EU leaving Fediverse (Mastodon & PeerTube) because no one wants to operate the servers
“In recent years, a total of 40 institutions have opened an account with EU Voice, including the EU Data Protection Supervisor, the European Court of Justice and the EU Commission. The video platform, on the other hand, was used by six institutions … the EU institutions were thus the largest group of public institutions in the Fediverse worldwide.”
“…the EDPS regards the pilot project as a great success. It has proven that public institutions such as EU institutions can offer social media platforms that respect the fundamental rights of the individual. They are thus an alternative to the usual platforms that belong to a handful of large players … Or not - because none of the more than 40 bodies, institutions and agencies throughout the EU can be found that want to operate and moderate two servers permanently.”
Wish I could say I was surprised by this but, in my experience, at least, it is par for the course.
We do not have predictable funding for technology for the common good in the EU. We have piecemeal funding for features, etc. What I recently referred to as “begging for scraps” when telling someone why I wasn’t going to apply for their latest round of funding (we’ve applied for and never received any EU funding for our work on the Small Web).
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Six years ago we ran a pilot project with the City of Ghent to explore what it would be like for a municipality to provide every citizen with their own place on the web at a domain they (the citizen) owned and controlled.
We prototyped. Everyone loved it. And then? Our budget was cancelled when a conservative local government got elected.
We need long-term funding that’s not privy to the whims of the shifting political winds.
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So what do we need, ideally? The equivalent of VC but for tech for the common good.
Pick ten organisations working the common good and give them €5M each. Let them experiment. Let them pivot. Let them cooperate. The only thing you don’t let them do is exit. You can’t sell. Build something for the commons that will live on for the next ten, twenty, fifty years… if not more.
I said as much 5 years ago at the European Parliament:
https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/
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@aral, "Pick ten organisations working the common good and give them €5M each. Let them experiment. Let them pivot. Let them cooperate. The only thing you don’t let them do is exit."
You've just described "government subsidy" - it happens all the time and it consistently produces companies that are tethered to the state and reliant on taxpayers. Please produce a list of companies started by a state (ANY state) that can survive on its own revenues?
@davidsabine Oh it’s important for everything to survive on its own revenue? Sure. Let’s implement that for militaries and then talk. I see absolutely nothing wrong with tech for the common good being funded from the commons (our taxes).
The only reason I’m designing my solution so it can sustainable under capitalism is because I don’t trust funding from the commons. Maybe, one day…
@aral @davidsabine also even * if* we demand #profitability there are like dozens of #RealEstate #cooperatives that were spun off for #PublicHousing holdings (instead of selling off said #housing units to big corporations for less than a years' rent each) in #Germany that do maintain and build #AffordableHousing and provide basically #TennantOwned (#deposit = shares in the cooperative) housing...
At least two of them are the reason rent in my hometown didn't skyrocket!
py -m this.housing.solution --where=us
@aral - are you seriously going to argue equivalency between "social media platforms" and military?
Like posting cat pics is as important to a state as protecting its citizens against hostile foreign militaries?
@davidsabine Yep, because “social media” is “posting cat pics”. Not Cambridge Analytica. Not Trump and Boris in office. Not the genocide in Myanmar. No impact on human rights or democracy… fuck it, why am I even wasting my time?