The fight for a free and open Internet scored a win in 2006, thanks to a bad analogy. Alaska Senator Ted Stevens argued that Internet service providers should have the right to manage traffic from sources that “flood the Internet,” which he likened to “a series of tubes.” Companies like Comcast could filter competitor ads […]
by Alanna Irving, originally posted at the Open Collective blog Social.coop is a cooperatively run instance of Mastodon, a decentralized social network based on open protocols and free, open-source software. Alanna from Open Collective interviewed three of its co-founders to find out more. Nathan Schneider is a media scholar, journalist, and co-founder of the platform […]
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 […]
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 […]