Welcome to my website, I'm delighted that you could make it here. Would you like...
Zenna turns ideas into action. She initiates and coordinates large, cross‑disciplinary projects, specializing in communications technologies that emphasize peer‑to‑peer, local‑first, open‑source solutions and digital sovereignty.
Skilled in grant writing and partnership building, she translates complex concepts into practical strategies that strengthen local resilience and reduce dependence on global systems.
With deep roots in open-source, she is an experienced cat-herder and project manager.
Half american and half swedish, I grew up primarily in Sweden. In my teenage years I sought refuge in the industrial halls of the anarchist culture center Utkanten, along with their hackerspace Forskningsavdelningen. In parallel, my 13 year old self, attended the annual demonstrations on the 30th of november - and weekly meetings - with the syndicalist youth union, SUF. They taught me to think of society from a critical and systemic perspective.
As I matured, so did the maker movement, and at 18 years of age I flew to Barcelona to join Fab10 as an intern of FabLab Barcelona. The move further opened my eyes to the possibilities of local production and decentralization and I stayed in the scene for 7 years.
Worried about the censorability of the internet and the resilience of communication networks I shifted focus to the distributed webs, specifically to Scuttlebutt, the gossiping protocol and spent another 5 years on rebuilding internet architectures together with a beautiful and caring network of solarpunks.
After finishing my bachelors degree at the systems-thinking and enterprising school of Kaospilot I started taking steps towards reaching my long term goal of starting a research institute, focusing on the shift from Global to Local. I'm currently in a change of chapter (while diligently working towards the vision) and looking forward to the next steps and moves.
Uploaded to the European Comissions's portal in Jan 2026
Written by Zenna Elfen.
First off, thank you for opening up the conversation on this challenging topic, for it is a collective learning process Europen societies and open-source communities are facing, and dialogue is essential.
This paper is organized in two parts. The first part is the macro perspective, touching on the larger strategic implications for EU in times of change, it also touches on open-source and it's relation to digital sovereignty in Europe and the unique qualities the European flavor of digital sovereignty enables, rooted in autonomy and collaboration. The second part consists of a Micro perspective with concrete suggestions, recommendations and concerns.
The world is facing times of change and, if navigated well, transitions. After a few centuries of extractive systems in human society, we are now facing the consequences. Through tense political climates (backlash from our history of colonialism, degradation of soil and resource extraction) and an increasingly volatile ecological climate(1), the world is approaching chaotic times. The silver lining can be found in the potential of chaos to bring about change and new systems of organizing.
As complexity theorists, such as Brussel based Heylighten, have highlighted, a self-organizing system (such as social movements (2), the internet (3) or market economies (4)) often find it very difficult to break out of established orders of organizing, yet there is a catalyzing factor of chance: chaos.
Navigating chaos is no easy task, and for monolithic and centralized systems, it is often the definition of their end. Europe, with it's many diverse cultures, languages and nation-states, carries potent potential: plurality.
In times of pressure and concern of dependency on US and Chinese tech giants, the EU has taken a stance for digital sovereignty (which was far from a given in the past (5)) and is now spearheading this societal transformation through terms such as resilience, interoperability, digital commons and open-source. The approaches as to how this transformation towards digital sovereignty should occur and what it means are diverse.
Factions are forming around the next steps for EUs stance on open-source, such as EuroStack who are emphasizing change through mobilizing industry to build a European Tech Stack (developed by creators of the report "the European Way" (6)) or the Open Internet Stack which centers open-source while supported by the Next Generation Internet in their final statement with backing from APELL. Another initiative, Gaia-X, a joint effort by Germany and France, take matters in their own hands by building a tech-stack for digital sovereignty through federation, interoperability and open-source.
Denmark, who currently hold the presidency of the EU, have been equally (if not more) conflicting in their approach. While on one hand promoting Digital Sovereignty and Security in their official statement to danish citizens (7) one of the main goals have been to push through legislation—unofficially known as ChatControl—resulting in uproar from open-source enthusiasts and danish citizens with nearly 60,000 signatures against the proposal in denmark with equivalent critique all across Europe.
