#makinghistory — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #makinghistory, aggregated by home.social.
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Religion, mystery and the #openweb
I am not religious, but that does not mean religion is something that can only be dismissed as irrational, stupid or obsolete. There is a useful distinction between believing in a religion and understanding the social, cultural and philosophical work that religion has historically done. This matters for the #OMN because we are interested in how human beings make meaning, build communities and organise themselves when they don't have complete knowledge of the world. We don't know everything - […]https://hamishcampbell.com/religion-mystery-and-the-openweb/
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OMN: Activity, culture and why Soviet experiments matter
One of the interesting things about the history of the #Fediverse is how many of its ideas come from places that, at first glance, seem completely unrelated to social media or network technology. #ActivityPub is a good example - the word activity carries a much older intellectual history, including the work of Soviet psychologist Alexei Leontiev, who developed what became known as activity theory. His work grew out of the cultural-historical psychology of Lev Vygotsky and Alexander Luria, and […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-activity-culture-and-why-soviet-experiments-matter/
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The individual, is not, the starting point for the #OMN
One of the most useful ways to understand the mess we are in today is to ask a deceptively simple question - what comes first - the individual or the network? #Mainstreaming economics startes with the individual, were sociology, anthropology and related traditions start somewhere else - with relationships, institutions, communities and the social structures into which individuals are born. This difference matters enormously, when we start thinking about technology, politics, economics and […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-individual-is-not-the-starting-point-for-the-omn/
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Here is an excellent, thoughtful look at the chances of Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez getting elected as the next president of the United States:
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/14/opinion/aoc-president-woman-egg-freezing.html
Spoiler: her chances look good. One more quote:
"As we learned in 2008, when history says it’s your time, it’s your time."
copy: @renewedresistance #politics #MakingHistory #progress -
The #KISS #OMN path is about building practical, commons-based media tools now, not waiting for the perfect future.
Much of the mess - and endless #blocking - comes from ownership and control. We can sidestep some of this by putting media infrastructure firmly in the commons under the #4opens.
It won't fix #mainstreaming overnight, but it gives us space to build alternatives before the old systems catch up.
If you have resources, fund development. If you're technical, code. If you know UX, design. If you make media, tell the story.
This isn't theory. It's practical work for better social outcomes. Keep it simple. Keep it open. Build and use it.
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The #openweb needs diversity, not monoculture
The problems we face in the #openweb are often presented as technology problems. Which protocol, platform, licence, federation path, software? Which standard? These questions matter, but they are not the foundations of the problem. A lot of what we are seeing is really a cultural clash. Different parts of the alternative tech world have different ideas about what technology is for, who it should serve, how much control is acceptable, how open something needs to be, and how much compromise is […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-openweb-needs-diversity-not-monoculture/
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This summer #climatechaos
This summer, heat, fires, the soon to come winter floods and insurance withdrawals will make #climatechaos harder to treat as something happening somewhere else. For years, climate breakdown was framed as an activist issue, something discussed by environmental groups while mainstream politics carried on with business as usual. That is changing, people are experiencing the consequences: extreme heat, flooding, damaged homes, rising insurance costs, failing infrastructure and growing […]https://hamishcampbell.com/this-summer-climatechaos-is-mainstream/
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Grassroots #openweb infrastructure is need for a different future
For 50 years we have worshipped the #deathcult - endless growth, extraction, competition and individualism - and now we are living with the damage that this has done to our society and the living world. The current hard shift to the right won't fix any of this, it simply empowers the #nastyfew to surf the apocalypse while more and more of us are left fighting over the scraps. Blind hatred and political ignorance are not solutions. Neither is pretending that the past 50 years of "common […]https://hamishcampbell.com/grassroots-openweb-infrastructure-is-need-for-a-different-future/
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20 years of #dotcons selling libertarian individualism has pushed aside the collective politics that once made the #openweb revolutionary.
For 20 years the #geekproblem helped turn "left tech" into the #closedweb. That's a disaster we can't keep repeating.
