The book places particular emphasis on the plight of libraries, and those who use them, under Argentina’s restrictive 1933 copyright law, and another 2001 one that is cynically named “law for the advancement of the book and the culture of reading”. The country’s regulations are particularly tough, as they do not include exceptions common in most copyright regimes, e.g. for librarians. As Lucía Pelaya and Ana Sanllorenti write, their colleagues are thus constantly under threat from law enforcement if they want to preserve their institutes’ portfolios. Or, as Federico Reggiano puts it, “one cannot pursue serious research in Argentina anymore without becoming a criminal.” #

A case of copyright enforcement that has become known beyond the border of Argentina has been that of Horacio Potel, professor of philosophy at the University of Lanús and webmaster of a series of online libraries featuring Spanish translations of the works of Heidegger, Derrida, and others. In an interview with Beatriz Busaniche, Potel explains his motivation for creating these archives that eventually got him charged by the Argentinian state (the case was later dropped). Works by foreign authors, he says, are often just not available in Argentina. The rights are held by international corporations which neglect them for years, and eventual print runs are small and sell out soon. #

One particularly smart essay, also dealing with publishing monopolies, was penned by Federico Heinz, spokesman of the GNU project. He writes about “electronic books, dry water, and other mythical creatures”. It is a powerful refutation of ebooks, which he says are, in fact, digital archives with a use that’s limited even compared to printed books, only marketed by the publishing industry in order to preserve control over the business. #

While the book features its share of tales about the librarian / artist / student in distress, it also highlights successes from Argentina that might not be known abroad. Marilina Winik, for instance, writes about “copyleft publishing houses”. First there was censorship during the military dictatorship in the seventies and eighties, she finds, later a sell-out to international corporations in the nineties, and finally a national financial crisis in 2001: Reason enough for independent publishers to start using licenses such as Creative Commons, and for some authors to add individual comments like this one by writer Paul Strucchi: #

Everybody may do with this whatever he likes. Distribute me, if you find it interesting. The only thing I ask from you is not to make money at my expense. Just let me know, that’s pretty simple with today’s technology. If you don’t do it, it’s better I never get to know, because otherwise I will trash your car with the steering wheel, and then you can complain to your lawyers. #

Overall, “Argentina Copyleft” is a good starter to get an overview of what is going on with the country’s cultural commons. Some chapters, especially those specific to Argentina, are worth reading more than others, though. #

“Argentina Copyleft” is published under a Creative Commons by-sa license and is available as a free download in German from the Heinrich Böll Foundation and in Spanish from Vía Libre. #

Carta editors: “Flattr revenues in June: Thank you!”
201,22 € for group blog Carta (#6 on Rivva) #

Flattr seems to be on its way to become a convincing business model for blogs. #

Among the most-flattred topics in June were among others: Flattr, football, media critique, related rights ["Leistungsschutzrecht"]. Comparing the amount of flattr clicks with the previous month one can barely see a difference. The amount of clicks on top articles has only slightly increased. This means the growth of Flattr has decreased in June. The first Flattr hype seems over. #

That’s more than I expected. We will see if it continues like this and if more Flattr users will lead to higher revenues. I am still not convinced that Flattr could refinance a blog like this in the medium term. That will need a mix of revenues, combining parameters like Flattr, advertising, donations and other stuff like giving talks. #

My personal impression from our Flattr balance in June is that readers don’t reward the most expensive investigation the most, not the best coverage and not the articles with the best background information from our specialized editors. The most rewards go to articles which aim at the favorite enemies of our readers: Neo-Nazis, high nobility, the newspaper “Bild”, the liberal-conservative federal government. #

There’s one thing that irks me about Flattr: I have written [...] an article which I think is very helpful for a certain audience [...]. This article, which also contained a Flattr button, also got linked to, among others by a blog with a Flattr button. Interestingly, this other blog, which actually just paraphrased my post and linked to me, got more Flattr clicks than the actual post. That’s somehow as if on pay-TV I would pay more for the preview of a good movie than for the actual movie. #

