#4opens vs. #4closed

The critical paths between governance, activism, and the ideological underpinnings of #FOSS, #opensource, and the #openweb. The problem, governance without “politics” which FOSS and opensource often ignore and block the politics, leading to governance models resembling feudalism where “better kings” may emerge, but the underlying structure remains inequitable. Without addressing systemic issues, projects replicate the very power imbalances they aim to escape.

Decentralization is a post-capitalist concept, as decentralization eliminates middlemen, undermining the foundations of capitalism. However, capitalism co-opts decentralization, selling illusions while embedding scarcity (e.g., #encryptionist projects). Recognizing and resisting this is vital to preserving the openweb. Composting the shit, current activism often worsens the “shit pile” by pouring misaligned efforts and unclear priorities into an already broken paths. Instead, we need shovels for composting—tools and frameworks like #OMN and the #4opens to transform waste into fertile ground for radical change.

A solution can be found in 4opens and #OGB, this creates a permissionless path, framework for decentralized, equitable governance. The Open Governance Body (OGB) fosters participatory decision-making, breaking away from feudal hierarchies and cultivating more of a balance of collective ownership. The path is building together, the Open Media Network (OMN) embodies this ethos by emphasizing “you and me” over “just me.” A core part of this path is that activist media must embrace discomfort as a catalyst for change, balancing inspiration, information, and critique to challenge the status quo.

A world in flux, old paths are gone, there’s no going back, reboots are imminent—social upheavals (#Trump, #Brexit) and environmental crises signal the need for systemic transformation. The 4opens promote transparency, participation, and shared ownership. By contrast, the #4closed represent secrecy, exclusivity, control, and commodification—aligning with the #dotcons and the #deathcult’s vision of the future. Words as power, the spell of repetition, the 4opens is more than a mantra, it’s a way of embedding ethical, decentralized values into public consciousness. This “spell” counters the pervasive narratives of the 4closed and offers a tangible path for the needed transformation.

We can now talk about composting, the privatisation of our “commons”

The Thatcher era in the UK was led by #deathcult privatisations, which are now ripe for contemporary criticism. And this criticism could be a useful push for the change and challenge we need.

Water Companies, privatized in 1989 with promises of efficiency and investment, have since faced continuous scandals over sewage spills, underinvestment, and skyrocketing bills. The outcome, profits have been pushed over public service, leading to environmental and infrastructure mess which will coat billions to compost.

Railways, privatized in the 1990s under Major, have led to fragmented operations, high ticket prices, and crap service. Public subsidies have increased dramatically, effectively making it a publicly funded but privately profiting system. The failures of companies like Railtrack highlighted systemic issues. This urgently needs to change, but this is a mess that leads to huge public costs.

The Steel Industry, British Steel, was privatized in 1988 but continued to struggle to compete globally. Subsequent closures and job losses have been crippling to industrial regions. Today, the UK steel industry remains a declining mess, requiring government intervention and subsidies to survive. We don’t have a path out of this mess, in the era of international instability we need a solution.

Energy, the privatisation of electricity and gas led to reduced competition over time, with prices soaring for consumers. Companies have been price gouging and underinvesting in sustainable energy. A mess, to manage the shift to renewables, that we now need to compost.

Telecom, while privatisation of BT (British Telecom) did modernize telecommunications, it created an uneven playing field, with BT retaining dominance and smaller competitors struggling to compete meaningfully. What is the path with this?

The promise of our worshipping of the #deathcult was to reduce costs through privatisation unsurprisingly, this hasn’t materialized; instead, public funds have been used and continue to be used to subsidize failing privatized nasty fuckwits.

The broader impact has been widening social inequality. Essential “commons” services were turned into profit centers at the expense of affordability and quality. With privatization, transferred wealth from the public to a small group of greedy and nasty people.

The scale of these failures and public dissatisfaction might be a force for the change and challenge we so urgently need. If we can make the more horizontal path actually work for us #OMN

What is the plan?

Federated Trust Networks: A Path

The future of grassroots and decentralized media lies in federated trust networks, not merely replicating the centralized, broadcast-focused models of the #dotcons. There are problems with simply copying #dotcons as #FOSS that is replication without change, simply mimicking the #dotcons replicates their flaws, including centralized control and scalability issues that lead to degradation in quality and trust.

