Thinking through composting the #techshit

The #openweb has many benefits, though it will not always be the right tool for all situations, there is a lot of mature tech available for privacy and control. The desire to mix these technologies comes from #mainstreaming liberalisms desire for social media to be private, rather than inherently public.

The decentralized #openweb and encrypted chat are obviously separate and should coexist without reproducing the mistakes of centralized #dotcons social media. Focusing on the #4opens and leaving hard privacy for individuals and groups in peer-to-peer encrypted chat is the “native” path.

Thinking through composting the #techshit. In our era of dead ideologies like post-modernism and neoliberalism, we need to build “bounded” projects that have clear boundaries, such as #4opens and #PGA, to keep us focused and resist #mainstreaming liberalism and right-wing ideologies. This helps us create a shared space of practice and direction for politics and technology. While “branding” can be powerful, caution is needed to not creating a sense of dogmatic tribalism in these movements #OMN

Good horizontalists understand theory comes from practice, and the basis of this is #DIY – working practice to build theory. Starting from theory lead’s to a dizzy mess that results in more #techshit to compost or academic wank. Instead. Building from grassroots DIY practices, such as #OMN, #Indymediaback, and #OGB, and then using theory from these practices.

We need to emphasize the importance of focus on the #openweb. Engage with this flow to practice activism and to avoid pushing mess.

Talking about tech – Enclosing the “commons” is a bad history for native societies

White Lies About Security and Privacy in the Fediverse

We’re told small white lies about security and privacy to boot up #Mastodon. But the truth is, this #openweb tech is about dancing elephants throwing paper planes as a security/privacy model.

Yes, this is simply not the right tool for the “common sense” privacy and control needs the #geekproblem have. In reality, there’s already a wealth of mature, privacy-focused tech out there built specifically for that path.

Enclosing the “commons” is a dark chapter in history for native societies, and we risk repeating this mistake if we misunderstand the political roots of decentralized social media.

Let’s pause and check the unspoken/unthinking political aspect of this. Much of the desire to retrofit heavy privacy into the #Fediverse comes from #mainstreaming liberalism, which frames everything through fear and control. But the Fediverse wasn’t born from that path, it emerged from a trust-based, anarchistic culture.

At its core, social media is:

Social (one-to-many)
Media (sharing news and events)

It’s an inherently public activity.

On the other hand, encrypted chat (one-on-one or in small groups) is an inherently private activity.

The #dotcons messily mix these two spheres together, but only because their centralized architecture makes it possible (and profitable). Of course, this is a black lie, since these platforms don’t actually respect the privacy they promise. Their entire business model depends on violating it.

In the decentralized #openweb, public and private spaces have generally been separate and tidy, and that’s a good thing. But lately, some online discussions feel like an attempt to deliberately blur these lines, reproducing the #mainstreaming model under the guise of “common sense”, to take the same failed path we’ve been trapped in for 20 years.

We don’t need to reproduce the mess. We can have the best of both worlds:

Public, federated social media built around the #4opens
Private, encrypted communication for individuals and groups in P2P chat

Let’s keep our focus on the true nature of social media and build tools that respect both public and private spheres, without falling back into the traps of the #deathcult.

What is the #openweb

While the commercial web is dominated by large corporations, the #dotcons are what most people are familiar with, there is another side to the internet – the #openweb. In this article, we will explore what the #openweb is and why it matters.

The #openweb refers to the part of the internet that is not owned by corporations. Unlike the commercial web, where large tech companies like #Google, #Facebook, and #Amazon dominate the landscape, the #openweb is a decentralized space where people can create, share, and access content without restrictions.

The openweb is built on #4opens standards and protocols, which means that everyone can develop software or services that work seamlessly with existing tools and platforms. One of the primary benefits of the openweb is that it fosters humane creativity. Because we can all contribute to the open web, it encourages a diverse, liberal, range of voices and perspectives. Openweb technologies like blogs, wikis, and federated social networks have enabled people to connect and collaborate, leading to the emergence of new norms and social movements.

