The tension between privacy and solidarity | Josh Davila | Web3Privacy Now Berlin Meetup 2024

come come come come so what's interesting here and why I love Josh that um you wouldn't believe but he's the one advocating for blockchain fighting in a nice way or debating with web to or so-called people uh it would be nice if you would go and check his political interviews on YouTube with Crypt Skeptics he has lots of major arguments on how to defend the right for Block chain or decentralization brother sense exist at all and he goes straight away political and this talk I think would be on the intersection of activism and the privacy and the tension in between them and last but not least uh chase him for his books blockchain radicals uh people just should read more and and he has some um HDMI yes this one and uh what's important here that we slowly move from sort lack of activism to the activism itself and it's a nice transition also from the a speech because I think what the department of decentralization is doing is a pure activism uh you can call it a tech activ in that sense oh we can chat with someone at the same time yeah I don't know what kind of messages I'm going to get go go all right make sure nothing hope nothing comes up okay H so hi everyone um yeah my name is Josh um I have books in my bag I have a lot of books so if you're interested in Reading I'm selling them for20 come get me afterwards uh pretty quick so I have to go to a dinner but um for my talk I wanted to talk about the tensions that I see based on my experience between anonymity and solidarity so on one side we have you know the need to protect our identities in particularly like difficult situations um while also uh especially in the context of social movements but however the need for cultivating solidarity between the people who also take part in that uh social movement at the same time uh and I think yeah I just wanted to talk a bit about uh maybe my experience um just personally why I kind of became interested in this topic um I have a Blog in a podcast called blockchain socialist you can imagine what I talk about and um so I didn't want when I first started out a few years ago I didn't want my employer to know what I was doing what I was up to because it would be a really awkward conversation with my boss to explain why I was um why I had a a podcast on the side of my job um I also didn't want to lose my job because I still need to make money in order to pay rent and whatever else um and in the process of making the podcast and everything I started uh different uh online communities and started meeting people who also felt similarly um in this weird intersection of crypto and more left-wing politics and therefore met a lot of people uh online via Discord Reddit or whatever other platforms um who wanted to reach out and like try to do stuff together um however over the Internet there is this of course like culture of being an non of like sharing your username and that's like how you know the person um but in a context of wanting to uh do any sort of like left-wing political movement uh there's also an aspect or a culture of like really getting to know the other person who you are doing stuff with um you don't want to feel like you can't trust the people that you are potentially going to very dangerous situations with with um and so it's important aspect um and I only became uh came out of the Anon closet after I wrote this piece for Outland um called Fork your Society I want out which is about the network State um because I was asked to write a book and so I had to I was asked by my publisher to not be anonymous anymore because I was asked to be a public figure in order to defend the points that were in my book um that's something that they required um and so I kind of complied with that and so what I found a lot of the times is that I would you know meet people online uh especially when I was Anonymous and they would be like oh what do I call you or what's your name or like you know what do you am I supposed to know this information about you and there'd be this like really kind of awkward back and forth where at least for me I didn't really care if the other person knew a little bit about my life and often case it happened where they would know my name so I would simply share it um but other times I would meet people and they would be very very guarded about who they are what they do um what their kind of like goals are and it would really really frustrate me because it'd be like uh what do you think I'm going to do like it felt that they could not trust me um even though I was I mean especially now as a public fig figure but even then um public at least in in the internet um and so I kind of wanted to like force myself to uh to deal with this like these contradictions that I saw um in this space but so we're talking about solidarity and I wanted to make people a little bit uncomfortable by singing a song um so you guys all have to sing it with me so that we can lighten up the mood a little bit CU I know it's been like a very uh you know uh heavy day today talking about privacy and anonymity so this is like a standard like labor union song that people in labor unions will sing together uh whenever they're at protest like everybody knows it um so usually it's you know you say solidarity forever three times and then they say for the union makes us strong however since this is a crypto thing and some people may think whatever about unions maybe we can say for the blockchain Mak so strong as a compromise is that okay with you guys do you guys know the song does anybody know the song it's very it's very simple I can start singing it and then and then we'll go and then that'll bring it'll start bringing people in okay you ready solidarity forever solidarity forever for