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aral's profile
Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
@aral

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Aral Balkan

@aral

I mainly post on my blog at https://ar.al  (RSS: https://ar.al/index.xml ) and interact on my Mastodon https://mastodon.ar.al . Please follow me there.

Terra firma
ar.al
Joined December 2006

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    1. Aral Balkan‏ @aral 7 Apr 2015

      I hope I don’t have to spell out how absolutely fucking horrible it would be if Google is allowed to buy Twitter.http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/11520819/Google-looking-at-buying-Twitter.html …

      16 replies 84 retweets 36 likes
    2. Aral Balkan‏ @aral 7 Apr 2015
      Replying to @aral

      If Twitter was not private property, it would have the potential to be the most valuable democratic instrument of the networked age.

      8 replies 23 retweets 11 likes
    3. Aral Balkan‏ @aral 7 Apr 2015
      Replying to @aral

      Instead, it’s an example of that potential squandered for the short-term financial compensation of relative handful of investors.

      1 reply 14 retweets 5 likes
    4. Aral Balkan‏ @aral 7 Apr 2015
      Replying to @aral

      Until we understand the danger of our digital public spaces being privately owned (& thus private spaces) we can’t even begin to solve this.

      1 reply 15 retweets 10 likes
    5. Aral Balkan‏ @aral 7 Apr 2015
      Replying to @aral

      We’re faced with living in a future where all our public spaces are privately owned. Where there is no public sphere, only a corporate one.

      5 replies 28 retweets 15 likes
      Aral Balkan‏ @aral 8 Apr 2015

      The only way to have a true competitor to Twitter is to create a supra-national entity to build and run it in the interest of the commons.

      12:01 AM - 8 Apr 2015
      • 12 Retweets
      • 2 Likes
      • Paul Van Dyke Miguel Garcia toby exiledsurfer Mehlika Balkan Kate Carruthers ⚫ Patrick T. Lafferty ⚫ Roberto Jones heracles@mastodon.social
      5 replies 12 retweets 2 likes
        1. New conversation
        2. Aral Balkan‏ @aral 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @aral

          We must do this if we want to avoid a future where all democratic instruments & public spaces are privately owned by corporate monopolies.

          1 reply 8 retweets 4 likes
        3. Aral Balkan‏ @aral 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @aral

          (In other words, if we want to avoid a future where we don’t really have any democratic instruments or public spaces; i.e., corporatocracy.)

          6 replies 9 retweets 2 likes
        4. Miguel Garcia‏ @mgarsf 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @aral

          @aral it’s all private. It may be in a “public” space but the infrastructure, data, travel... Is all private.

          2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        5. Aral Balkan‏ @aral 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @mgarsf

          @mgarsf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_property …

          2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        6. Miguel Garcia‏ @mgarsf 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @aral

          @aral what I’m getting at no public space exists without its private foundations. A disappointing catch 22. Were a separation only possible

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        7. End of conversation
        1. New conversation
        2. Mike Elias‏ @harmonylion1 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @aral

          @aral Interested. Do you know of any platforms like this, or have you built any?

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Aral Balkan‏ @aral 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @harmonylion1

          @harmonylion1 There are free/open efforts, etc. But necessary infrastructure is huge. Either you must be VC-backed or publicly-funded.

          2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        4. Mike Elias‏ @harmonylion1 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @aral

          @aral I wonder if bonds could be issued to accomplish this... It's needed infrastructure

          0 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
        5. End of conversation
        1. New conversation
        2. Sumit Maitra‏ @sumitkm 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @aral

          @aral apart from the hobbled hacked and brutalized thing called 'internet', tell me about one more such 'supra-national' thing that exists 😞

          1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
        3. Francis Irving‏ @frabcus 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @sumitkm

          @sumitkm @aral shipping containers, telephone exchange, human rights law, postal service ... all working 'supra-national' standards

          1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
        4. Sumit Maitra‏ @sumitkm 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @frabcus

          @frabcus @aral thanks, good examples. Except for human rights laws each of the rest have a profit component associated... 😞

          2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
        5. Francis Irving‏ @frabcus 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @sumitkm

          @sumitkm @aral there's certainly money flow, yes. In the case of post and telephone, often government monopolies when made supranational?

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
        6. End of conversation
        1. ThreeMonkeys AndMe‏ @We3forDemocracy 8 Apr 2015
          Replying to @aral

          @aral That's the way all these internet services nominally started - free, for all, for the common good. Then greed and opportunism struck

          0 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
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