Another important aspect of the openweb is its commitment to transparency, it is a critical tool for promoting #freespeech and #democracy. Because it is not owned by any single entity or government, the openweb is a place where people can express themselves without fear of censorship or repression.

In recent years, the openweb has come under threat from the rise of the dominating #dotcons of the commercial web and the growing power of big tech companies. The commercial web is dominated by a few large corporations that control vast amounts of user data and use it to extract profit. This has led to concerns about, social control, and the concentration of power in the hands of a few tech giants and their agenders.

Despite these challenges, there are many organizations and individuals working to preserve the #openweb. From #grassroots groups such as #OMN to #NGO’s like the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) an international community that develops open standards for the web, while #mainstreaming organizations like the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the Google funded #Mozilla Foundation are dedicated to promoting a liberal #mainstreaming open and accessible internet.

In conclusion, the openweb is a critical part of the internet that promotes, creativity and free society. It is a space where anyone can contribute and participate without restrictions, and it has played a vital role in social movements and democracy. While the openweb faces many challenges in the face of the commercial web and big tech, it is essential to work together to ensure that the internet remains an open and accessible space.

A story about outreach

The #openweb has become an integral part of our daily lives, with almost every aspect of our existence now touched by it. However, over the years, concerns have grown about the centralized nature of the internet and the power politics this creates. The rise of social media giants such as Facebook, Twitter, and Google has brought this issue to the fore. These platforms, #dotcons, are centralized and controlled by a handful of powerful corporations, which poses a significant threat to user privacy and freedom of expression.

In response to this, a disparate group of committed libertarian “cats” from the Fediverse community decided to take #directaction to promote decentralized and #openweb models of the Fediverse to the European Union (#EU). The Fediverse is a collection of decentralized social networking platforms that use the ActivityPub protocol to interconnect with each other.

The Fediverse crew participated in EU events, conferences, engaged with policy-makers. They explained the benefits of decentralized and autonomous models of the #openweb and how they can shape a more humane online world. As a result, a minority of people in the #EU became interested in these technologies and began to adopt them in a soft rollout of “official” instances.

The huge growth of Mastodon, one of the most popular social networking platforms in the Fediverse, due to the #Twittermigration attracted a diverse and vibrant community of users from across the EU and the world. This growth helped to validate the importance of decentralized internet and its potential to shape a more humane world.

From this seed, today, ActivityPub, Fediverse, and Mastodon continue to grow to becoming important players in the EU’s efforts to promote a more humane internet. The unspoken grassroots outreach and community-building efforts by the #Fediverse “cats” have empowered us, and helped to shift the EU closer to being what they say they are.

The story of the mouse and the elephant making friends is a reminder that even the most Eurocratic and ossified institutions can embrace radical grassroots movements. The Fediverse “cats” have shown that by working together, we can be a part of the change we would like to see. The #openweb is a powerful tool, and it is up to us to use it.

In conclusion, the efforts of the Fediverse community to promote decentralized and autonomous models of the internet in the EU have been successful. Our outreach and advocacy have helped to shift the EU closer to promoting a more humane internet, and the growth of platforms such as Mastodon has validated the importance of these models. This change and challenge is up to us., please don’t step back and let “them” take over shaping this path.

The solution to the #geekproblem

One of the reasons the technology world is in such a mess is the chronic failure to fund the social side of the #openweb. Where funding does exist, it is too often captured by parasitic NGOs that absorb resources while delivering little meaningful change. At the same time, most technical funding is narrowly aimed at “functional” coding, reinforcing the #geekproblem by never moving beyond basic infrastructure or questioning what that infrastructure is for.

This leaves a growing pile of #techshit for others to deal with. People with shovels do the cleanup work – maintaining communities, mediating conflict, building trust, and keeping projects alive – but almost no one funds them. The uncomfortable question remains: who pays for the work that actually makes technology socially usable?

Technology now underpins nearly every aspect of daily life: communication, education, work, culture, and care. Yet many of the systems we rely on are failing, not because they are poorly engineered, but because they are built on the wrong foundations.

