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<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
  <head>
    <title>Seven Theses On The Fediverse</title>
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class: bottom, middle

# Seven Theses on the *Fediverse* 
# and the becoming of FLOSS

.left[Transmediale 2k20<br /><br />Aymeric Mansoux (@320x200@post.lurk.org)<br />Roel Roscam Abbing (@rra@post.lurk.org)]

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# Introduction

???
WE JUST SAY OUR NAMES?

---
class: center,middle

.center.middle.quote[
## “ What if we were to accept that the goal of theory is not to extend knowledge by confirming what we already know, that the world is a place of domination and oppression? What if we asked theory instead to help us see openings, to provide a space of freedom and possibility? ”]

.left.bottom[2008, J.K Gibson-Graham after Eve Sedgewick in *Diverse Economies: performative practices for 'other worlds'*]

???
WE READ THE QUOTE OUT LOUD

--
???
OK so this talk is not yet another talk about the crisis of social media.

We believe that in the past years there has been a lot of social media critique, perhaps even a surplus. On the other hand, very little attention has been given to what people are doing concretely, when they take such critiques to heart.

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# The Fediverse

???
This is why this talk will focus on such a concrete effort, namely the Fediverse, a grassroots network of interoperating websites that try to establish an alternative to corporate social media. We're talking about platforms for microblogging, video and music sharing, photo publishing, etc, self-hosted by many different communities. 

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# It's complicated

???
Even if this talk does not want to be a critique of social media, that does not mean that our presentation of the Fediverse is uncritical. On the contrary what makes the Fediverse so interesting lies in all its flaws, the issues it tries to address, and also the surprises, complexities and lessons that such an undertaking requires.

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# It's complicated

???
As a result this presentation is not about presenting the latest technosolutionist services. It's more of an introduction to these networks and to present the current state of our research. We also hope this will encourage you to look more closely at what's happening one click away from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and whatnot.

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# 7 theses

???
This is the reason why we very conveniently chose to present 7 theses as an attempt to start mapping potential point of interests and direction for further exploration.

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# Fediverse and F/LOSS culture

???
But these theses are not just about alternative social media. They are also linked to the becoming of Free/Libre and Open Source practices.

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# Fediverse and F/LOSS culture

???
With the fediverse being part of a larger free and open source culture, this talk will also focus on exploring the mutually generative relationship between this alternative social media ecosystem and FLOSS. 

---
class: contain, bottom, left
background-image: url(thefediverse.jpg)
.caption[how_the_fediverse_self_describes.png.jpg]

???
And now for the question that surely many of you have been asking yourself in the past few minutes. What the hell is the Fediverse?

--
???
So let's start with a quick overview.

--
???
It's a network of interoperable social media platforms

--
???
What does that mean?

---
class: contain, bottom, left
background-image: url(thefediverse.jpg)
.caption[how_the_fediverse_self_describes.png.jpg]

???
It means that instead of having a single organisation having control over every things of what consitutes social media, all these things become visible and can be appropriated or shaped in all sorts of different ways.

---
class: contain, bottom, left
background-image: url(assets/themess_no_label.svg.png)


???
Very concretely on corporate social media, everything is conflated into the name of the product. There is no distinction between the app, the URL, community. For instance Facebook is just any and all of these different parts. On the Fediverse, all these elements are up for grabs, and can be combined and activated in different ways.


---

class: contain, bottom, left
background-image: url(assets/themess_no_label.svg.png)

???
If you're on Twitter, you can't comment on a YouTube video. This is not a technical restriction, it's a business decision. But on the Fediverse, you can comment on the video of a federated video sharing platform, from your account on a microblogging platform.

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# Federation

???

All of this is implementing what is referred to as federated networking. Which is pretty much how email works (until everyone switches to gmail that is.)

---

class: contain, bottom, left
background-image: url(assets/centralised.svg.png)

Centralised network

???

On a centralised network, every account relies on a central hub to carry communication across the network. This central hub consequently concentrates all the technical, economic power and political power.

---
class: contain, bottom, left
background-image: url(assets/decentralized_no_legend.svg.png)

Federated network


???
But on a federated network like the Fediverse, users can register one or several accounts on different servers (called instances) of the network, and the instances take care of sending and receiving messages between accounts across the network. Likewise power is distributed across the network.

