And I would like to introduce my good friend, Björn Staschen, from Safe Social, who will give
us some sure a barnstorming talk about saving the social web and internet from all kinds
of people and things.
You need to add these it.
As I'm not a developer, I can't do these things.
So again, this claimer, it might be a talk that developers like you might find not too much in
depth because it is not about developing, because I am not a developer.
But I still hope that I have some interesting thoughts, because to me, you are the developers,
you are the guardians of the treasure.
Out there, we heard a lot about it, poverty is growing, it's a poverty of freedom,
of diversity, a poverty of choice of possibilities.
Our societies are becoming poorer and poorer, so hatred, excitement, monopolies, fascist
billionaires, but you hold a treasure from which our societies could benefit, a treasure
that strengthens democracy and diversity that can make the world a better place and
you are building it.
This treasure has grown over many years, it's rich, it's diverse, silver, gold, precious stones,
shining and sparkling with creativity and yet, these treasures that you build are still
sleeping in a cave.
Two few people know about them and let alone benefit from what you do.
And for me, you have a choice, will you and will we be able to bring these treasures
into the light?
I'm not here as someone, as I said, who builds a run-se platform or who can program and
code, but I'm here as a member of civil society and exactly that role almost exactly one
year ago and Germany, together, for example, with Sasha who's sitting there taking pictures,
Sasha first and possibly even others, we started a petition, 120 people from all walks
of life called Safe Social and amongst the initiators are people like the hip-hop artist
Yandilay, does anyone know Yandilay?
Some do, that's good, with Benjamin Bellamy, it was about 7%.
The author Nina Georg, the University of Graeme, the journalist, Union, the tech bloggers
Sasha Palenberg, Greenpeace Germany, and we all together formulated 10 thesis to preserve
the democratic power of social media by, on the one hand, putting the privileges of big
tech to the test.
You can see how we want to do that if you look up our website and on the other hand,
by strengthening the open alternative networks.
One, for us, does not work without the other, because as long as the kind of piece of
monopolies block the light from everything growing below, none of these young plants that
also you planted will ever grow strong, no matter how good they are.
But we must now plant these seedlings and water them so that they are there when we bring
down the monoliths, when those to take away the light are for whatever reason no longer suitable.
If social, we want to contribute to this change, we want to help to build and not just
demand, so we gather a quarter of a million supporters with our petition, which is quite
a lot for a complicated petition.
So a quarter of a people basically said, yes, we want what you build, we really like what
you build, and we like the principles on what you build, we like the values, we support
these values, a quarter of a million people in Germany, and we handed this over to politicians
some of the pictures I don't know why are a little distorted, doesn't matter, and we found
it a small non-profit, and in that capacity I'm standing here today, and I have great admiration
for what you do and for what I've seen in the Fediverse and for what I use in the Fediverse.
Over the past year, we have listened and spoken with many people, and on the one hand,
there is a strong willingness to change, many fear the necessity to change, and they want to strengthen
open networks. The executive board of German is governing party, the SPD, for example, has just
adopted an official resolution stating like five six days ago stating, we also support the
development of alternative public interest oriented social media and initiatives like Safe
Social, which is nice for us. On the other hand though, there is still a lot of confusion, uncertainty
perhaps even competition, about how exactly this change should happen. In Davos, W Social rises
like a phoenix from the ashes, receiving massive, even positive attention, and yet it's merely
a blue sky clone, some whisper about a vampire attack, so hacking into a network and maybe going
away again. Euro sky is here with a lot of great energy and people, but also struggling to build
an infrastructure with regard to financing, building a resilient infrastructure on the basis of
80 protocols, immensely expensive, and the Fediverse, it is growing slowly, too slowly, some say,
and it has had its chance, some politician tell us, so you try it, you failed, it doesn't work,
it cannot scale enough, it doesn't meet the challenges that society is facing.
So here you are, the treasures, the guardians of this treasure, and this may be not even a treasure
after all, or do people out there simply not know enough about your treasure? Is it because
the treasure is still not in the light? I think it's time to make a decision, and the time
can not be better for this. From my point of view, this community here, and I'm grateful that
we are in exchange, we must make that decision. What do we want the Fediverse to be? Do we want
the Fediverse to grow? Do we want society to truly benefit from it, and do we want to be part of
the change? So is this treasure a treasure that society as a whole can really benefit from from
my perspective, and my hope, and everything that we've been doing in the last year,
there can only be one answer. And if we decide that way, there are consequences.