Most dominant software today is built on a logic of control. Developers focus on regulating user behaviour: what people see, how they interact, how long they stay, and how value is extracted from them. But functional societies are not built on control, they are built on trust. This trust enables cooperation, shared responsibility, and collective problem-solving.

The commercial tech model systematically undermines this. #Dotcons produce systems people do not trust, run by institutions they do not trust, for goals that are openly extractive. The result is alienation, social fragmentation, and an accelerating ecological and social breakdown. This is not an accidental side effect – it is the predictable outcome of designing systems around domination rather than care.

The problem is compounded by the tech sector’s inability to communicate beyond its own narrow culture. Developers trained within the #geekproblem are trapped in there narrow vision, jargon, abstraction, and technical obsession. They struggle to explain why their systems exist, who they serve, or how they fit into broader social realities. This gap between technical capability and social meaning is where many projects quietly fail.

One obvious response is to fund the social layer of technology: the human work of governance, community, usability, mediation, and trust-building. When this layer is healthy, technical systems become resilient and meaningful. When it is neglected, even the best code rots.

Yet very few institutions fund this work. What funding does exist is often routed through NGOs that neither understand the technical realities nor care about building long-term trust. These organisations specialise in reports, branding, and “stakeholder engagement,” not in maintaining living systems. The result is more process, more abstraction, and more #techshit.

If we continue like this, we will keep feeding the same mess. What’s needed is funding that supports both technical competence and social intelligence. We need to invest in projects that integrate open code with open governance, technical infrastructure with human care. Initiatives like the #OMN and the #4opens matter because they centre communication, cooperation, and trust, the things that actually make technology usable in the real world.

The solution to the #geekproblem is not more control, better metrics, or smarter algorithms. It is the recognition that good societies are built on social trust, and that our technologies must reflect that reality. Until we start funding the social foundations of the #openweb, we will keep rebuilding the same broken systems and wondering why they fail.

Liberal trolls – are often not WHO they think they are

DRAFT to be edited

http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/14/archiving-the-openweb-in-a-personal-way/

http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/thinking-about-why-openweb-projects-fail/

It’s hard to get a thried out of mastodon, hopeful this is in the right order and not missing bits. As usually, if you would like to be anonymous with no linking please say so, thanks.

Made a blog post, if you reply your text might be added to this if you don’t tell me not to 🙂

We are talking about this blog post http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/thinking-about-why-openweb-projects-fail/ I sent to the people I had archived the conversation as a seed for a blog post, the guys jump in with limited good faith.

@bob Note that my posts are CC-BY-NC. If you’re quoting me, then you need attribution, otherwise it looks like your own work.

The blog is to take transitory content “a toot” and make it more long-lasting and link it into a flow of social memory. I would love a codebase that had this built into its #UX Now, if someone made code to automate credit and archiving work just as well, I would be happy to use it.

@elplatt yes, in general it’s good practice to quote or block quote and attribute. Right now, it’s not clear who said what

I don’t tend to do “good practice” as I do this #DIY and don’t get paid for my time. I have two ways to “anonymize” text, if I keep the flow then I take the names out and put Q. and A. as the voices, if it’s out of the flow I just put “from the #openweb” this makes it quick and simple to archive things I value without jumping though impossible conversations each time. If people won’t credit and ask, I add it, it’s the polite thing to do.

Then nuttyness starts – from @elplatt I’d prefer not to be associated with plagiarism. Please remove my content. Thanks.

It says from the #openweb in BOLD, so it’s not plagiarism (Plagiarism is the fraudulent representation of another person’s language, thoughts, ideas, or expressions as one’s own original work.) . But happy to remove stuff if people don’t won’t it archived. (I updated the blog post to add bob as he asked to be, then move the FROM THE OPENWEB under bob. Have a look and tell me what you won’t http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/thinking-about-why-openweb-projects-fail/

whaw that is bad behaver: @elplatt #GreatjusticeNet has blocked campaign.openworlds.info for plagiarizing fediverse content [IMAGE] lie about someone then block their instance.

