The corporations are going to move to remove all left-wing content, it's best we begin changing strategy. Popular social medias need to be a secondary relation, not a primary.
Share everywhere, let’s begin building a new way to use the internet
I’ve been saying this for a long time as well. All the tools are available for us. We have a few issues I think:
Networking
Administration
Ease of access
Networking
We need to built a network (read webring or similar) of leftist sites. We need to take a Popular Front approach to this work. Connecting groups via our shared core goals regardless of our ideological differences. This way, that list of shared sites is more easily and readily accessible. Remember, Google Search isn’t going to turn up these sites on a query most of the time. So building a network of sites is key to discovery. This could also work as a kind of federation group.
Administration
We need to foster a cadre of technical minded comrades as well as community minded comrades to build these sites. This is a dual issue that needs to be worked out in unison, because these sites need to be stable. Not just in terms of uptime but also in its community. A site which is wither up and down often, or unmoderated and full of wreckers does us nothing and will make this task more difficult for everyone. We have a dedicated person on the team at Hexbear maintaining our UI fork for example. Its unclear of we have a backup plan for a “hit by a bus” scenario here. So we must ensure open communication with the wider administrative community but also find ways to educate and train more like minded technical comrades and community builders. Likewise we need to be involved as much as we can in contributing to projects to ensure they suite our needs and to ensure their continued development.
Ease of Access
Lastly, we should be collecting and collaborating together on how to make the setup and management of these sites as easy as we can for future operators. Hosting things like Lemmy, Matrix, Mastodon, etc, is no simple task at times. This goes hand in hand with Administration. Part of being a good administrator is having good documentation. Many of these services have decent documentation, but it could be better. So as part of ensuring ease of access we should be collecting:
guides on configuring popular services.
docker configurations for easy spin up.
write-ups on various services to run, their maintenance complexity, and ease of administration.
an authoritative list of queer/leftist software to investigate.
We should also be evaluating the underlying tech stack as well and providing guidance on things like: what hosting sites to use, What domain registrars to use, How to host out of your house, etc.
If we want this network to grow; if we want it to be the safe harbor for users who will be driven off mainstream social media, we have to make that process easier for people. With the_deprogram kicked off reddit, I wonder if they would have taken the option of building their own site if we had materials ready to ease them into that process.
We definitely need to go with the old internet way of websites linking to other websites their authors like. I’ve been thinking for a while that it would be nice if Lemmygrad/hexbear, tankietube and matapacosdog all linked to each-other in places where everyone can see them. We should also link across languages whenever possible and link to similar communities in Spanish, Russian, Chinese or whichever else.
Also, we’re really under-utilizing the fediverse’s capability to have users and contents from completely different software interact directly with each-other.
We should also try to form a base of dedicated content creators who would create content specifically or at least primarily for our spaces, artists to post art, pictures and creative writing of lemmygrad, hexbear and matapacos, musicians and videasts to post music and videos on tankietube.
Even a simple webring might be a step up from what we’re doing now. I’m sure we could get the admins of each site to at least put some links into the sidebar. A webring though, that’s retro and cool!
These are sick, and that marxism.org one is really tickling me for some reason. You just had these on deck? Also, what kind of dope name would our webring have?
The RedRing? The week when decades happen? Workers of the world united? The bunker? The people’s web? The deeply serious communists? Karl’s chill corner?
The Popular Front For Liberation and Socialism Webring, or PFLSWR if you’re nasty. WWWW, Workers World Wide Webring. USSWR, The United Socialist Sites Webring. Cominterwebring, or the Communist International Webring. PLWR, The Peoples Liberation Webring. The Abolish Capital Webring (apparently abolish[.]capital is an available domain name).
I’m a collector of old(-looking) commie/lefty websites and graphics 🫡
Also, what kind of dope name would our webring have?
I like “The People’s Web(ring)” and “USSWR, The United Socialist Sites Webring” mentioned below
I feel the People’s Web could be a way to refer to the concept of the commie side of the indie/alt/personal/non-corporate/etc. web in general and USSWR for the webring :)
I’m a collector of old(-looking) commie/lefty websites and graphics.
Is there a way for me to see your collection 👀.
I like “The People’s Web(ring)” and “USSWR, The United Socialist Sites Webring” mentioned below
I feel the People’s Web could be a way to refer to the concept of the commie side of the indie/alt/personal/non-corporate/etc. web in general and USSWR for the webring :)
I floated the idea of “The Peoples Network” a while back in another post, and then I found out that chuds have captured that name. It’s also apparently the name of a multilevel marketing company.