I've tried to summarize these consequences in 10 ceases, 10 ceases as a basis for a discussion,
we should have, I do not have all the answers, and I'm certainly not right about everything,
but as a starting point for a conversation, and maybe even provoking a thought here or there
that may not be, may not be such a bad thing, excuse my English. So these 10 ceases I have,
even even catch words. Number one is mission. We need as Fediverse, and as people in this room,
we need a clear mission. Why are we doing this? The Fediverse is not about technology for its own
sake, or is it? No. It is about design, by values, about doing things better,
differently from big tech. But what exactly does that mean? Do we want growth? How do we finance
growth, the growth of a scaled Fediverse, and to open one Pandora's box, it has been opened
before in questions and answer. What about advertising? For example, some say no,
let's keep this free of commercial interest, others say, but how can this be a social
web for everyone, if the coffee shop around the corner can't advertise, and even these small
business are looking for possibilities to advertise far away from big tech. So we have to discuss
these questions. The charm of the Fediverse, the multitude of service allows for different pathways,
though there is still one mission that unites us. Second, we need to do this together. If
our mission is to strengthen democracy, then we can only do that together with the society out there
that represents democracy. We need a kind of mandate from this society. They need to say
to us, yes, build this for us, and we need a kind of contract, build it, according to these
principles, these values, and for that, in my opinion, we must engage in dialogue much more with
this society out there that needs what you build, but it needs a contract. So this society to
actually tell you what to build and how to build it. Number three is, we need allies in order to
be able to talk to society. We have to talk to the people who represent society. We have to build
bridges to all sectors of society, to trade unions, to associations, to universities, to companies,
to employers, whoever's out there, musicians, we should get kind of well-known celebrities
into the Fediverse more than today, because if they come, others will follow. We need to turn
them into advocates for our project, and this work in my eyes is as important as writing
good code, it's something like the social code for the social web. That is something that
safe social offers to do, so we try to bring over communities and other do that as well,
and to build networks with them on the code that you wrote. By the way, this is one vehicle
to talking with society. Donut, if you've heard of the Japanese day, has anyone?
Well, that's more than 7% really nice. We started there together with chaos, computer club,
and a lot of other organizations in Germany, and now we are more than 60 organizations to
moral, great timing, is the second digital independence day with more than 100 events across Germany,
and also one in Portugal, so we want to go at least you're required, and if you want to take
part in the digital independence day and ask people to change for one service every Sunday,
every first Sunday, per month, talk to us. We're happy to bond with you. But that was my little
advertising block back to the mission. Number four, why are we doing it? We need to frame the strategy
around a clear democratic and social purpose, and not just technical openness. Our story is why we are
doing it. And if this is our story, the why is decisive, the how follows the why. And sometimes we do
need even, we do not need to explain the how, the why matters to the people out there.
Assume that most people are not protocol expert, I'm not one, and most people
make decisions not based on protocols. Decentralization, for example, is not a user need,
but a discrucial for resilience and trust. I wonder how many are that truly understand why
decentralization is in advantage and why open source and open protocols are better than matter.
So decentralization is a construction plan, but what is the result? What is the benefit that society
gets out of it? We have to address these user needs, I think, and we need to communicate those
benefits far more clearly and not merely the construction plans. Talking about construction plans,
this is Lego, a lighthouse. Because based on this strategy, we must build lighthouse projects.
We need to develop with communities, and we have to treat communities as co-designers,
moving from really getting feedback to sharing authorship, concrete use cases that show
this works. So we can show other people this works at a university with a local community,
whatever, with writers. We as a social are talking to the vocational association of photographers,
can we bring all of you over to Pixifet. So we need these lighthouses, these good examples,
and we need you to make these lighthouses work together with us. We should frame strategies
around stories and around lived experiences and not just technical roadmaps and we should find the
communities that our technology so far doesn't cater for. So we need to build it for the ones
that don't know from us. We try to be such a hinge into society and I think we need to think about
more of these hinges. And maybe if you go into your projects, think about
can I build it with a community and can I take the input from the community to build it.
Number seven, and then we're nearly done. Featherers, please keep your promise. I've been
walking around for a year now, using this promise that also Benjamin Bellamy just must again,
the connectiveness of the different services. So you can be a friend of micro blogging and you
use MasterDone, but still follow the people who post their great pictures on Pixifet, for example,
or great videos on peer-tube. And we promote this wonderful mechanism, but anyone who looks closely
may get the impression that apart from MasterDone, none of the services are sufficiently used,
some are not even stable enough yet. If we believe that the Fediveras as a whole and
interoperability via activity pub is a strong argument and I find it wonderful. It's a great
argument, but if we agree on that argument, then we must make it work in practice. We need to be able
to rely on recommending a good product. For example, when setting up this Pixifet server for
professional photographers, there are people wanting me, there are so many issues it might not be
stable enough. So if we can all kind of jointly strengthen this whole Fediveras, I think we strengthen
a great idea and the great advantage from meta and all the others, but it needs to work.