This plurality of approaches is precisely why the European stance on digital sovereignty stands out on the global stage. Compared to the Chinese or Russian approaches, European digital sovereignty leans on the interoperability of a multitude of sovereign digital infrastructures, enabled by open-source licenses.
The paradox of digital sovereignty in juxtaposition with open-cooperation is itself an embodiment of European values of respecting multiplicity, yet the the social dilemma of how to accommodate co-existing sovereignties still persists (5).
From an organizational perspective, a plurality of approaches, while in dialogue across the network, is known as Antifragility (8). Not only is it one of the most resilient forms of organizing, but even better, it's an adaptive form of organizing, meaning that a network which has many different actors can learn from the failures and successes of one another, as long as there is also active communication and dialogue.
The challenge of moving away from Big Tech developed by China or the US is that we are accustomed to their one-stop-shop solutions where everything is in one neatly packed package and we must buy it all in one go for it to work properly, locked-in, as well provided for consumers.
To adopt multiplicity as a strategy we actively choose to tear down the walls of technical lock-in and instead enable interoperability. The challenge here is not technical, it is cultural. We are used to having a single package to open for a whole suite of products. The interoperable way means that we have options and a multitude of smaller providers.
The most difficult aspect of organizing a system with many smaller autonomous actors, such open-source ecosystems, is that there is no absolute central control. Instead, the system self-manages through local actions which ripple into global system-wide impacts. Arguably, the question the EC now sits with is: How do we enable the local actors to move in an open-source direction? The answer is much like a riddle, one enables the local-actors related to open-source to self-organize, more.
The following is a focused list of concrete suggestions for the EC and the EU, while also relevant for any nations or municipalities. The list covers a large variety of topics related to open-source and is in no particular order.
Strengthen the open-source technology stack that already exists, thanks to the NGI initiative.
There are 1500 projects sponsored by NGI so far, many of them are existing modules in open-source ecosystems. The networks are already there, and started thriving.
Legal entity legislation for open-source
Legislate the ability to establish legal entities which match the long-term safeguarding needs of open-source licenses. Examples are Post Growth Entrepreneurship and strict Stewardship models, see work by Dr. Melanie Rieback.
Lead by example. Be the change.
By adopting open-source infrastructures within the EU, nations and municipalities see what is possible. Self-host or hire self-hosting organizations. Replace Big Tech solutions with open-source solutions: video-calls, knowledge bases, communication channels and more.
Support local connections & physical spaces
Local communication happens in physical spaces. Local problems require local solutions. Real collaboration and weaving of networks occurs in person: in libraries, hackerspaces, conferences, makerspaces & communal centers.
Distinctions of Licenses copyleft vs BSD-licenses
There are two main types of open-source licenses, BSD-licenses and copyleft (9). Each type serves its purposes, copyleft licensing (such as AGPL) is ideal for the purpose of safeguarding core infrastructure from becoming co-opted by proprietary incentives. Copyleft licenses are ideal for infrastructure developed by public funding or for the digital commons. BSD-licensing (such as MIT) is suitable when the developing source want to be able to build a proprietary company on top of the code, usually at a later point, and to put it bluntly, quite awful for public infrastructure.
Enable the Many and Small
A common issue in the IT space of Europe is that once a project becomes big and successful enough, it gets bought up by Big Tech. The european strategy for IT is through open-source which enables many small initiatives collaborating rather than having to grow into large companies. Supporting the many and small leads to thriving ecosystems of interoperability.
This also applies for technical solutions. Modularity and compostability of software enables ecosystems to thrive, with low entrance cost and low-maintenance cost for developers.
Communication Structures
The communication infrastructure permeates all of society and all sectors. Emphasizing a shift towards federated, interoperable P4P communication infrastructures(10) enable technical communication ecosystems which are robust, adaptable and resilient.
