Episode 279: Devconnect 2025 With Shubhranshu Choudhary  [music] [music] Hello and welcome to sustain the podcast where we talk about sustaining open source for the long haul. I am Errol Fox and with me is >> Hi, I'm Victor Brown >> and we are speaking to Shu Shiobran Shu Chowry but we're going to call you Shu and you are working as a journalist and activist for democratic media. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you do, what your work involves and how it connects to open-source software? See journalism as we know today is very aristocratic, very top down, very one way, very less inclusive. If you look at politics which is for greater common good as journalism should also be as democratized all over the world. Last century if you look at in Africa in Asia there have been a democratization but if you look at journalism instead of kings and queens we have media houses the owners we journalists are like probably ministers and we have readers viewers you know with very little contribution and where I come from in central India we are in the middle of a war. When I say war, it is not between two countries. So, it's a conflict between Indian state and Mauist communist gerillas. And it's going on for you know more than 50 years. As a journalist, I used to work with the BBC. We report and that's a very good or very important work. But at the same time we also have responsibility to understand the problems. And when I started looking at it I found that what we call journalism the design of that journalism or mass communication or media creates these conflicts. We are not on the side of solution. And what I do now I'm part of this democratic media I won't say platform we are yet to be a platform we yet to be sustainable experiment which can be on the side of solution and technology will be a great help on that. That's where we look for open-source technology. We are now looking at artificial intelligence and blockchain. Can you tell me from your perspective and your investigation, why do you find open-source and web 3 and decentralization critical to the democratic media work that you're doing? Where do you see the opportunities for I think the citizens doing reporting, right? I remember us talking about that before the podcast. >> Media should be commons. Media should be inclusive but the natural media is air. Yeah. Which we all use when we are in small groups. But when we are using technology a media which is natural is not very powerful. It allows us to talk when we are in small group in a in a small room. But when it comes to technology what we started with uh one way and non-inclusive technology means you start with printing press or radio television all has been one way from one to many. But if we want a democratic polity to prosper, the communication makes community and the type of communication you have is the type of community you build. So just by switching from aristocracy to democracy which has huge problems but that's the best we have. We need to create democratic communication platforms is what I understood and internet was the first entry there. Then came mobile phone and now blockchain. But all these technologies need to be open-source because if they are proprietary and if they are created and used by only a small group of people then we're talking about the same old model and as as I saying that model has very powerful that model is very useful but it's on the side of problem less on the side of solution. What we need is media which solves. >> Can you tell me from your perspective and maybe the people that you work with as well? What do you need technology organizations and open-source software technology? What do you need from that? What are your like list of you need to do this, you need to say this, you need to fund this. What's that list? So when I going back to the same story when I started talking to the people with guns I grew up in that area many of my classmates have become terrorists but they said we are media activists I didn't understand what they were saying they said your media mean they were talking about the current media is deaf they're not representative you know like in India we 20% people who live in the cities who are on the rich side, we have more than 80% space. The poor people who live in the rural areas who are more than 80% don't even have 20% space. If your problem is not news, there are very little chances it will get solved. So we need technology which will make this platform representative. Like in political democracy, everyone has one vote. So our effort is like every citizen is a voter can every voter be a reporter and for that tools need to be democratic tools need to be which you call open source it cannot be proprietary it cannot be we will not allow if you don't know how to read and write what we are finding in countries like India the literacy figure may be very high but when you ask people to express their opinion and they feel more comfortable listening and speaking rather than reading and writing. So we need to create platforms like election commission as we have in India. We call it news commission. Let everybody tell their stories. Of course every story will not go out as a journalism. When everybody votes in India there are 1.4 4 billion people but in few days we know okay what they are saying so we need to create this news commission which will tell us what are the pain points of the people news has many definitions the definition which I like most in a given geography the maximum number of people's problem or whatever they feel is important is news So what is that in the current form? We sit in London or Delhi and I go to newspaper offices they're watching TV and when I go to TV offices they are reading newspapers. We have a small circle. How do we know what is news technology can help and so if we can create these whatever we can call it where people are telling their stories and here comes AI it can tell us okay 43% people are today talking about this problem. So as a journalist my work starts there. Nobody should be paid to vote in the same way nobody should be paid to tell the first information what they think what is their concern what is their problem they should tell their stories and journalism should be helped by technology to put