Vote with your RT
by Dave Winer Monday, June 6, 2016

There's a slogan Vote With Your Feet that's kind of elegant. Saying something isn't as powerful as doing it. If you want to effect change, move. It's another version of Be The Change You Seek, a shortened version of Mahatma Gandhi's slogan. Influencing others to do what you want isn't as important as doing it yourself. 

A simple corollary -- if you see something that reflects your values, don't just Like it, RT it. 

Help the idea build circulation. Be generous with your influence. Add weight to ideas that are important. I try to remember to do that myself. If you see me RT something of yours it's because I thought the idea was important and I wanted more people to see it. 

Even if you just have 25 followers, it's important.

It's how we change the culture of the Web of Ideas from "Me First!" to "Working together to make the world better." 

It works even when we collaborate inside silos. And we can help the silo owners see that there's a bigger world that they can enable, by opening their systems to bring more people in. That building higher walls is a good way to make sure everyone leaves, eventually. 

I read earlier today that it would be a bad outcome if all the web required a Facebook or SnapChat login. Maybe so. Maybe that's a wakeup call for Twitter, that they could ally themselves with the open web, and always choose to do what the open web asks them to do. Once upon a time the big companies of the open web loved the open web. Maybe that can happen again. I think the first company that does so will rule the world. In a gentle way of course, because they will always know they can be replaced. 

One way to loosen the ties is to share your beliefs and if someone else expresses it well, share that expression. Maybe they won't reciprocate, but maybe you'll benefit anyway, by having greater circulation for ideas that matter. 

And ultimately the open web will make a difference, as it did before, when we learned that people return to places that send them away. You just have to trust the universe. It may sound dorky but it's one of the lessons of technology. Might be the biggest lesson.