Tools

This page presents a bit our approach and philosophy concerning the IT tools we use in Magari. If you just want to check our documentation (concerning IT and non IT tools we use), it's here.

Starting from an awareness that "societies" (with their social structures and power dynamics) co-evolve with the technological tools that they adopt, we strive to be mindful in our choice of communication tools.

We intentionally decided for Magari to use only open-source softwares and to host all our information on our own servers. Even if this may cause some difficulties at the beginning we invite new members not to discourage. Opensource programs may not be "magic" as Google, but they have evolved enormously in recent years, making it easy for anyone to take the necessary first steps in the journey of digital emancipation.

Here are the key reasons we avoid GAFAM:

• Surveillance and data abuse has become the core of their business model. As actively involved people in the ecological and social movements, we fear that this growing surveillance is making any real dissent impossible. Even as common citizens "with nothing to hide" we feel stripped of our humanity, our agency, our individuality.
• Manipulative algorithms. It is well known that all our interaction on proprietary softwares are mediated by algorithms that operate a distortion of the information. Those big companies use these algorithms not only to send us targeted advertisement, but also to operate social control.
• Concentration of capital GAFAM companies are now the biggest in the world, now exceeding the giants in the Oil and Gas sector. They represent the very essence of capital accumulation and allow the elites to control the rest of us. Even if today the situation may still seem acceptable to most people, what will happen in a not so distant future if these trends continue?

Another way we act critically towards the technologies we use everyday, we decided we want to live in a place where phones and smart-phones are relegated to individual spaces. In this way, they are not present in the many shared spaces in the Magari community, might this be inside space or the garden. This choice is made to react to the widespread tool of social control that the smart-phone represents, and to avoid our social space to be impacted by the presence and the use of it.