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Songs on the Security of Networks
a blog by Michał "rysiek" Woźniak

Social media, Polish Pirates style

This is an ancient post, published more than 4 years ago.
As such, it might not anymore reflect the views of the author or the state of the world. It is provided as historical record.

My not-too-optimistic (to say the least) evaluation of the Polish Pirate Party is not a secret to anybody, including their members and activists. All in all, my assessment of the Pirate movement in general is not clear-cut: much good came out of it, but it does seem like it’s time to move on (where to – that’s a whole different story).

One of the main points I tend to quarrel with the “P3” (as Polish Pirates choose to call themselves) is a certain popular social media portal. I can understand, of course, the need to reach out to people wherever they are (and for the most part they indeed tend to be on Failbook). I do feel, however, that the proper relationship (if any) between P3 and FB should be one getting people off of FB to P3, not advertising FB on P3’s website

Once somebody is already on your website, dear Pirates, why oh why do you see it the right thing to do to get them back to the portal that is in the midst of most of the issues Pirates officially get themselves involved in (like privacy, surveillance, censorship and enacting walls – pun not intended – within Internet, by privatisation of this once-free and open area for ingenuity, art and entrepreneurship)?

There is Diaspora, after all. A simple search there points to several active Pirate Party profiles. Most of them also use Zuckerberg’s roach motel of a social network], I’m sure, but at least they try to lessen its grip on human communication by offering a way for people not caught in walled-garden trap to get information and interact with them in a decentralised way.

Why am I writing all this? Well, I find it curious, amusing, and very, very sad that while the Chilean Pirate Party started sharing with me on Diaspora today, the Polish Pirate Party doesn’t even seem to have a profile there.