize encryption and “clean standards” over actual human use. The result is tech that is “safe” but irrelevant, drifting into a shrinking ghetto of #stupidindividualism. This is the libertarian version of #mainstreaming – escape, not engagement.

The has been practical work on the ground, over the last years an #openweb tech revolution built around ActivityPub and Fediverse, with projects like Mastodon, which in theory is guided by the #4opens. Yet, despite this, we still hit a wall of self-interest, naivety, and careerist short-termism from the media groups and meany individuals inside this movement.

What can we do? The web is made of links, the #openweb dies without them. If alt/grassroots media want to be part of the solution, they must start acting like a network. A simple step is to start linking to each other. Publicly. Repeatedly. On websites. On blogs. On Fediverse accounts. Use hashtags. Use lists. Tag each other. Cross-publish when relevant. This one act can change the ecosystem.

To solidify this, it’s past time for a new alt-media reboot, a small crew of linked-up, working examples that can pull others onto a sustainable, #openweb path. A real, living network of trust and mutual visibility. If we can show what’s possible, by doing it, we might begin to shift the culture. Let’s find the hopeful, grounded people to help shovel this forward.

If you’re interested in building the open media commons, join the #OMN conversation at https://unite.openworlds.info/explore/organizations to “Make the world you want to see.” or splash some dosh here https://opencollective.com/open-media-network we will make good use of it

The #OMN really complex? It’s not in the code – it’s in us. Let’s be blunt:

The Outside Threats:

The #dotcons (Facebook, Google, Amazon, etc.)

Surveillance capitalism

Attention farming

Closed distribution algorithms

Platform lock-in

The Internal Saboteurs:

Encryptionist geeks obsessed with crypto but forgetting human users

NGO social media managers who talk community but build silos

Process vampires who kill projects by committee

Fashionistas who follow hype cycles and abandon working tools for shiny vaporware

The #OMN is native to none of these tribes. That’s its strength. But also why it’s often ignored or misunderstood. No permissions, no gatekeeping, no central database. It just works. That’s the #KISS principle: Keep It Simple, Stupid.

None of the usual suspects like this: Geeks: Don’t like using old tools like RSS or thinking socially. Politicos: Prefer being seen at the cutting edge, even if it leads nowhere. NGOs: Want measurable outcomes, not messy grassroots growth. But we need to stop building castles in the sky. Start building bridges instead.

The real block? The mental model of our tech and political culture. We’re still thinking in terms of silos, ownership, and control.

Hopelessness is a deeply conservative reaction to change and challenge

In the face of mounting crisis – social breakdown, political polarization, ecological collapse – many people turn inward. And in this turn, they mistake passivity, irony and detachment for resistance. But hopelessness is not radical, it’s deeply conservative. It says: “Nothing can change.” “Everything is corrupt.” “Why bother?”

This isn’t rebellion, it’s surrender. And it’s the exact emotional state that power systems – what we call the #deathcult of neoliberalism – need us to be in. It feeds on your hopelessness, it wants your sarcasm, it loves that you’re “above it all.”

Meme culture & irony: Subversion or sedation? What started as absurdist and ironic commentary devolves into a feedback loop of reaction over reflection. Sarcasm and irony dominate, and this can be useful satire, but more often it’s deflection. You’ll see it in:

The snide quote-tweets with no solution.

The endless “vibes” critiques in social threads.

The collapse of political dialogue into aesthetics and shitposting.

This “cool detachment” doesn’t move us any were toward change, it actively blocks it. We saw this in the decline of many #Occupy offshoots, where internal meme culture replaced organising. Or more recently in parts of climate circles, where #doomposting pushes people into nihilism instead of movement.

Inward-looking tribalism in a globalising world, the creeping tribalism of identity performance, the tendency to build ever-smaller circles of agreement and define yourself against the world instead of with it. On the surface, this might seem like radical rejection of the #mainstreaming. But it’s the opposite, a deeply conforming reaction to consumer individualism.

“Build your brand.”
“Curate your followers.”
“Find your niche.”
“Be your own revolution.”