No prat fights, we need alternatives: #IndymediaBack, #OMN, #OGB, #MakingHistory. To rebuild collective power.
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@setsly I might have put it back as a draft as have been storing up articles to publish when we start active dev of #makinghistory have 42 drafts ready in the cue - to create buzz and focus around the coding... so am free to focus on the UX and standards. Making tools we need #OMN
there are meany other articles you can read on the site https://hamishcampbell.com/engagement/
Or the site might just be overloaded, need funders to upgrade the server https://opencollective.com/open-media-network/projects/hcampbell
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UPDATE: I have now drafted 42 posts to come out in the autumn when we are coding #makinghistory they will come out under the #AskQ hashtag
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A seed for rebuilding, #makinghistory an example workflow https://hamishcampbell.com/makinghistory-an-example-workflow/
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The Fediverse is fun and growing, but it seems to kinda be on autopilot at the moment
Q, The #Fediverse seams to kinda be on autopilot at the moment - I miss the days when the community was more focused....A. I'd say it's growing and changing. From my window, there's a LOT happening. Many people are excited by the new stuff that's landing, while others are afraid of how those changes may rock the boat they're on. My solution is to build a bigger boat, because everyone needs the opportunity to be here. But that's understandably scary for those who want a very small, exclusive […] -
Compost the #techshit. Don't throw everything away—salvage what works.
Reuse code, protocols and knowledge instead of chasing endless #techchurn.
Build commons infrastructure. Simple, federated tools that communities can actually run themselves.
This is where the #OMN works: open standards, transparent governance, human moderation and shared ownership.
Document what works. Projects like #MakingHistory matter because movements lose hard-won knowledge when people move on. Living archives help communities avoid starting from zero.
Value maintenance over novelty. Healthy ecosystems need gardeners more than inventors. Keeping useful things working is often more important than creating new things.
Practice cooperation. Small habits - sharing work, documenting decisions, mentoring, resolving conflict - are how trust grows. Technology can support that, but it can't replace it.
Accept the long timescale. If dominant assumptions are changing, it will likely be gradual. Cultural shifts often happen over decades rather than months.
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How liberal media tries to “fix” liberal media
The current mess in media isn't that journalism has become biased, its always been, the problem is that the "progressive" #mainstreaming institutions trying to solve the crisis are still inside the assumptions that created it. Take the current liberal darling project Ground News, their promise is attractive: escape your filter bubble, compare left and right, become a more informed citizen. But notice the framing, the solution to broken media is… another layer of liberal media […]https://hamishcampbell.com/lets-look-at-how-liberal-media-tries-to-fix-liberal-media/
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We need to revive and maintain simple, reliable tools for metadata, feeds, trust and moderation - think old-school #Indymedia with modern plumbing.
One project is #MakingHistory: collaborative, living archives of communities. Not just news, but versioned storyboards.
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The mess, the Commons, and the Paths Out of Mess
https://hamishcampbell.com/the-deathcult-is-a-historical-metaphor/ We spend a lot of time talking about crises as if they're sudden events, they rarely are, crises are the outcome of decades of accumulated social, political, economic and technological choices. The challenge isn't simply understanding why societies enter periods of instability, it's understanding how they find their way back out again. History suggests something important - entering crisis is often easier than leaving it - […]https://hamishcampbell.com/the-mess-the-commons-and-the-paths-out-of-mess/
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Add this to the last article: hy Stories Matter on the #OMN
Facts matter, technology matters, governance matters. But people rarely change because they read theory, a specification or a list of features. People change because of stories, this is why storytelling is central to the #OMN path. A story gives people somewhere to stand, it connects ideas to lived experience.
Instead of explaining the #4opens as an abstract framework, tell the story of a community escaping a #dotcons platform by building trust on the #openweb. Instead of arguing about governance, tell the story of how a group solved a conflict through #OpenProcess. Instead of listing technical features, tell the story of someone who regained control of their community tech after years of platform lock-in.
