Plastic Free Swindon joins the Fediverse!
29th May 2021
Updated 27th July 2024
We stopped using our Plastic Free Swindon Facebook account in 2020. This was due to concerns about how Facebook and other Big Tech companies operate: mass surveillance, censorship, the control of information, manipulation of users, co-operation with corrupt governments, threats to liberty, obfuscated software functionality, algorithms that seek to addict users, exclusivity / inequality...
The Social Dilemma is a documentary which explores how social media users are being manipulated and the harm and danger that causes. This pertains to our ability to deal with environmental and social maladies, including plastic pollution. In the FAQs section on the documentary's website, there is this explanation for how the film came about:
"We were drawn to tell the stories of our changing glaciers and changing coral reefs because they were powerful signs of a huge global issue facing humanity: climate change. When we started talking with Tristan Harris and the Center for Humane Technology, we saw a direct parallel between the threat posed by the fossil fuel industry and the threat posed by our technology platforms. Tristan calls this 'the climate change of culture,' an invisible force that is shaping how the world gets its information and understands truth. Our hope has always been to work on big issues, and we now see 'the social dilemma' as a problem beneath all our other problems."
With these factors in mind, we looked for a suitable alternative to Facebook and the other Big Tech platforms:
We joined Friendica in the Fediverse. With a community of developers working to empower and share, it looks to be a promising social media alternative. It's core model differs greatly from Facebook's:
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Free / libre.
Empowering software and services rather than restrictive. -
Open source software
Transparent so functionality is known. -
Decentralised and federated.
Removing power from any one central authority / bad actors. -
No advertising.
There's more to life than buying stuff!! -
Users control data.
Data can be viewed, moved, removed. No data harvesting or data passed / sold onto 3rd parties. -
Inclusive, of equality.
The Fediverse's decentralised nature enables a rich and varied digital ecosystem.
We've enabled settings which allow anyone to view our page, with or without an account. -
A common protocol for Fediverse software:
Friendica (similar to Facebook) users can connect with Mastodon (similar to Twitter / X) users can connect with Peertube (similar to YouTube) users....
You can follow and /or engage with us in the Fediverse at https://libranet.de/profile/plasticfreeswindon or using the handle plasticfreeswindon@libranet.de.