I do like the sound of “The People’s Web” as a subsection of the Indie/alt web movement, though. I did manage to acquire the domain abolish.capital which I’m just itching to use as more than just a whole ass copy of the manifesto.
it’s to bad .web tld are not a thing (yet). I feel like I’d need to grab a good thepeoplesweb.tld. I could probably get www[.]peopleswebr[.]ing.
I don’t have it displayed anywhere at the moment, but I’ll let you know if I put something up.
Here’s some sites that are the type I look for (no particular order). I recommend looking at the external links of the archived sites if you’d like to go browsing around more sites from the same era. Looking up communist related search terms on https://gifcities.org/ can also bring you to some interesting sites. And looking at the oldest archived versions of currently active sites can dig up some interesting outlinks too.
I’ll keep an eye on abolish.capital. It really would be fun if you got a webring going. And maybe you should list the page on https://sitesforpalestine.neocities.org/ when you have some other content up :D
Everything you said I fully agree with and it’s why, as someone deeply studied and experienced in social media and various IT issues, me and my comrades are building what we are building. I have my think tank which deals with a lot of these issues, and then my comrade has our IT agency for teaching on the issues of cyber security, websites, etc. Both of our organizations will bleed over to each other at times but that was the intended purpose.
A piece I posted back in April, which is something I’ve been discussing with them for a year or two now, is “the biggest weak points in the Left” and it goes over some of this. It’s why we are building as much as we can and inviting as many into it as we can because we need to solve these issues.
https://islamicsocialist.substack.com/p/the-biggest-weak-points-of-the-us
I’ve been saying this for a long time as well. All the tools are available for us. We have a few issues I think:
Networking
We need to built a network (read webring or similar) of leftist sites. We need to take a Popular Front approach to this work. Connecting groups via our shared core goals regardless of our ideological differences. This way, that list of shared sites is more easily and readily accessible. Remember, Google Search isn’t going to turn up these sites on a query most of the time. So building a network of sites is key to discovery. This could also work as a kind of federation group.
Administration
We need to foster a cadre of technical minded comrades as well as community minded comrades to build these sites. This is a dual issue that needs to be worked out in unison, because these sites need to be stable. Not just in terms of uptime but also in its community. A site which is wither up and down often, or unmoderated and full of wreckers does us nothing and will make this task more difficult for everyone. We have a dedicated person on the team at Hexbear maintaining our UI fork for example. Its unclear of we have a backup plan for a “hit by a bus” scenario here. So we must ensure open communication with the wider administrative community but also find ways to educate and train more like minded technical comrades and community builders. Likewise we need to be involved as much as we can in contributing to projects to ensure they suite our needs and to ensure their continued development.
Ease of Access
Lastly, we should be collecting and collaborating together on how to make the setup and management of these sites as easy as we can for future operators. Hosting things like Lemmy, Matrix, Mastodon, etc, is no simple task at times. This goes hand in hand with Administration. Part of being a good administrator is having good documentation. Many of these services have decent documentation, but it could be better. So as part of ensuring ease of access we should be collecting:
We should also be evaluating the underlying tech stack as well and providing guidance on things like: what hosting sites to use, What domain registrars to use, How to host out of your house, etc.
If we want this network to grow; if we want it to be the safe harbor for users who will be driven off mainstream social media, we have to make that process easier for people. With the_deprogram kicked off reddit, I wonder if they would have taken the option of building their own site if we had materials ready to ease them into that process.
We definitely need to go with the old internet way of websites linking to other websites their authors like. I’ve been thinking for a while that it would be nice if Lemmygrad/hexbear, tankietube and matapacosdog all linked to each-other in places where everyone can see them. We should also link across languages whenever possible and link to similar communities in Spanish, Russian, Chinese or whichever else.
Also, we’re really under-utilizing the fediverse’s capability to have users and contents from completely different software interact directly with each-other.
We should also try to form a base of dedicated content creators who would create content specifically or at least primarily for our spaces, artists to post art, pictures and creative writing of lemmygrad, hexbear and matapacos, musicians and videasts to post music and videos on tankietube.
Even a simple webring might be a step up from what we’re doing now. I’m sure we could get the admins of each site to at least put some links into the sidebar. A webring though, that’s retro and cool!
