I know many people who are aware of the importance of #FreedomRespecting software, data, and culture - and the related issues of digital sovereignty and privacy.
Paradoxically, a lot of these people also participate in, or even maintain, communities hosted on #nonfree / #proprietary / #restricted or #centralized platforms like #Telegram, #Discord, #WhatsApp, #Signal, #Instagram, #Facebook, #Twitter, #LinkedIn, #Bluesky, #GitHub, and others.
To state the obvious, each community which chooses a proprietary platform - or bridges to it - is also giving another reason for others to be on that platform. It’s reinforcing network effect.
Conversely, if these communities chose to move to free platforms, their members would be forced to move as well. In other words, these communities have the opportunity to push for change on a massive scale.
Sure, you have to reach out to people on proprietary platforms, if that’s where the majority are. But you cannot be stopping there - you must have a strategy to move people away from proprietary platforms to free platforms.
To give the example of #OpenStreetMap -
- I announce events on free platforms sooner
- I remind people on proprietary platforms that they should join the free platforms to get notified earlier
- After each event, we invite people to our #XMPP channel, which is not bridged to any other platform.
- All organizational talk takes place on our XMPP channel, which is not bridged to any other platform.
- I minimize my participation on proprietary platforms, and communities which bridge to them. The bulk of my activity happens on free platforms.
- I have never submitted data to Mapillary or KartaView, because their clients and servers are proprietary. All my contributions go to #WikimediaCommons and #Panoramax.
So to the people who are choosing - and therefore promoting - proprietary platforms, I ask…
How do you think things are going to change, if everyone keeps choosing what is easiest for them, and keeps choosing, supporting, and promoting proprietary platforms?
What part are you playing in making things better? Or are you just going to go with the flow of the world, even if you know it to be wrong?
They don’t like answering these questions, but I invite them to find the integrity and courage to answer them all the same.
Or, to find the integrity and courage to make the obvious change and do the obvious right thing.
People hate it when I bring this up. Sorry, but my conscience dictates that I speak up for what is right. Silence is complicity, and it gets us nowhere.
