The second event in the Unlike Us series takes place next week in Amsterdam. I quote from the event page:
Unlike Us 2 is the second event on ‘alternatives in social media’, where artists, designers, scholars, activists and programmers gather. This international research network analyzes the economic and cultural aspects of dominant social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Through workshops, conferences, online dialogues and publications, the Unlike Us network intends to both analyze the economic and cultural aspects of dominant social media platforms and propagate the further development and proliferation of alternative, decentralized social media software.
I will host the session 6 “Social Media Activism and the Critique of Liberation Technology” on Saturday, March 10, from 15.45h to 17.30h. This is the session’s general theme:
While the tendency to label any emergent social movement as the latest ‘Twitter revolution’ has passed, a liberal discourse of ‘liberation technology’ (information and communication technologies that empower grassroots movements) continues to influence our ideas about networked participation. This discourse tends to obscure power relations and obstruct critical questioning about the capitalist institutions and superstructures in which these technologies operate.
As the first years of euphoria are over, the wild west style data digging companies are facing resistances from every level: single users campaign against facebook’s ubiquitous data collections as well as nation states and the EU are slowly understanding the urge to push wild west 2.0 back into a regulated framework. Once Social Media is integrated into a larger framework of policies and laws, once its place in society reflects a position negotiated by stakeholders, states and privacy commissioners, will such a normalised commodification of communal communication simply be accepted?
The panelists are Philipp Budka, Stefania Milan, Max Schrems, and Eleanor Saitta.