Broadcasting models focus on individual reach rather than collective, community-driven engagement.
For example, #bluesky and #mastodon scale without accountability, over-scaling singular nodes results in reduced moderation quality, fostering misinformation and people’s dissatisfaction.

There is a strong case for human scale federated trust networks, with human moderation for quality. In the #OMN, every instance is moderated by a competent crew responsible for maintaining content standards. Expanding requires growing the moderation team to sustain quality. This path ensures people and communities gravitate toward smaller, well-moderated instances, balancing scale and trust.

Tag flows for better categorization, we need to create distinct admin tools for personal and news flows, so networks can handle content more effectively and avoid mixing purposes.
Decentralization with purpose, federated networks with #ActivityPub, allow instances to share content while maintaining autonomy. This prevents over-centralization and supports diverse community voices.
The #4opens—open process, open data, open licenses, and open standards—are baked into the #OMN to maintain transparency and community ownership.

An example of this is the #OMN is key to rebooting #Indymedia The #OMN project provides a framework to reboot alternative media, like #indymediaback, in a way that prioritizes the “native” quality, trust, and community moderation. The first steps toward a reboot will be integrating federated systems and trust-based governance to revitalize the platform. This is key, learning from the past, avoiding a rehash of dead indymedia, the #OMN emphasizes creating new structures based on lessons learned, particularly the importance of human-centered workflows. With the ultimate goal is to restore indymedia domains to active use while avoiding past pitfalls.

For those wanting an #indymedia reboot, supporting #OMN projects is crucial, as it is directly aligned with this vision. The #OMN and federated trust networks offer a roadmap for reclaiming decentralized media spaces. By focusing on trust, moderation, and the #4opens, we move beyond the failures of centralized #dotcons and create sustainable, community-driven alternatives. This isn’t just a revival of the old; it’s a necessary evolution to meet the challenges of today’s digital paths.

Why Humans are Social First, Individuals Second

Human beings are inherently social creatures, our identities, communities, and shared values are what define us as human. The #deathcult of the last 40 years, driven by neoliberal ideologies, has systematically isolated individuals, eroding the social bonds that sustain our shared humanity. This isolation has fostered nihilism by acclimatizing people to a world-view devoid of collective meaning and purpose.

Social bonds are the foundations of humanity, we develop meaning, empathy, and creativity through relationships. Without connections to others, individual existence loses its depth and context. Isolation undermines mental and physical well-being, as can be seen in the increase of depression and anxiety in hyper-individualistic societies we have created for the last 40 years.

The role of digital tools, in this, and internet systems SHOULD amplify our social nature rather than diminish it. Building #FOSS tools that prioritize social connections over individual convenience is essential to counteract the isolating current paths. Projects like the #OMN and frameworks like the #4opens focus on creating platforms that reinforce this community, trust, and collective purpose.

Market-driven ideologies reduce relationships to transactions, prioritizing competition over collaboration. The has been terrible damage from 40 Years of the #deathcult worship, economic and social atomization, with policies that dismantled collective institutions like unions, community centres, and public services, leaving individuals to fend for themselves in increasingly precarious conditions. The normalization of nihilism, fosters a sense of hopelessness, where people accept destruction and exploitation as inevitable. This normalization stifles resistance to systemic harm, as individuals lack the solidarity needed to push back with any real effect. This has lead to a loss of collective power, with well inturned efforts to challenge this system, such as labour strikes, protests, and cooperative initiatives, being undermined by the fragmentation of social groups and the emphasis on “common sense” individualism.

The path we need to take to change and challenge this – building social-first tools – designed with community-building as the primary goal, ensuring individuals feel connected and supported. This includes fostering spaces for dialogue, collaboration, and mutual aid. Empowering the collective, decentralized, transparent, and accountable to the people who use them. Federated technologies like #activitypub offer alternatives to centralized systems, encouraging diversity and horizontal collaboration. Reclaiming shared values is hard, but prioritizing cooperation and solidarity, we can combat the nihilism that comes from isolation. Reinforcing the idea that human values are rooted in relationships rather than material success is key.

What needs to happen next: Resist Isolation by pushing back against narratives that promote individual solutions to systemic problems. Emphasize the need for collective action to address crises like #climatechange and inequality. Shift design paradigms, to ensure that tools and platforms prioritize human connection and accountability over profit and efficiency. Rebuild social infrastructure, to support community-focused initiatives that rebuild the trust and solidarity undermined by decades of dogmatic neoliberal policy.