That’s more than I expected [...]. 100 Euros for an article like my commentary on the “She said ‘Reichsparteitag’” hysteria is a better royalty than many newspapers would have paid for an article. #

law blog (#27): 247,68 €
iPhoneBlog.de (#232): 202,10 €
Blogwerk (publisher of several blogs): 201,17 € #

I myself made 7,42 € in revenues from Flattr this month through six articles on i like patterns. A post reporting revenues and reactions of German bloggers like this one got most clicks (16) – probably because it was used by Flattr as credentials. But these 16 clicks only meant 2,76 € in revenues – while two clicks for my article on the campaign against the 2011 census already earned me 2,36 €. All in all, I made 0,26 € per flattr – an average reported by others as well. #

From the first full month of Flattr experience we can already draw some trends. Of course, one important question is whether Flattr continues to expand. While Carta sees the service’s grow already in a decline, I would draw a more cautious and complex conclusion by looking at the revenues reported by two of the biggest earners, netzpolitik.org and taz. Netzpolitik is read mostly by an extremely ‘Net-savvy audience, while taz.de, online version of a leftist newspaper, probably has a less specialized readership. #

Netzpolitik.org reports about 577 € for June, compared to 39 € on the last two days of May, i.e. revenues stayed at about 20 Euros per day. Taz.de on the other hand made nearly 1000 € in June, whereas they had reported only 143,55 € for the previous month’s twelve final days, i.e. taz.de about tripled their revenues in June. I would argue that what we see is Flattr growing not at the core (‘Net-savvy early adopters), but on the edges (less avant-garde readership). That’s not to say that we already see a mainstreamization of Flattr, but a diversification among its users. #

The other big issue is whether Flattr revenues are just. Or, to use a less moralizing phrasing: Which articles (and which topics) get flattred? The quotes above already give some answers to this question: Readers flattr opinionated commentary rather than well-researched articles. Posts dealing with flattr get a lot of reward, but this trend seems to decline. Hot topics, especially those popular with the ‘Net-savvy media avant-garde, are leading the charts. #

The statistics of the articles I wrote for Spreeblick only partially mirror this image: #

49 – Activists plan constitutional complaint against 2011 census (31.05.)
20 – Governors sign media protection of minors treaty (11.06.)
14 – Campaign against 2011 census launched (10.06.)
12 – On the App Store or not on the App Store, that’s the question (09.06.)
11 – An alternative to Facebook (18.05.)
9 – The digital future of Europe (19.05.)
9 – EFF design basic rights for users of Facebook and co. (20.05.)
9 – Does Burma work on nuclear weapons? (04.06.)
8 – Those writing about environmental protection live in danger (24.06.)
7 – Gallo report: A victorious battle for copyright dogmatism (02.06.)
7 – Video interview with Eleanor Saitta: Before the surveillance camera, some people are more equal (08.06.) #

Another five articles got flattred six or less times, but none of the posts I wrote for Spreeblick since the introduction of Flattr did not receive any reward. #

My most-flattred article deals with the upcoming 2011 census (here’s an updated English version). It required relatively much research, but was kind of scoop – I was the first to report on the planned constitutional complaint. On spots #2 and #3 follow news articles on current political affairs, two opinion pieces on Apple’s App Store and Facebook rank 4th and 5th. There is no clear pattern visible in this ranking (which is not based on sufficient data of course). #

My own articles aside, opinion pieces seem to fare well with Flattr users. Many seem to use the button as kind of a way of saying thank you to authors who expressed what they were already thinking. I, personally, try to reward writers for articles which offer me an unusual perspective, new insights – or an enjoyable phrasing. How do you use the Flattr button? #

