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Regime change in the west
There’s a "normal" dangerous illusion still clinging to liberal democracies: that we’re in a time of political turbulence, but the foundations remain intact. That, somehow, we’ll "course correct." But this need to be seen as blinded thinking. What is obvious is that we’re actually experiencing is regime change, not in some distant land, but right here in the West. And it’s not coming from tanks or coups, but through the ballot box, boardrooms, social media algorithms, and #NGO […]hamishcampbell.comRegime change in the west – Hamish Campbell
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This latest trade war prompted me to revisit my notes as an #Indymedia correspondent at the 2001 WTO Ministerial in Doha, where I witnessed the launch of the Doha Round firsthand. It kicked off years of predatory negotiations that left many Global South countries (and billions of people) vulnerable to what we’re seeing now: abusive tariffs weaponized to extract even more from those with the least. I'll be publishing a full article in the next few days.
(Can’t believe it’s been 24 years already!)
#Trade #WTO #TradeWar #GlobalSouth #Tariffs #Neoliberalism
(Can’t believe it’s been 24 years already!)
#Trade #WTO #TradeWar #GlobalSouth #Tariffs #Neoliberalism
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Consider donating to support our work. Every contribution makes a difference, and it's perfect for those who live outside #Leicester & #Leicestershire:
The development of #IndymediaBack
The reboot of #Indymedia (#IndymediaBack) is about reclaiming grassroots, open, and radical media infrastructure outside of the control of corporate platforms and #dotcons. However, the development side has stalled due to the same issues that have stalled other #openweb projects, lack of sustained coder engagement, resistance in centralized funding, and the dominance of closed silos.
The challenge is building tech that works for activists, not just developers. The original Indymedia relied on early open-source tools. This means moving beyond tech-fetishist projects that scratch a developer’s itch while ignoring real-world community.
A trust-based federated publishing network is the goal. The #OMN (Open Media Network) framework already outlines how to create syndicated media flows using #4opens. The stalled dev site at http://unite.openworlds.info needs committed developers who care about media as a movement, not just a tech experiment.
Without serious investment in #DIY, people-friendly, open-source alternatives, activists will remain trapped inside the #mainstreaming of social media platforms. The question is: can we finally push through the #geekproblem and make this happen?
Open Media NetworkOpen Media NetworkOrganisation for and example of "rebooting" Independent Media Centre's
In Graz gehen Polizei, Verfassungsschutz und Staatsanwaltschaft gegen 7 Antifaschist*innen vor weil sie einem Burschenschafter eine Mütze geklaut haben solln
de.indymedia.orgWIR SIND ALLE ANTIFA GRAZ 2025 - Chronologie der Ereignisse | de.indymedia.org
Our redesign saw us change our name 
Formerly Great Central Gazette, we're now the Leicester Gazette. Our new logo features a wyvern, an often overlooked #Leicester symbol. Read more about the story behind our new look:
https://www.leicester.news/the-story-behind-our-new-name-and-look/
We support open access to knowledge! 
Using Creative Commons licences allows other publishers to use our work, with appropriate credit. We sometimes republish content from likeminded #IndyMedia, too:
We work closely with PINF, the UK's first charity for independent public interest news PINF provides funding & resources for newsrooms like ours to use, bringing you better local journalism. Read more here:
We’re a member of the Independent Media Association Our affiliation with IMA ensures we uphold the highest standards in journalism and innovation:
We’re proud to be regulated by IMPRESS, which ensures high standards in our journalism We're committed to ethical reporting practices.
People, community, the long struggle between the #openweb and #dotcons
This is a mess that has been clear to see for 20 years, but people keep falling into the same traps instead of stepping off the cycle of control. We had something, we lost it, and we are still refusing to face why.
Let’s use #Failbook as a practical example of a monster that devours our dreams, fifteen years ago, the writing was already on the wall, #failbook and the #dotcons would eat everything. It wasn’t some grand conspiracy, just basic power and control dynamics. People knew this. They saw the cage being built around them, yet walked in willingly. Why? Because in the small picture, it was “easier” to stay inside than to step outside. They thought they were users, but they were being used. Every attempt to “fix” #failbook, the endless ethical tech debates, the “kinder, fairer” alternatives, the #NGO-funded projects promising “a better social network”, misses the core issue: You don’t fix a monster. You stop feeding it and walk away.
