Re: <nettime> Sign the BAN X in EUROPE petition and join the campaign

[Geert Lovink via nettime-l <nettime-l@lists.nettime.org>]

Dear all,

all your responses so far to the campaign to ban X in the EU, which only launched last Friday, have been exetremely interesting and encouraging. Finally there is a debate about what’s to be done with X.

I am not behind this initiative, the person who initiated it wants to remain anonymous (for the time being). This person has not got to do anything with ‘Brussels’ (neither are sponsered by the EU or any institution, for that matter). I see this campaign design first and foremost as a conceptual artwork in the poltical category. This very much comes from the nettime scene, let that be clear. And many of you will know why. It is a tactical media aka post-situationist/communication guerrilla action (with a very serious intention).

Unfortunately, a call to ban X in the EU will not come from the so-caled progressive-liberal ‘civil society’ organizations such as Bits of Freedom, Netzpolitik and all others of the European Digital Rights network (https://edri.org/about-us/our-network/) and campaign should be, first and foremost, read as a radical call to exactly these organizations to take a stand and follow the Brazilian example.

There is something bold and desperate in this call, and I believe there is a need to acknowledge that before we move on. The stagnation needs to end. Over a decade ago the social media monopolies were already causing havoc, both on the political and the mental health levels. At our Institute of Network Cultures we brought these initiatives together in 2011-2013 under the network name of 'Unlike Us' (https://networkcultures.org/unlikeus/), which, at the time, already felt a bit late (this was just after the failed Arab spring). This was launched together with Korinna Patelis, who was teaching in Cyprus at the time. A Facebook Farewell Party and similar initiatives followed but nothing happened. It all ended up in platform capitalism and then, even worse, techno-feudalism. Calls to fix the broken internet were made, some alternatives were developed, but none of this found much resonance amongst the userbase at large.

Europe has so failed to develop an alternative to the US ’free speech’ contruct and thus all discussions, also inside the EU, are ultimately measured around that constitutional-legal term (or ideology, for that matter). All regulation effforts will remain to be framed  as censorship and thus all alternatives remain futile. At best Brussels can send fines to Silicon Valley… 5-10 years after the fact. No public money is invested in alternatives.

To say that calling for a ban is lame and will not work and that we have to emphasize alternatives instead has nothing achieved anything over the past decade. It is important to admit this. To merely say this again simply ignores the failure of the ‘alternatives’ approach. Fediverse-Mastedon etc. might work ok but still fails to attract many. In particular journalists and PR crowds continue to be hooked onto X, as are most of the political class. The dialectics between news media and the political class remains toxic (to use a very polite word). Cade Diehm has already said it so much better than I do here. Neither regulation nor alternatives have achieved much. It is urgent to come together and have an open dialogue what strategic next steps might make a real difference.

Yours, Geert



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