Since I haven’t seen much buzz around Flattr outside of Germany, I asked my Twitter followers why they think the service hasn’t taken off elsewhere. While Christian Kreutz criticized the invitation phase as making no sense because Flattr “need a mass right from start”, company evangelist Eileen Tso added that the service’s adoption by leftist German newspaper taz “took it to another level”. Jürgen Eichholz saw Peter Sunde’s talk at re:publica 10 (video, see also this interview with dctp.tv) as crucial. #

Peter himself eventually sided with Jürgen, also pointing out that he’s living in Berlin. So there seems to be a consensus that a talk at re:publica was helpful to kickstart Flattr into the German blogosphere. Indeed, the conference is not only the biggest one aiming mostly at bloggers (and, at least in my eyes, more open and welcoming than both other Internet community events, such as the Chaos Communication Congress and typical media conferences), but also organized by the people (and companies) behind two of Germany’s most prominent blogs, netzpolitik.org and Spreeblick (I have interned at, and write for, both). #

These two blogs are also among the first to implement Flattr, alongside many other major (and smaller, of course) blog and some newspapers. On June 1, Flattr paid out the first monthly revenues to the participators. Many of them have responded by publishing the figures, in general saying that they are posivitely surprised. Below are some figures and statements, alongside some rankings derived from the “Leitmedien” index of Rivva, an important aggregator that uses links and tweets as indicators of relevance. #

Tim Pritlove: I am flattered
208,54 € for podcasts Chaos Radio Express and Not Safe For Work (not listed on Rivva) #

I’m far from euphoria, but I feel that here something is growing that could well be sustainable. [...] I can only be satisfied. Reactions [from listeners] have shown me how important it is to have personal communication with your own community. [...] That’s why I’ve called my little adventure “personal media”. That’s what it is about: An extremely personal form of media production which allows for a highly personal way of consuming media. Flattr seems to be an interesting complement to this concept: Personal payment [...]. The Flattr click is more of an acknowledgement and fulfillment of an urge to thank than a payment transaction. #

Even though the sum positively surprises me because I expected much less it is still too early for reasonably valid judgments [...]. Flattr is generally a good idea which still needs time. And for trying it out and making it alone we owe the Flattr Swedes due respect and by the way also a fair share of the revenues. #

Matthias Urbach: First money from Flattr
143,55 € for newspaper taz (#14 on Rivva) #

Given that taz.de is only present [on Flattr] for a mere 12 days, and given that Flattr is still in beta mode, the result meets our expectations. [...] In general rewards on Flattr were for things that our readers like to read at the moment otherwise, too. [...] At the same time it’s also eye-catching that the number of Flattr clicks is continously growing day by day. #

We are happy about so much support, which exceeds our expectations by far. [...] The system may still be in closed beta mode, it still has a few flaws and it still lacks a few desirable features, but all in all it feels ok. It keeps fascinating to watch the development, growing prevalence and acceptance – especially among “non-bloggers”. #

A rough calculation shows that each Flattr has earned me around 15 cents. [...] I had expected one, maybe two cents per click. It’s too early to make a final judgement about Flattr. After all, the service has not even finished its closed beta phase yet. But after the first numbers I still think Flattr is a good idea which deserves a chance. #

Flattr establishes a gift economy. [...] Flattring is, like blogging, making a gift. [...] From the beginning on I have set my Flattr to 20 euros a month. My own estimation of what blogs are worth for me would be more like 50 euros, but that’s currently not possible. Bummer! #

#

The idea is simple: As a Flattr user you charge your account with a small sum – five or ten bucks, maybe – which you intend to spend during a month. You can then “flattr” sites which have embedded a button, like I did. The monthly sum you have designated is then equally split among all sites you have flattered, with the company retaining a 10% fee. If you have 5 Euros to spend and click on ten different buttons, each site owner will thus receive 45 cents. If you don’t flattr anything for a month, the money you intended to spend will be donated. #

Flattr is not the first service of its kind. E.g. there is Kachingle (“Social cents for digital stuff”), which works on a very similar model. But the Swedes seem to be the best player on the field, and their service has already enjoyed a certain success, at least in Germany. Many blogs, such as my former and current employers netzpolitik.org and Spreeblick, have embedded the button as well as leftist newspapers taz and Freitag. #

