The window onto the street
Hackverton
Social media shows you what keeps you scrolling. This shows you what is out there.
In preparation
The goal
Break the bubble. The algorithm decides which reality you see and which one simply doesn't exist. Hackverton is the window nobody with something to sell has curated: raw video of what is happening at street level.
We need people filming
This branch doesn't exist without the people who film it. There's no archive worth anything if nobody is looking through the window.
Nobody can be everywhere at once: at the empty lot where someone has been sleeping for months, in the soup-kitchen queue that turns the corner, in the building where the court officers arrive tomorrow, in the industrial estate with more tents than open units. All of it happens on the same day, and almost always with no camera in front of it.
And that's exactly what the algorithm relies on. Nothing needs to be censored: it's enough that nobody is filming. What nobody films doesn't exist, and what doesn't exist isn't argued about, isn't voted on and isn't fixed.
The window is only as wide as the people looking through it. With a few it's a peephole. With thousands, it's a whole country looking at itself unfiltered, with nobody selling it anything on the way.
We're not asking for money —nobody earns a cent here— or for membership, or for anyone to get into trouble. We're asking for what's already in your pocket, pointed at what you're already seeing. That's all, and without it this branch doesn't exist.
How to contribute
Anyone can film what is happening in their neighbourhood and send it in. The camera already in your pocket is the tool. There are two ways:
- Send us the link to your video or photos, if you have already posted them on your own channels. This route is open now: write to info@hackthesystem.eu.
- Send us the files —video, photos, whatever you have. This route opens once the points below are settled, because hosting it ourselves changes our obligations.
Everything that arrives is reviewed and checked before publication. A video without a verified date and place doesn't get published: it would be ammunition against everyone who appears in it.
Nobody makes money here. From anything.
Not one euro of income from this content: no channel monetisation, no sponsorships, no advertising of our own, no paywalls, and no selling or licensing the material to anyone. Whoever films keeps their rights; we ask permission to share, we don't buy anything.
This isn't decoration. This branch shows people in hard situations, and putting an advert in front of that would turn testimony into a product.
What is not in our hands, and we'd rather say it than have someone else say it: the platforms insert their own advertising even when a channel isn't monetised. We can refuse to get paid. We can't stop them getting paid.
Why the file route isn't open yet
Hosting other people's material without this in place would be reckless towards the people filming and the people filmed.
- Written curation criteria: who decides what gets published, by what rule, and how quickly.
- A verification protocol: date, place and context for every piece. Unverified video is ammunition for anyone who wants to discredit us.
- Image rights and data protection: filming identifiable people has rules, all the more so in situations of vulnerability. Pending legal review.
- Liability for third-party content: who answers for what gets published.
The archive
Videos by place
Every video with its place, its date and its verification status. They open on the platform that hosts them: nothing from YouTube, Instagram or TikTok loads here until you ask for it.
The archive is still empty.
This is where each video will sit, with its neighbourhood, city and country, filterable by any of the three. What gets published will have been checked: without a verified date and place, a video is ammunition for anyone wanting to discredit us.