Communicating online

Short take

Last updated on May 14, 2020 1 min read

My current take on least subverted options for digital chat:

  1. Matrix\
  2. Mastodon, GNU Social, Diaspora (e.g. activitypub)\
  3. See “honourable mention” below\
  4. Telegram / Signal / Keybase (centralised but virtuous)

Honourable mention (exciting, but still a bit experimental):

  • Secure scuttlebutt
  • DAT

“yuck” - Please don’t make me use:

  1. FB messenger / whatsapp\
  2. Facebook\
  3. Twitter\
  4. LinkedIn\
  5. Instagram\
  6. etc., etc., etc.

I also think it’s really time to revisit human communication technologies as public utility. Seems like this should be a first principle. To be clear I do not mean a “utility” controlled by our emerging fascist democracies, but true public as in developed and maintained transparently in the commons.

Jeremy Kidwell
Jeremy Kidwell
Associate Professor in Theological Ethics

Ethicist, activist, hacker, ethnographer and eco-theologian. Interdisciplinary and unafraid.