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# Decentralized Tools for Activists
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## Sources
These websites are great to compare different software solutions, and help you
choosing free alternatives over proprietary.
* https://alternativeto.net/
* https://switching.software/
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This very good article is analyzing why GAFAM is a problem:
* https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59
## Reasons for this workshop
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Why?
- we want more people to use decentralized tools for political action
- it makes their activism more effective
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- decentralized services are more resilient, don't support the monopolies, and are important for privacy
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- decentralized services require some extra knowledge
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- big tech's monopoly is creating a cyberpunk dystopia
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What?
- make people aware of the problem
- teach people how to use the alternatives (effectively)
- it would be great if they can spread the knowledge afterwards
How?
- a workshop on how to use them
- directly trying them out?
- stories on why this is important
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- how to find an instance?
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## The Problem: Monopolies
Tech monopolies gain more and more power
- their means of production are user data
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- selling advertisements
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- knowledge is power:
- manipulating elections
- mass surveillance
- influencing customers
- repression
- and we don't know how they can use the data in the future
- most of these services are monopolys; this way they can exploit the data
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- Segmenting: much easier to find people who are interested than with conventional advertising
- Deception: easier to find people who are easy to deceive, power to withhold information from people
- Domination: monopoly over all sources of information of a person
- Mind Control techniques?
- there are some tricks which manipulate decision making: e.g. auctions, countdowns on purchase websites, "your friends bought this", gameistic addiction tricks
- Not very effective: most people adapt to techniques like that quickly. Only a fraction of people, those who can't adapt, can be manipulated for longer
- network effects + user lock-in: the more users they have, the more they want
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stories?
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### Bad Examples:
biggest tech companies: Google, Amazon, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft
eBay, PayPal, Twitter, YouTube (Google), ...
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## Decentralized
- But there are alternatives
- Decentralized services
- not owned by a single company
- everyone can set up their own server
- interoperable; the servers can federate with each other
- Also important: Free Software/Open Source
- everyone is able to use, read, edit, share the source code -> trustworthy
## Alternatives
### framadate
### jitsi
### mastodon
### mobilizon
### cryptpad
### wordpress
### discourse
### crabgrass
### ownCloud
### kanboard
