hi marc, thanks for bringing this to our attention, i didn't know about it. it's pretty disturbing - but good to know that people are actively disassociating.
On 13.03.21 21:59, marc garrett via NetBehaviour wrote: > As some of you may already know, the P2P community has a major issue > with P2P Foundation founder Michel Bauwens who has, in my view, turned > the foundations Facebook groups and other forums into potential > recruitment vectors for the "alt-right" and has created an environment > where many people feel unwelcome and unsafe, including women, people of > colour, and LGBT+ people. > > As I have been involved with the P2P Foundation, Michel himself, and > other parts of the P2P community for almost two decades, I have joined > other colleagues who are alarmed by this right-wing pivot in signing > this statement of dissociation. > > https://p2p-left.gitlab.io/statement/ > <https://p2p-left.gitlab.io/statement/> > https://p2p-left.gitlab.io/statement/appendix/ > <https://p2p-left.gitlab.io/statement/appendix/> > > Please feel free to reach out to me if you have anything you want to > talk about with regard to this unfortunate situation. > > --- > > LETTER OF DISASSOCIATION > > > > In recent years the P2P Foundation has become the dominion of a single > man: its founder Michel Bauwens. Despite its stated commitment to the > “commons”, under Bauwens’ direction the P2P Foundation has increasingly > come to represent an understanding of the commons as a place of white > privilege and punitive male fragility. > > Over the last few years, despite concern from long-standing members and > close associates, Bauwens has transformed the P2P Facebook and P2P > Foundation Wiki pages into what many of us perceive to be a pulpit for > reactionary and conservative politics. This is done to the extent that > members who identify as and with women, people of colour and the LGBT > community have felt unheard, demeaned, disparaged and unsafe. > > Bauwens’ posts and curation in the P2P Foundation’s Facebook group have > increasingly promoted anti-left, anti-feminist, anti-justice > “Intellectual Dark Web” and even alt-right videos and talk pieces.* This > has been extended to include offshoots like the P2P Research Clusters > and P2P Politics and Policy groups. Right-wing tropes are commonly found > in the posts Bauwens curated in recent years, including: the claim that > anti-racists and feminists promote “reverse racism” and “misandry”, that > Black Lives Matter is a “neo racialist” movement seeking societal > domination, that white privilege theory oppresses whites because of > innate characteristics, that the transgender rights movement is > “anti-woman”, and that social justice movements seek “inverse status > hierarchies” or “reverse hierarchies of domination” in which white males > are permanently at the bottom. > > To many, Bauwens’ posts and curation regurgitate, in various different > forms, the general reactionary trope that “those people don’t just want > to be equal, they want to be superior.” Members of the community have > repeatedly expressed dismay at this content which promotes many of the > same dangerous tropes about “SJWs”, “cancel culture”, “snowflakes” and > being “woke” that emerged from post-2014 GamerGate and Channer culture.* > As the screenshots of his activity in the Appendix demonstrate, this is > neither infrequent nor done in the spirit of advancing discussion of P2P > ideas. In fact his constant focus on fighting “identity politics” is > pursued to the near total exclusion of advancing the commons. > > Bauwens claims the promotion of this content as “open curation” and > “promoting discussion”. We believe such rationale is entirely > disingenuous. The relevant articles and videos he posts are only from > the alt right and “Intellectual Dark Web”, and are published without any > critical contextualizing. On the contrary, while people are free to say > hateful things like “trans women are men”, anyone who challenges the alt > right material he presents or defends intersectional analysis, is > denounced for apparent “racialism” and banned from the group. The > curation is not “open”, but very much closed. > > From our consistent observations over several years, we are concerned > that Bauwens has turned the P2P Foundation’s Facebook groups and > discourse on P2P into a reactionary and racist echo chamber. Perhaps > most alarmingly, he recently announced that he would surrender > leadership of the Facebook groups only to a leadership group that > embraced the same —explicitly “anti-woke”— ideology, whose tenets are > now being added to the P2P Foundation Wiki pages as guiding dogma. > > As a result, P2P Foundation’s Facebook groups now exhibit > characteristics and promote ideas that look towards right wing, > reactionary views. We are concerned that this could potentially serve as > a radicalization group, drawing people into far right recruitment. > > We are compelled to take this action and produce a public letter now out > of concern for the people who come to the P2P Foundation with a sincere > interest in alternative production and distribution models and find > themselves embroiled in what some have characterized as Michel Bauwens’ > personal culture war. Furthermore, we are extremely worried that > interested and passionate people may also be subjected to alt-right > talking points which are carefully honed to sow division among people > who could otherwise more easily combine forces towards commons based > production. > > As a result of this shift, Bauwens has been disinvited from high-profile > events that would otherwise have benefited both the P2P Foundation and > P2P or commons-based thought more generally. Rumours of his alt right > radicalization are spreading rapidly and have caused concern among other > organizations, Bauwens has publicly complained about being deplatformed, > his “free speech” curbed, and has encouraged his followers to swarm > those