Q. Interesting to think about, if this was an argument, should I keep the stuff online or remove it if asked? What’s the good path for this?

@bob Friendly reminder to always credit people for their work. Avoid making it look as if you wrote something, which you didn’t. This is really just courtesy, or treating people with care. Saying “this came from the internet” isn’t sufficient. There can also be cases where people request to remain anonymous, but that is typically rare.

That is way too much work is the problem, in grassroots activism the are to meany borderline nutters, so my work practice is a reflection of this. Good to remember all #OMN projects are #4opens CC licence and not for profit, so with this understanding its best just to hold the nuttiness and talk as a first step. People to people, not law/rights/property etc 🙂

@bob Well, in the case of plagiarism this isn’t really a law thing it’s just an act of courtesy to say who quotes originate from. (we get a bit lost here as it’s nothing to do with plagiarism, it is about a liberal troll) Ripping people off is what BigTech does. We need to be better, and treat people well. (its not about ripping people off it is about a liberal troll)

Nobody is doing plagiarism, nobody is stealing. Nobody is ripping anyone off, we are talking in good faith, I hope. Best to put bad words and judgments to one side https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plagiarism it is not, now what else is the issue?

To @bob you are missing the point of what we/am talking about, and pushing a liberal private property view agenst a #4opens “commons” view.

Now this does bring up the issue of licence, my instance is the same as bobs CC-BY-NC so in theory I have the right to reuse content without asking as my blog is also CC-BY-NC, but I am polite and go a stage further if I am unshore if a person wants to be linked I initially publish post with “from the #openweb” post the URL to get feedback.

@bob This isn’t a stage further. It’s the BY part of the CC license. It doesn’t necessarily require links, but some indication of who the content is by.

Morally, you would be in most cases wrong to push this, but legally you are right. Now comes the issue of me making this into a blog post. I need to quote him in the post, but it would likely increase the bad feeling if I did this with name and LINK, under CC-BY-NC I have the right to use his post, he can’t say NO but morlay should I name and shame him or just leave the mess as an anonymous example of working practice?

@bob Under CC-BY-NC I have the right to use his post, but not without attribution.

I can see no copyright notice https://greatjustice.net/about But his personal sight is https://elplatt.com/ CC so let’s assume for now. Added the link though it feels like trolling, very happy to remove it

For the blog post, would likely need to look at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fair_use as am pretty sure at this stage he would say no text, but the is no story without the text, and he has already given me the right to use the text under CC-BY-NC if I link to him, the instance blocking and CC licencing cross site is icing on the cake.

NEED TO CHECK THIS

Thinking more about this, I likely did not need to have this conversation at all, as a journalist criticizing a “work” is a clear case of fair use. I anonymize the text so that I can freely reinterpret it, which is what the archives are for, and labaled (FROM THE OPENWEB) to stop people thinking it was my work TICK then it’s just a working document and a good example of a clash of Liberal ideas.

The CC side of the conversation is not wrong, it’s just NOT what my actions are based on, OK, this makes more sense. This conversation is ltraly a liberal troll storm in a tea cup, that’s what happens if you talk to people about archiving 🙂

This is based on the idea that this is a working document (which all my blog posts are, they get updated and reused all the time) So it’s not an act of publishing (which in this case it was not as I was still drafting, asking if people wonted attribution)

But would be when I mythically called it finished… round in circals in the #4opens world. The second story on the post is more finished, the text there is changed/transformed, so from the #openweb is OK.

http://hamishcampbell.com/2023/02/12/

Archiving the #openweb in a personal way

I spend a bit of time copying conversations off transient communication, microblogging, #failbook, chat etc. and archive this on my blog. I don’t tend to do “good practice” in this as I do it #DIY and don’t get paid for my time 🙂

I have two ways to “anonymize” text, if I keep the flow then I take the names out and put Q. and A. as the voices, if it’s out of the flow I just put “from the #openweb” this makes it quick and simple to archive things of value without jumping though impossible conversations each time. If people won’t credit and ask, I add it, it’s the polite thing to do.