By recognizing that humans are social first and individual second, we can take paths that reinforce our shared humanity, resisting the nihilism and destructiveness of the #deathcult. This approach isn’t just better—it’s necessary for our survival.

Grassroots Radical Media: A #4opens Path

The resurgence of grassroots radical media projects requires a return to foundational principles, particularly the embrace of #FOSS and #opensource practices. These principles align with the #4opens framework, which acts as both a lock and a key for building sustainable and accountable media networks.

The Basics, Activism vs. Mainstreaming, where activism aims to resist and redirect the mainstream toward progressive change. #Mainstreaming, on the other hand, often serves NGO agendas, softening resistance to maintain institutional stability and job creation for its participants. Recognizing this distinction helps grassroots projects avoid being co-opted into reducing systemic change to incremental tweaks.

The importance of #FOSS and #4opens in keeping radical media transparent and accessible. The #4opens (open process, open data, open licenses, and open standards) ensure inclusivity and guard against #mainstreaming dilution. These principles help create paths accountable to people, not funders and institutions.

This is the #OMN mission:

Core vs. Periphery: OMN prioritizes the 1% of technologies and workflows that align with human-focused projects, filtering out the shiny distractions of mainstream tech. Guided by the PGA Hallmarks, the project adheres to these anti-capitalist, anti-patriarchal, and grassroots-oriented principles to ensure alignment with long-term goals rather than fleeting trends. This challenges, right-wing coordination, the right has effectively leveraged #openweb media over the last decade, outpacing the left in cooperation and strategy. To counter this, the left must embrace collaborative frameworks like the #4opens and avoid falling into isolated #stupidindividualism. Verbiage and Focus is an issue, academia often overcomplicates the discourse, leading to a churn of ideas without actionable outcomes. Projects need clear plans that balance innovation with practical implementation.

Avoiding the #deathcult of neoliberalism, most mainstream tech assumes human nature is fixed by 40 years of neoliberalism, building reactionary systems. Grassroots projects reject this limitation and design tools that reflect the full spectrum of human potential. To move, we need to leverage experience, older activists should gently guide enthusiastic newcomers by asking, “How does this work with the #4opens?” and “Does this further the PGA hallmarks?” This approach fosters accountability and focus without stifling creativity. A core part of this is filtering technology, to avoid getting lost in the tech world’s “stinky, shiny fashions.” Focus on tools that genuinely empower communities rather than perpetuate #mainstreaming.

Build humanistic tools, to stop creating isolated, individualist solutions, tools fostering collaboration across diverse movements. Reboot proven models, starting new projects in a world dominated by #stupidindividualism leads to often to fragmentation. Instead, reboot and modernize successful past initiatives like #Indymedia, grounding them in the #4opens and #KISS federated governance.

The time is ripe for a #reboot of the alt/grassroots tech world. By centring projects on transparency, inclusivity, and collaboration, we can counter the forces of #deathcult neoliberalism and #mainstreaming. The #OMN is a framework for this sustainable and impactful radical media, to make us ready to sift through the tech pile and find the tools that serve humanity. Join the effort to help shape the future of grassroots media and governance. Learn more at OMN

Why ideas matter

The important tension in the current state of social change efforts: individualism vs. collectivism, vertical vs. horizontal structures, and the challenges of maintaining fragile consensus. These dynamics have direct implications for how we approach systemic problems like #climatechaos and the creation of alternatives through projects like the #OMN.

On this subject, it’s important to understand why #stupidIndividualism is dangerous, which can be seen in the failure of individual solutions. Relying on individual action (e.g., recycling, personal carbon offsets) shifts focus from the systemic nature of crises. The climate emergency, for example, is primarily driven by industrial-scale emissions and unsustainable policies—not individual behaviour. This emphasis on individualism undermines collective action, which is the only scale at which meaningful change and challenge can occur.

Blind spots in vertical thinking, hierarchical (“vertical”) structures dismiss and fail to understand the dynamics of decentralized (“horizontal”) systems. Vertical systems are focused on control and clarity, at the expense of collaboration and diversity, which horizontal structures thrive on.