---
class: contain, bottom, left
background-image: url(assets/decentralized_no_legend.svg.png)

Federated network

???
Each instance can be run by anyone or any group of people for any purpose. This means that in practice the Fediverse is a giant mess. Instances can for general purpose and have several thousands users, or they can be focussed on a specific topic, practice, subject with a handful of users. Some instances are even single user. Finally it's up to each instance to decide if they want to be open to registrations, be invite-only, if they want to publish a code of conduct, or not, etc.

---
class: bottom,left,contain
background-image: url(inthe90s.jpg)
 
.caption[
#### nettime_be_like.jpg]

???
To be sure, Federation is not new.

This is just the latest wave of enthousiasm. But then again, different people, different ideas, different software, different times.

---
class: bottom,left,contain
background-image: url(artemisbolidia_fediposter.jpg)

.caption[**Lídia Pereira, Artemis Gryllaki, Bohye Woo**]


???
If you went to the Transmediale exhibition you may have seen this poster designed and research by Lídia Pereira from the Pervasive Labour Union with Artemis Gryllaki and Bohye Woo from the Experimental Publishing master at Piet Zwart Institute.

---
class: bottom,left,contain
background-image: url(artemisbolidia_fediposter.jpg)

.caption[**Lídia Pereira, Artemis Gryllaki, Bohye Woo**]

???
As seen on the poster, interest on federated social media has grown a lot recently and we think now more than ever it's time to look into it further.

---

class:inverted
# 7 Theses

???
Here we go

---

<!--aymeric-->
# THESIS 1
## Fediverse as transition from meme wars to network wars?

???

What would be a conference on art and digital culture without a good old discussion about internet memes?

---
class: words, center, middle
# Memes!

???
Social media platforms have allowed the democratisation of meme production and have greatly facilitated their circulation.

--
???

They achieved this by creating software that favours the circulation of viral content to keep their users hooked. 

---
class: words, center, middle
# Everything is a meme

???
Now the problem is if you do that for more than a decade, you end up with everything looking like a meme to have any chance at being noticeable in social media.

But there's something else that was completely unforseen...

---
class: words, center, middle
# Language

???
and that was how memes became a language.

A language through which new collective identities could emerge. And would also permit existing subcultures to be stronger.

And this to the point of turning commercial social media into hostile and toxic environments for some communities. But it also made painfully visible how content moderation on coporate social media platforms was always biased.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Moving out of the global village

???
As a result all those that ended up excluded or harmed in these environments became interested in migrating to platforms that they can control themselves, reversing the narrative of the universal global village, and the tech industry claim of connecting the world without friction.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Moving out of the global village

???
In a situation where silencing or voluntary exile are the only options, federation opens a third way. It allows a community to engage with conflicts and exchanges with other communities while remaining undiluted in its scope, ideology or interests.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Network wars?

???
But in this situation, we can wonder if this is not going to accentuate thinking along axes of friends or enemies, to the extent that simplistic meme warfare will be replaced with network wars.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Network wars?

???
This is why, if we're going to talk about memes today, we must move the discussion to the level of social media infrastructures. We must talk about these environments that allow, for better or worse, the sedimentation of knowledge. What happens when some specific discourse can accumulate and concentrate online and what kind of dynamics it creates.

Ultimately, how to deal with a concept such as openness in this context?


---

<!--roel-->
# THESIS 2
## Fediverse as an ongoing critique of openness?

---

class: words, center, middle

# Openness & universality

???

openness, universality, and the unrestricted circulation of information have been central narratives for promoting 

technological progress, the internet and the web

---

class: words, center, middle

# Openness & universality

???

At the same time these are also the core liberal values that underpinned the F/LOSS movement

and by extension also how social media has been said to be democratizing

---

class: words, center, middle

# More interconnection & growth

???

more inclusion

more free speech

---

class: words, center, middle

# More interconnection & growth

???

more information

more knowledge

---

class: words, center, middle

# More democracy / profit

???

This in turn is supposed to lead to more robust online democracy but it also lead to massive value extraction.

In response to the practices of commercial social media the response from floss communities was to create alternatives

---

class: words, center, middle

# Yes to liberal assumptions,

# no to commercial exploitation

???

