Αnԁ ԝhеn ԝіll уοu? А ɡuіⅾе tο rеɡаіnіnɡ ԁіɡіtаl ѕοⅴеrеіɡntу ‐ аnⅾ аn uрԁаtе οn thе Раrеtо рrοϳесt.
Since December 5, a piece of German journalism is history. The Heise-Verlag has hidden 50,000 (!) articles from the period 1996-2020 behind a revision note. In other words, de facto erased from cultural memory. Or to use Habeck’s diction: the articles are still there, you just can’t read them anymore. A quarter of a century of critical contemporary history by pioneers of online journalism, such as Mathias Bröckers, Tom Appleton, Peter Bürger: gone. An island of knowledge has disappeared. Is the critical early work a thorn in the publisher’s side in times of new intellectual mobilization? Can it get any more Orwellian in Germany? We are experiencing a virtual text burning.
The free word is being decimated from all sides
This is an act of aggression against authors, the public’s right to information and the spirit of the free word in equal measure. 9/11, wars, NATO secret armies: in times of newly simmering conflicts and open rearmament rhetoric, people would rather not show such content. Pressure from above? The publisher’s behavior is even more pathetic when you consider that the Telepolis content represents an important cultural asset of public interest, which should even be legally archived according to the Federal Archives Act. It is a strange state of affairs in this Germany when a publisher feels obliged to rewrite history and subsequently change texts that should actually be preserved in their original form by law.
We are in an information war. And, as always, it’s about power. Critical journalism removes power, vaporizes it, can expose it as illegitimate. That is why critical journalism is always dangerous for the powerful.
Pseudo-critical journalism, on the other hand, can divert attention while trying to maintain a critical façade. Do you remember the “Panama Papers” and similar alleged sensational leaks? The German mainstream (SZ, Spiegel, ZEIT, NDR etc.) also liked to cling to these in order to maintain the residual image of investigative journalism. Now published Mediapart: The OCCRP institute, probably the largest and best-funded research network for investigative journalism and the actor behind the leaks, is predominantly sponsored by the USA. Conveniently, they were not included in the list of small and large tax evaders, money launderers etc. in the world. The NDR accuses Mediapart of having censored its own investigative research on this.
Critical information is always attacked and decimated from all sides. That has always been the case where there are power interests. The history of censorship stretches from the church of the Middle Ages through 20th century ideologies to the late democracies of the 21st century. America, you have it better? The US hegemony has known McCarthyism, the censorship of opponents of apartheid and the fight against Wikileaks, among other things. The destruction of sources of knowledge is a serious robbery of humanity’s intellectual treasure. Censorship has always been followed by stultification, ideologization, human regression and genocide.
The question that arises from this state of affairs is obvious: How much longer will we put up with this?
Let’s take back control
December 11, 2024 was a special moment for me.
I published my first uncensorable article using our Pareto client. This article is not shadowbanned, cannot be deleted by others, it belongs only to me and the readers, not to any platform, it is kept ready for retrieval by several decentralized nodes and we also operate some nodes ourselves (so-called relays).
First look at our prototype (Screenshot pareto.space/read)
For the first time, I have the feeling that I have the basis of my journalistic activity in my own hands and am not dependent on others. Wasn’t that Marx’s idea: ownership of the means of production? If you publish in the semi-socialist West, you only own the hardware or typewriter. For the rest, he’s like a chicken in a battery hen: platform-dependent, patron-dependent, can be switched off at any time.
I don’t want to be dependent on any Elon Musk, Substack, a patron or anyone else when I publish - and I consider this to be an absolute matter of course.
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Anyone (including you) will soon be able to use our web application to create and publish censorship-resistant long-format articles. All you need is a Nostr ID (easiest way: here) and you’re ready to go. Our main developer has already published instructions on how to use it.
The prototype of the Pareto client can be called up in the browser, you log in and can then write and send the texts in an editor. The articles are shared with hundreds of thousands of users in the Nostr network and are always available there. Of course, they can also be shared via the usual social media channels. Next, we are working on a newsletter function. This would make us the first client on Nostr to offer this and a kind of “uncensorable substack”. Our client belongs only to itself and therefore to everyone, it is open source and can therefore be changed, expanded and adapted.
Anyone who publishes via us should have the highest degree of independence possible. Also from us. We officially “launch” in January! Do you also want to become censorship-resistant?
We have currently started a test phase with the first publications and testers. As a first step, we want to offer around 30 publications, blogs, YouTube channels etc. free onboarding with Nostr introduction and have a waiting list. We are already migrating the first publications, I have created the English version of “Freischwebende Intelligenz”, authors such as Tom-Oliver Regenauer, Andreas Rottmann, Martin Enlund and the Swiss physician Walter Siegrist are also publishing.
The first German publication are moving over (Screenshot pareto.space)
Anyone who wants to publish without disruption should at least have a back-up channel on Nostr. Otherwise the audience can be gone overnight, because it belongs to the platform. Of course, we could also help Telepolis to secure the articles and have contacted them. We have already pulled the missing articles from the web for processing and can create personalized accounts for the authors if required.
Call to action:
Are you a critical publication/blogger etc. and want to be involved? Or would you like to support us as a tester or in some other way? Drop us a line: team@pareto.space
What are the next steps? In the coming months, in addition to the newsletter function, we also want to offer a forum for researchers to exchange ideas, set up a micro-market (e.g. for research, corrections, correspondents), a reputation system, use visualization tools and make the client ready for the market. We want to attract thinking people, the “critical mass”, who are interested in the development of reality, regardless of whether they are readers, authors, researchers, etc. Ideally, we want to create a marketplace of ideas, a real debate space in which people are constantly working on improving the information base.
The Pareto project has had its ups and downs and we are still far from being “over the hill” and still dependent on help. So far, I can say that this project has been supported both personally and financially mainly by the readers of this publication, which makes me particularly happy.
You have trusted me on the basis of a mere idea, you have donated to it, you have offered your services as volunteer developers, designers and testers, and most recently we were even provided with two top developers free of charge by a critical entrepreneur from Switzerland. I am infinitely grateful for the highly motivated team that has emerged and for the many helping hands who are enthusiastic about the idea - and keep it alive.
The best way to combat the concentration of power is to build decentralized structures. The transfer of power begins the moment the individual starts to take back control. Bitcoin has led the way, critical information must follow. We at Pareto are committed to this idea and offer a way forward.
If you would like to support us on this path, we would be delighted (as would many critical authors who will soon have a second censorship-resistant home). We can never be like the authors of Telepolis.
You can find out more about the Pareto project on our new homepage.
You like the project? Here is how you can support us:
- Fiat/Swiss Association
Left in CHF/Right in EURO
- Bitcoin/Lightning (Adresse: donate2pareto\@walletofsatoshi.com)
This article by Milosz Matuschek first appeared in German on** Freischwebende Intelligenz.**
Join the marketplace of ideas! We are building a publishing ecosystem on Nostr for citizen-journalism, starting with a client for blogging and newsletter distribution. Sound money and sound information should finally be in the hands of the people, right? Want to learn more about the Pareto Project? Zap me, if you want to contribute (all Zaps go to the project).
Not yet on Nostr and want the full experience? Easy onboarding via Nosta.me.