Summary: After about two decades of online campaigning I take a look back at some lessons learned, especially regarding effective advocacy

TODAY I'd like to speak about things I learned about campaigning online, based on both successes and failures. "Boycott Novell" was very successful and prior to that I was known online mostly because of USENET and social control media sites, notably Digg.com (where I was ranked 17^th overall). I had already been ranked first in the world for some programming hubs and I participated in projects like WordPress since 2004. I used to write a lot more code in those days.

Around 2006 I started writing a lot more text than code. Advocacy of GNU/Linux was a priority and I even had a gig at Netscape doing this for 2 years.

Even though the lessons described here are based on advocacy in the area of Free software some of the lessons are not limited to technology. It's just that my personal experience is in the digital realm, dealing with digital issues in the digital space, notably online (Web or Internet at large).

Lack of Distraction

Principled advocacy is important, but uncompromising is another aspect. One must constantly remember the goal (Richard Stallman told me that in person one decade ago). Some compromises are OK (Stallman compromised with Wikipedia on the licence), but when Microsoft says something like "Open Source has won" (they mean openwashing) you know you've lost and they have won. They subverted the OSI and the Linux Foundation from their inner core, mostly by bribery, shoehorned by lie/PR campaigns.

"Principled advocacy is important, but uncompromising is another aspect."For those who haven't noticed, "open AT Microsoft" was an Edelman campaign and the person who started it is now the boss of Linus Torvalds and "open"JS. No, she's not technical at all. Those are professional, qualified liars. Speaking of lies, "Microsoft loves Linux" was a mostly failed PR campaign (almost nobody believed this provocative lie; it's mostly abandoned by now, as a sound bite at least). Speaking of abandoned, how often do we hear of "WSL" these days? It's a zombie, waiting for the layoffs to come sweeping across and dump the entire team (if it hasn't happened already).

Don't listen to trolls and lies. They're a waste of time.

Communicate With Corporations Using the Only Language They Grok: Money

It may not sound nice, but it is true and the late head of FFII spoke of how to deal with lobbyists. He also wrote about it, but his books that explain this are offline now, as we noted last week (he failed when it comes to self-hosting^*).

"Uproar and outrage send them a message, as do boycotts."He basically said we'd win the battle the moment the economic benefits shift in our favour. We need to work towards making it too expensive for our enemies to antagonise us, or make it too costly to go against the widespread psyche/cognition. Uproar and outrage send them a message, as do boycotts. Do not use social control media; it's a centrally-suppressed tool of censorship and it can easily be manipulated at scale. Even the Fediverse.

I still have plenty left to learn about the methods^**, but the short formula is: a) identify the desired condition. b) make the public aware of the issues at stake. c) hope that the target business realises that for profit's sake it's favourable to adapt to or publicly signal support for the above condition. Sometimes the business turns from active to passive or silent (for fear of backlash).

Consider as a timely example the latest case of Google turning nasty. “Web Environment Integrity” (DRM) can be combated by mass rejection of Chrome, YouTube etc. Today we reposted the FSF's statement after we had made a couple of our own. Google knows this is very bad publicity that will harm revenue. Will Google decide to retreat? We'll cover this again some other day.

Don't Give Up

The cycle of campaigning should be something like advocate (or boycott) x -> advocate x some more -> then y copies x -> y spreads x -> market conditions change -> foe changes course.

"Over the years pessimism and disappointments can be turned into low expectations (a priori), which strengthen the mind and assure perseverance."The important thing is not to relent, not to give up. PR people understand that defeatism is the worst enemy of activists, so they always try to gaslight and demoralise the activists, making them feel like they have no impact at all, no progress is made, and corporate agenda is immovable, unshaken. They will never admit defeat or show weakness as that can embolden activists.

So don't give up. Just consider alternative approaches though, maybe contingencies and new alliances with more people/groups. Over the years pessimism and disappointments can be turned into low expectations (a priori), which strengthen the mind and assure perseverance. Every failure is at least an opportunity to learn. ⬆ ______ ^* As a side note, I personally believe that publishing whole books in 2023 is targeting an old and dying audience -- a medium that won't age well as availability cannot be assured, especially if things go digital and younger people are encouraged to maintain short attention spans. If something does not increase some score ("like" etc. or gamification basically), there's no incentive to carry on, it cannot be quantified and thus does not count. People like to "emit" progress online for recognition and affirmation. Saying "I read X pages of a book today" won't impress youngsters. In a broader sense, activism through books means going "under" for a longer period of time, then emerging to sell some book that few will bother to read, even if it's Open Access (due to length mostly). Over the years both people and companies suggested that I write books -- suggestions which I always turned down. Another issue is, books are considered "slow" and most issues are already outdated or irrelevant or forgotten by the time the book comes out. Some time later, unless a new edition comes out, those books are considered "old". Their "shelf life" in the physical sense might be OK, but not many people reach out for the "old" shelves. What matters a lot is pace of publication (frequency and speed). It may matter more than depth and polish.

^** I've been an activist for GNU/Linux for over 20 years (my personal site turned 20 last year and my blog turns 20 next year). Herein, the cheatsheet or cribs note can fit on a single sheet of paper, no need for "books".