a dashboard that okay 33% people are talking this so I will start my work okay find out what are they talking can that be news so journalism need to be scientific We need technology. It needs to be representative. Otherwise, we are hopping the wrong things as news. And that is what called disinformation. Something which concerns me. I want to hear that. Not what you think is important, not what you understand is important. And that is a misinformation. That is a disinformation we are flooded with in the name of news today. in this paradigm, in this design which we call mainstream media. >> Listening to you talk, I'm reminded of a project that I worked on in northern Uganda. They were working with rural communities, farmers who would sit in their communities and listen to the radio to receive their news. And the project was about changing that dynamic and helping them to know that they can own the radio. They can own their broadcast. They can own their own news. And what was important to them happening in the farming communities with the grazing of their herd animals. That was what they wanted to hear about. They didn't want to hear about the new the news on the radio that was being >> news. >> Exactly. But it took this decentralization, reversing the centralization of this. And this is kind of where I find it interesting and important that we're here at blockchain web 3 decentralization conference. What have you heard around this conference at Devcon that gives you excitement and hope for how these tools can be placed in the hands of the communities? Have you heard anything? To be very honest before coming here the only thing I knew about web 3 that no scammers use it all the bad people use it. So it was a very nice surprise for me to see there is so much energy so much work going on and I don't have much understanding of it yet but I think it is very essential that AI which is again becoming very centralized now should join hands with web 3 and if we can create the joint platforms with their plus and minus every technology has its strength and weakness. So I'm finding though I don't know much it's very beginning that web 3 blockchain must be used for sustainability of these platforms. Let me tell you the platform we have tried to build it works. people are reporting manually we are finding okay 43% people are saying this so this is our main news 33% saying this so that is our second news and it is solving problem but I want to look at AI if it can reduce the cost means you know if you're as I said majority of people are speaking you have got 100 hours of recording so listening to that translating editing transcribing it's a huge work which techn technology can do very fast. Coming to blockchain, so as I was saying, our experiment was every citizen is a voter. Can they be a reporter? That works. But every reporter is also a buyer and seller. And if you look at the economics of mainstream media, it's funded by advertisement where you know the companies are trying to sell something to rich. But here where we work in the forest of central India, they are poorest to the poor people. Companies don't have much to sell them because they don't have much money. And if that platform remains dependent on grant, it will not be independent journalism. There is no free lunch. So we need technology which will make them financially independent. That's where I am looking at more at blockchain at web 3. What we want to do mean the ideas which are coming to me these are all up in air. So I'm also a buyer I'm also a seller. Can this platform apart from being a communication platform can it be also a place for buying and selling? Can it connects me to the best payer like uh the area where we work they produce purest form of organic food because they're less developed. So bad things of development has also not gone there. No pesticide, no fertilizer. But when they sell their produce, they sell it in very cheap price. But can technology help us you know sell their product to somebody who will pay more maybe far off places maybe speaking a different language. So technology can help us communicate. Let them speak in their language. Let you speak in your language. And if there is increased profit thanks to this technology, can part of that increased profit run this platform? Make this platform sustainable, independent. That's the future. For grant you can make it one year, 2 year, 3 year after that there's no sustainability. So we will have to from the beginning like in any democracy project what we have learned think of the last person first. So we are working at the most difficult area conflict area poorest people if it works with them it will work with everyone. In the same way we'll have to think from the day one about sustainability. We getting grants today but grant will not take us very far. Grant is very good for experimenting for making the tools that these poor communities cannot afford and this is not a their problem. It's a it's a humanity's problem. We don't democracy has seen in a few hundred years of journey. So democratization of media will also take longer time to making tools for them. Historically those communities have more power, more money. They should invest. They should fund. But once those platforms are ready, they should be sustainable. They should be independent. They should be standing on their own feet economically. And I think that is possible. We just need to redesign it. >> I know Victory has a question, but I just wanted to respond. As you were talking, I'm also recognizing and reminded of how blockchain technology and decentralized technology is more private, more secure. And one of the issues with reporting what's happening is the risk that you might be reporting something that maybe the dominant government doesn't want you to report. And through using these technologies, it gives communities that safety, that privacy to say, hey, this is happening. Everyone needs to know. Everyone values this information, but I now feel safe because I know the technology is not out to identify me in a way that exposes me. But decentralization can do that. Victory, you have a question, right? >> Yeah. Help me Earl if I'm not framing this well, but just building on what you just asked, I wanted to ask about the trust