the blockchain makes us strong solidarity forever I don't hear everyone solidarity forever Daniel solidarity forever for the blockchain makes us strong now one more time solidarity forever for the blockchain makes us strong woo yeah good job you guys all sang wonderfully it was beautiful um so did you feel the cringe did you feel it like deep in your bones like did that feel uncomfortable because it should because it might it might for people who like don't do it often or aren't a part of different types of movements haven't gone out to things like it feels a little bit uncomfortable your first time right um but congratulations you made like a very very small baby step into feeling what it's like to experience solidarity and like like to me at least like music is like one of those rare kind of places that are somewhat normalized where you can kind of experience a sense of itivity because you're all kind of singing more or less the same thing right um and so I want you to like hold on to that feeling of solidarity and like also think about how it um plays with this uh with anonymity at the same time and privacy um and so to explain just for people who may not know exactly what solidarity means when solid when we talk about solidarity this is not like um charity so this is a famous quote from Eduardo gallano he says I don't believe in charity I believe in solidarity charity is so vertical it goes from the top to the bottom solidarity is horizontal it respects the other person I have a lot to learn from other people so it's meant to be u a conceptual framework for being able to relate to one another in a more horizontal Type of Way um and is not meant to be this kind of like paternalistic uh view on like helping others um that charity is kind of like basically what defines it so there there are very very different things things um and it's a feeling and so um this is also very important in like workers movements right whenever you are in a kind of like worker struggle there is this idea that there are like the workers that need to come together they need to collectivize and show off their power they need to act as a kind of single unit as a way to fight back against the the kind of like rights as they are um taken away by them by their employer whether whether that's like lowering wages whether that's taking away certain benefits whatever that is um the way that uh you know in unions and in worker movements you view how to uh build up your own power is by having a collective single unit in which there's solidarity between the individuals that make up that unit so it's not meant to be to you know rid yourself of your individuality but is instead to build those relationships of solidarity in order to create a coherent uh Collective identity um and so surveillance is a workers issue um people who work in for example Amazon uh workplaces but this is also a continuation of a long history of of Labor struggle but you know in the Amazon um uh Warehouse you have cameras that are constantly watching you know how many packages they do and like how many times they have to take a piss and like all these various metrics that they're always measuring about people and what they do with their time whether or not they're making certain uh kpis being met this is an extension of the already existing history of basically floor managers floor managers were the uh the people who were surveilling Factory workers on the floor and making sure they were constantly working and doing these various disciplinary mechanisms to make sure that they were um always on task and whatever else um these cameras and these uh digital systems are simply an automation of those responsibilities and of those things that um the Flur manager were already doing except now it's just become at such a much more intense level to where they're counting the amount of time you take to go pee um and so I think this is like an important context when we're thinking about privacy when we're thinking about anonymity this is something that not only affects simply people who are fighting against the state in some big fashion but also because they are uh simply working trying to make their ends meet um and so when we're talking about the um in the context of social movements um a really good source of information is the CIA on how they use surveillance in order to destroy social movements so if you can if you can read the text here it uh this is like how they interfere in social movements um they do they recommend you know agents that interrogate into different groups to talk as frequently as possible to bring up irrelevant issues haggle over precise wordings of things to refer back to matters decided upon at the last meeting to bring it back up to slow down the whole process um to be worried about propriety um they also talk about things in like how to stop uh things at work so this is often a tactic to slow down labor unions to make labor unions appear as some like giant inefficient uh monstrosity um so they would do things like spreading uh spread rumors they would uh work very slowly um there's a whole like list of things you can see to perhaps watch out for in case you're worried of a a CIA agent um but I think uh you know this is again like surveillance is not a a new issue simply because of digital systems but digital systems have definitely intensified the kind of surveillance apparatus that is available to kind of uh curtail various types of social movements um whether that is in labor unions or whether that is in another like activist kind of uh situation um and so when it comes to internet surveillance uh of course like I'm sure a lot of you already know these things I took a very generic picture off of Google Images to you know we already know that with like high intense surveillance we have um the