Disadvantaged communities aren't broken things to be ‘fixed’ by outside experts – they are the source of solutions and are already engaged in their own liberation.
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Geeks for Social Change
@gfsc@sunbeam.city
mastodon 4.7.3Trans and disabled-led collective creating technology for community liberation.
657 Followers
197 Following
20 Posts
Joined May 13, 2026
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Everyone is already a tech person: a poster is technology, a well-run meeting is technology, and “I’m not a tech person” is a cultural barrier we want to break down.
“In a spectacular society, visibility does not emerge from existence but from the orientation toward power.” - Alice Sparkly Kat
All our power comes from our closeness to the big tech powers, the sun we orbit. What could it look like to resist the sun’s logic and make technology in the image of the moon? What would lunarpunk look like?
https://gfsc.community/towards-a-lunarpunk-practice-part-1-the-sun/?s=fedi-cache-bust
Big tech reduces people to ‘users’: a political act that enables capitalists to decide whose needs are worthy and whose are not, creating abstracted, homogenised units for selling monthly subscriptions to.
Shouldn't we ask: what is it people actually want to do and be?
How can we fully support people and communities holistically, and see them as more than customers to be sold or rented software?
“Patriarchal racial capitalism disenchants to kill. Extraction is a relationship possible only in a world proclaimed always already dead (by the people doing the killing).” – Ines Tielas
“You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it.” – Scott McNealy, CEO of Sun Microsystems, 1999
Boosted by @GroupNebula563@mastodon.social
Mastodon: the potential:
Mastodon could be an excellent thing, but there’s a way to go. The governance prioritises features over community. The technology is decentralised, but the culture is monolithic. Discussion is often about protocol and the platform itself, but not about community safety or accessibility.
https://gfsc.community/why-we-discontinued-our-mastodon-server/
Surveillance is not Safety
Technology like Oxevision comes from warfare, intelligence and the criminal justice system.
When it spreads across society it brings increased securitisation and coercion.
It’s not random that technology designed to extract, analyse or learn from data is introduced in settings where there are existing coercive practices.
https://gfsc.community/how-health-technology-is-replacing-care-with-surveillance/
Geeks for Social Change's podcast has returned this month with an in-depth interview with Rachel Collinson of the donor whisperer, discussing winnable battles and winnable campaigns in a world which sometimes feels full of defeat.
You can find it on all good podcast platforms, or on Spotify if you must.
Hello! My name is Blue and I’m working with GFSC as an intern over the summer. In this blog I’ll talk about how technology is used in health and social care, why that’s a problem and how approaches led by GFSC such as community technology partnership can make a difference. The internship is funded by the Digital Good Network – a research network that focuses on “what a good digital society should look like and how we get there”.
https://gfsc.community/how-health-technology-is-replacing-care-with-surveillance/
How to Release your Game:
Making a video game is easier than ever, if you have the time and the energy, but how do you release it into the world, put it up for sale and get it noticed?
A new piece on the finishing touches, the publicity, release, events and awards.
https://gfsc.community/sell-the-sizzle-not-the-sausage-how-to-release-your-game/
Big tech, especially Meta, is synonymous with queer and trans organising.
To be blunt: queer and trans people's entire social lives are now technologically mediated by billionaires who hate trans and queer people and make enormous political donations to make our lives worse. And those who don't want to use it can expect to get socially isolated fast.
Is there any way out of this Full Meta Jacket?
Sell the sizzle, not the sausage!
How to release your first game:
Don't just tell people about your game Show them the excitement of it, the delight of it.
If the game-play is fun – and it should be –let them see enough to imagine playing it.
No amount of specs, stats and accolades stir the heart like the prospect of play.
https://gfsc.community/sell-the-sizzle-not-the-sausage-how-to-release-your-game/
Whenever we write about PlaceCal, this is who I imagine.
Kim spoke to Rachel Collinson, author of The Giving Code, about her work helping charities find the right donors, the boring admin which is necessary to effect social change, and her role in bringing down Wonga.
You can read the full piece on our blog, or find it on the revived Geeks for Social Change podcast, findable in all the usual podcast places.
https://gfsc.community/the-donor-whisperer-an-interview-with-rachel-collinson/
Hey! Today's a great day to support a trans led org working towards a better future that relies entirely on donations, just saying 😊 We have had the worst run recently on funding apps so all support gratefully received!
The power of empire is the power of the sun.
The sun’s power is literally extraterrestrial, singular, distant, with everything oriented towards it and drawing power from it.
So it is with tech: everything we do is oriented around the biggest sites, the tech giants, the billionaires.
https://gfsc.community/towards-a-lunarpunk-practice-part-1-the-sun/
Digital and Datafied Services
Accessing health and social care services is increasingly mediated by technology.
There’s a strong emphasis on transforming services from analogue to digital.
This policy translates to a gold rush for the private sector to extract and exploit public health data in the community, in hospitals and in people’s homes.
https://gfsc.community/how-health-technology-is-replacing-care-with-surveillance/
How health technology is replacing care with #surveillance
#Oxevision is an infrared camera and sensors, mounted in a box in the ceiling of patients' bedrooms.
“It felt like staff would be sat in the office with a bucket of popcorn watching all the patients like a human zoo.”
Oxevision is intrusive, coercive and not fit for purpose.
https://gfsc.community/how-health-technology-is-replacing-care-with-surveillance/
How health technology is replacing care with surveillance
Surveillance technology in health and social care like Oxevision is intrusive, coercive and not fit for purpose, and much of its development links to warfare. Why is it being commissioned, and where could we find alternatives?
A new piece by Blue: https://gfsc.community/how-health-technology-is-replacing-care-with-surveillance/
Before you release your game:
Before you unleash it upon the world, ask yourself this: if you perish tonight, would this be sufficient as your only legacy?
It doesn't need to be perfect. I doesn't even need to be all that good! But it does need to have your vibe, or at least a vibe which stirs your heart.
https://gfsc.community/sell-the-sizzle-not-the-sausage-how-to-release-your-game/