241 Ways To Keep The Internet Open

[mozfest-bot]

[ UUID ] b1a8865b-1722-4015-bab8-a5820e300fd7

[ Session Name ] 241 Ways To Keep The Internet Open [ Primary Space ] Openness [ Secondary Space ] Digital Inclusion

[ Submitter's Name ] Dominic Pates [ Submitter's Affiliated Organisation ] City, University of London [ Submitter's GitHub ] @dompates

What will happen in your session?

‘241 Ways To Keep The Internet Open’ is a list of ideas and methods for keeping and promoting the Internet as an open platform. Whether by individuals, international organisations or anyone in-between, there are no shortage of actions in this list that can be taken in support of an open Internet.

Modelled on Gene Sharp's ‘198 Methods Of Nonviolent Action’, it was compiled for a Masters dissertation, but has languished unseen on a dusty university shelf since submission. We will decide whether to issue it online, and if so, what to do with it. This would include where to publish it, what new ideas might be added, and how participants can help to spread the word.

What is the goal or outcome of your session?

The main goals of this session are to crowdsource a decision and to generate ideas on what to do with this list. Participants will learn about the list itself and its background. They will also be invited to contribute their expertise to help take it beyond Mozfest and turn it into a potentially key tool for Internet activism.

If your session requires additional materials or electronic equipment, please outline your needs.

A preference for wall-mounted writing surfaces, if available, and accompanying whiteboard markers.

Time needed

90 mins

[npscience]

I'm currently reading 'Blueprint for a Revolution' which talks about the use of non-violent direct action in toppling dictatorships, and emphasises the importance of tackling small wins first and building a community using laughter and comedy. Highly recommend as pre-reading to inspire this session!

[dompates]

Thanks for the reply @npscience - 'Blueprint' certainly looks like a great read! Clearly post-Sharp, and covering more recent events. Glad to see that this session has prompted a pre-reading suggestion already :)

Gene Sharp's works (including in various translations) can all be downloaded here, for anyone else interested in any wider works.

[yochannah]

Hey @dompates! This session sounds fun, and I really want to see that list of 241 things 😁. I'm one of the Openness wranglers for MozFest. We're reviewing applications at the moment and had a quick question - presumably you can't go over all of your 241 open internet ideas in a 90 minute session. What was your planned approach?

[dompates]

Ha - good question, @yochannah! No, definitely not expecting to use a session to go through all 241 ideas. Hope the answer below's not too long :)

Back in 2009, I attended a Barcamp in Brighton and took a conundrum there that I'd been wrestling with - whether to issue my collection of Flickr photos under a Creative Commons licence or not. It was a bit like crowdsourcing the decision, when I couldn't make my mind up by myself. Following the session, I decided to go CC and not only did I find that it really brought my photo collection to life, but it was also effectively a gateway into the notion of 'open' (particularly in an Internet context).

I've been faced with another conundrum since I completed my Masters dissertation on openness and the Internet - essentially, release the work online or leave it in the archive. MozFest seemed like an excellent opportunity to crowdsource another decision, or at least get some other perspectives on it.

'241 Ways' took the standard Engineering layers model for looking at Internet architecture (physical, logical, and content layers) and added 'social' as a fourth layer. These then became the organising categories for the collection of 241 ways. The MozFest session would give a brief overview of this model, a few examples for each category, and a URL/QR code for anyone that wanted to look at the whole list. Wouldn't really go into any of them in detail though.

Planned approach = brief presentation + group decision + smaller group discussions/activities on aspects of '241 Ways' OR group discussion on adv/disadv of open Internet (depending on results of decision).

Hope that answers your question.

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