[HN Gopher] Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social ...
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Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network
Author : archb
Score : 185 points
Date : 2023-03-10 04:10 UTC (18 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.platformer.news)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.platformer.news)
| MetaverseClub wrote:
| It sounds interesting to me but I wish it was not Meta.
| yakshaving_jgt wrote:
| My Instagram _used_ to be full of stuff I actually liked, like
| cars and women.
|
| Now it's full of TikTok videos with the same text-to-speech
| narration.
|
| I don't trust Meta to not somehow ruin whatever they happen to
| come up with.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| It's remarkable to me that Meta is still pushing Reels so hard
| despite the fact that most of the popular ones are _literally
| advertising their competitor_. The TikTok logo splattered all
| over Facebook and Instagram is a branding disaster.
| foul wrote:
| Meta tolerates them because content is reproduced verbatim
| and because they view Tiktok as Musical.ly. Thus they
| probably steal revenue to Instagram but generates it
| nonetheless by allowing Meta users to consume that same
| (mostly dull) content on Meta apps.
| phendrenad2 wrote:
| Seems like they're taking aim at Discord. The "decentralized" is
| probably just them latching onto a buzzword, I wouldn't count on
| that part making it into the resulting app.
| spaceman_2020 wrote:
| Nice try Zuck. Fool me once...
| motohagiography wrote:
| Would I share a product from this company with my family, or have
| a device they can manage in my home?
| ilrwbwrkhv wrote:
| I will never use any Facebook product again after they completely
| bricked my oculus devices with the forced sign in.
| cglong wrote:
| ICYMI, they've stepped this requirement back so now you just
| need a "Meta account".
| illumego wrote:
| You'll eat the bugs and you'll be happy.
| illumego wrote:
| VR goggles? Dude. How about the part where they tried to
| consign your grandchildren to a dystopian technocratic
| panopticon?
|
| https://hackernoon.com/on-the-infestation-of-small-souled-bu...
| zenmaster10665 wrote:
| Lol. Luddites abound on a technical forum.
| nunobrito wrote:
| Curious that the article speaks plenty about Dorsey and ommits
| the fact that he has been very active on the Nostr platform.
|
| Nostr is so far the only platform where I see a decentralized
| future. Mastodon does not provide portable identities that you
| can easily move to other servers, nor helps you to preserve your
| post from previous years.
|
| Nostr solved both obstacles. One private key, zero email
| addresses needed. Move your texts to wherever you want, your
| identity is _always_ verified (as long as you don 't leak your
| private key) and fully private when you wish to remain so.
|
| There are even built-in payments over there now. Basically
| everything that these larger groups have been talking about for
| years has been implemented with success in a few months
| independently from them.
| mariusor wrote:
| You're conflating the limitations of Mastodon with the
| limitations of ActivityPub.
|
| ActivityPub does not require "email addresses" for identity -
| that's a Mastodon idiosyncrasy. Identities in ActivityPub are
| URLs, so as long as you own your domain you can preserve your
| identity. That's not too different than your identity being a
| public key, with the benefit of human readability.
|
| Mastodon doesn't offer you export/import of your activities
| because - again due to its idiosyncrasies - it does not care
| about past activities. What a user "sees" when they visit
| another account is only what that account has posted and has
| already been disseminated to the current account's Mastodon
| server. A sane approach to past activities would be to load
| them in response to the user interaction, instead of serving
| stale data from the db. For this case exporting activities from
| one service to another would allow for continuity.
|
| This could probably be achieved even at protocol level,
| ActivityPub in its simplest form has enough vocabulary to allow
| loading a collection and adding its elements to a another one.
|
| Some of these things exist in one form or another in other
| clients than Mastodon.
| nunobrito wrote:
| My previous text just mentions Mastodon limitations. Quite
| frankly couldn't really care less about ActivityPub or what
| it _could_ do similar to Nostr (not even doing so today is
| already a bad thing in itself).
|
| You yourself repeat the same castrating limitations "so long
| as you own your domain".
|
| And that's the point. Most people: + don't own domains +
| don't want to own domains + don't need to own domains for the
| sake of identity
|
| Nostr solved all that for free with private/public keys, a
| simple and battle-proven approach available since decades.
| mariusor wrote:
| I'm not sure what I said to warrant the attitude from you
| but probably you can frame your arguments in a better way
| if you want to continue the discussion.
| nunobrito wrote:
| My apologies if the previous answers are not cordial. Too
| much time on twitter.
| Quindecillion wrote:
| I did a quick ctrl+f 'nostr' on the article and when no results
| came up I closed the browser tab.
|
| They obviously haven't done their research.