As a consequence early fediverse software tried to to recover the liberal values 

but get rid of the commercial exploitation

---

class: words, center, middle

# Yes to liberal assumptions, 

# no to commercial exploitation

???

in effect assuming that maximum interconnection, universality and growth would be beneficial.

this worked for floss adjacent crowds but maybe only for those

---

class: words, center, middle

# Mastodon 

???

in 2017 through the new fediverse software mastodon, more diverse communities joined the network

including queer and gaming communities and people traditionally underrepresented in floss  

---

class: words, center, middle

# Gamergate

???

these communities, with on-line harassment and things like Gamergate in mind challenged the liberal assumptions underlying federation

---

class: words, center, middle

# Gamergate

???

they did so by introducing critiques and practices of queer and feminst thinking

---

class: words, center, middle

# If *anyone* can join, 

# not *everyone* is welcome

???

This included concepts of safe spaces, consent and nuanced understandings of speech and of course prior experiences of on-line harassment

---

class: words, center, middle

# *Defederating* 

???

as these communities helped build mastodon and other fediverse software they advocated options to selectively shut out parts of the network that where harmful for them through server blocks or defederation

---

class: words, center, middle

# 'Breaking the federation'

???

the Mastodon project as a consequence got heavily criticized for breaking the federation

since limiting connections would also limit the supposedly productive exchange of opinions they would risk the success of the entire network

---

class: words, center, middle

# Or 'growing the federation?'

???

HOWEVER instead the has fediverse grown significantly since then

challenging the assumptions of universality and maximum interconnections allowed more communities to join that space on their own terms by setting their own boundaries

---

class: words, center, middle

# Or 'growing the federation?'

???

now fediverse is home to a wide range of different communities some with completely incompatible ideologies

---

class: words, center, middle

# The limits of openness

???

What is unique about the Fediverse is this both technical and cultural acknowledgement that openness has its limits, and is itself open to wide-ranging interpretations dependent
on context, which are not fixed in time.

---
<!--aymeric-->
# THESIS 3
## Fediverse as a site for online agonistic pluralism?


---
class: words, center, middle
# 4.3 million accounts
# 5000 servers

???
Once again, the Fediverse exists as a collection of communities that not only can talk to each other, but use social media communication to define themselves in relation to the others.

---
class: words, center, middle
# 4.3 million accounts<br />
# 5000 servers

???
Sounds great on paper, now try to make sense of how the dynamics of collective identity, ideology, and conflicts can be understood when you have 4.3 millions accounts spread over more than 5000 servers.

We need some help.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Agonism

???
And some help can potentially be found in the political theory of agonism, and more particularly how agonism can be a useful tool to navigate through this giant mess.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Agonism

???
And the type of agonism that we're particularly interested in here, is the one articulated by Chantal Mouffe.

--
???
In Mouffe's view, political consensus is impossible and radical negativity cannot be avoided in a system where diversity is limited only to similar competing groups within the same hegemonic order.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Sounds familiar?

???
And, yes indeed this is precisely what is going on right now on commercial social media.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Pluralism of hegemonies

???
Now, the bet made by agonism is that by creating a system in which a pluralism of hegemonies is permitted, it is possible to move from an understanding of the other as an enemy, to the other as a political adversary. But for this to happen, different ideologies must be able to materialise via different channels and platforms.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Conflictual consensus

???
In such a situation we move from political consensus to conflictual consensus.

Easier said than done.

Specially in a system that allows fine grained moderation of content and allow the blocking of individual accounts, groups, servers. Basically allowing to completely taylor and lock down your social media experience to only engage with like-minded peers.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Acid test

???
Very concretely, last year when Gab, the neo-Nazis, white supremacists, and the alt-right social network moved from its own isolated alt-tech platform to the Fediverse, it was able to forge new alliances with like-minded communities and in some way with the Fediverse being to some extent a safe space for many minorities it was also giving the trolls the biggest playground they may have ever dreamed of.

This situation is a direct test case to discuss the neutrality of Fediverse code, the network itself, and the protocols it used.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Neutrality?

???
And how to respond to this arrival, not only at the technological level, but
also the social and cultural level. For instance, since then, holding a position of neutrality, whether driven by ambivalence, by unspoken support, by hypocrisy, by the desire to troll, by lack of interest, but also by honest faith into
apolitical technology, or by an agonistic desire to confront and engage with all parts of the Fediverse, has been very difficult to maintain and justify.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Federated politics

???