Despite this early success, there is still a lot of doubt as to whether Flattr will eventually end up as a viable source of income for bloggers, online journalists, netlabel musicians and others who publish creative stuff on the ‘Net. Some argue that in the end, a small circle of netizens will end up flattering each other with peanuts. That’s at least a possible scenario. #

But something I like about Flattr is their stress on the fact that there are no different user types in the system. If you want to embed a Flattr button on your blog, you first have to charge your own account to be able to flattr other people’s stuff. This comes from an understanding of the social web as it should be: Everybody a creator, everybody a consumer. #

Enthusiasts have spoken of a new age of “prosumers” (a portmanteau from “producer” and “consumer”), as those who are engaging in this post-industrial hybrid behaviour have been called. As a matter of fact, they are still an avantgarde, at least in most of the world (South Korea seems to be on the forefront of this development). Take it as Flattr’s utopian moment, I like the way they are embracing the advent of a new read/write culture. #

This blog is written without financial interests in mind and published under a very free Creative Commons license. If my articles are useful to you and you want to give back, come flatt(e)r me. #

Flattr is still running in beta and you need an invite to join. I still have some, so if you would like one, write me an email to [myfirstname] at [thisdomain] or contact me on Twitter. #

I love this album very much. Not only because of the melancholy and the lightness of its songs, but because it is handcrafted music. It is music from another age. An age when music was not a self-contained record, but an ever-changing process of singing and listening, dancing and whistling. #

Simply put, it’s music from a read/write culture. For someone grown up in a society still dominated by the paradigms of the industrial era, the era of pop stars being hyped, their faces staring at us millionfold from ad spaces and CD racks, their music repeated every minute on top 40 radio stations, this age-old music is a revelation. #

And today, there’s hope to get it back. An article on Global Voices reports on efforts to preserve Macedonian folk music. It is a great project, but to preserve folk music, we must subject it to an endless cycle of renewal, must sing it, changing its lyrics according to our mood, injecting in its melody the beat of our days. #

Folk music is a commons: Its rhythms and tunes and lyrics are free for everybody to use. There is no copyright restricting what we do with it, its authors are dead and long forgotten. It’s non-competitive, one can’t use it up. You got nothing to lose. #

The songs of today, in the contrary, are “owned” by labels. But the youth is reclaiming the music. Every cover on Youtube, recorded in a messy room by a 15 year old on a cheap guitar, brings us a step farther from a read-only culture to a read/write one. The old communities in which music would be lived together have vanished, but new ones are springing up on the Web every day. #

A “cult of the amateur”? Indeed: An everyday celebration of music by people who love what they do. And don’t dare to think about monetization. You wouldn’t pay a friend for accompanying you to a party, would you? Music is there to be sung and played. Do it! #

Video: “Jovano, Jovanke“, a Macedonian folk song, performed by an (apparently Brazilian) enthusiast. Lyrics on pesna.org, the project introduced in the Global Voices post. #

#

There was a lot of anger aimed towards the behavior of Wikipedia’a administrators in general, which I think I don’t need to write about here (for my German readers: I have covered the discussion for netzpolitik.org). One thing that I think was notable is Pavel Mayer’s understanding of notability as a minority right: “If a [strong enough] minority deems something notable the majority doesn’t have the right to say ‘that’s not notable’.” #

But a lot – I would even tend to say most – of the criticism was aimed at those attendees that are active members or even administrators of Wikipedia in some kind of accusation. You could always hear the undertone saying “Why don’t you do something about this?” #

Which would have been absolutely o.k. if it had been at a meeting with politicians or members of an administrative body. But it was Wikipedia which we were talking about here, and while Wikipedia has some kind of hierarchy (there are about 300 elected administrators for the German language version, elected by those members who have written a certain, but small number of edits), it has no president, no CEO and no king – nobody who could pass a directive to get the ball rolling. #

