Webinar with the European Commission and AP Community

I’ll work on the slide and give you a heads-up once it is in.

Update: @CristinaDeLisle it went quicker than thought :slight_smile:

I have added it in now with a transparent (black) background. This because the use of that background is then consistent for the entire presenation, and also because then both the colors are way more vibrant, as well as there is more emphasis on the fedi network structure. On the other hand with a white background you have the white / blue EU combo, and the blue text is a bit more prominent.

You can test for yourself by changing background in the image to background:#fff. I’ll let you choose what you like the most.

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@aschrijver I would add the text “The European Take On Social Networking” and “United in Diversity” written with white, so it’s uniform with the rest of the presentation, having white text on black background. In rest it looks perfect. I’m ok also with leaving it with blue text on the image, if it’s too much trouble to make it white. Thank you so much for this!

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That’s a small change… it is done :slight_smile:

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Perfect, looks much better than I imagined it initially! <3

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Agreed, thanks for this. By the way, we might still need some points of discussion in case the talking after the presentation stalls. I will add some to the cover slide that is uploaded to the BBB-room (the one that replaces the standard background) so we can keep the talking points in the background.

Update: I will add the discussion points here first, to make sure everyone is in agreement of their usefulness/applicability.

@aschrijver The graphic looks amazing by the way, very explanatory!

By the way here are some suggestions for points of discussion after the presentation:

  • Methods of moderation: how to deal with misinformation and harassment
  • Taking responsibility: trustworthy tech or third party privacy policy
  • Beyond ‘ethical alternatives’: the possibilities of decentralized federation
  • Actually interoperable: the risk of gatekeepers setting the rules

What do you think , are these rather self-explanatory? And @aschrijver did you add that first slide as a PDF to the BBB-presentation (instead of the default screen) during the last meetup? I remember there being a presentation that includes the agenda emoticon, which I am unable to add. Once the discussion points are definitive, they can be added to that PDF.

By the way, the BBB forgets the presentation once you leave a meeting, so I will add a final version Monday morning when the room is already open (which I expect to do around 9 am).

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Hello,

Following the 2 separate & consecutive discussions with @mathewlowry and @j8ter , there are some changes in the slides:

  • a new slide added in the presentation, Towards a landscape of open gardens (thanks to Joost for the styling and to Mathew for the ideas). We took out the second bullet point, Mathew, as we felt it’s repeating the first point. Is this looking ok to you now?
  • “no user-lockin” mentioned in the Main Benefits of the Fediverse (Mathew suggestion)
  • In The European & Fediverse Models, we removed “horizontal” from the table line (Mathew suggestion), added sovereign (Joost suggestion). Added Anti-monopoly, pro-innovation (Mathew suggestion).

I add also that Mathew was particularly critical on the slide with Unmediated Citizen Engagement, but both Joost and myself agree that at this point we will go with the current content, with no change. Joost suggested to add “interested” on the slide, to point out that no citizen will get spammed by various adds meant to outreach users.

Please let me know if at this point the presentation looks ok to everyone (tagging @aschrijver @hamishcampbell @how ) and thank you again for all your work. :+1:

Have a great rest of the weekend!

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It’s good.

A few points: for updates for you guys to look at.

Lack of sovereignty (externalized to platforms) can we make this easier to understand?

The #dotcons are worth billion because they are a tool for social control - they just call it advertising - you can see this with our crises in democratic elections etc.

Maybe: Lack of sovereignty (crises in democracy) or Lack of sovereignty (tech imperialism) or something that makes more sense, ideas.


After the Web Enclosure - it should be The closed web

We pointlessly brack the rhythm and #KISS simplicity of open/closed/open with the current wording.


What is it used for?

Way to meany projects to be meaningful, much better the cut down list.

The is politics in what projects are in and what out we push a mess inside the fedivers with this selection. Better to keep it simple and focused to the ones in wide use and have the text at the end more prominent.


The image is good - interesting to see the UK missing.


ActivityPub is “Digital European Values”

Still like: ActivityPub “European humanism in code”

Though there are postmodernists who hate humanism so the is a tiny chance of philosophical arguments. Up to you guys.


Would be nice to warm up the ending a bit see my last post.

What is it used for?

Looking at this agen

We need to reduce the list otherwise we do stoke bad feeling in the fedivers between the pretty random projects that get in and the meany project that do not. Please use the limited list to avoid issues like this.

We need to create a copy of the slide deck for the creation of the PDF. This because the deck is optimized for dark mode (i.e. image has white text). As for the calendar ‘icon’… it’s just a Unicode character. Here’s the line to include:

#### [🗒 Event Details](https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks/pub/ec-ngi0-liaison-webinars-and-workshop-april-2021)

I would still consider also mentioning no Vendor lock-in, as this is a consideration for IT departments when selecting software. It can be combined here i.e. “no user / vendor lock-in”. I made that change, and added info to slide notes.

The list row has on EU side “Anti-monopoly, pro-innovation” but lacks innovation on fedi side, while I think this is our strong point. Anyone can start their own cool app and start integrating with the fabric of the fedi. I included “makers space / innovation lab”.

What was the main criticism about? Maybe we can make the slide stronger still.