The dangers of certainty, consensus vs. certainty, pushing for “certainty”, rigid clarity often destroys consensus. Consensus, while fragile and imperfect, is the foundation of all functioning societies. It is built on compromise, flexibility, and mutual understanding. The insistence that “my view is right” fractures the trust necessary for cooperative systems to thrive.

Why this is destructive, the breakdown of consensus leads to polarization and inaction, both of which are catastrophic in the face of crises like #climatechange. Certainty-driven narratives ignore the complexity and nuance required to address interconnected, systemic issues.

Ideas for moving forward, focus on processes, rather than direct outcomes:

Build systems (like the #OMN) that prioritize open, participatory processes over prescriptive solutions. The #4opens—open process, open data, open licences, and open standards—offer a starting point for structuring this.
Encourage horizontal thinking, foster decentralized systems where power and decision-making are distributed. This creates resilience and allows diverse voices to contribute meaningfully.
Embrace ambiguity and iteration, instead of pushing for rigid clarity, accept that solutions evolve through experimentation and iteration. Social change is a dynamic process, not a static goal.
Reframe certainty as trust, replace the need for certainty with a culture of trust-based collaboration. Trust allows for flexibility and creativity within systems, enabling them to adapt and respond to changing circumstances.
Use crises as opportunities for solidarity, crises often push societies toward authoritarian responses. Instead, frame crises as opportunities to build solidarity, emphasizing shared struggles and collective goals.

This is why ideas matter, the urgency of the #climatecrisis, paired with the inertia of entrenched systems, makes it tempting to lean on familiar, hierarchical solutions. However, transformation comes from collective, decentralized efforts that prioritize flexibility, trust, and inclusion over individualism and rigid control. Projects like #OMN and frameworks like the #4opens are tools for navigating these challenges while staying grounded in the #KISS principles of solidarity and mutual aid.

The Seven Stages of climate denial:

1. It’s not real
2. It’s not us
3. It’s not that bad
4. We have time
5. It’s too expensive to fix
6. Here’s a fake solution
7. It’s too late: you should have warned us earlier

Trolls use all of these stages to deny the reality of #climatechaos

Moving forward, the path is undeniably messy

The challenge is in scaling alternative grassroots projects like #OMN while retaining their radical, transformative potential. As these projects sprout, they hit two major barriers:

Soft Social Power: Scaling requires broader community buy-in and social legitimacy, which is undermined by entrenched hierarchies and mainstream resistance.
Hard Power: When these projects start to resemble significant social challenges, they attract the attention of institutional forces, which respond with suppression or co-optation.

Paths we need to mediate these challenges:

Bake the #4opens deeply Into federated governance. this is what the #OGB is for, to use federated, horizontal governance paths where decision-making power is distributed across nodes and communities. This creates resilience by decentralizing control and embedding trust at every layer.
Hardcode the #4opens in to the open process as non-negotiable. Build these principles into the DNA of tools and communities to guard against corruption and co-optation.
Focus on interoperability by building tools that connect and empower diverse movements rather than siloed, individual projects. #ActivityPub is a good example of a protocol fostering universalism in the #Fediverse. Prioritize community-first design, that tools are easy to use and serve collective needs, avoiding over-engineering and catering solely to tech-savvy users.
Prepare for reaction and pushback by grow power strategically, use trust networks, federated alliances, and grassroots engagement this makes reactionary pushback harder to target and dismantle what you are building. Anticipate Resistance, recognize that crises will be used as opportunities for suppression. Strengthen your community’s capacity for crisis response through decentralized decision-making and resource-sharing networks. Collective defence, build alliances across movements to protect against external threats, whether they come from governments, corporations, or other institutions of hard power.
Balance visionaries and builders by fostering inclusive engagement. Welcome both those who help build projects from scratch and those who engage with initiatives once they have momentum. Use simple, accessible entry points to bring more people into the projects. Avoid perfection paralysis, accept that projects evolve through experimentation and iteration. Focus on building functional systems that can adapt, rather than waiting for perfection.
Shovelling the “crisis compost” to channel the mess. Use the growing crises as opportunities to mobilize and educate, while staying anchored to the #4opens. Shared narratives matter. Frame crises in terms of collective action and solidarity, countering divisive narratives that undermine project’s goals. Simplify and focus. Complex problems demand clear and grounded solutions, focus on basic, actionable steps as well as sprawling ambitions.

