There is a need for stewards of #DigitalCommons to develop a framework that balances sharing and consent, says @tarkowski in his text on the governance of generative AI. The piece was inspired by an @CyberneticForests article in @techpolicypress You can read it here 👉 https://openfuture.eu/blog/we-need-frameworks-that-balance-sharing-and-consent/

Une réflexion intéressante, en préambule, p.21.

"La sphère commerciale et les biens communs tirent dans des directions différentes. L’influence croissante de l’industrie des technologies de l’éducation sur la politique de l’éducation aux niveaux national et international est une source de préoccupation. Une meilleure compréhension [...] est nécessaire pour garantir que le bien commun soit la priorité des gouvernements et des éducateurs."

#CommunsNumériques #DigitalCommons

cc @ThierryJoffredo

@legumancer Finally, I mean to transfer these thoughts into a blog post at some point, and I am certainly in the minority in my stance, but I cannot help but find synthesis between #FreeSoftware and #socialist thought. I wrote a pithy toot about it at the link below, and expanded upon my thoughts in some replies. Read at your leisure.

https://todon.eu/@carmenbianca/110740944122814561

The main assertion is that the #DigitalCommons are not so unlike the real-life commons. Sharing and freedom are Good™, and giving too much power and influence over the things we interact with every day (and have a vested interest in!) to capitalist actors is Bad™, so maybe we should extend our logic to more areas than just software.

But relatively speaking, the rest of the Free Software movement hasn't caught up with that train of thought yet, and I partially blame the FSF for its insistence that Free Software is politically neutral and (as the author points out, but doesn't connect the dots on) its insistence that Free Software is not incompatible with capitalism. But many other Free Software orgs are also not innocent of this, believing that political neutrality is the way to connect with and convince the most people.

Because you (kindly!) asked, feel free to toot back at me.

fin/X

@legumancer The author is also far too dismissive of the very core politics of #FreeSoftware, kind of dancing around the matter and prodding at its weakest elements from afar. In short, the assertion is as follows: it is _immoral_ to rob the user of the computer of their right to freely use, study, share, or improve the software running on it.

The assertion is very simple, and has radical implications. The foremost implication is the prescription that _all_ software should be Free Software, lest that software be immoral. In a world dominated by private capitalist actors abusing the power dynamics of non-free software, that is an _incredibly_ daring, adversarial, and liberating stance to take, provided you politically carry it through. Moral grandstanding is not enough.

Towards that end, the Free Software movement has a trick up its sleeve. Over the many years, we have collectively created, curated, and maintained the #DigitalCommons. Rejecting the unjust power dynamics of non-free software, we have simply created an alternative, and maintain it as a giant and diverse community. Consider this the #DirectAction of the movement. If the capitalist powers that be will not provide us freedom, then we will create it.

2/X

@neurovagrant good point, it’s not for actual organising, but its value for indirect community, resilience and resistance building is really great. That’s what the #Fediverse is all about! 😊#Commoning #DigitalCommons

PS The UK’s #OnlineSafetyBill might ban encrypted messaging (Signal etc). It could make real organising far more difficult

#Wikimedia could lead the #OpenMovement towards a better-governed new web. This is how. – read the 2nd part of @tarkowski study on how @wikipedia can address the challenges posed to the #DigitalCommons by the #AI technologies: https://openfuture.eu/blog/stewarding-the-sum-of-all-knowledge-in-the-age-of-ai/

When a regular person scrapes something off #theInternet its called #suspiciousActivity as best, at worst a #cyberAttack, piracy or #plagerism.

> Microsoft, Google and CloudFlare do it and its called a "#largeLanguageModel".

See what they did there.

#theft #piracy #chatGPT #AI #neoFeudalism #fredericBastiat #plunder #digitalCommons #privatisation #oligarchy

As part of the conference, Open Future has conceptualized two sessions that focus on the #DigitalCommons, during which we will explore whether democracy can withstand #BigTech and imagine what a fair market with alternative software and ethical infrastructure could look like. Come say hi to @paulk and Zuzanna Warso if you are around!

📍 Today and tomorrow, we are co-hosting the Public Spaces Conference in Amsterdam. The event sets out to answer the question: “How do we build an internet that works for everyone? An online space that prioritizes our health, freedom, and livelihoods and is free from the control of Big Tech?”.