This is where the religious metaphor fits, people don’t want atheism (the #openweb), they just want a nicer god (ethical #dotcons). They still kneel before centralized power, just hoping for a softer whip. We need to stop worshipping the digital feudal lords and start building something else entirely. One path is to reboot the original #openweb
To do this we need some social history: The #openweb was murdered, and no one faced the consequences, we need a truth and reconciliation process for what happened to the #openweb. Why? Because people refuse to learn from history, and that means they keep making the same mistakes. Look at the waves of migration from open to closed over the last two decades:
The rise of blogs and open publishing (2000s) → The pull into social media walled gardens (2010s)
The rise of the federated web (2000s, early 2010s) → The collapse into corporate-owned silos (late 2010s, 2020s)
The rebirth of the Fediverse (Mastodon, PeerTube, Lemmy, etc.) → Now being co-opted by NGOs and #mainstreaming interests
Each time, the excuse is different, but the result is the same, we hand over power, they take control, we lose everything. Until we face the fact that we let this happen, that we were complicit, this cycle won’t stop. Every time we fail to call it what it is, the blood-letting/stains keep coming back.
The problem with #NGO and Co-op models, people love to push the same “solutions” that failed before. Pushing a voluntary project into a hard “not-for-profit” structure kills it, this happened again and again. Look at #indymedia. It worked because it was messy, decentralized, built from the ground up. Run by volunteers, not controlled by a central authority. Rooted in the activist base, not an #NGO-funded agenda. Then came the push to “formalize” it, and what happened?
Funding fights, bureaucracy, infighting.
Projects being hijacked or forced into rigid structures.
Most of the co-op/NGO media projects collapsed.
There is nothing wrong with people building not-for-profit media, but stop forcing voluntary activism into structures that will kill it. The old mistakes aren’t new solutions. They are just mistakes waiting to happen again.
The #OMN and the need for diversity of strategies, the #OMN is built on a simple idea, diversity of strategies is strength. We need:
Commercial models where they work.
Not-for-profit structures where they make sense.
Voluntary activism as the foundation.
Then the basic #4opens of them linking to each other. What we don’t need is people using their own narrow worldview as a #BLOCK on other approaches in the guise of “helping”. This happens all the time, with the #NGO crowd that wants everything formalized, structured, and professionalized, they see grassroots messiness as a problem. The geeks want everything to be purely about the tech, ignoring the social and political realities. The politicos want everything to align with their ideology, even when that means excluding actual working solutions. These proxy fights kill the meany projects before they even start.
The solution is not ideological purity, it’s pragmatic diversity. If we want to break the cycle, we need to stop repeating the same mistakes, stop blocking each other, link and start building with what we have #KISS
One path to this, that needs support https://opencollective.com/open-media-network
opencollective.comOpen-Media-Network - Open CollectiveOMN is a project to reboot the original #openweb as a useful tool for progressive social change and challenge
People, community, the long struggle between the #openweb and #dotcons
This is a mess that has been clear to see for 20 years, but people keep falling into the same traps instead of stepping off the cycle of control. We had something, we lost it, and we are still refusing to face why. Let's use #Failbook as a practical example of a monster that devours our dreams, fifteen years ago, the writing was already on the wall, #failbook and the #dotcons would eat everything. It wasn't some grand conspiracy, just basic power and control dynamics. People knew this. […]https://hamishcampbell.com/people-community-the-long-struggle-between-the-openweb-and-dotcons/
hamishcampbell.comPeople, community, the struggle between #openweb and #dotcons – Hamish Campbell
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Security is a social problem first, a tech problem second
The #geekproblem locks us into hardcoded #feudalism, power structures baked into the code itself, with server admins as kings, users as serfs. To break this, we need to build trust-based paths first and let security emerge from that, rather than bolting it on after the fact.What actually needs to be secured? The account → If the instance isn’t secure, the account isn’t either. The activity feed → The flows need to be secured to prevent manipulation. The credit (data […]https://hamishcampbell.com/security-is-a-social-problem-first-a-tech-problem-second/
hamishcampbell.comSecurity is a social problem first, a tech problem second – Hamish Campbell
More from Hamish Campbell
This was a post from 7 years ago: We do live in interesting times — again — for the #openweb. Let’s try to do better than last time 
. The truth is, we completely messed up the last decade of tech development. And yes, we lost a critical battle around 2008. What followed was a lost decade where #openweb tech devolved into a steaming pile of #techshit. Maybe it’s time to start composting? Do you need a shovel? #OMN
Q: What exactly is being proposed here? Can you explain the vision in more detail?
A: The vision is pretty straightforward: use the #4opens as a foundation to replace Google’s gatekeeping of search. The idea is to build #openweb projects that can initially supplement, and eventually replace, the #dotcons in this space. Whether or not the #fashernistas push this mainstream is secondary — the work is worth doing either way.
On the #OMN side, the current focus is rebooting #Indymedia as a decentralized, trust-based publishing network, and launching the #ResistanceExhibition for public archiving of grassroots struggles. These are tangible, practical projects built with a #KISS approach to keep things simple and functional, rather than getting lost in the usual cycle of over-complication.
