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Just discovered a second podcast called Decentered (the name of the @wedistribute podcast). Listening to their fantastic interview with @rabble from Nos.social. Where he talks a lot less about the history of Titter, and a lot more about the history of Indymedia, and his more recent work with decentralised social media;
https://decentered.co.uk/building-participatory-media-with-evan-henshaw-plath-aka-rabble/
#podcasts #Decentered #TechHistory #Indymedia #IndependentMedia #decentralisation
"But there's also this weird reality where 20-30 years ago everybody on the left were the free speech absolutists. We wanted to democratise speech, and we did. And we empowered everybody to participate in stuff.
Then a bunch of people who we didn't realise were also being silenced by mainstream corporate media, used the tools we were creating, and started saying stuff, and doing stuff. And that ... is super complicated."
@rabble, 2025
https://decentered.co.uk/building-participatory-media-with-evan-henshaw-plath-aka-rabble/
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"I think the answer isn't somehow, lets just ... silence the people we don't like, and only give voice to the people we do like ... I think that systems that suppress speech like that are not the answer.
I think at the same time, we have to realise that there are people who are using speech, especially inauthentic, coordinated behaviour ... where the goal is not to make counterarguments, the goal is to use speech to silence other people's speech."
@rabble, 2025
https://decentered.co.uk/building-participatory-media-with-evan-henshaw-plath-aka-rabble/
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"A lot of people came off X and went onto BlueSky, and said 'oh this doesn't accord with our values', and I thought that was a huge mistake. Because you've given up the ground, and the good people need to be in the place where people are."
#RobWatson, 2025
https://decentered.co.uk/building-participatory-media-with-evan-henshaw-plath-aka-rabble/
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This comment folds in so many assumptions it would take a long form essay to properly unpack.
20 years ago similar arguments were being made for appealing to legacy corporate media for coverage, instead of publishing on the web. In both cases, corporate media platforms are being framed as neutral agora, which they are not. They gatekeep who gets to see what, in both explicit and covert ways.
Because of the power of network effects, the "ground" is the people, not the platform. Everyone who moves from a corporate platform to a community-centric network makes it easier to do.
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