Liaizon Wakest on Autonomous Social Media and the Fediverse

from The Final Straw Radio

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This week, we spoke with Liaizon Wakest. Liaizon grew up in an anarchist commune in rural America. They can be found climbing into dumpsters from Mexico to Kazakhstan looking for trash to make art with. In recent years they have been focused on research into ethical technology and infrastructural anarchism. For the hour we speak about the interoperable, open source ensemble of federated online publishing servers and platforms known as the Fediverse and its most popular component, Mastodon. This conversation takes place in the context of media hullabaloo about Elon Musk seeking to purchase Twitter, the paradigm in which a rich egomaniac can own the addictive social media platforms over which so much social and political life is engaged and what positives we can draw from alternatives like Mastodon and the Fediverse.

You can find Liaizon’s account on Mastodon (an analog of twitter) at @liaizon@social.wake.st or on Pixelfed (an analog of Instagram) at @wakest@pixelfed.social. And you can follow us on Mastodon by finding @TheFinalStrawRadio@Chaos.Social or by visiting https://chaos.social/@TheFinalStrawRadio in a web browser.

Another interesting anarchist media project engaging the Fediverse is Kolektiva, which has a PeerTube instance at https://Kolektiva.Media (analog of youtube) and Mastodon at https://Kolektiva.Social where they’re welcoming new users. Kolektiva includes participation from projects like Sub.Media and AntiMidia

You can find a real good interview by our comrades at From Embers about Mastodon which I mention in the interview from February 3rd, 2022 entitled Social Networks, Online Life and The Fediverse: https://fromembers.libsyn.com/social-networks-online-life-and-the-fediverse

Announcement

Eric King Arrives at USP Lee: call-in continues

As a quick update on the situation of Eric King, he has been transferred this week from USP Atlanta to USP Lee where he and his supporters are concerned he’ll be placed into solitary and isolated for attack. You can find info on his situation as well as who to contact to press for his return to a medium security facility to match his current security points, visit SupportEricKing.Org and find the May 3rd, 2022 post whose title starts “Eric Transferred

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Featured Track

There are 15 Comments

If the roots, the trunk and the branches of the internet are all rotten, it doesn't how pretty the leaves are.

Hi there,

a.nti.social is still very much alive and well. You can find it here:
https://a.nti.social

Registrations are open and welcome to anarchists. This is social media (the Fediverse or whatever) as done by Anarchy Planet.

Older tanky complains about anarchists and queer/trans furries, two groups he frames alongside one another in his "critique", I wonder why.

Does not address the technological aspect of it at all. It's just a normal story of "those bad people didn't welcome me into their community" not ignoring that certain behaviour is obnoxious in certain communities. Mike could make his own ActivityPub thingy of one kind or another and post post post, if he wanted to do that. Honestly Pleroma sounds like more his style.

He has been alive for the whole time that the internet has existed, more or less, so what excuse does he have? I get it not wanting to learn how to do website, cuz that shit sucks, but like, he could even just go to monads.online or several other tanky instances that, I can only assume, would welcome him. There's plenty of tankies on the tanky part of fedi

Of course those tanky instances also have also queer/trans furries there, so maybe he's burned that bridge before he crossed it

My 2¢

i found his framing whiny too although i would also bother to make distinctions about "tankies", rather than playing in to his criticism?

like, why wouldn't we equivocate NATO aligned media's war propaganda with russian war propaganda? that's the only logical position for an anarchist to take, isn't it? critical of all power by the same standards.

like, unless you've seen him also being a blood thirsty tankie on other posts that don't appear in this article? then i'd be wrong.

I'm not sure it's "the only logical position for an anarchist to take" to "equivocate" on Russian war propaganda and "NATO aligned media" war propaganda because, please follow, I'm not sure equivocating is a position so much as an activity

Like I can and maybe I might equivocate sometimes, but I don't have to? It depends on if I want to talk about one or the other or both. I don't think every mention of "Russia bad" has to come along with "but also btw NATO"

And like, when it comes "NATO aligned" stuff, too, I just don't think "NATO" is that much of... a coherent thing. Like it's an agreement between states that, in practice, often do their own thing. Like, you have a bunch of different countries in there, each with its own domestic politics. "NATO aligned" right now includes Orban, who has been a Putin ally for a long time. There have been lots of internal divisions among NATO countries, even if they are more or less united on Russia (and keep in mind NATO was made to deal with a Russian geopolitical threat, so, this is more or less where we would expect that sort of thing). There's also the thing where, like, most of the NATO countries for the last 30 years never even put 2% of their state budget into the military, which is what they are, like, contractually obligated to do, lol. This all just gets handwaved away a lot, which is, like... an indication that people don't fully know what they're talking about, and have been way too influenced by an incomplete lesson taken from yesteryear's antiwar movements

I'm not saying NATO good. I'm saying, NATO glorified piece of paper (e.g. the North Atlantic Treaty itself) and some well-paying jobs for some assholes. It's a thing but it's not as important as it gets credit for

Anyway I don't think Mike is bloodthirsty, his instincts are just fried and I can understand why, America invaded Iraq and has done 1000 other insane awful things. But I think that you won't see much CNN boosting on Kolektiva, whereas you did see him, for a few short months, boosting all sorts of pro-Russian and/or pro-"multipolar" stuff

I see your point!

funny story for you, in exchange for your nickel: turns out I know one of the mods who dealt with mike's bullshit for awhile and he's apparently a terrible example of whatever legitimate issue might be worth discussing here? ... mostly because he's a disagreeable, toxic douchebag? managed to annoy many people for awhile before this final episode where he was all like "you can't fire me, I QUIT!"

