We will no longer support the surveillance capitalists

Imbalance will these days terminate our presence on Facebook and eventually other centralized, surveillance based “social media” platforms. Here we’ll explain why.

Over the past decade and a half we have all participated in a global social and economic experiment, where we have given away our rights, the ability to communicate and reach out to people to a handful of American (and lately Chinese) advertising companies.

This has made a few people extremely rich and powerful, and has created a world in which we depend on the goodwill of these super rich people and their companies. They and their opaque algorithms decides who is heard and who is not. They decide who is even invited in to have their say, and who is left outside, silenced and without reach.

Add to this the inhuman business model of these companies, where they rely on extensive surveillance, monitoring and recording of our behaviour, emotions and friendships for their own financial gains. Again through opaque algorithms feeding on our behaviour.

A business model described as “surveillance capitalism“ by Shoshana Zuboff, who has researched and written extensively about the subject, and as “people farming“ by Aral Balkan, an activist for human rights in the age of the internet.

By continuing to feed these platforms with content, we would encourage our fans to use the platforms to get in touch with us and following what we do. That would again expose them to the inhuman surveillance that the platforms impose on them. We would further encourage the lock in, and strengthening the dependence on the far from benevolent feudal lords that these companies and people are.

We refuse to do that!

The underground was always about independence from the commercial gate keepers — taking matters in our own hands and doing it ourselves. It was about a direct and mutual connection between fans and musicians. When the record companies had no interest in our music, we recorded and distributed it ourselves. When the music press was not interested in us, we created zines and passed on flyers to promote the bands we liked.

That is what we want to do — return to a direct and flourishing underground based on the free web. Where we control our own channels and content. Where commercial gatekeepers no longer can rip everything from under our feet if they don’t approve of what we’re doing.

We will build this website to be the central place for everything about Imbalance. You will be able to follow and interact with us, right from our own website, using established and open web standards like RSS and ActivityPub – and of course, email!

It’s a work in progress, and some things will come as we go. However the basics are already in place.

This website is now our social network!