A series of interviews and keynotes presenting a decentralized alternative to the web structure of the internet.
Wikileaks, Data Justice and a New Internet: Interview with York University
Democracy vs Cambridge Analytica and Facebook: Interview with Monash University
Response to the EU Commission on fake news
We have free software. We need free databases.: Keynote at RMLL in France
The Evolution of Democracy: Keynote at Spain’s Medialab Prado
Getgee: Tools for self-governance Part 1
Introducing Getgee at the Cuba Free Software Conference
Mastodon, Getgee and the decentralized data movement
Good-bye Wikipedia, hello something else
Our right to communicate
The problems with democracy
BBC interview on Global Square
This work started back around 2010. Here is an interview explaining early ideas to the BBC. The ideas have not changed but the technology has finally caught up to make this project viable. Coercion is discussed separately in several other articles and books, including this talk at the Oxford Union in 2018.
Glossary (Kind people have stigmergically translated this article into French, and Spanish.).
Wikileaks, Data Justice and a New Internet
An interview with Julian von Bargen of York University for an academic research project in the data justice field on the “origins, growth and transformation of the information freedom movement”. Julian von Bargen: How did you get started with WikiLeaks? Heather Marsh: I was asked to create a news outlet for Wikileaks as a result…
Keep readingDemocracy vs Cambridge Analytica and Facebook
An interview with Dr. Alex Lambert of Monash University for an academic research project “combining interviews with alternative social media developers with the managers of alternative urban creative spaces, bringing their perspectives on challenging entrenched power – be it in the form of business-focused urban planning or web platforms such as Facebook – into dialogue. In doing this,…
Keep readingResponse to EU Commission on fake news
In your opinion, which criteria should be used to define fake news for the purposes of scoping the problem? A simpler method would be to define non-fake news. Non-fake news is that which emanates from complete, open, sourced, audited information on a topic. By this definition, almost all news is fake news, but it doesn’t…
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We have free software. We need free databases.
Transcript (more or less) of keynote at RMLL, June 2017: We have free software. We need free databases. Discussing how to create a software ecosystem by decoupling information from applications with a universal database. https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=183&v=lneSYhSJN3M My name is Heather Marsh. I am a writer and a programmer and I have been studying and experimenting with…
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The evolution of democracy
Transcript (more or less) from The evolution of democracy: Explaining Trump, Brexit and the Colombia peace deal, a keynote to launch the Inteligencia Colectiva para la Democracia in Madrid, November, 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrD6vKymCRY My name is Heather Marsh. I am a writer and a programmer and I have been studying and experimenting with both local activism…
Keep readingMastodon, Getgee and the decentralized data movement
From Diaspora and GNU Social to Cimba and Mastodon, increasingly sophisticated alternatives keep offering to move the public off of the data harvesting platforms that manipulate people and sell their personal data. No one should be gifting their innermost thoughts to states and corporations. Personal data is used to coerce public opinion and advance the interests…
Keep readingTranscript from talk about Getgee
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYnMKlrTQsA The short version of this talk is that we don’t need to rewrite any of the existing social media applications that are out there like Twitter, or Facebook, or Google or any of the rest of them. The reason I’d like you all to remember that one thing is because it seems like every…
Keep readingGetgee: Tools for self-governance Part 1
G is a universal database and trust network which can be used for the most popular software applications today.
A universal database and trust network will return control of our data to the users who created it while still allowing for mass collaboration. If any application software starts antagonizing its users, they can just get…
Keep readingGood-bye Wikipedia, hello something else
Wikipedia was the first great, high profile success story of Internet mass collaboration and produced a well-loved reference used with obsessive frequency by an entire generation. But it is past time for us to build new forms of knowledge commons. Wikipedia is a website, controlled by a foundation. It is the work of, theoretically, the…
Keep readingOur right to communicate
The first right of any person in any society must be the right to communicate. Without communication there is no way to safeguard our other rights or for us to participate fully in a society. When your right to communicate is interrupted by those who would be your voice, your face or your representative, you…
Keep readingThe problems with democracy
This article is part of a series: ‘Stigmergy: Systems of Mass Collaboration’. Around the world, people lamenting the demise of democracy, or fighting for the birth of ‘true’ democracy need to take a closer look. Democracy is a universally failed concept, not because we have not implemented it properly but because the ideas were flawed…
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Heather Marsh 