Instead of reaching a state of agonistic pluralism, it could be that the
Fediverse would at best create a form of bastard agonism where instances would form large agonistic-without-agonism aggregations only amongst both ideologically and technically compatible communities and software, with only a minority of them being able and willing to bridge between with radically opposed systems.

Regardless of how this will be evolving, if the Fediverse is telling us anything, it is that the net and its infrastructure have never been more politicised than today.

---
<!--roel-->
# THESIS 4
## Fediverse as a shift from a technical
## to a social understanding of privacy?


???

One of the effects of the agonism or antagonism described is that we see a shift from a very technical to a more social understanding of privacy in the field of foss

---

class: words, center, middle

# THREAT
# <br> 
# Government & 
# corporate surveillance

???

Historically debates around the risks of social media have been focused on privacy and surveillance. 

---

class: words, center, middle

# THREAT
# <br> 
# Government & 
# corporate surveillance

???

Especially after snowden revelations in 2013. Many F/LOSS projects tried address issues of surveillance by governments or large corporations at the network level

---

class: words, center, middle

# SOLUTION
# <BR>
# Strong encryption & P2P

???

That gave rise to many predominantly technical solutions for privacy.

An example the proliferation of specialised apps for encrypted chat and mail.

---

class: words, center, middle

# SOLUTION
# <BR>
# Strong encryption & P2P

???

So these tools have over anything else favoured the peer-to-peer model and strong encryption. Trust is always in the code and never in people. 

---
class: words, center, middle

# APPROACH
# <BR> 
# Individualistic 

???

These approaches consequently require considerable technical knowledge from users. Essentially these approaches picture individuals in full command of their communications. 

---

class: words, center, middle

# THREAT 
# <br>
# Online conversations & 
# others on the network 

???

On the fediverse one the other hand a different threat model is prioritized. It is no longer the NSA but rather on-line social interaction itself that threatens safety.

---
class: words, center, middle

# SOLUTION
# <br> 
# community moderation

???

Consequently there has been a great emphasis on forming of communities rallying around servers. 

---
class: words, center, middle

# SOLUTION
# <br> 
# community moderation

???

Moderating speech, limiting exposure to unwanted content, blocking out other communities became prioritized features

---

class: words, center, middle

# APPROACH
# <br> 
# Collective 

???

Federation does allow collective approaches to privacy.

Issues brought up particularly by  members of marginalised communities that joined the fediverse as they sought safer spaces than CSM

---

class: words, center, middle


# Social understandings of privacy

???

So we witness the large scale trying out of a model which is not about trusting the technology as much as trusting the community.

---

class: words, center, middle

# Different understandings of privacy

???

This obviously has its limitations and potential pitfalls. 

While for some federation brings the woes of decentralization with none of the benefits of centralization.

---

class: words, center, middle


# Different understandings of privacy

???

At the same time it allowed a large group to try first hand what an alternative could be like. 

And consequently negotiate how it should work, both socially and increasingly also technically. 

---
class: words, center, middle

#  Different understandings of privacy

???

To be sure the fediverse has not solved this, these are hard questions, but at least there is both a context and awareness for this to be researched and implemented further.

---

<!--aymeric-->
# THESIS 5
## Fediverse as a way out of data sharecropping and free labour?

???
As everyone here is well aware of, corporate social media platforms with their focus on self-gratifying metrics and gamification, are infamous for taking free and and pervasive labour to the next level.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Surveillance capitalism

???
Whatever information is fed into the system, will be used to directly or indirectly create models, reports, and essentially new datasets that have core economic value for the platform owners.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Click OK to consent

???
It's a complete deadlock that will never change because after all users have agreed to that, and even with chronic coverage of social media disasters, no regulatory bodies have seemed to care enough to start acting in any significant way in the past 15 years.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Non-democratic social media

???
This situation is like this because corporate social media are simply non democratic systems. And to be fair, they never claimed they were. They are businesses that in current time are allowed to exist outside of public reach and examination. End of story.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Democratic social media?

???
On the other hand, on the Fediverse, discussion about who has acces to what you post, how it is stored, how it circulates, are very transparent. To be sure, problems of scraping, doxxing, exploitation and privacy in general are not solved, but at least everyone is able to voice their perspective.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Pedagogic social media?

