What can grassroots #openweb people actually do when the EU is building alternatives to #dotcons, but with very real risks of recreating European versions of the same problems? This is a historic moment, for the first time in decades public funding is flowing toward digital commons and infrastructure sovereignty is being taken seriously. Federated technologies like #ActivityPub are gaining traction, largely due to years of grassroots work which is leading to initiatives such as @NGICommons […]

What can grassroots #openweb people actually do when the EU is building alternatives to #dotcons, but with very real risks of recreating European versions of the same problems? This is a historic moment, for the first time in decades public funding is flowing toward digital commons and infrastructure sovereignty is being taken seriously. Federated technologies like #ActivityPub are gaining traction, largely due to years of grassroots work which is leading to initiatives such as @NGICommons […]

Across Europe, large-scale “mainstreaming” tech projects are increasingly shaping the future of the digital commons. From infrastructure initiatives to sovereign cloud strategies and federated social technologies, the EU tech stack is becoming more organised, more funded, and more institutionalised.

On the surface, this looks like progress. But history suggests that without active counter-currents, #mainstreaming inevitably drifts toward bureaucracy, risk-aversion, and quiet capture by […]

Across Europe, large-scale “mainstreaming” tech projects are increasingly shaping the future of the digital commons. From infrastructure initiatives to sovereign cloud strategies and federated social technologies, the EU tech stack is becoming more organised, more funded, and more institutionalised.

On the surface, this looks like progress. But history suggests that without active counter-currents, #mainstreaming inevitably drifts toward bureaucracy, risk-aversion, and quiet capture by […]

Everywhere we look - what we see, touch, and use - we are living inside systems shaped by decades of economic and technological assumptions. This isn’t only something happening “out there”. It has been normalised and internalised over the last forty years.

The dominance of #stupidindividualism, combined with rigid economic dogma, influenced how we design technology, how we organise communities, and how we imagine progress itself. The outcomes are now starkly visible: #climatechaos, […]

Everywhere we look - what we see, touch, and use - we are living inside systems shaped by decades of economic and technological assumptions. This isn’t only something happening “out there”. It has been normalised and internalised over the last forty years.

The dominance of #stupidindividualism, combined with rigid economic dogma, influenced how we design technology, how we organise communities, and how we imagine progress itself. The outcomes are now starkly visible: #climatechaos, […]

What’s really at stake here is power. The shift has to be away from private ownership and toward the commons - not just in licensing, but in governance, culture, and decision-making. The whole #OMN project is grounded in this understanding. It’s about building shared infrastructure that people can actually use, shape, and trust.

One of the great ironies of many “alternative” spaces is that people believe they’re resisting power, yet by locking everything down - secret decisions, […]

What’s really at stake here is power. The shift has to be away from private ownership and toward the commons - not just in licensing, but in governance, culture, and decision-making. The whole #OMN project is grounded in this understanding. It’s about building shared infrastructure that people can actually use, shape, and trust.

One of the great ironies of many “alternative” spaces is that people believe they’re resisting power, yet by locking everything down - secret decisions, […]

The new #NGO generation are in the process of the second sell-out of the #openweb these people are eather new or are comeing back to this "native" but have stepped stright into running the current reboot after the original grassroots path burned out and was pushed aside. This new “NGO generation” holds strong views, their perspective, is that they already lived through a catastrophic failure once, and they are determined not to repeat there version of it.

Their mostly blinded story goes […]

The new #NGO generation are in the process of the second sell-out of the #openweb these people are eather new or are comeing back to this "native" but have stepped stright into running the current reboot after the original grassroots path burned out and was pushed aside. This new “NGO generation” holds strong views, their perspective, is that they already lived through a catastrophic failure once, and they are determined not to repeat there version of it.

Their mostly blinded story goes […]

A few years ago, the liberation cats of the #Fediverse stopped talking to each other. Not only out of malice, mostly through burnout, distraction, and quiet withdrawal. Nature abhors a vacuum. Into that vacuum stepped the #NGO crew.

They didn’t “win” our spaces through better ideas, didn’t persuade anyone. They simply occupied every role that looked like coordination, representation, legitimacy that was funding-adjacency. That’s their native skill set, #NGO people don’t build […]

A few years ago, the liberation cats of the #Fediverse stopped talking to each other. Not only out of malice, mostly through burnout, distraction, and quiet withdrawal. Nature abhors a vacuum. Into that vacuum stepped the #NGO crew.

They didn’t “win” our spaces through better ideas, didn’t persuade anyone. They simply occupied every role that looked like coordination, representation, legitimacy that was funding-adjacency. That’s their native skill set, #NGO people don’t build […]

A bunch of native #openweb people spent real time, energy, and focus pushing the #EU toward the #Fediverse. This wasn’t theoretical, it wasn’t speculative, it wasn’t a #NGO whitepaper or a #VC funding pitch. It was practical outreach, grounded in working technology and lived experience, aimed at reducing Europe’s dependency on centralized corporate platforms.

One concrete moment of this work was the webinar organised between the European Commission and the ActivityPub community: […]

A bunch of native #openweb people spent real time, energy, and focus pushing the #EU toward the #Fediverse. This wasn’t theoretical, it wasn’t speculative, it wasn’t a #NGO whitepaper or a #VC funding pitch. It was practical outreach, grounded in working technology and lived experience, aimed at reducing Europe’s dependency on centralized corporate platforms.

One concrete moment of this work was the webinar organised between the European Commission and the ActivityPub community: […]

Published Date 1/24/15 7:42 AM

#Climatecamp is a clear example of the transition from alternative media to social media. When the Climate Change Movement began, #Indymedia was already in decline. At the first two Climate Camps, however, there was still a healthy Indymedia centre providing internet access, sustainable power, and shared computers.

There has always been tension between alternative media and outreach to traditional media. They compete with each other and, to a large extent, […]

This space has a long history. The #fediverse grew out of the “cats” of libertarianism and, to a lesser extent, anarchism - notably without the (O). That lineage mattered. It shaped the instincts of the space: suspicion of central authority, an emphasis on autonomy, and a belief that technical decentralisation could substitute for social and political process.

I wrote this a few years ago.

Today the landscape has shifted. This #openweb space is increasingly layered with #NGO capture and […]

This space has a long history. The #fediverse grew out of the “cats” of libertarianism and, to a lesser extent, anarchism - notably without the (O). That lineage mattered. It shaped the instincts of the space: suspicion of central authority, an emphasis on autonomy, and a belief that technical decentralisation could substitute for social and political process.

I wrote this a few years ago.

Today the landscape has shifted. This #openweb space is increasingly layered with #NGO capture and […]