An ethical alternative
Mobilizon is a tool that helps you find, create and organise events. It is an ethical alternative to Facebook events, groups and pages.
It is the latest FOSS project from the French not-for-profit organisation Framasoft (remember the De-google-ify Internet campaign which led to the creation of CHATONS in 2016?) After a successful crowdfunding campaign last year, the first stable version of Mobilizon has been released on a few days ago.
I could go into further details, but Framasoft has done an excellent communication job, so I will just list the relevant links providing addtional information:
- The official announcement article explains the motivations behind Mobilizon and the goals to reach to consider Mobilizon a success.
- Another blog article gives a guided tour, in which you follow the footsteps of Rȯse’s discovery of Mobilizon.
- A simple one-page website sums up all aspects of Mobilizon: joinmobilizon.org.
Substance over Flash
Framasoft’s note of intent on Mobilizon is pretty clear: Facebook is not changing the world for the better. Surveillance capitalism will not develop the tool we dream of, a tool that would let people organise events and rallies, without their actions being monitored, their data being scanned for advertisements, social media manipulation, or worse. By taking profit goals out of the equation and replacing it with ethics and respect for privacy, you get an opportunity to build something better.
Mobilizon is not a social media, nor a hobby: it is a tool. You won’t find features like subscriptions counters, thumbs-ups or info walls with infinite scroll. Mobilizon’s design aims to free your attention from the mechanisms of self-staging. This allows you to stay focused on the essentials: managing your events, your groups, your mobilization.
As an ethical Facebook groups & events alternative, Mobilizon was designed to be:
- Emancipatory. The software is free/libre, federated and separate from the attention economy.
- Practical. Mobilizon is above all a tool for managing your events, your profiles and your groups.
- Welcoming. Tools and resources have been created and incorporated into the software: to explain how to use its features, to find your Mobilizon instance, or even how to install it yourself.
The federated aspects of Mobilizon can be represented as a network of independant islands in contact with one another
Mobilizon on Nomagic: a public service
In order to contribute to a widespread adoption, which is key for Mobilizon’s success, we have decided to make the service public for now. Hopefully it will do its part in providing early users a place to start.
Spread the word
Mobilizon IS OUT! A federated Free Software designed to protect the internet users from captology and data monetisation, what is there not to love? 
Mobilizon’s mascott is a fennec named Rȯse.
Illustrations: David Revoy (CC-By) - Derivative works (background color adjustment).
Parts of this article are excerpts (sometimes re-arranged) from Framasoft’s publication on their Framablog or the joinmobilizon.org website, under CC-BY-SA 4.0 and AGPL-3 licences respectively.
