The Communication Commons: resisting the recuperation of the internet by capital

Is the 'information revolution' truly revolutionary? The internet presents us with a choice. Either we permit the recuperation of the web by capital – or we resist, and insist on the values of the commons

By Open democracy

/ 25 May 2011

The Spanish protests and the need for politics and conflict

The popular uprising of Spanish youth has been inspiring to observe, but its call for radical democracy should not be confused with a "post-political" approach to social change

By Guy Aitchison

/ 23 May 2011

The 'Spanish revolution' and the Commons: a Tale of Two Tweets

While hundreds arrived at the Spanish Embassy in London to support the protesters in Spain, the Labour-run Progress Annual Conference was in full swing. The pair of events demonstrate two very different responses to the recession of politics and finance

By Open democracy

/ 23 May 2011

Egypt, Bahrain, London, Spain - Tahrir Square as a meme

Certain tropes of struggle are spreading mimetically between movements against poverty, corruption and austerity measures. The Tahrir Square meme has been taken up across Africa, the Middle East and Europe, with its latest incarnation in Puerta De Sol in Madrid this week

By Open democracy

/ 23 May 2011

A New World in the Shell of the Old: prefigurative politics, direct action, education

Online networks are increasingly seen as of huge importance for how social movements organise - be it in Wisconsin, Cairo or London. However, what is missing is the recognition that online, commons-based forms of production are methods of political contention and practice in their own right

By Open democracy

/ 13 May 2011

InfoEnclosure 2.0

Web 2.0 is a venture capitalist’s paradise where investors pocket the value produced by unpaid users, ride on the technical innovations of the free software movement and kill off the decentralising potential of peer-to-peer production.

By Open democracy

/ 1 May 2011

The Facebook Purge: Corporate power, political influence and the need for independent, powerfully popular social media networks

If Facebook have acted at the request of a state body then the ‘Facebook Purge’ of activist accounts in the UK during the royal wedding is an issue with freedom of association and assembly at its very heart.

By Open democracy

/ 30 Apr 2011

Black Bloc: aesthetics won't beat the cuts

Luke Cooper responds to Jonathan Moses' article on the Black Bloc. He argues that the group's "aesthetic wars" can only be reactionary in nature, not liberating.

By Luke Cooper

/ 17 Apr 2011

In defence of Black Bloc

The state, with its monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, can afford to be idiotic in its analysis of the black bloc, denouncing their actions on March 26th as "mindless violence". But the clamouring within the anti-cuts movement to disown this element violates the basic principles of solida

By Open democracy

/ 5 Apr 2011

The Open-Sourcing of Political Activism: How the internet and networks help build resistance

The fallout from the TUC demonstration on March 26th, which saw the mass arrest of peaceful UK Uncut activists following the police’s failure to deal with the controversial black bloc earlier in the day, has lent added urgency to debates about the nature of networked activism, its limits and poten

By Guy Aitchison

/ 4 Apr 2011

UK Uncut, responsibility and the logic of networked activism

Much of the critical rhetoric attacking UKUncut's choice not to denounce the violence on March 26th fails to understand the organisational make-up of the UKUncut network and, more generally, of the national anti-cuts movement.

By Open democracy

/ 1 Apr 2011

Why UK Uncut can and should denounce the violence

UK Uncut must condemn the violence on Saturday 26 March. The network has formed around common views - such as an opposition to tax avoidance. Why can't one of these views be a condemnation of violence? If not, UK Uncut will dwindle into marginality.

By Stuart White

/ 1 Apr 2011

Networked Society