| nunobrito wrote:
| Basically that, or intentionally that. Kind of strange to
| mention Dorsey so often and some other project rather than
| the one where he is very active at the moment.
| shaunxcode wrote:
| This is a reification of that chatgpt meme of a meat company
| trying to appeal to vegans by launching a new vegan meat made of
| real meat.
| xhkkffbf wrote:
| Just curious. Has anyone experienced this claim: "Twitter's
| revenue collapsing and the site itself going down for hours now
| on a regular basis,"
|
| I don't spend much time on Twitter, but every time I've fired it
| up, I was met with a bunch of current tweets. Is it really going
| down "on a regular basis"?
| turnsout wrote:
| This is a tangent, but it's so cute that Meta copied Apple's
| naming scheme for secret projects. Mark really thinks he can be
| Steve.
| choffee wrote:
| Will this be the Compuserve to ActivityPub's "email"? I look
| forward to my free CD.
| CatsInSinks wrote:
| you mean IRC right?
| js8 wrote:
| No, I think it's gonna be a shared textual virtual reality,
| metaverse if you will, in short, a MUD.
| college_physics wrote:
| I am not particularly interested about Meta's views on
| decentralized social networks.
|
| But I would be interested to hear what Apple engineers might
| think about this. After all at some point there was a thing
| called AppleTalk [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AppleTalk
| Awelton wrote:
| I don't care what facebook is selling, I am not buying. Like
| every other big tech company they have been "building" all kinds
| of things, but haven't actually BUILT anything for years. The
| only two things they seem to be able to do at this point are
| stagnate or buy something someone else built.
| revskill wrote:
| Media is expensive to scale, so use text is better strategy
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| CuriouslyC wrote:
| What we need is a single distributed protocol for both file
| sharing, chat and "posts" tied to a verified human identity, with
| the concept of trust baked in. I want to search my social graph
| for content rather than google. If your social graph has people
| shitting out spam or bad content, you could just revoke the trust
| of the people in the graph that enabled that content.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| That's really what Usenet is - I'm kind of surprised we don't
| see it used more.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Google killed it dead.
| can16358p wrote:
| But why? Why would Meta, an ad driven for profit company, build a
| decentralized platform?
|
| If there is enough centralization to tatget users and show them
| ads (which might be the incentive of Meta), is it really
| decentralized?
| baby wrote:
| My wild guess is that this is their way to operate in China.
| It'd be much harder for the GFW to block a decentralized app.
| college_physics wrote:
| they might want some sort of franchise. push some costs and
| risks down the food chain for a share of the ad pie
| A_D_E_P_T wrote:
| For what it's worth, Urbit is this sort of thing. At least right
| now, and in a de facto way, for it has untapped functionality
| that might soon enable a wide variety of additional use cases.
| The barriers to entry are now pretty low, as anybody can sign up
| via tlon.network
| precompute wrote:
| Yep, Urbit is incredible. It does require some technical know-
| how, and has a sign-up fee (unless you can get a planet for
| free from someone). I think that has really maintained quality
| of discussion. It has also come a long way in the last 3 years.
| I was given a free planet in early 2020.
| jraph wrote:
| It is a bit early for April fools.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| Adding decentralization to your twitter competing product isn't
| gonna out content twitter which is what most care about.
| papichulo4 wrote:
| Yeah. Meta is hiring, Meta is firing, Meta is about to publish
| their first coloring book, ML models available, discount
| mattresses, the boss-lost-his-mind-everything-has-to-go, Meta is
| taking VR to the next level, Meta is building a decentralized,
| text-based social network. Sure, sure. Good luck, Meta!
| [deleted]
| yazzku wrote:
| The bastardization of the term "decentralized" in this post has
| energy levels over 9000 for sure. Should be flagged as click-
| bait.
| geodel wrote:
| Come on. They are _democratizing_ the social networks.
| sangnoir wrote:
| *<Looks off into the distance>* What if it's going to be part
| of the Fediverse?
| mgkimsal wrote:
| And all participants can be paid in Libra!
| capableweb wrote:
| Then it's federated, so they're still using "decentralized"
| wrong, which would imply direct client<>client
| communication (decentralized), rather than
| client<>server<>client (federated) communication.
| tarotuser wrote:
| That's actually a significant worry.
|
| Embrace, extend, extinguish: is a standard playbook for
| monopolists and oligopolists everywhere in tech.
| 1. Make "cool corporate mastodon server" that all the cool
| kids play on. 2. Extend the masto code with
| proprietary extensions for better features, but DONT SHARE
| CODE 3. Convert people on other masto instances
| cause they don't have "cool feature". 4. Users
| flock to "cool masto server", and mastobook is created.
