May First Movement Technology Podcasts

At this meeting we discussed our Movement organizing priorities for the coming year.

Our 2020 Membership meeting discussion on Technology Infrastructure and Services took place on October 27th. You can click above to hear the recording and participate in the discussion.

The crises in our society have made clear not only how important the Internet is but how we must change it. Our culture of large meetings and conferences, our dependence on corporate communications and our lack of vision for the future now show themselves as serious political problems. We simply can’t go on doing things the way we are used to doing them and people in all our movements are identifying the challenges and discussing ways to deal with them.

How we organize and how we communicate is going to have to change in fundamental ways and those changes will not only allow us to continue our work more effectively but give us an opportunity to build visioning bridges into the future.

In this July Need to Know, activists involved in answering these challenges discuss with the attendees: the changes in collaboration today, including meeting and converging; developing an alternative to the Internet; and sketching a future based on this technology.

It’s an exercise in visioning based on the very real challenges we are all facing.

All members were invited to this quarterly convergence of members to confer with the Board on decisions it must make in its upcoming meeting.

The membership consultation took the form of small group discussions focused on two rounds of questions:

1. Think about what you, your organization, and the people and or movements you work closest with need most right now? What does this world need? What changes are necessary for this to happen?

2. What role can you see May First Movement Technology playing in helping bring about those changes? Should this alter our plans and priorities? If so, how so?

The recording captured the summary session - where all small groups reported back on their discussions.

In addition, members participated via our online discussion system. Notes from the live meeting are posted to the online discussion.

A conversation about the movement’s software needs during this period of social distanting.

The virus and the fact that so many activities must be cancelled as a result has underscored the importance of free software (or what is frequently called Free and Open Source Software). If you’re going on-line with what were your face to face activities, you really have to listen to what our panelists have to say.

Micky Metts of Agaric, Jaime Villareal and Jamie McClelland of May First staff, and activist, writer and teacher Melanie Bush

They’ll answer the questions many have been asking about free software, what is “open source” and, most immediately, how do we cope with this crisis while continuing our organizing work?

To kick off 2020, a panel and audience discussion of the current status of the Internet, its freedom, the issues challenging our use of it, its security and the alternatives to corporate control.

Support team leaders Jamie McClelland and Jaime Villareal and Leadership Committee member Maritza Arrastía lead a conversation about our recent distributed denial of service attack (DDOS) for ransom, other types of DDOS attacks and how to resist them.

Unfortunately, only the first 3/4 of the webinar was properly recorded. The full spanish weinar is available.

Every May First member needs to join us at a special members webinar/discussion about the on-line systems you use to communicate every day. The political changes all over the world, the crises human beings face and the rapid shifts and developments in the movements in which we work demand that May First respond more quickly and effectively than ever before. Yet the underlying architecture of May First/People Link’s hosting has stayed the same for 15 years. That simply has to change and it’s about to with major repercussions for our systems and our members. Your on-line communications systems are going to become more stable and more flexible than ever before and you need to know about it.

Our new plan is documented on our wiki:

https://support.mayfirst.org/wiki/infrastructure-2018

Come to the webinar to learn about it, ask questions and make suggestions.

Please note: Due to technical difficulties a portion of Jaime Villarreal’s presentation was cut because the recording was inaudible.

Google is very much a part of your life and our movement’s. Its email program is the most popular among movement activists. We all use its search engine. Major organizations use its storage and data sharing capabilities.

It has taken over our on-line lives and it is moving us toward disaster. Google’s business plan is complete control of your communications and, since it is a partner of the U.S. intelligence services, it will destroy our movements if things continue as they are.

How real is this theat? How complicit is our movement? What should we do about this?

We have brought together a panel of experts, including Electronic Frontier Foundation Legal Director Corynne McSherry and veteran activist Jerome Scott, to talk about all this and then have a conversation with you about what’s going on and what to do about it. You need to catch this one!

Corynne is a highly regarded and recognized litigator and advocate. At EFF, she specializes in intellectual property, open access, and free speech issues and has been lead attorney on many major cases involving copyright and access. She has recently been writing on Google and what it represents: the topic of this Need to Know.

Long-time revolutionary and organizer, Jerome was an auto worker in Detroit when he (and several other activists) founded the League of Revolutionary Black Workers, he was later a founder of Project South and is currently a leader in the League of Revolutionaries for a New America. He’s a member of the Leadership Committee of May First/People Link.