The Call for Participation for the #Decentralized Internet & #Privacy devroom at #fosdem2019 was published 🎉 It would be great to receive proposals from a diversity of people.

Please boost widely !

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@loic FOSDEM 2018 had one of the world’s largest surveillance capitalists as its primary sponsor. Who are the sponsors this year?

If Google is sponsoring again, there is no way either I or @indie would take part.

It’s time events that purport to be about freedom stop legitimising and whitewashing surveillance capitalists. And it’s time those of us with legitimacy in this area stop being complicit in that practice.

#FundingMatters #SurveillanceCapitalism

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@aral @loic @indie I'd rather say the strange part is Google willing to sponsor the conference, which promotes all the things that go against its core business model at some degree. I think it's fine as long as they are willing to pay the contribution without interfering anything. They have much more to gain in industrial consortiums where they can actually lobby.

@ghost @loic @indie To understand why they sponsor, you must understand what they fear above all else: regulation. “I wake up every day and fight regulation. It’s what I do. It’s my job.” <– Eric Schmidt to me, a few years ago. If they lose the PR game/become socially unacceptable, they also lose the regulation game (see Big Tobacco). To continue unabated all they need is the surveillance capitalism equivalent of the doctors in the cigarette ads.

@aral @loic @indie okay... You reminded me of Peter Lee who was quoted by defectivebydesign.org in regards to DRM

@ghost @aral @indie I don't find strange that Google is willing to sponsor an event that hosts a majority of people who are opposed to them. If they do that long enough, the hope is that more and more people will forget that Google is actively working to undermine the Free Software movement, every day of the week (software patents, DRMs, proprietary services, etc.).

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