This is #stupidindividualism, a self-defeating survival mode learned from decades of #neoliberal collapse. But there is no individual path through #climatechaos, only collective ones. We see this mess when grassroots media creators ignore collaboration and #4opens publishing, instead choosing to grow their own follower count on YouTube, TikTok or Substack. We see it when radical tech projects are siloed by pride and petty grudges, while the #dotcons eat their functionality alive.

This performative tribalism ends in isolation, not revolution. All of this is the problem, not the solution, let’s be clear:

Sarcastic detachment = stagnation.

Tribal identity wars = division.

Hopelessness = inaction.

Together, they serve the status quo. They are cultural arms of the #deathcult, a system designed to:

Feed on fear.

Incentivize competition.

Reward silence over solidarity.

So what is the change we need? A first step is in #KISS reviving:

Networks of trust, not control (#4opens).
Tools that connect, not isolate (#OMN, #OGB).
Spaces where we speak with doubt, and listen with care.
Structures of cooperation, not only critique (#indymediaback).

We don’t need perfect answers, we need open processes, and we need to reclaim hope, not as naïve optimism, but as active engagement. So pick up your shovel, join a group of composters, feed the soil of a future worth living in.

Hashtags are the River.

Should we do something native in the Fediverse?

And what would that actually look like? Let’s be honest about what the #Fediverse is, despite all the code and standards talk, the heart of the Fediverse is anarchism – not in the chaos sense, but in the older meaning:

The letter A for anarkhia (‘without ruler’), circled by an O that stands for order or organization.

We have plenty of the A with decentralization, voluntary cooperation and resistance to imposed authority. But where’s the O? Of clear coordination, transparent process and federated trust and mediation?

Right now, we’re herding cats – each server, dev group, and community running off on their own, building tools and protocols, often without clear ways to connect, share governance, or defend against capture. This worked when we were small, it will not work now the big boys have arrived.

Warning from experience: The #EU outreach failure, we had a direct taste of this during the 2023–24 EU outreach process. It worked, but was quickly transitioned to the infrastructure of the #Fediverse without its soul. This isn’t theoretical, it is what happened to #FOSS transitioning to #opensource in the 2010s. This is what happens if we keep doing nothing? If we don’t act:

The foundation model is imposed — not built.

The fig leaf of “community governance” will be ignored.

A self-selecting oligarchy will form — friendly faces, perhaps, but still an eliteist power cleqe.

The Fediverse will be co-opted — just like we watched Google and Microsoft do to open source over the last 20 years.

Yes, #ActivityPub is “open” but openness alone doesn’t stop capture. Ask the #FSF, or look at meany #NGO paths in tech.

What would “native” governance look like? Built from our values, not imported from the institutions we’re resisting.

Soft Structure – Not no structure. The #OGB (Open Governance Body) project is one possible model: https://unite.openworlds.info/Open-Media-Network/openwebgovernancebody It’s based on the #4opens and rooted in the real history of grassroots organising, not rigid control, but visible, participatory trust-based structure.
Real federation of trust -Imagine something like “trust instances”, each instance or org can choose to endorse certain process and values (e.g., 4opens, PGA hallmarks), creating a visible network of aligned projects. Not a central body, but a web of consent, the #OMN is an example of this.
Self-accountability + Diversity of tactics. Everyone agrees to transparency and openness. Everyone chooses their own path. Nobody is forced, but the community can see what you’re doing. This is essential for resisting #NGO co-option without creating more gatekeeping elitists

Are Platform Co-ops the Answer? Maybe, but… proceed with caution. Many tech co-op projects I’ve seen:

Become ossified in bureaucratic process

Elevate process geeks over users and communities

Reproduce #NGO behaviours under a different name

We’ve seen this in the #techcoop movement, especially in the UK, where platform co-ops often start with radical aims and drift into “doing B2B consulting for ethical startups.” Fine, but not the revolution we worked for. The stakes are real, we’re not just talking about tech here, we’re talking about:

Climate collapse

Social fragmentation

The rise of digital authoritarianism

We need an #openweb that reflects our values, #fediverse governance that protects the commons, and to move from just the A to the full A inside the O – the anarchist circle of voluntary structure. Let’s not wait for another hijacking, we need to build something native to the Fediverse before it’s too late.

