Convener: Jamie (@jat23@aoir.social)

Participants who chose to record their names here:

• Eric Fassbender (@fassbender@sciences.social)
• @jdp23@neuromatch.social
• Georgia Mountford-Blake (@georgiagemo@mastodon.social)
• Chris (@sturmsucht@mastodon.social)
• Varun (@vsanth@mastodon.social)
• Melanie Bartos (@melaniebartos@chaos.social)
• Babette Knauer (@babetteknauer@mastodon.social)
• Denise Duncan (@Koollegged@mastodon.social)

Notes

Key points

• decentralization doesn’t inherently resist surveillance capitalism and data capitailsim, although it creates the posssibilities for an alternative.
• look to structures like collectives, coops, community businesses – not just fediverse, not just online
• how to change incentives?
• how to keep the good things that are currently enabled by surveillance capitalism-based networks, without the surveillance capitialism?
• question of how to engage with surveillance capitalism: work with it, oppositional, both?
• not primarily a technical problem, it’s political
• a lot of the energy is from Europe. Make sense, since surveillance capitaism is US-focused!

Links

• Closing the Door to Remain Open: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/20563051241308323
• https://adriennemareebrown.net/book/emergent-strategy/ and https://www.elysian.press/p/social-companies-like-mondragon
• In Our Hands: https://www.civilsociety.co.uk/voices/steve-wyler-why-the-history-of-community-business-matters-so-much-today.html
• https://www.elysian.press/p/social-companies-like-mondragon
• https://www.theengineroom.org/library/new-report-exploring-a-transition-to-alternative-social-media-platforms-for-social-justice-organizations-in-the-majority-world/
• https://privacy.thenexus.today/embrace-extend-and-exploit/
• Free Fediverse wiki - https://freefediverse.org/index.php/Main_Page

Details

We always advertise federated social media as being algorithm-free. Also, fediverse is easy to harvest - balancing against desire for discovery

What does it look like to resist surveillance capitalism, how to expand our possibilities, what are the problems that come? What’s possible? What isn’t possible, what do we come up against … how do we critique? Ever more relevant with Bluesky, Meta joining the fediverse and people who are actively pro – or at least ambivalent.

Decentralized social networking protocol - changing incentives, how do the incentive structures representthemselves in code and how to modify that.

I had blocked Threads, but an interview with Cory led to changing positions.

In Seattle, very big tech focused. Interesting time, sseeing big tech crumbling. On the topic of surveillance capitalism, impressed with some of the things we’ve been able to do with the mass surveillance and extractive behavior. How can we preserve some of the good stuff, e.g. the way algorithms know you so well they can produce right stuff, especially identify-affirming content and like-minded connections, incredibly accurate and insighful algorithmic matchmaking - is there a way to do that without the surveillance aspects? What do we lose if we get rid of it all – personalized ads have led me to great products, events, etc. - can we reverse engineer and make the same outcome but privately and safely, local-first data analysis maybe?

Main challenge I/we face when talking about grandiose endeavors: one of the great problems with politics is indifference. It’s not a big deal to most people. As grandiose a vision is fighting surveillance capitalism can be, it’s limited by itself - an intersectional fight that can’t be decoupled from racism, homophobia, etc. The groups we need to fuel the fire are exactly those acticist groups who promote their marches and actions on Instagram; popular parcipation isn’t yet on the fediverse. In concrete ways: breaking the spiral. With the non-profit funding crisis, where does the money come from? Social Web Foundation gets funding from Meta, we do have to pay our bills, how to break the cycle? Collectives, organizing movements, cooperatives .. important to operate within capitalist business but still https://www.elysian.press/p/social-companies-like-mondragon

Dutch universities largely dependent on big tech

A fight against data capitalism . Connected to political demands on a global scale – anti-democratic. It’s about resisting as well as fighting. Not just using the tools, also political standards on open communications for being part of a scoiety. What do we as citizens demand from public instituations?

Ecosystems are set up in a way were surveillance capitalsm works more effectively – health care inthe US.

In our hands – community run business, for the people by the people. In this world it seems unthinkable that people would do it for each other out of the goodness of their heart. Other paradigms that break people’s minds. We need to have new ways of explaining this. ??? on YouTube did a piece on surveillance capitalism. Small changes, .Need to take a long-term focus.

https://adriennemareebrown.net/book/emergent-strategy/ makes this point https://bookwyrm.social/book/4342/s/emergent-strategy

Are we really away from surveillance captialism?

(I missed some stuff here, sorry – problems) <– italics notes below = my attempt to fill the gap

• decentralization doesnt inherently protect privacy since data is still open ie in mastodon your social grpahc is public via its API
• resiting surveillance capitalism not only about who owns the platform but how the software is structured
• algorithms that drive connections of suggestions follow certain design logiccs that can be examined for ethical considerations

There’s been a blueprint for a non-hierarchical internet for years, why do we still have it hierarchically? Technology was ornizongal ffrom the beginning. The problem is about the political perception and how those technologies are used.

Legislative aspects in Europe: Digital Markets Act, Digital Services Act. DSA holds platforms accountable for illegal content, Very Large Online Platforms and search engines . Meta is positioning themselves as pro-regulation to protect the kdis. Big tech pays fines as cost of doing business, DSA allows for fines of up to 6% of global annual turnover.