Stories carry values, the last forty years of #mainstreaming have been held together by stories about competition, consumption and individual success. These stories have normalised the #deathcult, making extraction and enclosure feel like "common sense." We now need better stories about cooperation instead of competition, commons balancing ownership, about trust instead of surveillance. Stories about building rather than consuming.
The #Fediverse itself is a story, an accidental reboot of the #openweb that proves another internet is possible. It isn't perfect, but it demonstrates that people can build social infrastructure without billionaires directing the conversation.
The challenge is that the academics or the #geekproblem tell stories only to other, academics or geeks, technical and academic paths are important, but they don't inspire people to act, so we need stories that people can understand:
A neighbourhood rebuilding local media.
Boaters organising to defend the waterways as a commons.
Communities escaping the #dotcons.
Volunteers composting #techchurn into useful tools.
Ordinary people discovering that they can build infrastructure together.
These stories become shared memory, shared memory becomes culture, culture shapes "common sense." and changing common sense is how lasting social change happens. So don't just build software or academic theory, tell stories that help people imagine themselves as part of a healthier #openweb.
#OMN #FOSS #openweb #4opens #ActivityPub #Fediverse #commons #DIY #makinghistory
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Why #FOSS matters socially
The internet didn't become broken overnight, it drifted from being a network of communities into a marketplace dominated by platforms whose purpose is extracting value. This is the logic of #dotcons most of us invested our lives and community into. How did we get into this mess? The problem isn't only bad companies, it's that our digital lives depend entirely on proprietary #dotcons paths and software, commercial interests end up controlling our reality. This is why #FOSS (Free and Open […] -
Social justice movements don’t start from the top. They grow from the ground, from people and communities affected by injustice who organise, experiment and build change.
To grow these movements wider, we need spaces that allow open and unexpected connections. The #openweb and #fediverse matter because they create room for communication, outside corporate and state control.
Projects like #OMN and #indymediaback are about rebuilding these grassroots networks as commons.
History matters too. Movements need memory. If we forget past struggles, working practices and victories, every generation has to start again. Projects like #makinghistory preserve the knowledge that lets future movements learn and grow.
There is also the constant challenge of co-option. Funding and institutions slowly reshape movements, changing their culture and priorities. Staying independent is difficult - but history shows it is possible.
We need both the spiky and the fluffy paths, change comes from growing alternatives while pushing back against the systems that create the problems.
#OMN #indymediaback #4opens #openweb #fediverse #commons #activism #socialjustice
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Mit der Initiative „FAU sucht Frau“ versuchte die anarcho-syndikalistische Gewerkschaft Freie Arbeiter*innen-Union Anfang der 2000er Jahre, mehr Frauen* in den eigenen Reihen zu organisieren. Vera Bianchi stellt die die Initiative vor und diskutiert die Bedeutung linker Geschichte.
Ihr Buchbeitrag erschien 2025 im Sammelband „Making History, Zur Geschichte von links und zur Geschichte von Linken“.
FAU sucht Frau – Making History am Beispiel einer Initiative der 2000er Jahre
Vortrag und Diskussion mit Vera Bianchi
Freitag, 18 Uhr, Raum 1
» https://abm26.anarchie-mannheim.de/de/abm26/public/events/10
#abm2026 #Anarchismus #Mannheim #AnarchistischeBuchmesse #FAU #Frauen #Rückblick #MakingHistory #Anarchosyndicalismus #VeraBianchi
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#OMN Grounding (the roots as a story)
#techchurn is the endless cycle of adopting new platforms, tools, and technologies - not because they solve any real problems, but because novelty is mistaken for progress. It burns community trust, institutional memory, and activist energy, while leaving the underlying #nastyfew power structures untouched.https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=techchurn The #OMN uses #stupidindividualism to describe the culturally manufactured habit of prioritising personal gain and self-interest over collective […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-grounding-the-roots-as-a-story/
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#makinghistory is the practice of grassroots communities reclaiming the tools and spaces to document, preserve, and tell their own stories - rather than leaving history to be written by those in power - using open, decentralised technology to build living archives that compost the past into fuel for present and future organising.