Now if someone made code to automate credit and archiving work just as well, I would be happy to use it 🙂

Talking about grassroots media as a step away from the current #techshit

Hamish Campbell on the #openweb and rebooting indymedia

Hamish Campbell, a veteran of radical media for more than 30 years, argues that mainstream technology and culture are failing us. The rise of the #dotcon platforms has commodified our lives: closed silos like #Facebook and #Instagram harvest our attention and data, locking us into systems that serve profit, not people.

Attempts to build alternatives around an #encryptionist agenda have gone nowhere. As a result, the tech giants dominate. For Campbell, the answer lies in the #openweb – once born open, but now slowly suffocated over the past two decades. His solution is to reboot grassroots media.

Drawing on the example of Oxford #IMC, Campbell shows how a simple federated network can thrive: content is shared through trusted link flows, moderation happens collectively, and mistakes can be rolled back. Unlike the #closedweb, the beauty of the #openweb is its free-flowing links, its openness to serendipity and collaboration.

For Campbell, the #OMN project is most powerful not for what it does, but for what it refuses to do: it rejects capture, centralisation, and gatekeeping. Change begins with small, practical steps, rebooting grassroots media as a living example.

What You Can Do

In recent years, events in the US, Portugal, and Madrid have explored the idea of #rebooting #Indymedia. So far, the history of Indymedia has been told mainly by academics, often through a narrow, American lens. To truly revive it, we need to retell those stories more widely, and more honestly.

A successful reboot means returning to Indymedia’s open and serendipitous roots, not the bureaucratic, closed structures it later became. The good news is that most of the technical tools we need already exist, from federated protocols like ActivityPub to peer-to-peer networks like dat.

To keep its radical, grassroots character intact, any reboot must follow the #4opens: open data, open process, open access, and open source. These principles ensure transparency, accessibility, and trust.

If you want to get involved, search for #indymediaback or “reboot Indymedia” to find links, projects, and discussions around the #OMN.

The problem with institutions funding the social side of #openweb tech

Almost all our #geekproblem software fails because it’s built around control, while any healthy society is built on trust.

We keep producing piles of #techshit because we can’t communicate this simple truth. The result is endless #techchurn.

One way to address this is to fund the social side of tech.

The real problem is how institutions fund the social layer of #openweb projects. Right now, most of that money risks feeding parasitic #NGOs rather than anything useful. At the same time, existing funding for coding often reinforces the #geekproblem, especially when it moves beyond basic infrastructure.

We have a mess because the world is messy – but current funding does very little to compost that mess.

That’s the work of people with shovels.

The question is: who funds them?

Thinking about why #openweb projects fail.

Many #openweb projects have failed over the years, and there are reasons, first is the challenge of sustaining a project that is built on open-source principles and relies on community involvement and collaboration. In capitalism, without a clear and consistent funding model, it can be difficult to keep projects going over the long term.

Another factor is the competition from proprietary technology that is always better funded and more easily accessible to the public. This can create a challenging environment for open-source projects that struggle to keep up with the pushing of “innovation” in the tech industry.

There are also ideological differences between different groups within the open-source community that leads to conflicts and disagreements over the direction of projects. This can result in splintering and fragmentation of the community, making it difficult to achieve a shared goal.

Non “standard” #UX is a big issue as well, nice to make something you like, but better to do something the user community likes.

From @bob@epicyon.libreserver.org Irreconcilable musical differences, someone in charge of donations taking it to Vegas, becoming a parent or getting a new job, burnout, unrealistic expectations based on hegemonic BigTech systems, illness, an excess of technical debt and trolling can all result in failures of open source projects.

Most projects are one or two people with occasional driveby patches. Projects with more volunteers than that are rare exceptions. Most maintainers are not people on six-figure salaries going on slides at Google. Usually they are barely making rent.

Another factor is that often accessibility is not as good as it could be. The big companies can dedicate a department to just ensuring accessibility meets a minimum standard, but open source projects often don’t have the knowledge and are regularly criticized for accessibility problems.