The signal-to-noise problem of our #geekproblem in the #fediverse and the wider #openweb. Let’s be clear: platforms like #Mastodon and the #Fediverse are native openweb projects. They embody the values of the #4opens — open data, open source, open process, and open standards.

The value here is not in hardening and securing these systems to the teeth. People who are pushing for hyper-“security” are missing the point entirely. This isn’t about “common sense” dev practice. It’s about use-case. Public media content should be open — and that’s what the Fediverse is good at. It’s media. It’s conversation. It’s public dialogue. That’s what #ActivityPub is designed for. For private communication, we already have mature and well-tested encrypted tools: #Matrix, #Briar, #Signal, etc. Use those for whistleblowing, direct action, or anything sensitive.

Trying to bolt high-security models onto public communication tools breaks the value of the #Fediverse – its simplicity, accessibility, and low barrier to entry. Right now, the #Fediverse is a functional part of the #OMN – it’s a mesh of many small pieces, loosely joined, low-barrier, easy to host, easy to adapt, easy to grow. This is a fragile ecosystem, not a fortress. By pushing unnecessary “security” requirements, this #geekproblem are:

Scaring away potential users and admins

Raising technical barriers

Spreading #FUD

And most dangerously — undermining real-world activists who rely on open visibility and reach, not secrecy.

The #geekproblem, pushing complexity, abstraction, and fear over usability and trust, has been blocking the alt-tech world for over 20 years, it’s happening again. Let’s not let them smother this moment, the open web works when it’s messy, simple, and human.

You can help here https://opencollective.com/open-media-network

Talking about the #geekproblem in #openweb funding

Let’s be honest: we have a real and ongoing #geekproblem in how funding is allocated in the alt-tech and #openweb space, and it’s holding us back. The current push for infrastructure is important, but it’s not enough.

Yes, backend infrastructure is vital. You can’t build sustainable alternatives to #dotcons without solid plumbing. Funding projects like mesh networks, free firmware, and decentralised protocols, as #NLnet and others often do, is necessary work. BUT… If no one uses the infrastructure, or if it simply gets absorbed back into corporate platforms, then we’re just building tools for the next round of tech enclosures. That’s the pattern we’ve been trapped in for 20+ years.

Take the example of #ActivityPub. It would have remained a marginal protocol if #Mastodon hadn’t wrapped it in good UX, approachable design, and a culture people actually wanted to be part of. It was this social work, not just the code, that made the #Fediverse grow. That success was accidental, not structural, and we’re now coasting off that one cultural leap forward while backend devs get all the attention and funding. Culture first, code second is the hard truth:

The Fediverse is a culture first, and a standard second.

Where is the real funding for building sustainable social tools, interfaces, and communities? Where is the funding for actual alternatives to #dotcons that real people can use? This is one of the things we mean by the #geekproblem, the over-prioritisation of backend infrastructure in a vacuum, without acknowledging the social, political, and cultural layers needed for real systemic change. What’s the Risk? It’s that we end up with:

Endless dev churn.

Great tech no one uses.

A cultural vacuum that’s quickly filled by bad actors or subsumed by corporate rebranding.

Sound familiar? So what do we do?

Balance the Funding. Yes to infrastructure, but also fund user-facing projects, UI/UX work, community engagement, moderation tooling, multilingual outreach, and federated editorial practices. In other words, fund culture-building.
Support “Soft” Projects That Matter. There’s very little funding for projects like #OMN, #indymediaback, or #openwebgovernancebody because they don’t look like “innovation.” But these are the organic, lived tools that connect radical tech to real social movements.
Fund social protocols, not just transport protocols.

#4opens, the #PGA hallmarks, and trust-based governance are protocols too, just not the kind that compile into binaries. They help mediate conflict, keep projects focused, and build human networks that last.

Funding only “safe” backend tech guarantees it will either be: Irrelevant, co-opted, or turned into the next closed platform. We have to fund risky, visible, social alternatives if we want a different outcome. None of this is new, I like meany people been banging this drum since the #indymedia days and writing about it for decades. On this path, the #geekproblem isn’t about individuals, it’s a systemic blind spot. Let’s please take the time to balance funding tech AND the culture to finally move toward more humanistic paths.