effects of society where people become suspicious of each other they become paranoid um it becomes like very awkward to know if you're always being watched to do certain actions and uh commit to certain things um this is something like in general internet surveillance kind of uh how it affects Society um and then so if we look peer into a little bit closer in the into the internet and the differences between the meat space where like I can see you you can see me you know I'm wearing this shirt you know I have shorts on you have all this conceptual information about who I am and what I probably do that you can potenti deduce just looking at me um that is not seen through just an avatar right even if I just put an avatar of of this guy's face or whatever you get still a lot less contextual information than in the meat space and so in the digital space while there are a lot of you know um affordances that it provides and whatever else one of the things that it cuts off is the contextual information that we kind of see as by default whenever we're meeting up in person that the digital isn't necessarily able to um to make up for and so I think you know if we're looking at like how kind of a lot of dows turned up and like how a lot of the culture in crypto is at the moment I think this has a very large effect that this is like a form of like abstraction so much in a way that like our brains were not evolved to ever handle we were not uh like to have you know to remember people by their avatars uh online is like a very recent and new phenomena that is that has very particular effects it's hard for us to know at the moment exactly what that all means um but it also means I think in crypto there is a little bit of a culture of kind of like um uh of adversar between people because of this Anonymous and this Anonymous culture um but I think as well so uh one uh like specific example that I wanted to kind of like point out of where you know I was kind of dealing with this was whenever I first met cats from eth evacuations um where uh she kind of i s of found her on Twitter where she was sharing the things that she was doing uh using crypto to help get uh people out of Gaza um and so I had I put some messages that I got from friends like at that moment asking me if I knew her if like you know if anybody else knew her so there was like this intense need for someone to claim that they wanted to to do such a like um such a nice thing uh there was a need for kind of like social proof that this person actually was who they were um and so uh through the process of basically reaching out calling getting more social context about what she was up to what was going on um and then uh after that realizing that she's probably legitimate uh and then doing doing a podcast with her I think was a way to kind of um share therefore to a larger audience that hey this person is legitimate there's legitimacy in what they're doing um and we release a podcast in order to help promote the actual uh Endeavor um and so this is like a really interesting kind of like um moment for me to kind of like think about how a lot of people wanted to have solidarity they wanted to use crypto in order to help people get out of Gaza but um there was this intense fear uh for example my friend just want just don't want to make sure it's not some Advanced rug pool you know like um people did at the same time in such situations know that um it very much could be a scam because that is something that people do um and so I found this really interesting uh paper in my research um from this guy named Robert Gooden uh where he kind of looks into anonymous solidarity in social movements so he specifically the kind of like biggest example of things like this is the guy Fox mask guy Fox mask um which signifies and his in his paper he says not only solidarity that we are as one but also multiplicity that we are uh many and as well as interchangeability for uh of each for the other so for every one of us who falls 10 more will take our place um and so he talks about how like Anonymous and this guy Fox mask was this like really really interesting symbol for people to take part in uh and to be able to like Express solidarity while also keeping you know a level of anonymity by taking part in social movements um and so I think it was really funny because he also mentioned in the paper solidarity forever I don't know if you guys know that song a classic Anthem um for a lot of labor unions that that they will sing at their at their protests and whatever else um you know uh there is I think it was a really interesting kind of like uh yeah Collective action frame that he says for for thinking about uh using the labor union movement as like a way to use collectivity to actually protect the individual while also respecting individuality um by expressing solidarity um and so yeah this was like a really interesting paper I really um I think people should should check it out um he also mentions things like people want to be a part of social movements if they feel that they are going to win if they feel like they are popular and people uh will be a part of it um but yeah so I think like if we look at for example I think these were the protests uh Jesus um if you look at the protests in uh Hong Kong for example the guy Fox mask was used a lot as a way to express solidarity with the movement uh while also respecting or trying to protect one's identity at the same time um and then you can see kind of uh other versions of this that have already happened in indigenous movements in Mexico um so in chapas you have the ezln uh the zapatistas where they all wear black face masks whenever they are interacting with one another so it's a group of many different uh indigenous groups that come together and that want to express self-determination