So what has to happen within a community that consists of 600.000 members, 7.000 of which are more or less frequent contributors, to reform a project that has become both very complex and hieratic on its way to success? #

Some important obstacles to renewal were already named during the debate. Leon Weber, an active Wikipedia contributor himself, criticized: “He who proposes changes will be cut short.” Long-standing members of the community will position themselves against reforms. And while they may not have formal administrative powers (Wikipedia’s administrators may only execute its rules, but do not have additional rights to invent or abolish them), they do have their influence on the community. #

This informal power comes from knowing other active members just as well as being known among them oneself. Reacting to criticism that long-standing Wikipedia contributors could get away with deeds that would newbies get banned, Martin Zeise, an administrator himself, argued that while this was indeed a problem, there was no way to change it. People would always be more forgiving to those who they recognize as an individual – to the bad of newbies who are just an unknown name and an IP number. #

At this point, the seemingly non-hierarchical Wikipedia has to deal with the problems of traditional top-down organizations. A homogeneous (young, white, urban, educated, male) caste of long-standing members is blocking of needed reforms. These people have seen the project’s rise to success. They therefore position themselves against radical change, acting on the assumption that what has lead to prosperity will continue to do so. #

It was again Leon Weber who pointed this out. In the beginning, when Wikipedia was still struggling to gain credibility, rigorous notability guidelines helped keeping the number of possible articles low and therefore enhanced the quality of those articles meeting the requirements. But nowadays, that’s not timely any more, Weber said: “One has to lower the notability guidelines”. #

It is a problem of scaling. While some rules may be of general importance – such as copyright – others are not. They need to be adapted, either because the project has changed (with a stronger community and many articles that are basically completed, lower notability guidelines would be fine), or because its environment did (Wikipedia in German does not deem blogs admissible sources. When it was founded in 2001, blogs were still a tiny niche, but since then, this medium has emerged and is now used by scores of people working according to journalistic standards). #

A vivid community should manage this change on the way. In some cases, this might be hard to achieve – software that is continuously enhanced by adding functionalities will at some point develop a performance problem. Radical steps might need to be taken from time to time, like a general relaunch. #

Social problems cannot be solved this way. The German-speaking Wikipedia community has waited far too long to face the challenge of adapting itself to changing circumstances. Anne Roth, well-known in Germany for blogging her family’s life under surveillance, pointed out Indymedia Germany as an example for a once vivid open publishing platform she co-founded eight years ago that after a development “similar to Wikipedia’s” she now describes as “a dying community”. #

“One cannot try to get through the storm safely without changing anything”, Anne Roth warned. Whether the German Wikipedia community will manage to take the necessary steps is to be seen. If yes, it could set an example how those internet-empowered horizontal organizations that have become an important part of our life can cope with the challenges of renewal. #

“The Hub Berlin is a co-creative community of people with good ideas for the world. This means anybody can bring their projects or business here. We enable people to work, relax, network and offer daily exciting events to all our members.” #

People can rent anything from a few hours to a permanent desk at The Hub; conference rooms cost extra. What you get is not only a fully-fledged bureau, but also a bunch of interesting coworkers. The venue is aimed at people working for the good of mankind. They range from NGOs via activists to social entrepreneurs. In Berlin, there’s also somebody from a regular company who persuaded his boss to let him work there, but generally businesses seem to have concerns to let their employees cowork. #

There are quite a lot of Hubs around the world – including some in places where I would not have expected them, such as Cairo or Sao Paulo. Unfortunately the network isn’t as strong as it could be. Members of one Hub can book conference rooms in another city, but not desks. But through an internal network, members of all Hubs can connect with each other. #

The Hubs are not organized centrally, but independently from one another. In Berlin, there are three people who work full-time for The Hub that is currently working place to about 40 people. The organization is constituted as a cooperative, but I was told that they are thinking about founding a GmbH (similar to a Ltd. in Britain) to improve financing. #

