mastodon 4.5.18working for a value-based economy, helping people and organisations to join the transition and build a human centred digital age.
Co-founder of Free Knowledge Institute, femProcomuns cooperative, Meet.coop, CommonsCloud, TTN.cat/XOIC.coop. Fellow @ Commons Network, former director PublicSpaces.net.
#commons #digitalcommons #cooperative #sustainability #businessmodels #FreeCulture #holochain #iot #LibreSoftware #OpenSource #SovereignTech #DigitalAutonomy #PublicSpaces #DemocraticTech #DTF
RE: https://social.coop/@Wtebbens/116992673882266783
Bonfire has evolved into an incredible toolset to build your own Connected Community Space. What long has been a promise is now showing off in three new communities:
Bonfire for Communities (https://bonfirenetworks.org/posts/bonfire-for-communities/) is a promising piece of your solution if you consider designing your own socials.
Our democracies are under attack by authoritarian tech, tech monopolies, Big Tech corporations that extract enormous amounts of value from the users, manipulate them and is "enshittified" as @pluralistic@mamot.fr reminds us.
Our answer is: Democratic Tech -but hey, you ask what's that exactly?
Here's a long article tracking the origins of the term, https://freeknowledge.eu/democratic-technology-building-alternatives-to-techno-auhtoritarianism
TLDR:
Of the different connotations of "democratic tech" we understand it as commons, where a community takes care for the tech they use; it is tech that is under their ownership or control, instead of the tech (and its distant owners) taking control over the community. So we go beyond mere "civic tech" or "democratising access to tech".
I think this is pertinent in this time when our democracies are under attack by so called "authoritarian tech".
Here's a really insightful post by @Framasoft@framapiaf.org's Pierre-Yves Gosset about the French Government DINUM and their La Suite project. In French, translated: "The Digital Suite of the State: Criticism of Criticism."
TLDR: They comment the various criticisms and are generally very positive about this state run project.
https://framablog.org/2026/03/19/la-suite-numerique-de-letat-critique-des-critiques/
Really cool is their history slider of free software and the state: https://misc.frama.org/frise-etat-numerique-libre/
That said, note also the cooperative version @LaSuiteCoop@mastodon.indie.host which just opened membership signups. They aim to make La Suite as #DemocraticTech Excited about that!
This report by Laurens Hof (from the @fediversereport) about the purpose of protocols is really insightful. Good that @nlnet@social.nlnet.nl has provided support for this work.
About AT protocol and ActivityPub, and values (not) defined in the protocol.
His conclusions: "An open protocol that does not answer the governance question will still receive an answer, but it will be written by whichever actors make themselves indispensable first."
Today the Germans celebrate #DIday again, as it is the first Sunday of the month.
I love the "recipes for change" being documented here: https://di.day/de/wechselrezepte
Checkout the events today and the next 1st Sundays of the month.
Together towards digital autonomy, or "digital interdependence" at https://di.day
Time for the next #DIday the first Sunday of every month. See the German events here: https://events.diday.org/ (Mobilizon)
Meanwhile you can check the switch recipes: https://di.day/en/digital-switch-recipes and find yourself a decent challenge for the coming month.
If you help people to join the fedi, here's Everything to join the #Fediverse nicely listed and linked, @jointhefediverse@linksta.cc
Yesterday it became public that #Bluesky has secretly got an additional 100 million US$ investment from venture capital investors. They kept it hidden for almost a year.
https://techcrunch.com/2026/03/19/bluesky-announces-100m-series-b-after-ceo-transition/
VC money generally requires a serious return on investment, so they must have plans to extract it from users, and, so it seems, from advertisers.
If it wasn't clear yet, the path to #enshittification lies ahead.
It is also clear from the @fediversereport@mastodon.social that the AT protocol itself doesn't guarantee the avoidance of centralisation, or these kinds of extractivist business models.
Can we please help our friends who are at BS wake up from the inminent dangers? And while at it, help them join the Fedi.
Have a good Friday :-)
#NoVC #rtm @DigitalCoup@fedigroups.social
Aurora Gomez @tunubesecamirio@masto.es urges us to leave #TechnoOptimism behind, in the discussion about big data centres with empty promises to "create jobs" and to solve the electricity and water needs. We already know that these promises are false. In reality people loose their land, ecosystems die because of lack of (good) water. We have seen this happen in many places around the world.
These data centres are generally used for extractive data business models and not rrally for the local economy.
Session: Communities resisting #datacentres also with Paola Ricaurte and Agustí Emperador @ecologistas@mastodon.social
At #msc26 #mobilesocialcongress2026 at @canodrom@social.barcelona
Today is a special day for my mother and me, the day that she became mother.
If there is anything I'd wish as a birthday present, it'd be the reduction of suffering inflicted by authoritarian leaders, ignorant politicians, selfish extreme wealthy families and their CEOs. Maybe too much to ask?
In that case, I'd be happy helping just a single person in their transition away from them, towards collective digital autonomy ;-) Every day 1 person, who can help liberate their community, and so on.
PD I'm happy that my mother is on Signal, and critical of bigtech
"Artificial intelligence is an extractive technology that relies on the brutal labor of underpaid workers around the world. For years, the work of African data labelers has been more or less “ghost work,” the unseen, hidden labor that lets American tech companies build their products."
'AI Is African Intelligence': The Workers Who Train AI Are Fighting Back
https://www.blackagendareport.com/ai-african-intelligence-workers-who-train-ai-are-fighting-back
By @jasonkoebler@mastodon.social
#AI #DataLabelers #extractivism #colonialism @DigitalCoup@fedigroups.social
Senator Bernie Sanders asking Claude about the dangers of AI.