| 5. Other servers either try to play catch-up or close. A
| few holdouts straggle on. 6. Shitty company
| successfully proprietizes a federated system.
|
| Email, another federated system, has nearly gone this
| route. Sure, you can make your own mail server and do all
| the right things WRT spf/dkim/dmarc. But when most email is
| through gmail and outlook.com and they decide you're bad,
| you're not 'running' email.
| suprjami wrote:
| * * *
| jeena wrote:
| > Building a decentralized network could also give Meta the
| opportunity for its new app to interoperate with other social
| products -- a previously unheard-of gesture from a company known
| for building some of the most lucrative walled gardens in the
| industry's history.
|
| It's clear to me that this person forgot everything what earlier
| Facebook was doing like Facebook Platform
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_Platform and Facebook Chat
| via Jabber/XMPP https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/110/
| justusw wrote:
| It's called embrace, extend, extinguish for a reason. Is
| ActivityPub next? Though given Meta's recent lack of output I
| seriously doubt anything tangible will emerge out of this.
| Alekhine wrote:
| Also don't see how it's possible. EEE relies on permissive
| licensing, which lets you make a better, proprietary version
| that everybody switches to. Mastodon is AGPL. I suppose if
| Meta built a competitor that was so great it killed all the
| Mastodon servers... But thats not going to happen. Perhaps if
| they built an activityPub platform, then disabled federation
| when they got enough users? Doubt that would work either.
| hiidrew wrote:
| Reminds me of Noah Smith's recent article, Vertical Communities
| (https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/vertical-communities).
|
| It does seem like there is a slight trend with some of the
| Twitter-exodus leading to users going to specific Mastodon
| communities, which seem closer to subreddits than Twitter. Takes
| me back to my early internet days of growing up on phpbb forums.
|
| But then of course you have the flip side of companies trying to
| copy the Tiktok model, one feed with the algo ruling all. I think
| I prefer the former though!
| pelorat wrote:
| So IRC?
| bitwize wrote:
| Decentralized, text-based social network? I seem to recall
| something like that from the 90s. BluesNet? ScrewsWet? Something
| like that.
|
| Being the 90s and all, it was probably all just a fever dream
| anyway.
| throwawayhello1 wrote:
| They better not pull a Google Talk to Mastodon.
| mym1990 wrote:
| What if, and hear me out: we ditch the idea of a better
| replacement social network and just ditch the concept in general?
| Let's go back to not being bombarded by ads every 3rd post, to
| not getting lost in massive echo chambers, to not doom scrolling
| for 20-40% of our waking hours, being locked into mega platforms,
| etc... Is the proposition of "being more connected" really worth
| the downsides?
| itsoktocry wrote:
| > _What if, and hear me out: we ditch the idea of a better
| replacement social network and just ditch the concept in
| general?_
|
| Why do "we" need to ditch anything? People are building it
| because they want to, and will use it if they want to. Or not.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Facebook is not building things 'because they want to'...that
| is not a business reason. They are buildings things because
| there are billion and billions to extract.
| enraged_camel wrote:
| I think an argument can be made that social networks have
| been a net negative on society, despite (or because of) being
| very good ad delivery mechanisms and making some people and
| some companies very rich.
| vitiral wrote:
| Welcome to hacker news, the place that is definitely not a
| social network.
| juujian wrote:
| I think you could literally take Twitter's code base from 10
| years ago and set up a server and people would flock to it.
| Building something new is really not what is required, the
| bigger question is what people, what community.
| olah_1 wrote:
| I think the ideal social network would just extend the natural
| social networks of real life.
|
| Moxie at Signal was right when he said the real "social
| network" is just your phone contacts.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| No he wasn't. Most of the people I have connected to via
| social networks do not appear in my phone contacts. And the
| social networks themselves do not have my phone number.
| UncleEntity wrote:
| > And the social networks themselves do not have my phone
| number.
|
| Yeah, they probably do...
|
| Back in the before times people would keep up with their
| "Social Networks" by running into them at parties or
| whatever and "Update their Status". Sometimes people would
| even "PM" each other over dinner and drinks outside of
| these "Group Chats".
|
| Hard to believe, I know, but somehow the human race managed
| to keep going.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| > Yeah, they probably do...
|
| If so then they got it from some one else outside the
| network because it never appears in my conversations and
| I use the networks exclusively via a web browser.
| olah_1 wrote:
| Phone numbers became a "bigger deal" when they started
| being abused.
|
| People just started using instagram as a first means of
| contact because it felt less personal. It allowed for more
| "escape hatches" if it turns out that you don't like the
| person so much.
|
| If phone numbers allowed for varying levels of trust like
| instagram, it would work as a social network today like it
| once did in the past
| crabbone wrote:
| The ads aren't the problem of social networks. They are the
| problem of the Web.
