Ash Wolfson (she/her) is a Technical Support Advocate at May First and organizer living in Brooklyn. She has organized across a wide variety of fields, including environment justice, tenant organizing, mutual aid, and community building. For the past 2 years, she has organized with NYC Mesh, a community owned and operated network, maintaining and expanding network infrastructure, performing outreach, and training other volunteers. She works towards a world of community based in mutuality, and building viable alternatives to the exploitative systems that currently dominate.
Those seeking to move society away from big tech platform face the contradiction that we need to meet communities where they're in their use of technology, while also helping them develop better habits around technology use. We must be active in working in community to learn how people use technology, and develop alternatives that meet people's needs instead of trying to dictate how they use technology. At the same time we must educate and organize communities around how the technology we use shapes us, and how best people can work in community to build solutions that produce a better world.
Working directly with May First members gives me a perspective into how members are using our existing services, where they are succeeding or falling short in meeting people's needs. I hope to use this feedback to be more responsive and improve our role as partners with movements.