Hi. I think this is an important topic. I do not know much about what you call "social media", I would prefer to have a personal site where I post the data I want the public to see. I use Facebook almost solely for instant messaging with close friends, so speaking of IM what tools are there for this kind of communication? I didn't see you bring anything up about that.
There is also conference communication and phones, also important topic to bring up I think. I for example do not have a mobile phone, but I do have an IP based phone and I am not particularly fond of calling without the option to encrypt the dialog. Ani On Sun, 2018-03-25 at 18:08 +0200, Paul Boddie wrote: > Hello, > > There has been a lot said recently about Facebook, Google, and other > entities > that facilitate online communication through services that have > hidden impacts > on people's freedoms. But as I noted before, it is more constructive > to focus > on how we in the Free Software community can help others communicate > using > more respectful tools and services. > > This isn't just in the context of recent discussions about Mozilla > and > Facebook: I also mentioned it when Daniel suggested a plugin to > remind people > about how their use of proprietary, exploitative services might be > impacting > their freedom and those of others. While I understand what the > motives are for > doing something like this, telling people that they are bad only > really > appeals to people who like punishing themselves or who admit to > weakness and > want someone else to apply the discipline. > > Now, it is often the case that any negative message is accompanied by > a > positive one. One might suggest a range of alternatives that are > better for > people. So, people have already suggested that the FSFE and the > community in > general promote things like Diaspora, GNU Social, Mastodon, or > whatever. But I > don't think this goes far enough. > > In the context of the FSFE, one may consider the campaigns that are > occasionally run by the organisation. An interesting example is the > PDF > Readers campaign which attempted to promote Free Software PDF reader > applications and to demand that public organisations advertising the > proprietary Adobe Reader stop doing so. > > Much of the focus of the PDF Readers campaign appeared to be on > getting those > organisations to stop giving Adobe's software free advertising. I > support such > efforts and even attempted to participate in them. But the other side > of the > campaign involved promoting the Free Software alternatives, and it > was in this > area where I think much more should have been done. > > Anyone going to the pdfreaders.org site will see a list of > applications, and > the diversity of Free Software means that there is plenty of choice, > but a > consequence of this is that it would have been awkward for people to > take the > intended positive action when confronted with such information. > Admittedly, it > is a complicated problem to solve: how can such a campaign suggest a > relatively simple, concrete action that helps the user to do the > right thing? > > But it goes beyond whether people can get started with the right > solutions. > Many of us will have been faced with documents that need certain > features in > the application we are using. Things like forms in PDF documents, > for > instance. It is likely that some of the suggested solutions do not > support > forms, and others may have problems with whatever Adobe's authoring > tools > emit. Standards-compliance is difficult, especially when proprietary > software > companies often indulge in a bit of "front-running" to lock people > into their > own products. > > In other words, promotion and advocacy are not enough. Support has to > be given > for people to actually develop and improve the solutions we suggest. > And the > combination of solutions suggested for meeting people's needs must be > coherent > and provide an obvious path for them to follow. Where there are > deficiencies > or gaps in those solutions, support has to be given to make the > campaign > message credible rather than "here's some cool stuff, you're on your > own now". > > Another relevant example involves things like the use of encryption > technologies for personal communications. How many times have we been > told > that encryption is important only to be confronted with lengthy > "instructive" > texts full of caveats and the hedging of positions on things like > key > management? That maybe the way to adopt such things is to become an > expert > yourself and, by the way, good luck! People just get put off from > doing > anything at all because at any moment someone might berate them for > "doing it > all wrong". > > With such considerations in mind, does anyone else think that the > topic of > genuinely free communication might be worthy of a comprehensive > campaign? One > that would focus on solutions and not problems. > > Paul > _______________________________________________ > Discussion mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion > > This mailing list is covered by the FSFE's Code of Conduct. All > participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other: > https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
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_______________________________________________ Discussion mailing list [email protected] https://lists.fsfe.org/mailman/listinfo/discussion This mailing list is covered by the FSFE's Code of Conduct. All participants are kindly asked to be excellent to each other: https://fsfe.org/about/codeofconduct