Check out the conference's entire program here 👉 https://conference.publicspaces.net/en/date/2023-06-27

#DigitalPublicSpace #DigitalCommons

"We should implement a levy that redirects a portion of the surplus from training AI on humanity’s collective creativity back to the commons" — read
@paulk's new opinion piece on #AI, #DigitalCommons, and the limits of #copyright 🔎 https://openfuture.eu/blog/ai-the-commons-and-the-limits-of-copyright/

#SocialMedia #Reddit #DigitalCommons: "The internet’s best resources are almost universally volunteer run and donation based, like Wikipedia and The Internet Archive. Every time a great resource is accidentally created by a for-profit company, it is eventually destroyed, like Flickr and Google Reader. Reddit could be what Usenet was supposed to be, a hub of internet-wide discussion on every topic imaginable, if it wasn’t also a private company forced to come up with a credible plan to make hosting discussions sound in any way like a profitable venture.

We are living through the end of the useful internet. The future is informed discussion behind locked doors, in Discords and private fora, with the public-facing web increasingly filled with detritus generated by LLMs, bearing only a stylistic resemblance to useful information. Finding unbiased and independent product reviews, expert tech support, and all manner of helpful advice will now resemble the process by which one now searches for illegal sports streams or pirated journal articles. The decades of real human conversation hosted at places like Reddit will prove useful training material for the mindless bots and deceptive marketers that replace it."

https://defector.com/the-last-page-of-the-internet

#OpenFisca et son modèle libre et contributif sont recommandés par l'Inspection générale des finances et l'Inspection générale des affaires sociales !
https://www.vie-publique.fr/rapport/289631-evaluation-de-l-efficacite-reduction-ou-exoneration-de-contribution-secu
C'est un bel accomplissement que de voir des parties aussi importantes de l'État reconnaître la pertinence des #CommunsNumériques pour la mutualisation tant au sein de l'administration qu'avec la société civile.
#DigitalCommons

On Monday @openfuture and 40 other European organizations from a broad spectrum of civil society, published statement calling on the European Union to invest in democratic digital infrastructures and the #digitalcommons. You can find the statement here: https://shared-digital.eu/statement/

As Chairperson of the Board of EuropeanBigBlueButtonAssociation - eBBBa e.V., I would like to draw your attention to the following #DigitalCommons and #DemocraticInfrastructure statement. 
Thank you very much for your support.
@eBBBa fully supports as one of 40 civil society organisations the
@OpenFutureEU and
@commonsnetwork
statement in which we call on the #EU regarding:
#DigitalCommons
 &
#DemocraticInfrastructure
-> Learn more at: http://shared-digital.eu/statement/

As Chairperson of the Board of EuropeanBigBlueButtonAssociation - eBBBa e.V., I would like to draw your attention to the following #DigitalCommons and #DemocraticInfrastructure statement.
Thank you very much for your support.

@eBBBa fully supports as one of 40 civil society organisations the
@OpenFutureEU and
@commonsnetwork
statement in which we call on the #EU regarding:

#DigitalCommons
&
#DemocraticInfrastructure

-> Learn more at: http://shared-digital.eu/statement/

📎 In “Paradox of Open Redux,” @tarkowski & @paulk sketch out trajectories for addressing power imbalances present in the open ecosystems and devise open means of value creation in more detail: https://openfuture.eu/blog/paradox-of-open-redux/ #DigitalPublicSpace #DigitalCommons

📎 “Public memory will be endangered, as long as heritage institutions lack legal tools to preserve content in the Digital Public Space,” – writes @cboteromarino advocating for the right to truth as a founding component of #OpenGLAM: https://openfuture.eu/paradox-of-open-responses/public-memory-challenges-in-the-public-digital-space/ #DigitalCommons

🔎 As we carry on with our investigation into the status of #OpenMovement, we are sharing two more responses to our funding "Paradox of Open" essay along with our reflection on how to move forward — "Paradox of Open: Redux": https://openfuture.eu/publication/paradox-of-open-responses/

#OpenAccess #OpenEducation #OpenSource #OpenData #OpenWeb #DigitalRights #DigitalCommons #DigitalPublicSpace #OpenGLAM #Copyright

Together with 40 signatories, we urge the EU & Member States to invest in digital public infrastructure and #DigitalCommons to ensure Europe’s #DigitalSovereignty and a just digital transformation.
https://shared-digital.eu/statement/
#DemocraticInfrastructure

Together with 40+ signatories, we have just released a Civil Society Statement in which we urge the EU to invest in #DemocraticInfrastructure and the #DigitalCommons to ensure Europe’s digital sovereignty and a just digital transformation 👇 https://www.commonsnetwork.org/2023/06/05/a-call-for-democratic-digital-infrastructure/