that you have for these systems because it's very important the work that you do and in some cases you and your family would be at risk doing this work that you do even if it's for the good of the people. So, I wanted to ask more about how important trust is for you when picking platforms for reporting or even just reporting news like this that happen because it's also something that most people have an issue with when talking about open source is as much as people don't trust web 3 tools, some people also don't trust open source tools as well. So, how important is that to you and can you talk more about what trust is and with technology and systems like this? Trust has many dimensions. The where we work as I was saying there was conflict going on and fortunately that conflict is going to be over soon. In the first part when there was conflict what you said Ariel those were very important that you know we want to anonymize what we are saying I don't want to be identified but in normal conditions where we may be you know moving soon I look at trust from a different point of view that I need to trust this platform where we started say 20 years ago these terrorists they said we don't trust your platform it is funded by the same people who wants to destroy us. We don't want to give this forest, they want to take the forest. We don't want to give this river, they want to take water. So there was a complete distrust and I could see that it took me some time to understand but if it is a citizens platform like women they need to feel safe that whatever I'm saying it will not be used against me. So that trust comes when the community is involved like the community platform we are building I don't know the language so the people from the community are editors and we are trying to start a process where editor can be elected in political democracy everybody is elected if you do good work you get reelected in you know democratic media why can't an editor be elected if she or he is doing good work will be reelected. Yeah. So we need to bring in all these democratic you know old there is nothing you know rocket science here things to make us more trustworthy that okay who decided not I somebody from outside somebody maybe more educated but somebody from you no the factor of trust comes with also opensource technology but inclusive no designs where locals can participate more. Now they could decide what is news, what is not news. So trust is very very important. If they don't trust they don't listen and then they use their own methods of telling their stories which is throwing at bombs and we call them terrorists where they were actually trying to tell something which we were not hearing because our platforms were not capable. No we were just doing parachute journalism. So when media is democratic, it will be trustworthy as well is what I feel. >> We haven't got much time. We actually need to wrap up, but I feel like I could listen to you talk about these challenges and what you see as the future for hours honestly. And Victory, I was noticing in this last question that a lot of these processes sound a lot like open source governance. And I I say because you're really involved in a lot of open source governance. >> Yeah. And I also building on that is like inclusive design is so important and it's also one of the core things that make communities last is like hearing back from them and making sure that they know that they are heard. It's really important and I like the approach that your project is taking you know getting the community involved in building and that's something we do in open source is like try to get community involved in development of tools and it's really beautiful to see that you're doing that without even knowing that you're doing open source. The economics of journalism need to change. Like as I said >> the people who are voting they should not be paid because if you pay 50 rupees which is our currency I'll pay you them 100 and they'll vote for me or they will but they need to be compensated. How will you compensate? So when the stories come out 1 2 3 these are the biggest problems we journalists should walk one step forward to solve those problems that is the incentive it is not economic for your reporters. So it's not journalism of cash, it's journalism of concern. No, which these platforms should be that political democracy is for greater common good. So should be journalism. So should be media and with the help of new and old technologies with their strength and weakness, we can do it. Last century was the century of democratization of politics. This should be the century of democratization of media and it is possible and it is doable and we can ignore it only at our own peril. This is for our next generations that like politics was democratized media can also be democratic and we must work for it. >> We must absolutely. To wrap up how can people find you on the internet? Are you on social media platforms at all? Where can people follow your project? Tell us. >> So at the moment it is called CGNet Sara. So if you search for it, you'll find us online or uh I can give you my phone number. My phone number is + 91. That is the code for India. Then 98110 66749. I'm on WhatsApp. I'm on Telegram. Please reach me out. We can't do it alone. As I said, it is the problem of humanity and we all need to come together. When I say all, only journalists cannot do it. It's not journalists problem. All the technology people need to come in. So we can join hands and try to find solutions as political democracy has huge problems. That is the best we have so far. In the same way, democratic journalism will have a lot of problems and we are not sure that it will be good or bad, but we must experiment with it. We haven't started that journey and we must. >> Amazing. So, Shu, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. And to any of you listeners out there that were inspired by what Shu was saying, please check out the project. Please get involved. Please contact him and make media as democratic [music] and open and collaborative as open source is for the future. Thank you very much. >> Thank you [music] B. Thank you. Sh., Episode 279: Devconnect 2025 With Shubhranshu Choudhary, YouTube, 01kfrkp1d8nvw1zphtg0039swm.