Public trust in the investor-owned platform economy is collapsing. Business models based on selling workers and users to Wall Street are under growing scrutiny, and a small but growing number of cooperatively-owned platforms present a real, positive alternative. How might we seize this moment to show the promise of platform cooperativism? We invite proposals […]
by Matt Cropp, via Co-op Water Cooler In many ways, the recent #BuyTwitter campaign has been a watershed, breakout moment for the #PlatformCoop movement. While, up to that point, there’d been much theoretical chatter and some successful niche platform co-op applications, the #BuyTwitter ballot item galvanized and focused the community in a new and powerful […]
Greetings fellow denizens of Twitter, I’m Astra Taylor, a filmmaker, musician, activist, and writer. A few years ago I wrote a book called The People’s Platform, which looks at how the internet’s dominant, advertiser-driven business model concentrates wealth and power in the hands of a few at the expense of the rest of us. Twitter […]
Uber’s recent “strikebreaking” during New York protests against Trump’s anti-immigrant policies is nothing new. It’s only the latest feat of bad behavior for a company whose business model is built on sidestepping basic rights that workers have fought for for centuries. But Uber’s disruption has paved the way for a new generation of worker controlled […]
by Robert Benjamin (@coopkungfu) In recent months, people around the world have been calling for Twitter to sell to its users. This was sparked in large part by the reoccurring rumblings of economic instability, coupled with the realization that while a whole lot of people have come to rely on the platform as their theater […]
by Dr Rory Ridley-Duff, Sheffield Business School The recent Guardian article (“Here’s my plan to save Twitter: let’s buy it”, 29th Sept) by Nathan Schneider argues for the transformation of Twitter into a platform cooperative. It has caught the imagination of supporters because 2,000 of them have signed a Change.org campaign to “Free Twitter from […]
by Thomas Euler also published at Medium.com About two weeks ago I came across a group which was just forming at the internet’s edges. It’s mission statement: To acquire Twitter and turn it into a co-op that’s owned, in parts, by users. The group’s initial spark was this Guardian article by Nathan Schneider, a prominent […]
For Immediate Release The Internet – October 19, 2016 – The ongoing rumors about a possible Twitter sale have led to the formation of a user movement that wants to acquire Twitter. Today, it announced the launch of their #WeAreTwitter-branded campaign’s petition. Internet platforms play an increasingly important role in our lives. While many users […]
The following may be out of date. See the latest updates here. Twitter is up for sale. Big companies are circling around looking to buy. But what about us, Twitter users? This proposal to turn one of the world’s most important platform utilities into a platform co-op has started spreading from a mere idea to […]