they don't want to be a part of the Mexican state um and as part of that they uh wear these black masks so that they can show that everyone is sort of equal in many ways but also that they are expressing solidarity by doing so uh so there is kind of like this precedence in social movements especially in ones with uh High adversar um in uh with indigenous groups in Mexico I think is really interesting um so yeah so I think that like you know if we want to take you know crypto to the next level if in the sense that to become an actual tool for social movement I think we have to move past a little bit P this uh liberal mindset of how fascism actually happens uh thinking that we can simply vote it all away thinking that uh if we simply vote for the non-fascist party therefore we are anti-fascist um but actually it takes I think a whole lot more than that a much more proactive approach um and that we need need to think about uh supporting actual social movements that are the bullwark against Rising fascism in various countries um and so yeah so for me like usually in crypto anonymity is wrapped with this idea of like free market fundamentalism of like Anonymous free markets and while I think there are various situations in which maybe that is very useful or maybe especially in uh for those who take part in uh in social movements we also need International solidarity we need like a movement where people can take part and be a part in um that isn't simply mediated by consumerism isn't simply mediated by exchange uh but is instead mediated also with solidarity across various um groups across various like um uh social movements and whatever else um and so yeah that was uh that was my presentation um um I have uh a bunch of books in my backpack I wrote a book called blockchain radicals how capitalism ruined crypto and how to fix it that came out this past August so if you would like one um come up to me quick uh and then this Saturday I have a launch event for another project called bread chain Cooperative that I run with a couple of my friends uh we're having an event at moose uh over by trep Tower Park if you want to come down the event starts at 3 p.m. uh you can find more more information on the uh the Berlin blockchain week side events or whatever else and yeah that's it oh one um maybe maybe there will be one question to because the song was so hilarious that there should be a question to this wonderful you you can shut scream scream please ah okay one second I'm not sure one one right thank you um so I don't know if you've uh here here so I don't know if you've been involved in social movements where they send in like actual you know human intelligence Deep Cover people um and if you do you're probably aware that it has an incredibly corrosive effect on trust kind of psychologically um so I mean that's you know probably why you you felt the need to check out this this person that's um uh that's um raising e for Gaza um so you raised the problem it's an incredibly hard problem like game theoretically if one side is whatever the powers that be and the other side is fighting them it's a great strategy it's like a cheap strategy to kind of partially disable like the the people on the other side do you have any suggestions how that would work in the much less frictionless world of online like defending yourself against that or you know strategies for it test test oh um so saying how that may change with the increase of like the use of digital systems that you mean like frictionless is that you mean um so I'm I guess I'm working on the assumption that it makes it even harder because the cost for them are reduced and the cost for us are increased um so yeah what to do um yeah I think like in it's really tough to say I mean for me it is sort of like personally uh knowing like knowing the person physically is definitely for for me like a big bump in trust than like purely digitally like knowing what this person looks like knowing what they're like interested in there's like that but then there is of course the uh the tension of like I mean yeah there's like so many factors involved with with with the digital it's sort of like you don't really know how surveilled you are until afterwards when they uh show you how surveilled you were in the court case or something like that um so I mean that's a very very difficult question I think in part it's basically I mean for me like we should have been de I mean not that not to take away anyone's efforts who's probably been doing that who may be in the room but like we should have been building our own technical infrastructure decades ago that is separate from the kind of corporate big tech one that we have today like the if anyone asks Facebook for data and information like and you are in an activist setting like they're going to give it you know like um we simply don't have yet the infrastructure that I think you know plenty of people are building out more now and there is like EAS there is this contradiction of like uh improvements in technology and like privacy that makes it also easier for us to take and like jam into something else with a different type of logic than just like corporate profit maximizing logic that then I think we can kind of um like ultimately I think that's like what we have to do like if you want to have like much more security we simply have to build our own infrastructure and that's like a very hard thing to do I'm not saying that's like that's all that's it you know just just make it yeah and there's a lot of them I think it's like uh yeah many different things um Talk Josh talking about infrastructure there's a next debate on it and the dialogue I would rather say thanks a lot uh for coming uh books books books I would say and he's still around especially in Berlin yeah [Applause]