Tuesday, May 7, 2013

FUTURE SOCIAL NETWORKING

Everyone complains about Facebook - the way it organises your feeds is based around profits - in the future social networks will be owned by the users & designed by the users, to work for the benefit of the users. 

Arguably the competitive global economy had its advantages in the past - but in Information & Communication Technologies we see, time & again, that the competitive model is utterly unworkable - we all use Facebook, because that's where everyone is. We all use the same operating systems to maximise compatibility. We all use Google because we only need one search engine. We all use wikipedia because we only need one user-updated encyclopaedia.

That last example is an example to all the others, as it is open-source and not owned by blood-sucking capitalist exploiters. When the emerging global community has found its voice we will demand the liberation of the means of distribution & communication from the hands of private companies, who will always prioritise profits over the user experience.

Its inevitable! But you can help set the wheels in motion .. join this Facebook group, contribute & share ...
 a place for people who recognise this to express their support, and for those with vision & expertise to discuss how it might be implemented ...
https://www.facebook.com/groups/futuresocialnetworking/

SOME INITIAL REACTIONS TO THIS PAGE & MY REPLIES ...

JON: "Its a good idea mate. But tbh this debate took place around the use of social media in the arab spring uprisings. I agree with you that downloading CIA spyware in the form of Facebook is probably a bad idea and that the internet should be owned in common. But a demand for liberation of the means of distribution and communication would be laughed off the internet if it wasn't accompanied by a real mass movement on the streets (a la Egypt, wwhich still has some way to go undoubtedly). Social media is just an organising tool, not an end in itself. In my humble opinion."

JOSH: "I'm not thinking anything will happen overnight, but there is increasing support on the virtual streets for progressive ideas such as this, and forums for discussing such things are essential, if we are to move the discussion beyond pointless political theorising into the development of workable & tested alternative infrastructures & experimental micro-economies. 

I have chosen social networks as an example, 'cause everyone here, on Facebook, has opinions on the subject - thus I thought it would be a good subject to gauge support for the concept of collective ownership of the means of communication & distribution, and to open out the cyclical discussions I encounter on political forums - people are fond of various ideas about how change might occur, but there can be no forward movement without these suggestions being implemented and tested on micro scale. 

Disaster notwithstanding, in 120 years time the Earth will have an entirely new populace, born into a highly evolved global community. I feel a certain responsibility not to give up hope on global political reform manifesting a better future for our children's children, by strengthening the development of the global voice in any small way I can, and by promoting the establishment of alternative infrastructures, so that, should our decendents take to the streets, virtual or otherwise, there is something there that works in place to stop the same patterns occurring again after the old systems are laid to waste.

Basically I feel that if one doesn't support alternatives to Capitalism on the basis that they currently seem unlikely, then one is implicitly acknowledging that capitalism is the best possible system(which I don't think it is) which is being a Capitalist (which I know I am not). 

And .. if we are to self-organise ? Then organising tools are precisely the weapons we need to liberate first

You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. An' all that"

TAMSIN: "Back in 2005/6/7 I was involved in a site called UKBands.net as content editor - we were a 'social networking' site even before the term was coined - things went well until first myspace and then this awful place essentially blasted us out of the water with their financial backing - we tried to compete - got ripped off and mucked around - were offered spurious investment that didn't appear - oh - all sort, much too long-winded a story to go into here.... suffice it to say, it was a wonderful little community, (by today's standards; with around 30,000 subscribers) and had all the potential to go onto much bigger and better things.... we weren't the only people at it in those days - but once corporate culture got wind of idea, there was no looking back... we simply couldn't compete. Shame."

JOSH: "Capitalism is the dominant ethos. It sucks"

Josh x