Moving forward, the path is undeniably messy, but the focus should be on growing horizontal power networks without compromising values. By committing to federated, principles and building resilience against internal and external challenges, projects like the #OMN thrive and scale without succumbing to the pressures that dismantle and dilute radical movements. This requires long-term commitment, patience, and a willingness to confront the realities of #powerpolitics while staying true to the foundational ethos of grassroots empowerment.

Mediating the damage from #fashernistas

“The problem with most fashernistas is that they are completely untrustworthy. Yet, people trust them because they push #mainstreaming “common sense” this is the definition of evil, what to do? Ideas please?”

The problem with most #fashernistas lies in their prioritizing of style, superficial appeal, and “common sense” #mainstreaming over substance and integrity. Their actions are too often driven by appearances and short-term gains, rather than the principled foundations necessary for long-term trust and genuine change and challenge that we need. This creates a facade of credibility, enabling them to gain influence while undermining collective efforts. How to compost this mess:

Expose the tension between trust and Influence by highlight the contradictions. Make clear how focus on mainstreaming compromises values, transparency and inclusivity. Use storytelling and case studies to show how #fashernistas to often derail projects.
Embed trust in processes over personality, that is, build systems where influence is based on contributions and adherence to principles rather than charisma or status. Use the #4opens to ensure actions align with open processes, open data, open standards, and open licenses. These principles can create accountability that individuals find hard to circumvent.
Empower alternatives, by actively amplify contributors who are trustworthy, even if their approach lacks the flashiness of fashernistas. Build in feedback loops to create mechanisms for communities to critique and shape direction collectively, minimizing the impact of any one individual’s agenda.
Combat the “Common Sense” mythos. Point out where “common sense” solutions fail to address deeper issues, emphasizing the need for critical thinking and alternative paths. Encourage discourse to grow, environments where questioning and dissent are valued rather than sidelined.
Strengthen the focus on horizontal structures to minimize opportunities for top-down influence. One path to this is transparent moderation to ensure that editorial and moderation processes are open to scrutiny, preventing backdoor manipulation.

A balanced approach is needed. The issue with #fashernistas isn’t just their untrustworthiness—it’s that their appeal distracts from meaningful work. Addressing this requires paths, systems and cultures that embed core values into projects like the #OMN or #Fediverse, you reduce reliance on individuals and focus on collective empowerment. Its #KISS

#nothingnew sets the stage for #somethingnew

The #nothingnew hashtag offers a straightforward and bold #KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid) approach to rejecting the prevailing ideologies of the past 40 years: #neoliberalism and #postmodernism. These ideologies have shaped the current “common sense” to push individualism, relativism, and market-driven solutions, at the expense of collective action and systemic change we so urgently need.

Neoliberalism is an ideology that emphasizes free markets, deregulation, and privatization, by eroding social safety nets and collective power. It normalizes austerity, wage suppression, and the commodification of public goods, making systemic exploitation appear inevitable and unchangeable. This is the mess we have made over the last 40 years.

Postmodernism, is rooted in scepticism and relativism, which undermines the belief in truths and collective narratives. While it does critique power structures, it leaves people without a path forward, reinforcing apathy and fragmentation which our economic system has spread.

Together, these ideologies create a world-view where large-scale social change is dismissed as impossible, reinforcing a status quo that benefits the few. We are past the time when we need to reboot social change back to a more action orientated modernism path. This is how #nothingnew sets the stage for this #somethingnew.

The #nothingnew framework advocates revisiting modernism, which championed progress, reason, and collective solutions to social challenges. Modernism’s optimism and belief in systemic change are powerful antidotes to the paralysing scepticism of postmodernism. By rejecting the last 40 years’ intellectual and economic inertia, #nothingnew seeks to create a foundation for practical, action-oriented social movements we need to mediate the building crises.

Building #somethingnew, is about recentring collective action with a shift of focus from isolated individual efforts to collaborative, community-driven paths. This path needs simplicity and accessibility by keeping frameworks clear, actionable, and rooted in shared goals, avoiding over-complication. to make this happen we need to build trust in progress, by advocate for meaningful growth—improvements in living conditions, equality, and sustainability that serve humanity rather than the profits of the few.