who disinvited him with mob criticism. > > Michel Bauwens has done a great service to commons scholarship as an > aggregator of prevailing tendencies—but he has overstepped his role as > curator of the community. Historically, the commons always required the > magnanimity of a sovereign whose authority presided over and protected > the territory of the commons. This is perhaps the secret hegemony and > patriarchal model in Bauwens’ Commons. > > We, on the P2P left, want a commons scholarship which is radically > intersectional and heterodox. Our “Left” commons is built on the > principle of commoner’s control and a comprehensive understanding — > which is race-conscious, feminist and socialist — of how power is > produced and distributed. > > P2P Left members are committed to exploring a more egalitarian P2P mode > of exchange. This egalitarian approach understands that historical > forces have shaped us powerfully and created many systemic differences > that cannot be overlooked nor wished away by imagining some even playing > field that is yet to be brought into existence. The very violent forces > that have created inequity have shaped how we think and how we > experience the world; any movement that does not attend to this and > reflect the shifts required will sadly only end up replicating the very > same violence and uneven distribution of power that we are fighting to > transform. > > We left to generate a group closer to the original aspirations of a P2P > movement informed by a critical consciousness, sensitivity and the > knowledge and practices of intersectional thinking forged in the > struggle by those at the front lines. We welcome heterodox perspectives > that may be less addressed in other forums including Marxist, Communist, > Anarchist, Feminist, Postcolonial, Indigenous, Abolitionist, Racial > Justice Positive, Queer, Hacker and Pirate. > > This is not about Michel Bauwens being wrong, this is about safety for > people of colour, LGBT and women in the community. We emphasize that all > efforts (including personal, offline appeals) to bring Michel to a place > where reasonable, responsible discussion on these issues can safely be > had, have failed. > > Therefore we the undersigned in the P2P community disassociate ourselves > from Michel Bauwens, and we ask others to consider doing the same. > > See → Appendix > > > > P2P LEFT > > March 2021 > > > > > Kevin Barron, ICT Director (retired) Institute for Theoretical Physics, > University of California Santa Barbara. > Joanna Boehnert, lecturer, designer, Nottingham, United Kingdom. > Kevin Carson, researcher of postcapitalist transition, northwest > Arkansas. > Rebecca Conroy, artist and independent scholar, Sydney, Australia. > Elisabeth De Laet, artist, CHT/Totalism.org hackbase, Canary Islands. > Baruch Gottlieb, artist, curator and writer, Berlin, Germany. > Dmytri Kleiner, software developer, Berlin, Germany. > Cindy Kohtala, researcher of peer production, Helsinki, Finland. > Alekos Pantazis, researcher, Tallinn University of Technology & core > member, P2P Lab. > David Potočnik, CHT/Totalism.org hackbase, Canary Islands. > Sharon Prendeville, Senior Lecturer, Loughborough University and > Co-Founder of OSCEdays. > Poor Richard, creator and first admin of P2P Facebook group. > Penny Travlou, lecturer and Co-Director Feminist Autonomous Centre for > Research, Athens, Greece. > Jayu U, translator, Brazil. > Dr. Jedediah Walls, former research practicum intern with the P2P > Foundation. > McKenzie Wark, Professor, New York, NY. > > To add your name to this letter of disassociation in solidarity, please > email p2pleft [at] protonmail.com <http://protonmail.com/>. > > > > > * The discourse mentioned includes articles from conservative media > celebrities, particularly from the US; non-academic, non-journalistic, > at times explicitly racist, videos on YouTube that researchers have > classified as belonging to or adjacent to the ‘alt right’; conservative > mass media tabloids; articles from Quillette and Areo online magazines; > and “Intellectual Dark Web” commentary videos. Figures as authors and > speakers include Bari Weiss, Jesse Singal, Lindsay and Pluckrose, Andy > Ngo, and the Rubin Report. Quillette and Areo are conservative magazines > for editorials, opinions and non-peer reviewed articles marked by > anti-feminism and concern with “anti-whiteness” and Quillette > particularly publishing on eugenics and ‘race realism’. (For more on the > IDW, see e.g. this Vox article; this Data and Society report; and Lewis > (2020).) > An excessive immersion into this online reading and video material, > which stimulates anger against women and BIPOC as “causes” of economic > deprivation, is known as being “redpilled”. (See this NYT article; > Zuckerberg (2018).) > > The increasing frequency of events such as GamerGate (which involved > death threats to the women involved) and mass killings by radicalized > white nationalists, indicates that what appear to some to be mere > “online interactions” on social media have very real world consequences. > Moreover, given the reputation of Facebook as actively facilitating > election manipulation, dissemination of hate groups and unethical > practices related to citizens’ personal data, the sheer amount of time > spent on keeping P2P commons practitioners beholden to a surveillance > capitalist platform without careful moderation to protect its own > members is highly questionable. (See e.g. DiResta (2018).) > > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > NetBehaviour@lists.netbehaviour.org > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour -- helen varley jamieson he...@creative-catalyst.com <mailto:he...@creative-catalyst.com> http://www.creative-catalyst.com <http://www.creative-catalyst.com> http://www.upstage.org.nz <http://www.upstage.org.nz> https://mobilise-demobilise.eu <https://mobilise-demobilise.eu/>
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