Yeah. This is the other point that's so important. We *need* decentralized systems across the board to protect democracy. We need people to have the power to control their online experiences, rather than oligarchs. - ThreadSky

mmasnick.bsky.social • 4 days ago

Yeah. This is the other point that's so important. We *need* decentralized systems across the board to protect democracy. We need people to have the power to control their online experiences, rather than oligarchs.

Reposted from Johannes Ernst

Mike Masnick is exactly correct. And it’s not just that tech journalism has to be about democracy these days, but building tech products has to be, too.

www.techdirt.com/2025/03/04/w...

/cc @mmasnick.bsky.social

Comments

samlow.bsky.social•4 days ago

Thank you for keeping on pressing this point

drjamesjteeth.bsky.social•4 days ago

Organizers need to learn how to use Mastodon. You can stand up a Mastodon instance quicker than they can be snuffed. I’m looking ahead to the time when the regime in Washington starts pulling the plug on media it doesn’t like. It’s going to come faster than anyone wants to consider.

whifflefrog.bsky.social•4 days ago

Absolutely. I still don't think this is a good case for crypto, though.

fridgebuzz.bsky.social•4 days ago

Cryptocurrencies, probably not. But I do find the Ethereum “decentralized world computer” (as it was created to be, not a cryptocurrency) an interesting concept. No doubt there are flaws in Proof of Stake, but I mean as a concept it could be useful.

netmobs.bsky.social•4 days ago

At some point I stopped reading TD, and no idea why, you and the crew always covered politics as well as anyone, and better than almost all media (as you correctly point out repeatedly).

Several of your pieces since the last election have been Required Reading. Subscribed again, keep it up Mike!

mmasnick.bsky.social•3 days ago

Thanks!

netmobs.bsky.social•3 days ago

Dude, we tangled (in a respectful way) around "could professional blogging be real". But I've never had anything but respect. Keep up being awesome, and I'm happy to find you again. I'll add you to my one silly list.

scrispin.bsky.social•4 days ago

Correct. And one of the concomitant questions to *that* is how do we mount and maintain alternative databases to those we had become accustomed to government maintaining for us?

j12t.org•4 days ago

Which means the movement can / should / can’t avoid being / must (???) lean into being not just about a technical architectural style (decentralization), but be explicitly political. Hmm … how do we build a coalition like that?

nirebryce.breadthcharge.net•4 days ago

feels like there already is one, we've just got no spare cash or spare time and very little spare labor. but it's been a strong current for the last two, three decades

nirebryce.breadthcharge.net•4 days ago

but if you look around in most tech spaces that aren't the vibe of doge and the billionaires, you'll see people trying for better all the time, in fact the government is currently self-immolating because too many of us ended up working for the tech billionaires

nirebryce.breadthcharge.net•4 days ago

not that I've got any large part in it, but... theres a lot of people fighting for better round these parts and have been.

phat-bat.bsky.social•4 days ago

Does tech journalism go into election and voting security? Looking at the whole process: where it’s vulnerable to being hacked, how we would know, and how to safeguard it.

fridgebuzz.bsky.social•4 days ago

See https://freeourfeeds.com for more on making social media immune from billionaire capture.

mmasnick.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yeah. I've written about them. Well aware!

https://www.techdirt.com/2025/01/21/the-technological-poison-pill-how-atprotocol-encourages-competition-resists-evil-billionaires-lock-in-enshittification/

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