The #nothingnew project isn’t about nostalgia—it’s about learning from the past to chart a clear, modernist-inspired course for a future that values fairness, collaboration, and systemic change over stagnation and skepticism. It lays the groundwork for a transformative shift to #somethingnew and is an important part of the #hashtag story and #OMN

We need historical paths to reboot the #openweb with the #fediverse

The #Indymedia network was a groundbreaking independent, grassroots journalism project, born from the #DIY ethos and the global anti-globalization movements of the late 1990s and early 2000s. It was a network where anyone anywhere could publish stories, videos, and photos, challenging mainstream narratives. However, it eventually fragmented and became less relevant, then died as a functional network. let’s look at why this happened:

Internal factors, where conflict among the crew and contributors, let’s highlight the #encryptionists and #processgeeks, with disputes over priorities (e.g., security and processes) causing friction. Some pushed for hard encryption that complicated usability, while others emphasized bureaucratic formal consensus governance, stifling decision-making. Consensus breakdown, the decentralized decision-making path, made it hard to resolve disagreements, especially as the network grew and diversified in ideology with the influx of more #mainstreaming people. Dogmatism and fragmentation, groups became rigid in their views, leading to infighting and a lack of unity. The inability to balance diverse perspectives led to splintering. Burnout and loss of purpose, as activists struggled to maintain momentum as the network ossified.

External pressures with the rise of commercial platforms. The explosion of the #dotcons, corporate platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube drew users away from the failing Indymedia project. These platforms offered easier interfaces and massive audiences, undermining the narrowing, dogmatic grassroots appeal. Challenges with moderation, was a growing issue, dealing with fake news, spam, and inflammatory content became overwhelming. The “open publishing” model, once a strength, became a liability as it required extensive moderation. State Pushback with governments targeting Indymedia for its critical reporting, using surveillance, raids, and legal pressures to disrupt operations. This systematic marginalization contributed to its decline

Lessons for new #openweb projects. Balance simplicity and security, by avoiding overcomplicating platforms with technical measures that alienate non-technical people and communities. Strengthen trust-based governance, by adopting trust-driven models like those proposed by the Open Media Network (#OMN) to foster inclusive, mess and functional decision-making. Integrate feedback loops, by insure constant input from diverse people to adapt to evolving needs and combat dogmatism. Compete on accessibility, by design platforms that are intuitive and engaging to counter the allure of #dotcons social media.

Indymedia’s legacy offers critical insights into building resilient, people-centric, and trust-based media networks that can withstand internal and external challenges. We need these historical paths to reboot the #openweb with the #Fediverse.

#indymediaback

The #blocking of #openweb funding

Funders, #NGOs, and the #mainstreaming crew are trapped in fixed truths, while real change comes from dynamic thinking. That’s why they keep failing us. So, how do we break this cycle and move forward? For meaningful #openweb funding, we need projects that are native and align with critical social needs for the evolution of the internet, balancing openness/trust based tech with funding for outreach and feedback mechanisms.

Shifting Funding From “Fear/Control” to “Open/Trust” The Problem, current funding paths for internet projects focus on security, control, and compliance, perpetuating systems of centralized authority. This approach stifles trust-based collaboration, which are essential for the #openweb path. Action: help to advocate for dedicated funding streams for projects explicitly focused on decentralization, trust-building, and open governance structures like the Open Media Network (#OMN) and #OGB. Incorporate trust-based metrics into funding criteria, rewarding projects that demonstrate sustainable, human-centered governance.
Bridging hard tech and soft use. The Problem: Hard tech (protocols, platforms) develop in isolation from people, leading to tools that fail to meet real-world social needs. Action: Allocate funds for programs to bridge developers and user communities, ensuring reciprocal feedback between tech builders and real life communities. Establish mechanisms to incorporate insights from “soft use” (how people interact with tools) into the iterative development of “hard tech.” Support user-led design initiatives for communities to directly shape the platforms they use.
Governance: The Problem: Existing tech networks prioritize technical over social design, exacerbating the #geekproblem of over-complexity and alienating the change we need. Action: Fund projects like the OMN that flip this dynamic, prioritizing human networks as the foundation for technical systems. This creates tools that reflect and support the needs of grassroots communities. Promote protocols like #ActivityPub to enhance interoperability and people/community autonomy across networks.
The OMN is a lightweight framework with five core functionalities aimed at building a trust-based semantic web:
* Publish: Share content as objects.
* Subscribe: Follow streams of interest (people, organizations, topics).
* Moderate: Manage trust by endorsing or rejecting content flows
* Rollback: Remove historical flows content from the point trust is broken.
* Edit Metadata: Improve the discoverability and context of content.
These tools enable people to control their digital spaces and data flows while horizontally growing collaboration and accountability