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Why you should help
The internet's public square is privatised, algorithmically controlled for "engagement" over any idea of truth, and placed under the control of a handful of American corporations with no accountability to European citizens or values. The #Fediverse is the most credible existing alternative - but it lacks the shared infrastructure to function as a native commons for news and media. #OMN builds that infrastructure: trust-based, community-controlled, transparent, reversible, and owned by nobody. […] -
Do you remember when technology felt like a way forward?
Do you remember when tech felt like a way forward? That moment’s gone on the mainstream #closedweb path. What we’ve got now is something else entirely. Tools like Palantir and Project Maven aren’t about truth or insight. They’re excuse generators. Power does what it wants, then points to “the data” as cover. That’s the product. And the people building this? Still cosplaying as the good guys, well-paid servants of the #nastyfew, wrapped in the fading myth of being “freedom […]https://hamishcampbell.com/do-you-remember-when-technology-felt-like-a-way-forward/
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Let’s try and simplify the #OMN
The #OMN Framework: The Five Functions (#5F) The #OMN is simple flows, not platforms, it’s a way of thinking about media as flows of objects moving through a network. People shape the flow, you can find a more technical view to read after here. A human-scale, federated media infrastructure built on #FOSS practices and the #4opens: open data open source open process open standards It doesn’t start with features, apps, or ideology, it starts with flows. Imagine the network as: pipes […] -
OMN: Broken Institutions, and the Need to Rebuild the Commons
For progressive and radical people, one of the central political questions of our time is simple to ask but hard to answer - Why is it so difficult to rebuild the institutions that were destroyed in our #deathcult worship of the 1980s and 1990s? And more importantly why does the impossibility of rebuilding them make it so hard to change the needed balance of power in society? These question matters for working on the future of the society and most importantly the grassroots part of this: […]https://hamishcampbell.com/omn-broken-institutions-and-the-need-to-rebuild-the-commons/
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It’s the compost from which new movements grow. #makinghistory an example workflow https://hamishcampbell.com/makinghistory-an-example-workflow/
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Europe, the Fediverse, and the story we failed to tell
A bunch of native #openweb people spent real time, energy, and focus pushing the #EU toward the #Fediverse. This wasn’t theoretical, it wasn’t speculative, it wasn’t a #NGO whitepaper or a #VC funding pitch. It was practical outreach, grounded in working technology and lived experience, aimed at reducing Europe’s dependency on centralized corporate platforms. One concrete moment of this work was the webinar organised between the European Commission and the ActivityPub community: […]https://hamishcampbell.com/europe-the-fediverse-and-the-story-we-failed-to-tell/
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A bunch of native #openweb people spent time, energy and focus pushing the #EU toward the #Fediverse:
https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/t/webinar-with-the-european-commission-and-ap-community/1507
That webinar mattered. It showed that EU institutions were open to #ActivityPub as a way to reduce dependency on centralized corporate platforms.
This is exactly the kind of work we need more of, not less. So what went wrong?
Instead of building on this momentum, the grassroots fell to mess and attention drifted back to the familiar #dotcons. Which, in the end, is just more #techshit to compost later.
SocialHub itself documents this blocking story, but there’s little aggregation or narrative continuity
The missing piece: our own history. This story still hasn’t been properly told:
We are very bad at telling our own history. And that failure has consequences.
When people don’t know: that #EU–#Fediverse outreach already happened, that viable alternatives already exist, that these paths were actively neglected,
So that they fall — again and again — for the #dotcons mess, believing it’s the only “realistic” option.
This is exactly why #OMN, #indymediaback, #makinghistory, and #OGB matter.
Before we argue about funding, platforms, or scale, we need: Media to tell the story properly. History to remember what already worked. Governance to keep power visible and contestable
Only then can Europe regain any path to grassroots digital agency without reproducing the same capture dynamics under a different flag.
If we don’t tell our story, someone else will, and it won’t be told in our interests.