|
| Usenets were the first social networks, but their monetization
| scheme didn't allow for mega international companies to exist:
| they were paid for to ISPs and ISPs only pay other ISPs for
| traffic, they don't pay for individual services.
|
| Email used to be the same way... _sigh_.
|
| Web became the platform that enabled for advertisement to be
| mixed into the product. I cannot tell if Hotmail or similar saw
| the promise of ads on the Web, or did they "accidentally"
| succeed -- whichever the case, it's the Web that took over
| other Internet applications because it made it possible to
| monetize it in a different and a more scalable way.
|
| Ideally, we'd have an Internet application for social networks,
| instead of it being a Web application. So that we pay our ISP
| for usage. We just really don't have that kind of application
| (yet?) And, I'm not sure ISPs are thrilled about this (will the
| effort be worth the revenues?). Definitely, companies like Meta
| aren't interested in that, as that would undermine their core
| business.
|
| But then, who knows... ad spam seems to be able to find its way
| no matter the technology. You can think about SMS as being
| similar to an Internet application, and you do get spam ads
| over SMS too.
|
| Another problem of social network as Internet application would
| be the search. Search works better when it's governed by a
| single entity which cares about indexing the data in various
| ways. If it's distributed, that'd be very challenging to
| implement, especially because it wouldn't be clear who's
| responsible for storing the indices and who pays whom in the
| end.
|
| Another challenge would be the connection between user's
| identity and their ISP... well, there are a lot of things that
| would need work, but I don't think it's not possible overall.
| In legislative terms, we'd need to recognize social networks as
| a service similar to postal service, and regulate it
| accordingly...
| rchaud wrote:
| This ignores the algorithmic ordering of social media feeds,
| which was unique to Facebook and then widely copied by all
| the other ad-ridden socials. There was no "connecting people"
| reason for them to do it, it was done because it made it
| easier to throw ads in to readers' feeds and make sure they'd
| be noticed.
| charcircuit wrote:
| >There was no "connecting people" reason for them to do it
|
| Not all posts are equally important. If someone only has
| time to read 5 posts then they should see important life
| updates from their friends and what they are interested in
| and not just show you 5 posts from them same person about
| how much they enjoyed their dinner and how good it looked.
| rchaud wrote:
| Absolutely nothing about FB is optimized for the "I only
| have 5 minutes" user. The whole point is to be constantly
| scrolling because FB intentionally doesn't tell you what
| you may have missed.
| charcircuit wrote:
| I disagree and would say that it optimizes for both. I
| have no issue in seeing the most important pests at the
| top of my feed. Of course I can keep scrolling and find
| interesting posts, but were those posts actually
| important for me to see? Not really.
| crabbone wrote:
| There's nothing exclusive about social media in this
| regard. Any Web application that could do that, tried to do
| that. Web search engines? -- didn't they try to tailor
| search results to your profile (or paid advertisement)?
| Retailers? -- didn't they try to suggest related goods
| based on your profile (or paid advertisement)?
|
| Everyone on the Web who used ads wanted to know your
| profile and wanted to manipulate the contents they provided
| to you based on it (and the wishes of those who pay for the
| ads).
|
| Again, the problem is not the social media. The problem is
| the Web.
| zeroonetwothree wrote:
| You do realize that social networks are _optional_? No one is
| holding a gun to your head and forcing you to use them.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Social networks changed the world, and are now predominant in
| the world we live in. It's like when someone pollutes water.
| Our society and culture are water, and social networks are...
| pollutants. It's fine and normal and good to want to look at
| the superfund site that is our global culture and want to
| push social networks out of the very-toxic pollutant it
| happens to be, and into something we can all abide, even for
| those who only drink beer or use charcoal filters. Plus, you
| never know what the kids next door are doing with the
| water...
| comfypotato wrote:
| The pollutants are people as they've always been.
|
| Social media is a natural progression of society. It has
| all the same positives and negatives of an local social
| structure.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Is there really a "natural" progression of society?
| Especially in an age of computers and advanced
| communication, it is difficult to know what is natural
| anymore.
| [deleted]
| mym1990 wrote:
| I do, I realize that the most important decision to opt out
| is on me. There is also no denying that this process is a
| difficult one and it is not made easier by the platforms
| themselves.
| bigger_inside wrote:
| do you realize that roads are optional? you don't have to
| leave your house to talk to friends.
|
| do you realize that using the mail service is optional?
| nobody forces you to write post cards.
|
| do you realize that electricity is optional? you can get a
| shack in the forest and burn wood.
|
| do you realize that water pipes are optional? you can dig for
| your own ground water.
|
| the world is not made of solipsistic individuals.
| infrastructure encases, shapes, and forms the possibilities
| and constraints in which all of us live.
| msm_ wrote:
| Roads, mail service, electricity and water pipes are
| valuable for me and improve my life. I want to use them,
| and I do.
|
| Social networks are not valuable for me, and they would not
| improve my life. I don't want to use them, and I don't.
|
| It's that simple, really.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Those things also don't quip at you ever 5 minutes saying
| 'use me!' and 'check me!'