???
The best way to witness this are on issue trackers that have transformed from a place where bugs are reported, to become public assemblies for programmers *and* non-programmers to deliberate, and most importantly, learn from each other.

To Borrow from Robert Gehl talking about alternative social media, the Fediverse is a pedagogical environment.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Free as in precarity

???
But what is gained in pedagogy, empowerement, autonomy, is obviously lost in sustainability in a system that exists outside of the moneytisation of its users. We're not talking about the difficulty of making billions for running a Fediverse instance, we're talking about much more basic issues such as preventing burnout for developers, maintainers, admins, moderators, etc. We're talking about the damage that we created when we've grown to expect that everything online should be automagically free.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Full stack sustainability

???
So yeah, it's complicated, but at least notbody is pretending otherwise, and these challenges have allowed to re-open discussions about platform coop, public funding of free software, and basically if economic models outside of surveillance capitalism can exist to support non-exploitative solidarity and care across the whole stack.

---

<!--roel-->
# THESIS 6
## Fediverse as the rise of a new kind of usership?


---
class: words, center, middle
# 'The Fediverse'

???

One particular way to understand the Fediverse is as a collective name for a set of practices, expectations and demands of social media software.

---
class: words, center, middle
# 'The Fediverse'

???

One where different efforts to produce alternatives converge into a shared network with roughly aligned goals.

This is particularly tangible when one considers how usership gets negotiated and renegotiated in the fediverse.

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as programmer

???

Historically, the first software users, or let's say users of computational devices, were also their programmers.

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as customer

???

Later through the decades this model changed to the situation where the user became a customer and usership became limited to questions of customisation and feedback on product development.

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as data source

???

This model eroded even further with the model of usership as a source of revenue for a third party.

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as contributor

???

Users on commercial social media have some ways to participate in the shaping of the platforms they use, 

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as contributor

???

Fedi users howevers do not only engage in bug reporting, or help with the creation of the products’ culture, but also become actively engaged in scrutinizing the code, debating its effects and sometimes contributing code back.

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as host

???

Extending this they use these tools to set up instances with their communities, write their own Codes of Conduct and come up with fitting Terms of Services. While not all suggestions get taken into the mainline code

---
class: words, center, middle
# Non-ideal user

???

At the same time, there is a different approach in some Fediverse software projects where a move has been made from a situation where software is written for an ideal user is able to change the program to suit their needs.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Non-ideal user

???

To a situation where there is a discussion between programmers and non-programmers to understand what usership means and what should be good defaults for everyone.

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as learner

???

To be sure, many of the practices of usership seen on the fediverse are neither new or unique to the Fediverse. 

For instance, the way service facilitators are supported on the Fediverse is very analogous to the way content creators on streaming platforms in gaming communities are supported by their audience.

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as learner

???

Calls for and the development of better governance of software projects have also been happening more generally in FLOSS communities.

Likewise, many of the moderation and community management practices seen in the Fediverse have been informed by experiences on other platforms. 

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as learner

???

Users have drawn inspiration from the successes and failures of others tools and systems and brought them over to the Fediverse. What is noteworthy is how increasingly the synthesis and coordination of all these practices become visible in the Fediverse.  

In turn, issues and approaches articulated in the Fediverse set a precedent for other FLOSS projects, encouraging transformations and discussions that were until now limited and difficult to initiate.

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as ?

???

It is obviously not the case that the entirety of the Fediverse operates along these lines, as the space is shared between servers with widely distinct models of usership. 

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as ?

???

These range from venture capital backed alt-right platforms, to
Japanese image-board like systems, anarcho-communist collectives, safe spaces for sex workers, live coding algoravers, gardening forums, personal blogs and data self-hosting cooperatives. 

---
class: words, center, middle
# User as ?

???

The developments described above do, however, hint at the fact that there are many different models of usership yet to be discovered and tried and that the Fediverse is a productive environment for this to happen. 

---

<!--aymeric-->
# THESIS 7
## Fediverse as the end of Free/Libre and Open Source Software as we know it?