What’s also cool is that The Hub Berlin has a strong social-ecological focus. They exclusively use electricity from renewable energy sources, racks are built from used paper. They are also very international internally, i.e. signs are multilingual and English is a common colloquial language between coworkers. #

Coworking is a very interesting concept, since it enables self-employed and small businesses to work in a social environment. I think it is especially useful for people who spend only part of their working hours at a bureau or job in different cities, but it should be interesting for everybody. It’s a quite young movement in this form, but I am certain it’s on the right way. #

P.S.: If you are in Berlin and would like to find out how coworking suits you, I have a couple of vouchers for a day at The Hub Berlin. You can even bring a friend! If you are interested, just drop me a mail at [my first name] at [this domain]. #

I’m not against anything social at all. But behind these titles are often people explaining a downgraded social media to NGO staff. It’s top-down lecturing that’s not barcampy at all in my eyes. I understand that some NGOs still need to learn a lot on how to use social media. But this way one common pattern becomes strengthened: #

There are very few progressive social media projects by German NGOs. Instead, they tend to implement tactics that have been state of the art years ago, spending relatively much money on that. Often, resources are wasted due to redundancy since every NGO wants its own software. It’s not without reason that one session was called “Does it always need a new social community?”. #

I think this money would be spend much more useful if NGOs would invest in progressive social media projects. Only they need to know about them beforehand. A socialcamp could be the perfect opportunity to elaborate ideas that take up the experiences of both social media experts, developers and NGO professionals. Instead, sessions are used to manifest old concepts. #

Maybe that’s also because NGOs are generally perceived to be conservative and unable or unwilling to adopt new ideas. In fact, this can also be seen in sessions’ names. As I’ve said, “fund raising” is an important issue. It seems as if NGOs are mostly interested in funding their current projects. I.e. the question is “how can NGOs use social media to get money for funding” instead of “how can social media be used to reach NGOs’ goals”. #

Luckily, talks between sessions have been much more interesting. I’ve met Tobias Eigen, the founder of Kabissa. The veteran in African social media is a partner of DigiActive – and Tobias even has a sticker of us on his mobile. Yay! Day two will hopefully feature a session with him as well as Christian Kreutz and Georg Neu of Transparency International on mapping for social change. It would be one of the very few sessions that are not centered on Germany. #

Disclaimer: I know it’s not fair to complain about the issues debated at a barcamp, especially since I don’t hold a session myself. I’ll excuse the latter with my youth and the fact that it’s my first barcamp, and hope my criticism can foster a debate rather than piss off people. #

This sentence instantly popped up in my head when I heard Vera speak during our debate on “Blogs and Education”. She argued with fervor for learning the unnecessary, defending its ability to induce the creation of something beautiful against all materialistic circumcisions of the education system. #

Although she is a VIP in the Russian blogosphere and a print-published poetess, of all the discussants, Vera seemed the most humble. Her contributions came as interjections or short anecdotes, brought forward in a calm voice, bearing an aesthetic that stood, fragile, but impressive, against all cold-hearted materialism. #

On my last evening in Novosibirsk, I got the opportunity to find another proof that “Vera Polozkova cares about aesthetics”. Again it was Svetja that opened an unexpected door for us – this time not only of her car, but also of a reading by Vera in a private flat. #

These underground readings, we were told, meant practically the only way for young people to come together apart from state-controlled events during the communist era. In those days, the poems read were often highly political and critical of the society. Today, the tradition is still held up by students, even though a civil society has formed in Russia. #

When we got to the flat on a higher floor of a giant, anonymous apartment building, we encountered a scenery like I have never seen one before and do not dare hoping to find in Germany one day. The living room was packed with students, only slightly older than myself, sitting on couches, chairs and the floor, calmly looking at Vera. Her voice was somewhere between lightly chatting and serious lecture as she was reading a poem, her mimics accompanying the story in an emotional manner, sometimes lightly open, sometimes austerely withdrawn, sometimes dreamily moony. #