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > "let's ditch social networks!"
|
| > "You realize they're optional, right?"
|
| > "Technically so are roads and mail and electricity and
| water!"
|
| so... are you saying we should ditch roads and mail and
| electricity and water? Your response is one of the sillier
| non sequiturs I've seen in a while, and I browse Reddit.
| realce wrote:
| Obviously the utilization of social networks is
| fundamental to social engagement in modern life. It's not
| silly whatsoever, it's a natural response when someone
| quips that a that a thing that's essentially needed but
| not absolutely required isn't worth complaining about.
| msm_ wrote:
| How is it obvious? I (and most of my friends) don't use
| social networks at all. They're not "absolutely required"
| for absolutely anything (unless your country is
| significantly different from mine). You'll only "miss
| out" on things that are only happening on social
| networks, but that's the point, right?
| realce wrote:
| I literally said they were not "absolutely required" and
| I don't know why you'd go out of your way to misquote my
| 2 sentence statement.
|
| My mom didn't have a telephone, she had other friends
| without telephones, but having a telephone when she was a
| kid was fundamental to building robust social
| relationships. The reduction of social bandwidth
| generally results in fewer opportunities for social
| advancement, and most people would like to experience
| social advancement of some type.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Obviously the utilization of social networks is
| fundamental to social engagement in modern life.
|
| That is not obvious at all. I think it's not even true.
| realce wrote:
| It's so non-obvious that 60% of the entire population of
| the Earth uses it.
| JohnFen wrote:
| That doesn't support the thesis that it's "fundamental to
| social engagement". I understand that it actually may be
| in some places, but I haven't seen a reason to think
| that's the most common case.
| [deleted]
| JustSomeNobody wrote:
| When even local governments use social networks to dispense
| information, no, no they're not.
| crabbone wrote:
| They are optional in the same way how postal service is
| optional. Sure, you may just drive / sail / fly to whoever
| you want your package delivered... chances are you'd rebel
| against this seeing how everyone else simply drops their
| package by the nearest collection point.
|
| Social networks today provide service beyond simply catching
| up with friends and family. They serve as front desks of
| companies' customer support, they provide easy means of
| feedback to important political figures... they became a
| public good and need to be recognized by the state as such.
| gretch wrote:
| I think people fall into this delusion, but if you can peel
| yourself out of it, you'd find it's not really true at all.
|
| One of the best politically served groups in the US are
| elderly evangelical Christians - this doesn't come from
| being on social media.
| throwway120385 wrote:
| Indeed, I think you could actually argue that social
| networks produce a lot of hot air but very little actual
| action. People seem to burn themselves out on political
| discussion and ripping on each other for having different
| opinions, but then they seem to do very little actual
| participating in the political process. Places like
| Facebook and NextDoor suck all the air out of the room
| for a lot of peoples' political ambitions.
|
| In contrast I'm finding that elected officials, aside
| from some gaffes here and there, are mostly receptive at
| the local level to the things we're asking for. If people
| spent the time they spend ripping on each other on social
| media instead navigating the bureaucracy and talking to
| the people that work there they could probably effect
| some meaningful change.
| mym1990 wrote:
| A lot of people think that social media activity is their
| significant contribution to a cause. Post or like or
| share something pertaining to social issue of the day and
| their little soul can now go feel great about the change
| they've made in the world!
| crabbone wrote:
| That's not a delusion.
|
| Specifically, the mechanism by which customer support is
| communicating with customers on social networks provides
| a lot of value _to the customers_ because companies
| cannot gaslight individual customers. This works a lot
| better than even if you had a lawyer on your side,
| willing to work for you w /o compensation because the
| company might just hire a better lawyer.
|
| I've literally been in this situation before: I had
| intermittent connection problems and had to call ISP to
| look into the cabling. Once the technician finally came,
| he found that a squatter took over the entrance to the
| breaker room on the roof, so he could no longer get
| access to the switch the company installed there. Because
| he wasn't able to do anything w/o police intervening and
| breaking into squatter's illegal construction, he just
| left... I still had no Internet connection, so I decided
| to terminate my subscription early.
