[liberationtech] They Used Smartphone Cameras to Record Police Brutality—and Change History

[David Stodolsky]

> On 15 Jun 2020, at 17:04, Klein, Hans K <hans at gatech.edu> wrote:
> 
> Again, the key questions are:
> -        Is it possible to coordinate/control information dissemination? If so, how?
> -        Is that actually occurring?

The major platforms are all censoring. FaceBook is probably the worst of these. It also is promoting violence via its engagement algorithms. Twitter is probably the best of them now. 

There are independent media like The Intercept, Democracy Now, Pacifica Radio, etc. 

Podcasts offer direct info from educational institutions, political groups, musicians, etc. 

Self-hosting is likely the future, but it doesn’t have much reach yet:
 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse


There are mesh networking initiatives that also want to free transmission from the Internet, etc.:

Anadiotis, G. (2018 October 25). Manyverse and Scuttlebutt: A human-centric technology stack for social applications. ZD-Net
https://www.zdnet.com/article/manyverse-and-scuttlebutt-a-human-centric-technology-stack-for-social-applications/

Siri, S. (2020). Democracy in the Age of Cryptography. Unchained, Ep.159.
https://unchainedpodcast.com/democracy-in-the-age-of-cryptography/

Staltz, A. (2017, 18 Dec.). A plan to rescue the web from the internet.
https://staltz.com/a-plan-to-rescue-the-web-from-the-internet.html

Staltz, A. (2018, 4/19). Scuttlebutt, a decentralized social platform. In the Mesh.
https://www.inthemesh.com/archive/secure-scuttlebutt-facebook-alternative/



However, none of these alternatives have been widely enough adopted to challenge the big players. Most big players are able to provide “free” access, due to making losses at the start and then becoming monopoly players attracting advertisers. Some kind of crypto-currency financing is necessary for independent media to compete. This example does it for the transmission costs:

https://letstalkbitcoin.com/blog/post/lets-talk-bitcoin-438-bootstrapping-mobile-mesh-networks-with-bitcoin-lightning

There are a number of crypto-payments to publisher schemes. 


dss


David Stodolsky, PhD                   Institute for Social Informatics
Tornskadestien 2, st. th., DK-2400 Copenhagen NV, Denmark
dss at socialinformatics.org          Tel./Signal: +45 3095 4070