CEMENT

Of course it’s Scotland :) I so want to go hiking there!

Oh, this is not just a leftist issue.

Then funnel them onto the fediverse from corporate social media, as you mentioned. The house is on fire, get them out of it.

Educate people (campaigns), organize tech workshops showing people how to use the other tools, set up local servers that can be used for organizing existing groups. Frame corporate social media as part of the data center problem… There’s so many ways to approach it but as long as you keep using those tools, you will never carry through with getting people onto the fediverse. You can never just move them to decentralized spaces if not enough people use it, so use it (I know you are already though as we’re here :)

Change is hard. But global climate collapse and WW3 are far worse options.

It blows me away when I meet leftist activists who refuse to stop using corporate social media. The common refrain is “its where everyone is” or “no one uses [insert any decentralized and federated service]”.

You cannot liberate yourself, or the rest of society, when you actively use the tools of your oppressors.

Well, if anyone here is open to starting a non-profit in Europe to deliver something like this, let me know. There is plenty of EU funding for this (I’ve done the research). The reason it hasn’t been done, as far as I can tell is:

• People always tell me that they don’t want to get sued when something happens when someone misinterprets/Misuses their data. This is dumb though as every health and fitness tracker is protected by simply informing the user that it’s not a medical device.
• It’s too difficult to support all devices. Partially true. However, there are many opensource apps that can already grab a lot of the data (gadget Bridge probably being the most well known). Also, not all data is always captured by sensors. Sometimes it is recorded manually (esp., for blood pressure cuffs). Also, consider that there is a whole Eco-sysyem of FLOSS apps that do collect health data that DO NOT share that data with other apps. For example, Medilog. An aggregator should be able to grab those apps data as well. It’s even possible to create seperate sync apps for these apps (assuming the developer doesn’t want to help) like the OpenScale sync app (which syncs to Health COnnect).
• It’s not a money maker. I hate when people say this. Why does all technology need to make the developers billionaires? A small organization could very easily make enough to sustain itself, they just won’t be Corporate Tech Bros.

Wtf there is no FLOSS health data aggregator in the year 2026 is beyond me. A fully open alternative to Google/Samsung’s “Health Connect” would be a great start.