|
| Well, the ISP wouldn't have it. I had to jump through a
| lot of hoops, including closing and opening a bank
| account just to prevent the ISP from charging me for
| service they did not provide. I did it on principle, even
| though it would've been cheaper to just pay them few
| months. Come the end of my contract period, I get a
| summons to a court because the ISP hired a lawyer to go
| over cases like mine and try to intimidate individual
| customers into settling the arguments by paying the ISP
| (of course, by that time they tried to scare me with a
| fine that was about ten times the money I'd owe them on
| the contract).
|
| So, I had to search for lawyer organization which
| volunteered to provide customer protection, but due to
| them being an NGO, they had a requirement that they would
| only provide their services if I could show that my
| yearly income was below X, which, unfortunately, it
| wasn't, and so I had to pay a lawyer from my own money to
| deal with this case. In the end, the ISP backed off, but
| nobody compensated me even for the lawyer I had to hire.
| Needless to say that it's not possible to compensate the
| time spent on this.
|
| This was before social networks were popular enough to do
| this:
|
| ----
|
| I had a very similar situation, which was simply due to
| me moving into another apartment which didn't have a
| coaxial outlet, so, I couldn't continue my contract with
| the ISP. They decided to pull the same trick. It was a
| single post on their Facebook page describing the
| situation that got me a phone call from their customer
| support department and my contract was terminated.
| Without charge.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Although you can get along perfectly fine without having a
| social media account at all. You can still reach customer
| service, you can still interact with political figures, you
| can still do all of the things you want and need in your
| life.
| gruez wrote:
| Going back to the OP, if people are voluntarily using
| social networks because they make it easier to catch up
| with friends and family, why should we "ditch the concept
| in general"? Should we go back to the days of communicating
| to each other via letters?
| jstarfish wrote:
| > Should we go back to the days of communicating to each
| other via letters?
|
| I'd argue so. People put more thought into letters, since
| producing and sending them involved expense of time and
| effort. Laziness was its own spam filter.
| crabbone wrote:
| Communicating with individuals is only a small fraction
| of what social network provides.
|
| How are you going to communicate with a group of peers
| who all need to know everyone's responses to your
| messages... by mail? Do you realize how long this will
| take and how cumbersome it will be?
|
| How would you make it possible for others, who weren't
| part of the conversation to come later and rediscover
| your entire conversation letter by letter?
|
| Letters aren't a good replacement to social networks if
| you are thinking about a pre-digital age. Newspapers that
| publish paid advertisements are probably a better
| replacement... but they also don't quite fit because they
| lack the function of private messaging...
|
| I don't think we have an equivalent to social networks in
| pre-digital world.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I think the concept in general has been proven to be
| terrible on pretty much every count, so yes, I advocate
| ditching the idea.
|
| > Should we go back to the days of communicating to each
| other via letters?
|
| Or email, or phone, etc. There is no lack of other
| communications channels.
|
| That said, I'm not in favor of banning these services. I
| just think society in general, and people in particular,
| would be better off if they stopped using them.
|
| I haven't used social media for several years, and my
| life is in no way poorer for it. I miss out on nothing.
| j2bax wrote:
| It would be nice if at a minimum we could demand a social
| network that caters to making meaningful connection
| points with friends/family/strangers rather than ad
| serving algos. I know... the people have spoken and they
| want free stuff and are willing to sell their data/soul
| for it. I just wish it wasn't so! If a company built a
| product that was primarily designed to make me love it
| and find it valuable enough to pay for it I would be all
| in. But if the rest of my friends/family aren't in...
| then its pretty meaningless. I'll just have to keep
| relying on more manual methods of social media like
| texting, calls etc.
| xwdv wrote:
| Social networks are like cigarettes. If everyone is smoking
| everywhere you're still affected even if you decide you won't
| smoke.
| melling wrote:
| [Successful] Companies build what consumers want.
|
| You aren't locked into social networks. Don't use them.
|
| Consumers vote with their dollars.
|
| The constant noise of "Paywall" is why so much is ad based.
|
| So, if you've got a better idea, build it and see if they come.
|
| [Updated]
|
| Clarified that I meant successful companies.
| js8 wrote:
| > Companies build what consumers want.
|
| Note how circular this is. You say "consumers", not people.
| Who is a consumer is also defined by said companies.
| rchaud wrote:
| > Companies build what consumers want.
|
| This isn't at all true. If it were, WeWork and Uber and
| Doordash would all be profitable and wouldn't need eye-
| watering levels of subsidies. Companies build whatever the
| purse strings holder is comfortable with them building.
| melling wrote:
| Sure, people try all kinds of ideas.... The "Uber of..."
|
| I suppose I should have said "successful companies"
| JohnFen wrote:
| Companies can and do succeed selling things people don't
| really want.