Document, documen, document
The Digital Commons European Digital Infrastructure Consortium (DC-EDIC) is a great potential for this. All digital public infrastructure should be well documented and information about it should be accessible. Interoperability is a social issue as well as technical and knowledge exchange is imperative. I learnt this from a professor at MIT, Niel Gershenfeld, as it is essential for open-source in general.
Handing over large funds to companies to build open-source when they themselves aren't open-source is a tragedy. It leads to diluted values and poor-results, commonly through license changes which impact entire open-source ecosystems. An industry led path of open-source is one of more of the same, yet we need change.
Applying a top-down approach of frameworks to "professionalize" or apply a pre-constructed idea of how open-source projects should organize or present leads not only to a loss of legitimacy in open-source contexts but also lacking engagement from open source communities.
This perspective on Open-Source in the EU comes from my own involvement in Open-Source for the past 15 years, as well as in NGI over the past 6 years; first as a beneficiary via NGI Pointer and later working with NGI Search and the wider NGI community in collaboration with NLnet. I have personally hosted around 12 community workshops for the NGI community, been part of many discussions and taken in perspectives from a large variety of voices. Additionally, as a researcher at Aarhus University in Denmark, my work has focused on open-source and organizing, leading to insights in the differing approaches and societal implications of both open-source and organizing.
Author: Zenna Elfen
Email: the.zelf [at] pm.me
Date: 07/01 - 2026
Calvin K, Dasgupta D, Krinner G, Mukherji A, Thorne PW, Trisos C, et al. IPCC, 2023: Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report. Contribution of Working Groups I, II and III to the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change [Core Writing Team, H. Lee and J. Romero (eds.)]. IPCC, Geneva, Switzerland. [Internet]. First. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); 2023 Jul [cited 2024 Feb 29]. Available from: https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/
Fuchs C. The Self-Organization of Social Movements. Systemic Practice and Action Research. 2006 May 11;19(1):101–37.
Fuchs C. The Internet as a Self-Organizing Socio-Technological System. SSRN Journal [Internet]. 2003 [cited 2024 Apr 26]; Available from: http://www.ssrn.com/abstract=458680
Ashraf Q, Gershman B, Howitt P. Macroeconomics in a Self-Organizing Economy: Revue de l’OFCE [Internet]. 2012 Nov 2 [cited 2026 Jan 7];N° 124(5):43–65. Available from: https://www.cairn.info/revue-de-l-ofce-2012-5-page-43.htm?ref=doi
Celeste E, Fabbrini F, Quinn J. Data Protection Beyond Borders: Transatlantic Perspectives on Extraterritoriality and Sovereignty [Internet]. Hart Publishing; 2020 [cited 2026 Jan 6]. Available from: http://www.bloomsburycollections.com/book/data-protection-beyond-borders-transatlantic-perspectives-on-extraterritoriality-and-sovereignty
Zenner K, Berjon R, Caffarra C, Bonfiglio F, Toffaletti S, Chivot E, et al. The European Way. A Blueprint for Reclaiming Our Digital Future [Internet]. SSRN; 2025 [cited 2026 Jan 6]. Available from: https://www.ssrn.com/abstract=5251254
7.
Denmarks 2026–2029 national digitalisation strategy. Available from: https://www.digmin.dk/Media/638852231268539953/Digitaliseringsstrategi%202026-2029.pdf
Developed by: digmin.dk, kl.dk, regioner.dk. Sammen griber vi de digitale muligheder. Taskforce for Kunstig Intelligens; 2025.
Taleb NN. Antifragile: things that gain from disorder. Random House trade paperback edition. New York: Random House; 2016. 519 p. (Incerto / Nassim Nicholas Taleb).
Lin YH, Ko TM, Chuang TR, Lin KJ. Open Source Licenses and the Creative Commons Framework: License Selection and Comparison. 2006.
