To Whom It May Concern,

I am Hamish Campbell, a UK-based media professional, long-time participant in the independent media movement, and advocate for #4opens, federated, and trust-based communication networks.

I am writing to express my support for the #datweb project, which I see as a needed step toward rebalancing the web away from centralized control and enclosure.

Over the past 30 years working within grassroots and activist media, from the early days of Indymedia through to my current work with the #OMN (Open Media Network), I’ve witnessed both the power and fragility of our digital commons. Centralized platforms and corporate hosting have repeatedly shown themselves to be brittle, censorable, and extractive. In contrast, peer-to-peer, distributed technologies could, when embedded in social tech projects, have potential to restore autonomy and resilience to how communities publish and share information.

The datweb approach – a browser-based method for decentralised content distribution – offers something rare and valuable: practical accessibility. By enabling secure, resilient publishing directly within the web interface, it lowers the barrier for journalists, small collectives, and under-resourced communities who can’t rely on proprietary software or heavy infrastructure. This kind of bridging simplicity ( #KISS) and openness (#4opens) is what’s is needed to build trust-based, human-scale systems to empower rather than control.

In my experience, technology alone doesn’t create freedom – culture and governance matter just as much. The datweb project’s openness to community engagement and interoperability makes it a strong candidate for alignment with wider #openweb efforts and grassroots media networks seeking to build from the bottom up rather than impose from the top down.

I endorse this project and I am willing to contribute further advice, feedback, and collaboration to ensure its development remains grounded in real-world publishing needs and in the ethics of shared stewardship rather than institutional control.

Sincerely,
Hamish Campbell
Journalist, media activist, technologist, and advocate for the Open Media Network ( #OMN)
http://hamishcampbell.com