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Larry Sanger, the co-founder of Wikipedia, has called for a social media strike to demand decentralized social media platforms. He has urged users who are unhappy with social media websites to boycott the platforms on July 4 and 5 (at least one day). The motive behind the strike is to demand big corporations to give users back their privacy, control over data, and user experience.

Why Is Sanger Organizing A Social Media Strike?

He mentions in his post that this strike is to demand a decentralized system in which:

  • Users have control over their data like they control their messages, emails, and blogs.
  • Platforms are interoperable and not silos of data.
  • Social media platforms compete with each other for a common pool of data, thus offering the best user experience.
  • Each platform follows a universal set of protocols and standards.

How To Join the Social Media Strike?

To join Sanger’s social media strike, you need to use #SocialMediaStrike on the platforms you use and refer to a copy of the Declaration of Digital Independence (you can create your own copy as well) and invite others to sign the declaration.

He has specifically urged programmers and developers to create posting bots to spread the word about the strike. Larry Sanger hopes that this strike against social media platforms will force them to issue a statement against the declaration of digital independence and public criticism.

This will also show the big corporations that there is a demand for decentralized social media and they must return the privacy to the ordinary user.

You can read more about the social media strike on Sanger’s post.

Will you join the social media strike? Tell us what you think about it?

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