Elfen Z. P4P: Steps Toward more Adaptive Internets: charting Open-Source, P2P and Local-First Networks. 2024; Available from: https://works.hcommons.org/doi/10.17613/naj7d-6g984
Submitted in 2024 and uploaded to Hcommons in 2025
Doi: 10.17613/naj7d-6g984
Originally posted on scuttlebutt around 2020
The TLDR: How memes are increasingly running society and how it’s leading to a societal gap between the sexes.
Recently I watched a youtube video of one of the creators from Rick and Morty, Justin Roiland, who was part of a meme review together with Elon Musk. During the review itself there were some obscene parts, one meme portraying a dead deer in a swimming pool and the meme in a jokingly remark pointing out how the deer was like a broken dolphin. This caused Elon to laugh manically at the dead deer while Justin Roiland says to the sound of Elons hysterical laughter, “I think this is a reflection on how… how dark we’ve become. There are a lot of dark forces at odds with each other. There’s a lot of weird forces at odds with each other in society right now.”
This sums up a bit of where this is going… The meme-review turned out to be part of a recent video by the most famous youtuber PewDiePie. In the video PewDiePie remarks on “Memes are actually making a difference in this world. I swear, in the future memes are just going to control everything…Our moral code will be ruled by memes, our economic system is already being overtaken by memes. I mean, it’s inevitable at this point.”
The next day I met up with a friend, (whom I later also told about SSB and he joined, welcome @myusen btw! Straight into one of the long posts I mentioned haha) and we talked about memes and propaganda, he told me that he has just got to second round in his PhD application which is on the topic of memes. We talked about how there are groups on encrypted channels on discord which exist actively to push memes and propaganda of their chosen political field, in this case some form of neo-nazis. He gave a lot of recommendations, hopefully he can share some of them here as well!
With the thoughts of memes and how they influence society, all from how easy it is to [buy your way to the front page of reddit, to how corporations have started pushing meme formats as a form of highly effective and subliminal advertising (see latest pikatchu meme format, popularised around mid November 2018, right in time for the release of the pikatchu movie on May 10th 2019) and I started thinking more about how memes influence society and what an important role they are starting to play in the “social fabrics” or as @Richard D. Bartlett puts it, the “metacrisis of relationship” in his article on Microsolidarity.
Later this evening, I decided to watch another meme-review by PewDiePie to try and understand meme culture. Foolishly I had started entertaining the thought that maybe, if I grasp this tool of memes better than I already do, I could use it as an influencer in my activities on the default platform of Instagram. I was not expecting the strong emotional recoil I would feel after the video I was just about to watch.
The video called “Me and the boys” named after the [format of meme which is highly popular right now. The video starts off with a short meme on how lonely Keanu Reeves is, “Get this man some puss right now! My man, Keanu Reeves, will not suffer.” PewDiePie states. (One can notice how this feeds back into the good ol’ male target group of “incels”, Keanu Reeves being known as internets favorite good guy, or in this case “[nice guy”) PewDiePie continues by saying “This is a video for all my guys out there. If you are a girl watching this right now, leave.” This statement is repeated multiple times to eerie cultish music with flames, increasing in intensity by each statement telling all women watching it, “I’m telling you to go, you cannot be here… Begone Thot”. It continues with memes referencing how boys commit ritualistic sacrifices of babies and work together. It finishes with PewDiePie stating in a parodying voice "The media classified this video as sexist because I excluded an entire gender? Whaaaaaaaaaaaat! " followed by a commercial for his new game.
...
... y u p.
I’m not going to delve into my emotional reaction, as I’m sure you can figure that part out. What I do want to bring forward in this is the realization that struck me. The internet has clearly become an efficient tool of propaganda and a means of embedding messages into larger groups of people, memes in particular often have a certain target group, circulating on plattforms where the majority is male. With this in mind, it is now possible to specifically set the norms and “social fabric” of exclusively a singular gendered target group in a way which I don’t think has been possible to such a large extent since women were not allowed in the physical workspace alongside men.
It is a fearsome thought, this gap of communication and its implications, especially as a woman in todays society. It’s so easy to forget how recently it was that women were considered second-class citizens yet the headlines in the news do a good job on reminding us that it’s not so far away.