From the #openweb

(https://elplatt.com/) happy to remove this link if asked

The main challenges I’ve experienced in projects I’ve been a part of:
* Tendency for potential contributors to start new projects from scratch
* Lack of communication within the user community and between users and maintainers
* Contributions driven by prestige or excitement, prioritizing new features over maintenance
* Lack of funding

It’s a good list, maybe we need a post writing up covering them all.

(This is why I work #KISS whaw that is bad behaver, lie about someone then blocked their instance. #GreatjusticeNet has blocked campaign.openworlds.info for plagiarizing fediverse content. In this post, it says “From the #openweb” in BOLD, so clearly it’s not plagiarism. But happy to remove stuff if people don’t won’t it archived)

Over the years, many #openweb projects have failed due to various reasons. The first challenge is to sustain a project that is built on open-source principles and relies on community involvement and collaboration. In a capitalist society, without a clear and consistent funding model, it becomes difficult to keep the project going over the long term.

Another factor is the competition from proprietary technology that is better funded and more easily accessible to the public. This creates a challenging environment for open-source projects that struggle to keep up with the “innovation” pushed by the tech industry.

Ideological differences within the open-source community leads to conflicts and disagreements over project direction, resulting in splintering and fragmentation of the community, making it challenging to achieve shared goals.

Non-standard #UX is also a significant issue, as it’s better to create something the user community likes than something just the developer likes.

Some ideas on this from the #openweb, irreconcilable musical differences, individuals in charge of donations taking it to Vegas, becoming a parent, getting a new job, burnout, unrealistic expectations based on hegemonic BigTech systems, illness, an excess of technical debt, and trolling can all result in open-source project failures.

Most projects have only one or two people, with occasional drive-by patches. Projects with more volunteers are rare exceptions, and maintainers are typically not people on six-figure salaries going on slides at Google. Usually, they barely make rent.

To sum up, the main challenges experienced in the projects that the author has been a part of include the tendency for potential contributors to start new projects from scratch, lack of communication within the user community and between users and maintainers, contributions driven by prestige or excitement, prioritizing new features over maintenance, and lack of funding.

Additionally, accessibility is often not as good as it could be, as big companies can dedicate a department to ensure accessibility meets a minimum standard, but open-source projects often lack the knowledge and are regularly criticized for accessibility problems.

In conclusion, a post covering all these challenges would be useful.

Libertarian #Fediverse “cats”

This story is about a group of libertarian #Fediverse “cats” who convinced one of the largest and most bureaucratic institutions, the European Union, to embrace decentralized and #openweb technologies. Through outreach efforts, EU-sponsored events and advocating to policy-makers, they raised awareness of the benefits of decentralized models of the internet and the positive impact this has on creating a more equitable and sustainable online environment for European citizens.

As the #Fediverse, #Mastodon, and #ActivityPub continues to rapidly grow in popularity, the #openweb cultural values at the heart of this outreach have been validated. Through continued grassroots community building and outreach efforts, radical activist have the potential to empower users and promote an inclusive, equitable, and sustainable online environment for all of us.

Please help tell this real life story https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/eu-outreach-if-we-dont-tell-our-story-am-not-sure-who-will/2950

A little about #openweb projects, the Fediverse

The Federated Web, or #Fediverse, is a decentralized #openweb project that allows people to communicate and share content across different servers.

* Decentralization: In a centralized platform, all data is stored and controlled by a single entity, which can lead to issues such as censorship, data breaches, and loss of control over data. In a half decentralized network like the Fediverse, no single entity controls all the network or the data.

* Privacy: Fediverse platforms generally place a strong emphasis on privacy and security, this is always a white lie, as it’s a #4opens project.

* Freedom of expression: In the Fediverse, there is no centralized authority that can censor content, so people have greater freedom of expression and can express themselves with less fear of censorship.

* Control over data: In the Fediverse, users have some control over their data and can choose to move it from one platform to another if they choose to do so.

* Customization: Fediverse platforms can be customized to suit the needs and preferences of uses, allowing for a more community infrastructure use.