Balancing the #mainstreaming mess by focusing on what’s “native” is a crucial 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 approach helps prevent the dilution of…
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,…
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 a more productive path, one which balances burnout and disillusionment. A part of this is the…
Socialhub needs rebooting as grassroots, its drifting
What went wrong with this is a classic case of the tension between grassroots ideals and the pressure of existing within a larger system that is fundamentally at odds with those ideals. The #fediverse, along with other #openweb movements, succeeds in small, meaningful ways but struggles to scale in a world built on capitalist structures,…
Yes, we are in a mess, we need a path
There are many paths and perspectives on how to tackle the profound mess we’re in, and one of them comes from Roger Hallam and Extinction Rebellion (#XR), which, has brought to light a deep issue: the creeping “common sense” of #deathcult worship infiltrating activism. From a radical viewpoint, XR stood as a “first mover”—an innocent,…
We need to reclaim focus and energy wasted on current failing systems
Many years ago, I stopped going to most tech events and supporting “ethical” business. the #NGO tech events are mere talking shops, spaces filled with endless discussions but no outcomes. They suck up time, energy, and focus, acting as gatekeepers that reinforce the status quo while masquerading as spaces of change. These events are part…
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, 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…
The patriarchs of the early #openweb
Back then, we were teetering on the edge of a digital cliff, with the open internet hanging in the balance. There were two insightful perspectives capturing the crossroads we are at: Phil Windley argued that the open internet was a historical fluke, while Dave Winer suggests that what we were seeing was merely the ebb…
The Open Media Network (#OMN) is a set of tools to empower communities
People find it hard to understand the “unique” selling point of the #OMN beyond the tech, which is “common sense”. And this is, drum roll, reveal, that people and content are data objects in the “commons” by default and only private/owed by exception. This is the basic #KISS “unique” selling point of the #OMN there…
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…
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 hear, images of…
“Bad Faith” Arguments Dominate Social Media
Social media is a cacophony of voices, opinions, and debates. It was supposed to democratize communication, providing a network where people could have their say. But instead, it’s become on one hand an addictive drug to plassify and indoctrinate people and on the other a battlefield where “bad faith” arguments thrive. This isn’t a coincidence;…