Re: <nettime> Has Facebook superseded Nettime?

[elijah <elijah@riseup.net>]

Patrice Riemens wrote:
>> See also riseup.net's crabgrass:
>> https://we.riseup.net/crabgrass/about
> 
> Yep, but how do you address the 'alt-ghetto' effect? Such sites are and
> will remain very much marginal/fringe compared to FB.

As the principle author of crabgrass, my response is this:

(0) our politics are marginal and fringe, so I have no problem with
creating software that is marginal and fringe.

(1) the community of activists that I organize with have no desire to
have their social network mapped by facebook. so, for me, crabgrass is
much more useful than facebook, because that is where my community is.

(2) software inscribes possible modes of interaction. i don't think
there will ever be one social networking platform to rule them all,
because different social situations call for different systems.
crabgrass is designed for activists who want to focus on collaboration
and organizing, not people who want to connect with friends.

(3) massive amounts of capital and labor are being poured into
the project of dethroning facebook. the strategy is to develop
open protocols that turn the web itself into a social networking
platform, so that no one site has control. there is much to hope for
in this impulse, but also much to be weary of. from a social movement
perspective, it is dangerous for us to embrace systems which lay bare
the social graph of how we are organized.

-elijah







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