Why must we log in to society?

Increasingly access to society requires a username and password.

I think that in itself isn’t so bad, I’m happy that government services are more efficient for me to interact with. Higher degrees of automation, more information available, and better tracking of processes are all excellent improvements. Automation reduces latency, no more waiting 5-10 business days for paperwork to make it through the post; internal sorting; data entry; manual triage; ad nauseam. More information helps me make better decisions, I can find out about the MOT history of any car I might think about buying; I can see all the planning applications for my area on one map; I can understand what my student loan payments were this year and the exact balance outstanding. Process tracking means I can keep track of what’s happening to me, my data, and my life, and to keep systems honest if they go wrong.

That being said, a lot of civic society – especially the parts which don’t involve the government directly – require a login to a 3rd party service. Especially with social media, but also now with news, things which were mostly public are now hidden behind at least a login-wall, if not a pay wall too¹.

Second hand market in the UK

In the UK we’ve had several popular ways to sell second hand goodies online, eBay, GumTree and FreeCycle used to be dominant. All of those are free to browse without an account, and are not run by a global mega corporation that profits from the subversion of democratic processes in many countries (see: Cambridge Analytica, Foreign interference in elections via Facebook, Genocide of Rohingya in Myanmar, Indian WhatsApp Lynchings, to name a few). Sadly in the UK today, Facebook Marketplace is by far the most popular way to sell second hand stuff like lawnmowers, greenhouses, etc. After the Brexit vote and the Cambridge Analytica revelations I deleted my Facebook account, which makes even browsing Facebook marketplace off-limits. My partner does maintain a Facebook account so between us, we can navigate buying 2nd hand goods, but it is cumbersome.

Facebook marketplace is also a bit too bereft of features. Clearly lots of people are taken for a ride as buyers and sellers and there’s a distinct culture of mistrust. The seller of the lawn mower seemed taken aback that we turned up on-time, with the correct money, and didn’t mess him about. Similarly, Pawel told us that even giving away the glass for free he’d been messed around by 4 people before us! Perhaps this is just the nature of selling stuff in-person but being initiated online, but it seems like a sorry state of affairs.

The local car boot sale hasn’t run since the COVID restrictions began in 2020, with much of the sale of 2nd hand goods going online to Facebook Marketplace.

Politics

My local MP only appears to share her opinions to columns behind pay walls and on her Facebook page. My local residents’ group organises exclusively through Facebook, local councillors spend much of their time communicating to their constituents via Facebook. The local Labour Party relied on WhatsApp groups and a Facebook group for communication within the local party. By all accounts this dependence on WhatsApp is reflected all the way through British politics to the very top.

Online clubs

This one might seem odd, of course online clubs need a login – logins are identities online! I agree with this, but there is a proliferation of dis-integrated services around clubs. The most obvious example being Discord. Even our allotment association has a large social component behind in a Facebook group.

We’re in an unfortunate position where there’s hostile capture of users. Users are in a platform because important parts of their lives depend on, say, Facebook Messenger—and in particular their access to people they care about is gated by these platforms too. It is therefore really hard to leave. Facebook says it connects people and this is true, but what Facebook doesn’t say is that people could and would connect without Facebook as well. Today, the metaphorical digital town square is run almost entirely by Facebook.

The Online Safety Act has made it harder for small groups to manage fora, too. Any administrators of social media are responsible for a wide array of potential harms that may come to children, making the risk of small running a small forum too great for many. This risk isn’t just for old-school phpBB forums either, newer social media platforms like the de-centralised Mastodon suffer the same exposure to the Online Safety Act.

For local communities, traditional newsletters and physical notice boards might be part of the solution. Churches across the country have been quite good at this, in part I expect because of their demographics not being very online. My home village has a monthly newsletter which is sponsored and largely organised by volunteers of the church.

My allotment association does send out a monthly email newsletter, which has proven quite useful. It also has a monthly plant swap meetups, which is good for community building but also good to disseminate information.