I find this a bit unclear too. I think it means that you are under the whim of the platform’s modus operandi. Nowadays - from business perspective - e.g. deplatforming (for instance auto-triggered by an algorithm seeing a keyword it doesn’t like in your content) and then subsequently not having access to a support desk to correct mistakes, can take entire businesses out of operation in a second. I added 3 sub-bullets:

  • Random deplatforming
  • Algorithmic censorship
  • No support desk

Agree with @hamishcampbell. I don’t find mention of “web enclosure” both on DDG and Google Search. If it were a well-established concept we might use it, but the “open → closed → open” is a comprehensive and telling tale of what we want to achieve. I changed the slide accordingly.

I disagree on this. It is good to show that in different domains we have alternatives to choose from. @CristinaDeLisle will highlight some of the prominent entries, and after the webinar the audience can discover what more is out there.

But both the innovation and the lack of vendor lock-in come from the variety of alternatives that are being developed, while they still interoperate together.

If this stokes bad feelings in the Fediverse, then it is pretty immature of those offended. We just highlight some examples, and mention at the bottom of the slide that there’s much more to delve into. (Note: agree with @how, too strong, and I apologized for that)

I like the term “humanism” (thanks to you I will use it more often), and I feel the slide has space for it. According to Wikipedia:

Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, both individually and collectively.

This is most fitting for Fediverse. I added it in the slide. @CristinaDeLisle please remove if you feel uncomfortable with it.

Correct, the issue is that I could not properly translate the Hedgedoc-style to PDF (font, background, etc does not carry over with simple html-to-pdf tools). So for now I recreated the slide deck in an empty PDF. Will look into how I could fix this.

We can have a small call later today to figure things out, Joost.

I just found a possible solution suggested by Hedgedoc: https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/how-to-save-a-webpage-as-a-pdf/

Will look into this and let you know of I can figure it out (not so flexible for calls today, would be only around 14.30 or 20.30).

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The keyword here is Enclosure: the process of closing something. It refers to historical policy. Not something out of the blue. It is a well-established concept, really.

No it’s not: what you’re doing here is patronizing people who could feel left aside by your choice. This is not cool. What we discussed earlier was to focus on the services and try not to name one project over another to avoid frction. But we ended up with a list that keeps growing because, yes, why this instead of that, etc.

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I made the change, but no strong feelings whatever ultimately is chosen. Maybe @CristinaDeLisle can be the decider?

I am sorry. It was certainly not meant that strongly. What I was meaning to say is that whatever is on the slide is just a small subset - our selection - whatever we add. Impossible to make everyone happy. Apologize if it sounded patronizing.

PS. The list itself is not longer than how we discussed it to be on the last prep meetup, where everyone could join. (edit: If you want to make that slide fair, then we should mention zero apps by name, just domains + app count)


@CristinaDeLisle: I was up early this morning, processed all feedback, but I think it best if I (and others too?) no longer touch the presentation, and leave all further tweaks up to you. I will, of course, be available for any help. Just reach out… I’ll check regularly.

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I would go with the Enclosure, considering the the previous slide is called How the Web Became Closed and to avoid a repetition with The Closed Web. Also, I think @how is right, as it’s suggesting a process and not a static thing. I would suggest to decide among you if you really wish to make the change, but I would go with how it is right now.

Can you let me know expressly who should I mention? Last time we said we will add a note instead of a bold font for those, but I don’t spot a note somewhere. Obviously I don’t want to make someone feel left behind. :slight_smile:

His main criticism was that current big platform spend a lot of resources to invest in outreching citizens and they are doing a good job from the perspective of the audience. It does not matter much that it’s a direct approach or a mediated one. At Inter-department communication he said it does not reflect how the EU works and people will laugh at us. We ended the discussion here in fact, as I was having a call with Joost from 20h00 (I had one with Mathew at 19h00). To me this slide does make sense, I’ve seen this idea with direct outreach as an important point mentioned in some other places.

If this is so important for you, I could add it and explain humanism as a philosophical concept as well, so it’s not a new term introduced out of the blue. All good with Humanist approach - can you however let me know what is the opposite approach? " today humanism may refer to a nontheistic life stance centred on human agency and looking to science rather than revelation from a supernatural source to understand the world."(Humanism - Wikipedia)

^^ This is what I find on Wikipedia on humanism.

I will explain it and it will make sense. I can say it creates a crisis in democracy, to be aligned with your suggestion.

Thank you again for your help! :+1:

How the Web became Closed

^^ The slide changed formatting - who is making changes now to it? Can someone help me with fixing it? Maybe @aschrijver , just trying my luck :slight_smile:

Thank you in advance! :+1:

No problem. Changed back to original title.

The opposite approach is where the social media are purely developed for “the bottom line” i.e. to maximize profits and shareholder value to the detriment of all other - moral and ethical - considerations and regardless of negative downsides. This incentive is completely lacking in the Fediverse, hence people’s interests come first and foremost into consideration again. (I’d like to say that Fediverse can be considered a playground for ‘humane technologists’ in that way).

I don’t think it needs a deep-dive on more philosophical terms. The summary text on Wikipedia is often the strongest and just says “Humanism is a philosophical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively”. Later on in such pages various intepretations and details are mentioned.

See also my comment above, after my apology. @how, a fair way would name no apps then? Personally I like the current glimpse of the landscape :slight_smile:

I agree. Makes sense to me too. Unless other people want to improve, I have no further suggestions.

No, I did not make that change.

Like to help me fix it - not saying you did it :+1:

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