I have nothing useful to add to these ideas but I just want to say yeah a webring would be cool and fun.
These are sick, and that marxism.org one is really tickling me for some reason. You just had these on deck? Also, what kind of dope name would our webring have?
The RedRing? The week when decades happen? Workers of the world united? The bunker? The people’s web? The deeply serious communists? Karl’s chill corner?
The Popular Front For Liberation and Socialism Webring, or PFLSWR if you’re nasty. WWWW, Workers World Wide Webring. USSWR, The United Socialist Sites Webring. Cominterwebring, or the Communist International Webring. PLWR, The Peoples Liberation Webring. The Abolish Capital Webring (apparently abolish[.]capital is an available domain name).
I vote for abolishing its availability by taking it.
It is done!
I’m a collector of old(-looking) commie/lefty websites and graphics 🫡
I like “The People’s Web(ring)” and “USSWR, The United Socialist Sites Webring” mentioned below
I feel the People’s Web could be a way to refer to the concept of the commie side of the indie/alt/personal/non-corporate/etc. web in general and USSWR for the webring :)
Is there a way for me to see your collection 👀.
I floated the idea of “The Peoples Network” a while back in another post, and then I found out that chuds have captured that name. It’s also apparently the name of a multilevel marketing company.
I do like the sound of “The People’s Web” as a subsection of the Indie/alt web movement, though. I did manage to acquire the domain abolish.capital which I’m just itching to use as more than just a whole ass copy of the manifesto.
it’s to bad .web tld are not a thing (yet). I feel like I’d need to grab a good thepeoplesweb.tld. I could probably get www[.]peopleswebr[.]ing.
I don’t have it displayed anywhere at the moment, but I’ll let you know if I put something up.
Here’s some sites that are the type I look for (no particular order). I recommend looking at the external links of the archived sites if you’d like to go browsing around more sites from the same era. Looking up communist related search terms on https://gifcities.org/ can also bring you to some interesting sites. And looking at the oldest archived versions of currently active sites can dig up some interesting outlinks too.
links
https://web.archive.org/web/20051130032722/http://www.mltoday.com/
https://web.archive.org/web/20030205055716/http://www.neravt.com/left/
https://web.archive.org/web/19990129045852/http://lists.village.virginia.edu/~spoons/marxism/marxism.html
https://web.archive.org/web/20010124184100/http://stopnato.home-page.org/ ~ maybe we can revive our own version of the anti-NATO webring on this page :)
https://web.archive.org/web/20011214154157/http://www.buko24.de/nato_eng.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20050415081219/http://www.freethefive.org/
https://web.archive.org/web/20030401081318/http://www.zmag.org/weluser.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20041122015552/http://www.che-lives.com/home/
https://web.archive.org/web/19981202075013/http://www.rednet.org/
https://web.archive.org/web/19980623222341/http://www.sacp.org.za/ ~ and their links page
https://web.archive.org/web/20041208085413/http://geocities.com/bulgybear/peace.html
https://web.archive.org/web/19990202155401/http://www.cartoonwork.com/Archive.html ~ lefty political cartoons
https://web.archive.org/web/20000302234956/http://www.marxists.org/index.htm ~ marxists.org in 2000
https://firethistime.net/ (this site is still active but the style looks old)
a few more graphics
Also of interest:
CIA 2010 covert communication websites
The CIA Built Hundreds of Covert Websites. Here’s What They Were Hiding
I’ll keep an eye on abolish.capital. It really would be fun if you got a webring going. And maybe you should list the page on https://sitesforpalestine.neocities.org/ when you have some other content up :D
What a feast for the eyes!
ngl I’m gonna steal some of those.
She hammer and sickle and Stalin star trek ship goes so hard.
o7
Everything you said I fully agree with and it’s why, as someone deeply studied and experienced in social media and various IT issues, me and my comrades are building what we are building. I have my think tank which deals with a lot of these issues, and then my comrade has our IT agency for teaching on the issues of cyber security, websites, etc. Both of our organizations will bleed over to each other at times but that was the intended purpose.
A piece I posted back in April, which is something I’ve been discussing with them for a year or two now, is “the biggest weak points in the Left” and it goes over some of this. It’s why we are building as much as we can and inviting as many into it as we can because we need to solve these issues. https://islamicsocialist.substack.com/p/the-biggest-weak-points-of-the-us