It needs to be visibly more than MasterDone and also in numbers, it needs to be more than MasterDone.
Number 8. Bridges, in my opinion, strengthen both sides and we must actively work to connect
systems that are built on roughly the same values. I really love what Matias is doing with
WordPress because it's bringing over so much content into the Fediveras and I'm still looking
kind of for the great big blogger who is using the plugin. And I also, I don't know if you
saw that a famous tech blogger, though, in German, Sacha Palenberg, who knows Sacha Palenberg?
Well, that's again, the 7% only. He just moved his video over to a peer-tube instance. So follow
him there. The more connected and ecosystem becomes with others, the more visible the
stronger it is in my opinion, despite the diversity of its actors. And as a decentralized network,
we know this well, the Fediveras allows and fastest diversity and building bridges to other
services on the internet and reaching out to others is written into our very DNA. So let's embrace
this and live up to the standards. And for me, this also means building bridges towards 80
protocols is a kind of value-based and good. We need a multi-layer approach. We should separate
processes and ask who can do what particularly well. From my perspective, there are three levels
at least. One is the technical development, but many of you do the coding driven by
two building projects with communities, layer two. So user needs kind of and feed them into what
you are doing. And number three is the area of lobbying governance, funding, regulatory,
support, media literacy. Sandra is giving a great talk about that in the afternoon, so don't miss
it. And it makes sense to act in these different roles and to negotiate conflicts even between
these roles, but also to be clear about these roles. And that will simplify things in some cases.
And one example for that, and that is the one that is last so we can discuss about it,
because I'm sure someone will throw something at me for this, is this 10.
So everyone laughed as above 45, I guess. These are decisive weeks and months. We are not alone.
W. Social, Blue Sky, Euras Sky, and others emerge. Some will vanish as fast as they rose,
but no one out there understands it when we fight protocol wars in public. Like the Deity and
People's Front, versus the People's Front of Future Deal, who knows that from some of you. Yeah,
very good. That's like 25%. So look, look, look the movie. It's worth life of Brian
by the famous English Monty Python group. We may be convinced that we have the best solution.
And after a year, I am convinced that Fediveras and Activity Pop are a very, very good solution.
And there may be good reasons to criticize other protocols, for example, 80 pro-to.
But the open networks aligns that Sandra Form, who's talking this afternoon, and it's a socialist
part of, is a great starting point. In my view, it is right to stand together with those who share our
goals, who share common values, even if they believe in different pathways or protocols. That
was requires transparency, it requires clarity, fair dealing, and multi-layer approach, he
means we develop our products with energy and commitment. And on that basis, we build with communities,
but on policy issues, we can, and we should work together in order to strengthen this ecosystem
all over Europe. I do not think that we stand a chance if we don't try that.
So to give away a treasure and to let loose, it takes a little braveness and a little pragmatism
and also generosity. But if we truly want to break down silos and bring the open social
web to everyone, like Tim Berners-Lee said, it's for everyone, the web. And if we want to ensure
that what you build really serves everyone as a democratic, accessible and resilient foundation
for our digital societies in the future, I do not think that we have a choice to make compromises
to always kind of struggle for the best ways that we go together, but to give this treasure
some more light and to think about the past ways to get this treasure out there into the open.
So it is truly a social web for everyone. Thanks a lot.
I was about to ask if anybody has questions for Björn, but I'm willing to do that.
Would folks who are standing along the wall, could you kind of try and find a seat? And if folks
could move along, if they're not going to be leaving immediately after the tour, that'll be great.
And here's a question. First of all, thank Björn. We try to meddle ice in homework.
How could we finally meet here at least? Yes, I couldn't be in Berlin in the 30th day.
We've got the coffee here now. Yeah, first of all, thank you for the work of Save Social.
For me, it's just amazing. I'm leaving Germany and I see the movement, like this signature,
it's just amazing. And you say the question, why? And for me, and you tackled,
I say, share my opinion and the Save for Greece. It's about democracy.
The big tech social media is trying to undermine democracy. And what we're trying to do when
contact politicians, this is from a key strategy to try to bring a quarrel to keep people in the
Fediverse. Because I'm trying to talk to artists and they need this thousands of followers that we
still don't have in the Fed and so on. So my question is, how can we tackle other groups?