| gruez wrote:
| > Companies build what consumers want.
|
| AFAIK uber/doordash are profitable on a per unit basis in
| most developed markets, it's just a combination of
| marketing spend in new markets and extravagant developer
| salaries that make them lose money.
| [deleted]
| OgAstorga wrote:
| Companies build what consumers want.
|
| You aren't locked into Heroin. Don't use it.
|
| Consumers vote with their dollars.
|
| So, if you've got a better idea, synthesize it and see if
| they come.
| elicash wrote:
| I get they both are "addictive" given the broad sense of
| the term. Yes, your brain gets a little reward with each
| refresh. But I don't think it's fair to compare the
| addictive nature of social media to heroin. (Let alone
| their impact on people's lives. But even putting that
| aside.)
|
| Do you really think social media and heroin should be
| regulated at all similarly?
| namaria wrote:
| Yeah social media is more like alcohol. Feels good in the
| moment, leaves a hangover if you stay away for any
| meaningful amount of time, is completely legal and
| generates a lot of profits and tax revenue. We all know
| it's bad for us and society at large, yet most of us
| can't stop using it. Can lubricate social relations but
| also potentiates abuse.
| melling wrote:
| Time to take some personal responsibility!!!
|
| It's only social media.
|
| We've gone way too far in needing others to help us.
|
| "Someone help me stop using [favorite social media
| company]"
| akira2501 wrote:
| This puts the cart before the horse. Otherwise, you seem to be
| assuming that all people on social networks were somehow
| tricked into being there.
|
| They're there for a reason. It just so happens that this
| current implementation of entertainment is particularly
| popular. Is that because they lack other options or because
| this is actually prime entertainment? Or is it because it's
| essentially free and mildly fulfilling and socially useful for
| people?
|
| Either way I doubt a "solution" is to essentially "make it
| illegal."
| mym1990 wrote:
| Making it illegal would be silly, society would need to come
| to the conclusion on its own, which is why social media will
| probably not ever go away.
|
| The trap is exactly what you just said: "it's essentially
| free". Which of course it is not. Time is one's most valuable
| resource, I guess it is up to you what you value it. Mental
| well being has value. Privacy has value. I really don't know
| that many people that walk away from FB or IG or Twitter and
| say "that was fulfilling". Maybe I am really off base there.
| KKKKkkkk1 wrote:
| > What if, and hear me out: we ditch the idea of a better
| replacement social network and just ditch the concept in
| general?
|
| Good luck with that. Social networks is an idea that is as old
| as the Internet. MySpace and Facebook were merely a step in a
| progression that included IRC, Usenet, email. Arguably
| hypertext itself. If you're not connecting people, what is the
| point of the Internet?
| Apocryphon wrote:
| Connecting computer programs without human intervention
| bcrosby95 wrote:
| Don't forget CompuServe and Prodigy, which predates the
| consumer internet. Back in the late '80s my parents
| subscribed to these, and I would read and post on their comic
| book forums, arguing about which super hero could beat who.
| sleepybrett wrote:
| I think facebook realizes that their uptake among younger
| audiences is way down and their userbase is aging. They've
| buttressed themselves so far via instagram, but I imagine they
| are maybe seeing a bit of the same trend. A generation seems
| to, more or less, engage with some social network and it
| becomes pretty sticky for them. So maybe this is just their
| 'next wave' play.
| totemandtoken wrote:
| I hear arguments like this all the time, and it bothers me that
| such arguments miss that there is something that people like
| about social media - connecting with people. It clearly is
| worth it and that's been around since the beginning of the
| internet in some shape or form be it IRC, forums, usenet,
| whatever. There's innovations that constitute as modern "social
| media," like the feed or social search, but the core notion of
| using the internet to try to connect people is going to be a
| demand as long as there are people and there is an internet.
| The best we can possibly do is identify maladaptive innovations
| and try to provide some alternative, until one is dominant
| enough that "social media" is as dated as "forums."
| mym1990 wrote:
| There is something people like about cocaine as well, but it
| doesn't mean it should be prevalent in society. You know what
| a good way to connect with people is? To go out and talk to
| them. Join a club, chat with a coworker about something more
| than the morning standup, text or call a friend you haven't
| talked to in a while. I would be incredibly surprised if the
| majority of users see dramatic upticks in connectedness while
| engaging with FB/IG/Twitter.
|
| I love the concept of forums and little communities here and
| there, hell even the little post count and quirky username
| colors based on seniority meant something to me in those
| days. But as soon as those things are turned into mega money
| making machines, the incentives are no longer with the users.
