A Better Internet for Feminists

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The techniques and structures of the Fediverse support a stigmeric, organic, future-lithic, feminist approach to building coalition and new orders across communities, nations, feminisms.

Just as I want to think about movement strengthening in stigmergic that parallel Binding Chaos Theory that I started to combine in my thinking about the The Emergency in the US.

I asked Gemini to summarize the Fediverse to help us get started planning how to build RadMatFem presence independent of particular platforms and their agendas. Here's what the machine said:

​The Fediverse, a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe," is a collection of interconnected social media platforms that operate on open standards, primarily ActivityPub. Unlike centralized social networks owned by single corporations, the Fediverse is decentralized, meaning no one entity controls it.

​This allows users to interact across different services seamlessly. For example, a user on Mastodon (a microblogging platform) can follow and engage with someone on PeerTube (a video-sharing platform) or Pixelfed (an image-sharing service). Each platform, or "instance," is independently hosted and moderated, fostering diverse communities with varying rules.

​Key advantages include greater user privacy, control over personal data, and freedom of expression, as content moderation is distributed. Users can often migrate their accounts and followers if they wish to switch instances. This decentralized model is gaining traction, with even larger players like Meta's Threads exploring integrations to allow cross-platform interaction.

The Internet Exchange is a group thinking deeply about how to make this work. For insurgent/rebel communities like feminists, this is a kind of ideal beginning for building Outward, toward new modes of being that can support and center women and feminist values.

From @IX@internet.exchangepoint.tech

Recommendations: Building a Prosocial Fediverse

To realize the promise of a healthier, more coherent digital public space, federated platforms should actively design for prosocial outcomes that strengthen the social fabric.

Highlight content that bridges communities
Design algorithms that prioritize content supported by people from different communities or perspectives. This type of content can help reduce polarization and support shared understanding. Tools like Polis and Community Notes offer useful models for identifying and surfacing this kind of broadly supported content.

Label content with social context
Include labels or metadata that show which communities a piece of content appeals to or challenges. This kind of transparency helps users understand how content fits into broader conversations and reduces the false impression that certain views are universally accepted.

Encourage cross-community interaction
Create features that make it easier for people to encounter and engage with ideas outside their immediate circles. This could include curated feeds that show diverse viewpoints, prompts to explore related communities, or spaces for respectful dialogue across groups.

Support new and underrepresented communities
Provide tools and infrastructure that help smaller or emerging communities participate fully in the network. This might include discovery tools, moderation support, or funding models that help them grow and contribute meaningfully to the larger ecosystem.

Adopt shared standards for prosocial signals
To make these prosocial features work across the Fediverse, platforms should agree on common standards for things like content labels, community signals, and cross-platform feedback. Protocols like Spritely could help support this kind of interoperable infrastructure.

Embedding these principles into the DNA of federated platforms is a chance to reimagine the digital commons as a space where shared understanding, respectful disagreement and collective flourishing are not side effects, but core design principles. 

"Your worst enemy is not the person opposing you. It's the person occupy the space you would be fighting from and doing nothing." – Heather Marsh, Biding Chaos

We can help build the world everyone can occupy.

There are three kinds of people, Susan Sontag said, Ten Percent are good, Ten Percent are evil, and The Rest can go either way.

But the rest need somewhere to go. Making Somewhere as we go is the way.

Gorgon Posse of Medusa Rising | Medusa Rising

Medusa Rising -- medusarising.org -- exists to take radical materialist feminism into the next arm of its spiral: to share these ideas and analysis all over the world in easily accessible and useful forms. We are eager to publish, promote, and discuss new…

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