And do they agree that a strategic player here are the politicians, because they shouldn't be
in the social media that they're trying to undermine democracy. And it's pretty obvious.
For me, it's politicians, but also the media. And yes, in the evening, we said at the table and
talked about the social media share buttons. And we said, what about the campaign to get rid of all
the social media, like all the X share buttons at Target show, at BBC, and all the websites?
It would be a big step forward, but then we noticed there is no good mustard on share button.
So I think we really need a good mustard on share button. Yes, please.
And I think that's that's an argument. We started another petition in Germany and that got
160,000 signatures for the Bundeskanzer to finally leave X and the Bundesregier and to finally leave
X here are aware of that. And they answered us, no, we will not do that at the moment. And we are
now looking into other ways. Other even legal ways to make them use the open social web. So can they
kind of make me use X if I want to read exclusively what the chancellor says and can they make
me kind of give away my data just to read what he says? So we're looking into that as well.
And I think we kind of need a approach from everywhere, even compact, who are on our side,
don't have the mustard on share button. We have built a share button, we just haven't
published it properly yet, so that's in process. Sorry, sorry, I've been trying, I did my
bit when I spoke on behalf of the mustard only, I'm here for the favors. Again, I'm trying
to be living a world here, and all the worlds, but yeah, if you go ask Eugene on the ask
booth and ask him to publish it, then we'll be there. Sorry, we have another question.
I think there could be a game changer. If the share button is there, let's connect it with
the campaign for everyone to use it. There's another question over here. Hi, thank you very much for
your talk, I'm Errol. So I've done a lot of work in the human rights open source software space
about people that get de-platformed from the current social media platforms, which tend to be the
most marginalized communities of people, including people that are making explicit content and
adult content online. I'm really curious to hear your thoughts and views and whether you work
with those communities and how you see the very first supporting people that do very legitimate
sex work online. Well, there's a big question, and I hadn't thought enough about it
and that particular community. As far as I understand the Fedivers, it's great advantage
is that a community can first of all cater for its own server, decide on its own rules,
and also decide on how much it wants to connect with other service and stuff. So I think one
great thing is that this Fedivers kind of protects communities and up to a certain standard allows
communities to kind of be particular. And I think that is a great advantage.
I think we all need to connect with as many communities as we can in order to build and even
that is the community that I think we all kind of should build with, if I don't know if you have a
server now or not. But I mean, that is the advantage and let's kind of take these advantages and
kind of make them visible. That doesn't really answer your question. But yes.
One more question in the middle and then we shall switch our part of schedule again.
Excuse me, are you running over? Thank you.
Thank you. I'm sorry that I'm sitting here. I'm from Germany too. And I feel that the
thing that the woman over there just said is absolutely crucial because if we have different
communities who shall share this technology, there could be, there could be a legit reasons for certain
communities to be separated from others. For example, for kindergarten children, I think you do
not want to have an otherwise sexual content. Do you feel that schemes could be established
to implement such separations, such communities due to these reasons? And do you feel that this
could be done in a way which does not remove the idea of having something that can be
used by everyone freely and with free content? Because this is one of the reasons I think which
the big, big, big players try to use as argument against such very free platforms as
Macedon and the very first general. Thank you. Well, I mean, there's always one argument that says
with all these different servers, you kind of play to the fragmentation of society. So I think
it isn't argument to keep in the back of our head if we're talking to people and if we say we are
building a social web. I mean, there are technical possibilities with regard to kind of
not connecting to every server. We have the block lists, for example. So I think it is something
for each community to decide on. I mean, that is the strength. I mean, governance starts
within a community that is running a server, whom do we connect to and whom do we want connected
with us? And I strongly believe that there is a need for connection across society. So I
still believe that there will be an open web. But that is a thesis. I don't know if it'll
play out like that really. We see some project starting and deciding also with regard to the
experiences on matters platforms. Like there is a community on the outskirts of Hamburg that we are
kind of in the process of maybe building a server with them. And they decided quite early,
we will not connect with the rest of the world for the beginning. Because we're tired of all the
stuff that we read and we want to concentrate on what's here in our little community. And
if that is a solution for a social platform, from fine as well, the case is a different need.
So I don't know, but there are the mechanisms that we can use, right?
So tomorrow is digital independence day again. So make sure to share that with your friends and
encourage folks to try these new platforms, get themselves off of big tech platforms.
There we are exactly. I'm so sorry for I know there's some other hands up. As with all things
the corridor track where you can find folks and ask questions afterwards is really great.
We're very keen to keep ourselves moving forward here today. So be on thank you so much.