As for my vague bullshit, i wouldn't presume to order you to equivocate lol

think i was only appealing to a classic internationalist position where all states are still states and we're anti-statists so... therefore, the rest is details of the hellscape, which of course, you're welcome to interpret as you please!

anyway, is it worth making distinctions between actual tankies and toxic assholes who sound a lot like tankies sometimes? who knows? probably depends what your goals are. max blumenthal whines about it a lot so his enemies should probably keep doing it cuz he admits it pisses him off.

…so I missed the Anarchy meeting. I’m just trudging along, hoping to combat the stereotype that anarchists don’t appreciate irony…
I thought that the point of that editorial was that any pro-censorship position at all is a bad look for an anarchist. But hey, what do I know, I’m just a woman who was called a hypocrite by my anarchist ex’s for not recognizing that beating me up was, because it’s against the law, a defendable activity for an anarchist promoting love without rules.
I had to look up “tankie” same as I always found myself with too much homework to do to not get shouted down on most anarchist threads anywhere online, as well as several “anarchist” gatherings back in the old days in DC, when my disgusting, GOP father was still alive and nobody wanted to listen to any of the insider info my whistleblowing ass might have to add to the cause of actual freedom & equality.
And if any of the above commentators are women, please prove me wrong, but what kept me out of the Fediverse was I instantly got the same toxic, progressive, feminist, anarchist masculinity rash that I know oh so well. I get more bullying from men on the left than I do from men on the right, and next to none from women in either camp. What does that say?
But I got better stuff to do as (I don’t think any men on the left noticed) Patriarchy just overplayed his hand last week. Y’all keep on with your “freedom isn’t safe” stuff and pontificate about what should and shouldn’t be allowed on an anarchistic instance. I’m just glad that my parents are dead & menopause finally liberated me and I can be Caesar over my kingdom of one, the only kingdom that isn’t destined to fall.

They seem little to do with "the fediverse" and more to do with people. Of course people do suck a lot of the time. How or why you ended up here, I dunno, but I hope you are mostly spending time with people you like more these days.

Since you’ve been blocking my ip addresses “anon”, maybe if I say it out loud, not nearly as smartly as you, you’ll post my reply just to prove me wrong…here’s hoping.
Nice vindication of my opinion, tho. Condescending pity, followed by, “you complain too much” disguised as insulting, also condescending advice, followed by blocking my ip address assuming I wouldn’t know how to get around that, followed by me getting around that and briefly having my reply, thanking you for your mansplain of how people are mean.
Being censored by collaborators is nothing exceptional. There are plenty of ways to expose you for your hypocrisy, blocking a woman complaining about how toxic, rule-obsessed masculinity is patriarchy’s little cointelpro of the moment.
Cheers. Censor me, anarchist.
Peace.

On this website, anyone (even you) can be anon if you like. It is in fact very normal in the culture of @news

I was not trying to be condescending but I apologize if I came off that way

I did not block your IP address? I have no ability to do so. and in any case you sound like a rad person, so I wouldn't have done so. Good for you for overcoming your oppressors and doing what you want to do. Very much an anarchist thing to do

"when it comes "NATO aligned" stuff, too, I just don't think "NATO" is that much of... a coherent thing. Like it's an agreement between states that, in practice, often do their own thing. "

*shaking head*

Just like states and state alliances in general, NATO represents the financial and imperialist interests behind it. In this case, it's mostly what is known as the UK-USA establishment, that remains the core. The whole "mutual defense" thing is really just about smaller feudal lords collaborating with the main castles for their on defense, as per same old feudalist pattern.

but what about Turkey, which is in most ways the most important part of the alliance other than the U.S.

You say "like states and state alliances in general, NATO represents the financial and imperialist interests behind it." I will reply, this is the ideal situation, from the perspective of those financial and imperialist interests, but the real world is less than ideal, and that is (part of) why states and alliances sometimes fall apart.

After Soviet collapse had already happened, or after the U.S. civil war was already raging, we can see the decades ahead of 1989 and view what happened as more or less inevitable. To get just a bit Marxist on you, the superstructure had not yet caught up with the changes in the base. I think NATO will continue, sure, and likely include the USA-UK core at the minimum, but I think Turkey, Hungary, and maybe some countries aren't going to necessarily live up to their Article V commitments if, say, the Russians invade Alaska or Finland or w/e

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