If you got this far in reading this; Thank you for taking the time and sharing these thoughts with me. I’m sure we’ll find a way. We’re communicating here already, right? 💕
Written: 14th of August 2020
Welcome to this text and brewing. It has been developed within me, grown from the seedling of microsolidarity, in the soil of syndicalism and anarchism, over the course of many months now.
To start of, I want to specify what I believe Microsolidarity is necessary for, in extention to the points provided in the original article.
Microsolidarity is a necessary step to hinder mass-manipulation in contemporary society. I have come to strongly believe this. I will attempt to bring you with me on my thought journey. I will also try to include my emotions as I believe one (thought) is seldomly without the other (emotion) no matter how contemporary scientific paradigms may portray it. This display of emotion and thought in combo is not something I have done before, I guess practice makes… . . . So now, to continue my imperfection:
With the points of “14 billion tons of ice melting just yesterday”, “a need for people to come together”, “to shape new ways of society” and “to connect and support each other”, all rang true to me, strong enough for Microsolidarity to embed itself within my thought patterns, I had yet to see how it connected, en masse, and why it would even come to happen at all.
In a dark corner of my mind, a bitter voice was whispering “Why would this even take off?”. I tried not listening to the voice as best I could but silently started looking for an answer. It seemed too big of a task for humans to re-organize. I would have to see an innate contemporary human need, which microsolidarity could provide for, before I could truly believe Microsolidarity could take off.
About two years before I read the article on Microsolidarity I watched a documentary called “ "The Swedish Theory of Love" Perhaps it spoke to me as a love seeking Swede, but more so it spoke to me in its reflections on the arcitechture of the isolation designed one-room, four-people-families of todays skyrises and white-picket-fence-den societies. A change which has come upon Northern Hemisphere humans in the latest 0,001% of her history. I had seen the need. Could Microsolidarity be a cure of loneliness, the satisfaction to a deep human need, a desirable solution?
I observed todays society to find an answer as to why society had not already collapsed by the architectured societal loneliness, for my inner logus told me it should’ve. I found that in a timely fashion, internet and the world wide web came to be, creating and comforting with a community for those for whom there were none.*
I look at the internet and see a substitution, a band-aid to the loneliness. Corporations feeding endorphines and a sense of belonging to the infected wounds of isolation.
What started irking me was who that sense of belonging was to, really? The identites of the communities, ranging from Twitter to Reddit, from Instagram to Tumbler, were rarely through connections to any individual people but to the masse of agreed jargon and inside-jokes, meta-memes, gifs or trends. More musings on this can be found here yet the bottom line was that these spaces were filled with payed for content, inceptions placed there with corporate incentive, propagand/commercials wearing costumes made up of memes or other relevant community coding to melt into the social settings of the artificial communities.
So what had I found so far?
⮕ I found that there was a societal need that Microsolidarity could fill: loneliness.
⮕ I found that the need was already covered by artificial communities on the www.
⮕ I found that these artificial communities were easy to incept with messages if one has money and that it was already happening as there was no real way of differentiating between the “real” users and corporate shills.
⮕ The breeding ground for mass-manipulation is close to reaching its final form, setting the tone and delivering messages with disguised messengers.
What did I feel?
⮕ Slight desperation
⮕ An urgency to do something
⮕ A big “Ahaaaaaa” moment
⮕ An increased personal need for Microsolidarity
It allows for this by enabling people to build their own social norms and ethics rather then being spoon-fed by a company in disguise.
Microsolidarity is not only a step for a healthier earth and person, it’s a necessary step of rebellion.
Notice: Responce time varies depending on current platform engagement
Email: the.zelf at pm.me
Signal: @zelf.46
Element: @thezelf:matrix.org
Mastodon: @zelf@sunbeam.city
SSB: @3ZeNUiYQZisGC6PLf3R+u2s5avtxLsXC66xuK41e6Zk=.ed25519
ORCID: 0009-0006-1115-3549
