Social media software encodes structure into how communities are organized.
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Social media software encodes structure into how communities are organized.
If the software is hierarchical, the community will be hierarchical. There’s no way around that unless everyone literally operates their own nodes.
And that’s where the real vulnerability lies. If you don’t run your own server, you’re not sovereign. You’re donating your content to someone else’s machine and trusting that their standards, moderation, and moods won’t turn against you. Ideals won’t protect you if the design itself makes you dependent.
If you really care about a sense of ownership, then you should be running your own server. That’s what freedom of association actually means. It isn’t allegiance. Allegiance locks you in. Association multiplies your choices—pick a server that matches your values, or start your own. That’s the entire point of federation.
So let’s not pretend mass platforms or wide-open instances are some higher form of democracy. They aren’t. They’re just populism sitting on top of hierarchy.
The lowest common denominator gets to shout “this is the people,” while the actual levers of control stay exactly where they’ve always been—with whoever holds the keys.
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Social media software encodes structure into how communities are organized.
If the software is hierarchical, the community will be hierarchical. There’s no way around that unless everyone literally operates their own nodes.
And that’s where the real vulnerability lies. If you don’t run your own server, you’re not sovereign. You’re donating your content to someone else’s machine and trusting that their standards, moderation, and moods won’t turn against you. Ideals won’t protect you if the design itself makes you dependent.
If you really care about a sense of ownership, then you should be running your own server. That’s what freedom of association actually means. It isn’t allegiance. Allegiance locks you in. Association multiplies your choices—pick a server that matches your values, or start your own. That’s the entire point of federation.
So let’s not pretend mass platforms or wide-open instances are some higher form of democracy. They aren’t. They’re just populism sitting on top of hierarchy.
The lowest common denominator gets to shout “this is the people,” while the actual levers of control stay exactly where they’ve always been—with whoever holds the keys.
@atomicpoet I would argue that running social media as a democratically run association does mitigate hierarchy to a large extent. Especially if there are mechanisms to immediately hold decisionmakers accountable or, as in our case hold yearly reviews of the organization, it's bylaws/constitution, finances and performance.
I would like to think future developments could create even more participatory structures. But for now I'm very happy with what is happening with @konstellationen
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@atomicpoet I would argue that running social media as a democratically run association does mitigate hierarchy to a large extent. Especially if there are mechanisms to immediately hold decisionmakers accountable or, as in our case hold yearly reviews of the organization, it's bylaws/constitution, finances and performance.
I would like to think future developments could create even more participatory structures. But for now I'm very happy with what is happening with @konstellationen
@jonben @konstellationen Not arguing with that. I’m in the exploratory stages of starting a co-op. But the only way that works is if you deal with governance structures. -
@jonben @konstellationen Not arguing with that. I’m in the exploratory stages of starting a co-op. But the only way that works is if you deal with governance structures.
@atomicpoet @jonben @konstellationen I'm also twisting my brain around how to get a co-op off the ground. (Although for cloud, docs and email) to get people off gmail et Ali.
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@atomicpoet @jonben @konstellationen I'm also twisting my brain around how to get a co-op off the ground. (Although for cloud, docs and email) to get people off gmail et Ali.
@leanderlindahl @atomicpoet Sounds like a good direction, maybe the work that the good people at Collective.tools are doing would be worth checking out? @konstellationen
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@leanderlindahl @atomicpoet Sounds like a good direction, maybe the work that the good people at Collective.tools are doing would be worth checking out? @konstellationen
@jonben @leanderlindahl @atomicpoet @konstellationen also check out @datacoop , a danish co-op
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@jonben @leanderlindahl @atomicpoet @konstellationen also check out @datacoop , a danish co-op
@samuel @jonben @atomicpoet @konstellationen @datacoop this is super interesting! My "vision" is for a coop to be able to offer small accounts for free (like Google, MS and apple do) and then offer increased storage, custom domain etc for a cost (like Google, ms and apple do), to get people off big tech and onto European services. It should be feasible.
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@samuel @jonben @atomicpoet @konstellationen @datacoop this is super interesting! My "vision" is for a coop to be able to offer small accounts for free (like Google, MS and apple do) and then offer increased storage, custom domain etc for a cost (like Google, ms and apple do), to get people off big tech and onto European services. It should be feasible.
@leanderlindahl @jonben @atomicpoet @konstellationen @datacoop it is totallt possible! But my main advice is to first a small group (3-8 people) that are onboard. The technical bit is one thing but to make it sustainable you have to find a sound, clear and democratic and transparent governance.
The main question you always should ask when doing stuff like this: if I get sick or get into an accident, how will/can the organozation continue to function?
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@leanderlindahl @jonben @atomicpoet @konstellationen @datacoop it is totallt possible! But my main advice is to first a small group (3-8 people) that are onboard. The technical bit is one thing but to make it sustainable you have to find a sound, clear and democratic and transparent governance.
The main question you always should ask when doing stuff like this: if I get sick or get into an accident, how will/can the organozation continue to function?
@leanderlindahl @jonben @atomicpoet @datacoop we at @konstellationen are just following the long running tradition of "folkrörelseorganisering" (people movement organization) which usually means forming a non profit organization that is member based and has anual meetings, an elected board on so on. All quite standard bylaws:
https://konstellationen.org/stadgar/
In Sweden there are now great online resources for how to start and org like this:
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@leanderlindahl @jonben @atomicpoet @datacoop we at @konstellationen are just following the long running tradition of "folkrörelseorganisering" (people movement organization) which usually means forming a non profit organization that is member based and has anual meetings, an elected board on so on. All quite standard bylaws:
https://konstellationen.org/stadgar/
In Sweden there are now great online resources for how to start and org like this:
@leanderlindahl @jonben @atomicpoet @datacoop @konstellationen one could also form a regular economic co-op, "ekonomisk förening", which is a bit more like a democratic company.
Kind of depends on what you want to do.
Let us know if/when you are serious on starting a co-op and we can help out by pointing you in the right way!
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@leanderlindahl @jonben @atomicpoet @datacoop @konstellationen one could also form a regular economic co-op, "ekonomisk förening", which is a bit more like a democratic company.
Kind of depends on what you want to do.
Let us know if/when you are serious on starting a co-op and we can help out by pointing you in the right way!
@samuel @leanderlindahl @jonben @atomicpoet @konstellationen We will also happily share experiences and answer questions. Both when it comes to organising and all the practical stuff.
While it's not 100% plug and play, most of our infrastructure is defined in code and waiting to be cloned/forked by others who want to do the same. We can probably arrange an introduction to the code with our admin team if needed: https://git.data.coop/data.coop/
