digital struggles
Digital tools are increasingly important in social struggles. Many activists & collectives communicate regularly through mailing lists, blogs, wikis, maps, audio & text chat systems like IRC & Skype, open publishing media sites like Indymedia & YouTube and social networking sites like MySpace & Facebook.
Some of these tools are provided by private corporations that can be very accommodating to serve requests for data mining, especially towards state agencies. In addition, the E.U. plans for obligatory retention of data from all telecommunications, pave the way for massive social surveillance in unprecedented scale.
In some areas, we are developing technical alternatives for the social movements and the rest of society, some of which are transforming activism and culture (Indymedia, riseup, piratebay, etc). But the maintenance and further development of those systems is a hard and complex process.
The next European PGA conference is an opportunity to raise some interesting questions about such issues and share the stories of our little triumphs and tragic failures.
Some of the questions that could be asked are the following:
* What kind of tools do we actually need? Don't we have enough already? Do we really need to invent new ones?
* When do we use corporate services?
* Can't we just design innovative technosocial systems that will turn the world upside down?
* How do we design our alternative systems? Are there sustainable models to support their development?
* How do we get/pay/manage the server infrastructure?
* What do we do with the data that is generated? How do we keep the blue meanies out of our servers?
* How do we share the responsibility of technical administration? How do we manage technical control in open collectives during internal political conflicts?
* Indymedia 2.0. IMC-CMS. Indycore. What's going on with these projects? Are we getting any closer towards reinventing Indymedia?