# theglobalsquare.org - proposed #occupy social network



## magneze (Jan 6, 2012)

The domain isn't active yet, but I've been reading some articles on this. Sounds pretty interesting:





> “I don’t want to say we’re making our own Facebook. But, we’re making our own Facebook,” said Ed Knutson, a web and mobile app developer who joined a team of activist-geeks redesigning social networking for the era of global protest.
> 
> They hope the technology they are developing can go well beyond Occupy Wall Street to help establish more distributed social networks, better online business collaboration and perhaps even add to the long-dreamed-of semantic web — an internet made not of messy text, but one unified by underlying meta-data that computers can easily parse.
> 
> ...


http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/12/occupy-facebook/
http://roarmag.org/2011/11/the-global-square-an-online-platform-for-our-movement/

Hopefully they won't re-invent the wheel and will use an existing open source solution such as Diaspora or Status.net.

The advantages of such distributed systems are that it could be organized so there's no central point of failure/censorship.

It seems that any independent social network outside of the Facebook/Twitter/Google+ triumvirate will need a decent "hook" in order to get lots of people interested. Could the Occupy movement provide this hook and start a mass migration away from the increasingly creepy data mined commercial social networks? (your face in adverts, anyone?)

I'd sign up, would you?


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## magneze (Jan 6, 2012)

Hmmm, maybe this would have been better in the tech forum ...


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 6, 2012)

I might sign up, but it still has the problem any Facebook competitor does - the obvious catch 22 of getting people to use it. Personally I don't know enough protestor types that it would be any use to me, but I might if it spread to the friends, and friends and friends, of those initial users. It would still be a mile away from getting a lot of the people on my Facebook over though so I can't see it would replace it.


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## AKA pseudonym (Jan 6, 2012)

there seems to be quite a few new social' sites springing up with diaspora, an #anon, a 99%er etc etc and the oldfashioned IRCs...
imo they will be handy for organising around single issues... though for outreach and general organising, its gonna be tricky to see beyond FB unfortunately....


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## magneze (Jan 7, 2012)

I must admit I thought that the privacy issues and creeping use of personal data in adverts would turn people off Facebook more.


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## free spirit (Jan 7, 2012)

indymedia mark 2?


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## AKA pseudonym (Jan 7, 2012)

magneze said:


> I must admit I thought that the privacy issues and creeping use of personal data in adverts would turn people off Facebook more.


true.. but does any activist or anybody clues in, really use 'personal' details there? although I do regularly back up details there.. lost an a/c before and it was a torture reconnecting with people....
I encourage other forms of communication but there seems to be a new one every few days...
decisions... decisions!


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## AKA pseudonym (Jan 7, 2012)

free spirit said:


> indymedia mark 2?


funny i was thinking that too... I remember after seattle n genoa there were attempts to introduce some of the social elements of FB et al, which never took off...


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## Monkeygrinder's Organ (Jan 7, 2012)

magneze said:


> I must admit I thought that the privacy issues and creeping use of personal data in adverts would turn people off Facebook more.



Well partly it's that a lot of people don't care, but it's also that there isn't a viable alternative.

Also if you use it adblocker is still pretty effective at cutting out the ads anyway.


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## magneze (Jan 7, 2012)

Monkeygrinder's Organ said:


> Well partly it's that a lot of people don't care, but it's also that there isn't a viable alternative.
> 
> Also if you use it adblocker is still pretty effective at cutting out the ads anyway.


I think it's more the former. The alternatives are there - but you're right there is great inertia as "everyone" is on Facebook.

Whilst ad blockers do prevent you seeing adverts, they won't stop you being used in adverts that are shown to other people. That seems like a definite line that has been crossed - then again, I've thought that before and been proved wrong.


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## magneze (Jan 7, 2012)

AKA pseudonym said:


> true.. but does any activist or anybody clues in, really use 'personal' details there? although I do regularly back up details there.. lost an a/c before and it was a torture reconnecting with people....
> I encourage other forms of communication but there seems to be a new one every few days...
> decisions... decisions!


Maybe not, but as you travel around the internet, more and more data is collected and attributed to your account. Whether you put your workplace or pictures of your cats there is not the point - personal data is being collected without you really being aware.

I've been using the disconnect.me plugin in Chrome and it's illuminating how almost every website I visit is being tracked by Facebook & Twitter.


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## rollinder (Jan 9, 2012)

just found this posted in the Occupy London thread -
seems there's an already a flourishing Ning network
http://occupii.org/


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## magneze (Jan 9, 2012)

rollinder said:


> just found this posted in the Occupy London thread -
> seems there's an already a flourishing Ning network
> http://occupii.org/


I saw that. It did seem a bit weird that a commercial offering was being used when free alternatives are available.


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