Anastasia would provide me with summaries of the poems’ content. “If I say it, it sounds stupid, but from her it’s amazing,” she would often tell me, obviously impressed trying to explain the greatness of an ordinary story recited in the right words. #

What’s a poetry evening if you don’t understand the poetry, you might ask. And all I can answer is: It’s impressive. There was the atmosphere in this room, ascending from the feeling of all the students to experience something great, something worthy. Something the value of which can only be measured in poetry itself. And there was Vera herself, sitting on a couch, reading from a notebook or even an iPhone, a guru amidst her believers, who for a moment had the air of a higher aesthetic. An aesthetic that is not just words, but rhymes and sounds and mimics, an aesthetic that is universal. #

I must admit, I took the headline from Ahmed Al-Omran, who used it to refer to his home country Saudi Arabia. #

Ahmed utters a complaint that is quite common among young Saudis and other Gulf Arabs: In a move to, as they say, protect women from sexual harassment, many cafés and malls only allow families and single females into their locations. As a result, even though these societies are often very restrictive towards women, these have more opportunities to go out than their male counterparts. #

Abdu Khal writes, “If you count the number of youths who have nowhere to go to because malls, parks and beaches are dedicated to families, then you would be appalled. What will the youth do when they find themselves trapped and discarded?” #

It is this a problem I encounter day by day. Social restrictions force young people to hang out on the streets. Walking for my favorite café on a weekday’s eve, I will observe youth, probably a little younger than myself, hanging out at dimly-lit bus stops and abandoned playgrounds. They might not even notice because they are so used to it, but I bet they would trade their situation for mine. #

Only, they can’t. My favorite café is closed for minors (under 18) after 8 pm, and so are most locations. A recent reportage on the backgrounds of three teenagers that beat up several people in Munich cites one young Swiss: “In the youth center there are only high school students and pussies. The bars we don’t get in. So we hang around here [at the train station] every day.” #

A few days ago in an article on Braunschweig’s ban on flashmobs, I cited the city’s conviction that “the public space in Braunschweig serves exclusively traffic, i.e. the transfer from home a to home b, from home a to business b or from business a to business b.” #

This is devastating for teenagers that might not find rest at home, nor in commercial cafés. Where are they to go if “public space serves exclusively traffic”? Ahmed gives an answer that is true for Saudi youth as much as for Swiss: “Well, they will do other things that you probably will not like.” #

This could be a story about the need of teenagers for a place to hang out at. Indeed, it is. But at the same time, I would like to see this in a broader context. Why are young people forced to hang out on the streets? Essentially, because they don’t own a place of their own. At home, there are their parents, in the café there are owners that are just not their generation. #

They don’t own a place because they can’t afford it, and for the same reason they can’t buy access to one (you won’t find the son of a millionaire hanging out on the streets). In this, teenagers share a problem with other groups that are socially marginalized. #

The answer to this situation could be the creation of commons. If you have ever been to one of the existing commons after dusk you will know that most of them are far from inviting. Barely lit parks are much more welcoming to those who seek darkness than to good citizens. #

But does it have to be like this? In ancient times, the town square was a meeting place for all citizens. A public space, open to the social activities of whoever went there. Today, we have shifted this place to Starbucks, have shifted it from a commons to private property. #

Imagine commons, places that are not socially exclusive, but open (and inviting) to everyone. A good market square should be just like that. I have experienced this in Brussels: Hundreds of people sitting on the Grote Markt in the evening, chatting. #

Lawrence Lessig describes the internet as a “creative commons”. This square I would call a “social commons”. And just as the internet being a commons enables creative invention, a social commons enables new social networks. It is therefore most of use for those who have not yet established themselves in society. Teenagers are just some of them. #

Every time when we talk about integration, we should talk about commons. Their openness allows anybody to participate in them, weaving new networks and building a better, a more equal society. For that a state become a country (also) for young (wo)men. #