We’re also seeing a wave of #fashernistas flooding into #openweb development. Expect to see plenty of replays of the #geekproblem as people chase trends rather than build sustainable solutions. Hopefully, this will be balanced out by a continued focus on healthy #4opens development — the kind that centers community needs over tech fetishism.
At least for now, the #encryptionists have been pushed into the background by the spectacular failures of #crypto fantasies. But if we don’t actively build alternatives, these bad ideas will keep coming back. The key is to stay grounded, keep shoveling the compost, and grow something real.
The future of the #openweb isn’t going to build itself — but the roots are still alive. Let’s dig in.
. The truth is, we completely messed up the last decade of tech development. And yes, we lost a critical battle around 2008. What followed was a lost decade where #openweb tech devolved into a steaming pile of #techshit. Maybe it’s time to start composting? Do you need a shovel? #OMNQ: What exactly is being proposed here? Can you explain the vision in more detail?
A: The vision is pretty straightforward: use the #4opens as a foundation to replace Google’s gatekeeping of search. The idea is to build #openweb projects that can initially supplement, and eventually replace, the #dotcons in this space. Whether or not the #fashernistas push this mainstream is secondary — the work is worth doing either way.
On the #OMN side, the current focus is rebooting #Indymedia as a decentralized, trust-based publishing network, and launching the #ResistanceExhibition for public archiving of grassroots struggles. These are tangible, practical projects built with a #KISS approach to keep things simple and functional, rather than getting lost in the usual cycle of over-complication.
We’re also seeing a wave of #fashernistas flooding into #openweb development. Expect to see plenty of replays of the #geekproblem as people chase trends rather than build sustainable solutions. Hopefully, this will be balanced out by a continued focus on healthy #4opens development — the kind that centers community needs over tech fetishism.
At least for now, the #encryptionists have been pushed into the background by the spectacular failures of #crypto fantasies. But if we don’t actively build alternatives, these bad ideas will keep coming back. The key is to stay grounded, keep shoveling the compost, and grow something real.
The future of the #openweb isn’t going to build itself — but the roots are still alive. Let’s dig in.
This was a post from 7 years ago: We do live in interesting times — again — for the #openweb. Let’s try to do better than last time . The truth is, we completely messed up the last decade of tech development. And yes, we lost a critical battle around 2008. What followed was a lost decade where #openweb tech devolved into a steaming pile of #techshit. Maybe it’s time to start composting? Do you need a shovel? #OMN
Q: What exactly is being proposed here? Can you explain the vision in more detail?
A: The vision is pretty straightforward: use the #4opens as a foundation to replace Google’s gatekeeping of search. The idea is to build #openweb projects that can initially supplement, and eventually replace, the #dotcons in this space. Whether or not the #fashernistas push this mainstream is secondary — the work is worth doing either way.
On the #OMN side, the current focus is rebooting #Indymedia as a decentralized, trust-based publishing network, and launching the #ResistanceExhibition for public archiving of grassroots struggles. These are tangible, practical projects built with a #KISS approach to keep things simple and functional, rather than getting lost in the usual cycle of over-complication.
We’re also seeing a wave of #fashernistas flooding into #openweb development. Expect to see plenty of replays of the #geekproblem as people chase trends rather than build sustainable solutions. Hopefully, this will be balanced out by a continued focus on healthy #4opens development — the kind that centers community needs over tech fetishism.
At least for now, the #encryptionists have been pushed into the background by the spectacular failures of #crypto fantasies. But if we don’t actively build alternatives, these bad ideas will keep coming back. The key is to stay grounded, keep shoveling the compost, and grow something real.
The future of the #openweb isn’t going to build itself — but the roots are still alive. Let’s dig in. 
Radical movements are too often their own worst enemies
Radical movements are too often their own worst enemies. The push/pull between the desire for real change and the gravitational pull of #mainstreaming feed the #stupidindividualism that keeps people locked into conservative, performative loops. These loops are not accidental, they are the result of movements that to often shift focus to prioritize (invisible) ideological purity, insular "safety" subcultures, and a morbid reverence for past failures over the messy, unpredictable work of […]https://hamishcampbell.com/radical-movements-are-too-often-their-own-worst-enemies/
hamishcampbell.comRadical movements are too often their own worst enemies – Hamish Campbell
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I did a refresh of this old post - Why fund the reboot of the #Indymedia project https://hamishcampbell.com/why-fund-the-reboot-of-the-indymedia-project/
hamishcampbell.comWhy fund the reboot of the #Indymedia project – Hamish Campbell
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