This native #openweb path requires systemic support with funding to promote tools and frameworks that build human agency and trust. By doing this, we create resilient and equitable paths in tech, moving away from the limitations of the #open and #closed web mess we keep repeating

On this subject, it’s worth looking at this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_law

The funding crisis for the #openweb isn’t just about money—it’s about values. Right now, too much funding goes into coding copies of #dotcons, replicating the same social centralized, mess under a different name. This doesn’t fix anything—it just locks us into the same broken patterns.

We need to push for native #openweb approaches—ones rooted in decentralisation, trust, and open process. History is full of projects that did this right—#indymediaback being just one example. But the real challenge isn’t just building the tech; it’s getting people to value this diversity.

Funding bodies like #NGI, #nlnet, and #ngizero could play a key role if they prioritize projects that challenge, rather than copy, the status quo. But beyond grants, we need a cultural shift—one that recognises the importance of public digital infrastructure and collective ownership over our tools.

So what can we do?

Demand funding for actual #openweb projects, not more social silos.
Build bridges between funders and radical grassroots tech.
Create our own support networks outside traditional funding models.
Shift the conversation—value the diversity, not just the tech.

If we don’t push, the funding will keep flowing into the wrong places, and we’ll be stuck recycling the same failures. Let’s compost the mess and grow something real.

#4Opens #OMN #DIY

A positive path for tech is growing

The Fediverse, decentralized social networking, path is fundamentally built on trust and collaboration. This emphasizes that interactions, platform developments, and community guidelines prioritize shared values and respect, rather than being dictated by centralized controls, fear paths and governance.

Why trust matters, it’s distributed, the Fediverse’s open protocol, #activitypub thrives because people and platforms choose to interconnect based on shared values and trust. By focusing on trust, the ecosystem builds inclusivity, creativity, and resilience. Where fear-based strategies (e.g., excessive regulation and distrustful moderation) alienate people and fragments the network.

The plea “don’t be a prat” is a reminder for crew of all flavers to avoid overreacting and resorting to authoritarian measures when conflicts and challenges arise. Over-policing (#blocking) and adopting fear-driven paths and controls undermine the community’s trust-based flows and will push people away.

To sustain the #fediverse, we need transparent governance to encouraging open dialogue and consensus-driven decision-making. And we need strong stories that highlight the ecosystem’s reliance on collaboration over coercion. This is needed to resist co-opting by fear, to avoid fearmongering narratives that overemphasis the threats, leading to centralization and over-regulation, the very things we are stepping away from.

The #OMN concept of the “inspiring organic path for tech” emphasizes grassroots, decentralized, and inclusive approaches to technology and governance:

The Open Media Network (OMN): This project focuses on decentralizing media and data flow, breaking silos, and fostering peoples control through trust-based systems. #OMN leverages the Fediverse and tools built on the #4opens framework (open data, source, standards, and processes) to create a collaborative ecosystem that resists traditional centralized controls.
Challenging Mainstream Tech Norms: The OMN and associated projects like the Open Governance Body (#OGB) address the dominance of neoliberal ideologies in tech, promoting governance that pushes community needs over hierarchical and market-driven models. It critiques paths that perpetuate #stupidindividualism and other barriers to collective action.
Empowering Grassroots Movements: Advocates for simple, accessible frameworks (e.g., the KISS principle) and strategic use of tools like #hashtags to build visibility, cohesion, and support for grassroots initiatives.

By focusing on transparency, openness, and community-led development, these paths, grow the #fediverse in to a resilient, democratic tech ecosystem. For deeper insights, you can explore Hamish Campbell’s website for more about these initiatives and their practical applications.

There is a movement growing on this path https://blog.elenarossini.com/a-new-way-to-describe-the-fediverse-and-its-opposition-to-big-tech/ and we do need this.

The #blocking of #openweb funding