---
class: words, center, middle
# Free/Libre vs Open Source

???
Until now, pretty much all the internal debates around FLOSS licensing have
remained stuck at the level of comparing over and over again the difference between the free software's emphasis on user ethics versus the open source approach based on economics.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Free/Libre vs Open Source

???
But one thing that everyone seems to agree is that whether motivated by ethics or economics, both free software and open source software share the belief that their position is superior to closed source and proprietary modes of production.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Liberal foundation

???
They also both agree that the foundational liberal drive at the base of these ethical and economic perspectives should not be challenged or questioned.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Liberal foundation

???
That does not mean that there are no disagreement on the scope of such liberal foundation, as seen in discussion opposing copyleft licenses with permissive licenses.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Non-discriminatory software

???
But further discussion have been inconceivable because one of the most important aspects of FLOSS is its non-discriminatory nature.

--
???
Anyone can use FLOSS for any purpose.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Non-discriminatory software

???
So far this has worked pretty well, and has benefited all sorts of groups, from for-profit tech companies to activists collectives.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Considered harmful

???
And yet here we are, in a context where many communities are increasingly wondering why the software they develop and publish under FLOSS licensing should end up used by groups that want to harm them or others.

--
???
This questionning did not happen over night.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Patches and bandages

???
In the recent years FLOSS has also been incresingly indirectly scrutinized with the ermergence of new forms of governance, creation of codes of conduct, and open discussion about the political colouring of source code.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Patches and bandages

???
This time however what is happening is going beyond isolated efforts, virtue signaling and theoretical examinations.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Renewal of FLOSS critique

???
Because of its diversity of users, developers, agendas, software, ideologies, the Fediverse is becoming the most important system where this new form of FLOSS critique gets articulated and tested.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Renewal of FLOSS critique

???
Because of all the reasons discussed in this presentation, this is where the traditional notions of FLOSS get confronted and modified by those who understand its use as part of a very concrete larger set of practices that challenge the status quo.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Renewal of FLOSS critique

???
It is a place where a constructive critique of FLOSS and a longing
for its re-imagination are the most vivid.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Renewal of FLOSS critique

???
With FLOSS culture increasingly feeling like an overly patched collection of irreconcilables from another era, it is urgent to revaluate many of its characteristics that have been taken for granted.

---
class: words, center, middle
# Post-FLOSS?

???
But of course, if we can accept the much needed sacrilege of thinking of free
software without free software, it still remains to be seen what could fill in
the void left by its absence.


---

<!-- PROBABLY NO TIME FOR THIS
# BONUS THESIS 8
# TRANSMEDIAL EXCLUSIVE BONUS
## Fediverse as a means to provide escape plan for centralised commercial social media?

threat or opportunity to the classic model of social graph
Twitter being maybe one step ahead for future regulations
-->

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# Uffff...

???
How are we going to conclude this?

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# Uffff...

???
Like we said in the introduction we are not lacking of any social media critique and discourse, but there is definitively a lack of research, support and investment in alternatives such as the Fediverse.

---
class: inverted, middle, center
# Uffff...

???
To be blunt this is just where the energy is at the moment, and as we tried to articulate with these theses, this phenomenom should be particularly interesting for resarchers and practitioners interested in net culture, software studies, political theory, privacy debates, free labour and platform coops, but also graphic and web application design, and of course free/ libre and open source software.

---
class: contain, bottom, left
background-image: url(the_eternal_network.jpg)
.caption[click_here_to_download.jpg]

???
This is why don't have a conclusion, there is nothing to conclude, this is just an introduction. And if you're interested to know more, please get a copy of the INC Transmediale publication published for this edition of the festival. In fact this presentation is a drastically reduced version of an article we wrote for the book.

---
class: contain
background-image: url(invite.png)

???
For us this presentation, the paper and the workshops we led this week, are also a means to share the current state of our research. There's more to come, we're planning to work on a publication with Lídia Pereira and Liaizon Wakest and hopefully we will be able to involve more members of the Fediverse in this project.

---
class: contain
background-image: url(invite.png)

???

For now, if you're interested in knowing more, we invite you to see for yourself what the Fediverse looks like from the inside.

The image you see on screen is an invitation to post.lurk.org, our artist run fediverse instance 



---
class: bottom, middle
![:scale 25%](invite.png)
.left[Transmediale 2k20<br /><br />Aymeric Mansoux (@320x200@post.lurk.org)<br />Roel Roscam Abbing (@rra@post.lurk.org)]

???
Thank you.

*people screaming/booing/silent*



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