| christehaaland wrote:
| young people will always want a social network that connects
| them to their peers before they realize the damaging effects of
| it. Even if warned, guaranteed they won't care at first
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| Connecting people with their peers is most certainly not
| damaging-- any more than socializing in general.
|
| Facebook started off GREAT! I singed up almost as soon as it
| was available to the general public (remember it was just
| open to university students at first).
|
| At that time my timeline was basically text only and the
| content came from only my friends. It was like a fun online
| party -- not unlike online chat systems from the old days.
|
| Then mysteriously all the people I enjoyed interacting with,
| disappeared from my timeline. Then I started getting content
| vaguely unrelated to my friends. Then meme photos I didn't
| want, ads and now basically just videos I hate and am bored
| of.
|
| So the original concept is fine. It's just where we ended up
| that is mind numbing and alienating.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| It certainly is quite damaging because that connection
| isn't an accurate representation of a real-world
| connection. When you see someone in the real world you see
| them sneeze, you see them cry, you see their successes and
| their failures. When you are 'friends' with someone on
| social media you see a carefully curated window into a
| reality that doesn't exist. This gives young people
| unrealistic expectations for themselves and others that I
| would certainly call damaging. It takes all the healthy
| parts of human interaction, processes them , and spits out
| a refined version coated in advertisements.
|
| It's not new (we've been doing that to young people since
| media was invented) but the level of pervasiveness is.
| hungryforcodes wrote:
| The online world is the real world now, or at least a
| large part of it.
|
| Also meeting people in person is often annoying and
| damaging. I jest but, also not. :p
| baby wrote:
| I wouldn't call myself young and I need/want a social network
| as well. It's not because a few people on HN don't see the
| utility or the positive aspects that they need to be banned.
| Jeez.
| chasd00 wrote:
| an imessage group chat is the best social network there is. I
| have a handful each with a different circle of friends and
| topics. No ads, no algorithm, it works perfectly.
| SketchySeaBeast wrote:
| Let's not blame solely young people here, especially when
| discussing Meta.
| layer8 wrote:
| You mean, ditch the HN comments section?
| comfypotato wrote:
| They bring way too much value for this. They've introduced a
| slew of "new" problems, and these problems are bad. The
| problems are still outweighed by the benefits. I enjoy the
| connection social media gives me to people outside of
| geographical area and outside the sphere of who I'm comfortable
| phone calling.
| karaterobot wrote:
| > Is the proposition of "being more connected" really worth the
| downsides?
|
| And 'proposition' is the right word to use, since its really
| just the promise of social networks that people like. In
| practice it has not worked as a means of connecting people to
| each other. Certainly not better than the alternatives it
| replaced. We should call the experiment a failure.
|
| I'm all for getting rid of social networks, especially general-
| purpose ones. I don't see it happening though. Most people see
| them as a fact of life, inevitable as death or taxes. If you're
| younger than 30, you probably don't have an intuitive feeling
| for what the world is like without them. I guess this is
| understandable, if sad.
| comfypotato wrote:
| I'm over 30 and this rings false for me. Social networks
| introduced problems at a scale that they hadn't really been
| seen before, and it has awful downsides. That being said, the
| basic concept is nice.
|
| My parents, for example, are much more connected to their
| relatives overseas. More so than they're relatives, they're
| connected to their relatives' friend groups. The
| conversations that take place now when they visit are better.
| They're more in touch with more lives.
|
| The ads, the fomo, the general fakeness of it all is awful.
| But the benefits still outweigh the negatives.
| gwd wrote:
| > since its really just the promise of social networks that
| people like. In practice it has not worked as a means of
| connecting people to each other.
|
| I went off FB for a year or two, only to come back on when
| the pandemic started. I definitely missed the connections and
| conversations I had with family and friends across the world
| while I was gone. If I could have that without feeling like I
| was contributing to all the shenanigans, I would do it.
|
| For work I created a Mastodon account, and so far it seems
| very nice. There are lots of cool people posting interesting
| stuff, and no ads. Unfortunately I'm not interested in the
| "public-only microblog" experience for my personal life, and
| fine-graned access control in a federated system is a tricky
| problem; and my experience with the systems that are
| attempting to address that issue haven't been very positive.
| mym1990 wrote:
| The ad experience will come, because that's really the best
| option for a lot of platforms to monetize...and no one is
| running a charity. By that point a lot of users have been
| locked in and essentially just going with it.
| gwd wrote:
| Loads of organizations have been running core
| infrastructure from donations for decades now. If you
| don't need to write new code, and don't have a pressure
| to actually turn a profit, and have people with enough
| investment in the community to donate time doing
| moderation / sysadmin tasks, then it should be easy to
| get enough donations to keep a server up and running.
|
| In any case, one of the core functionalities of most
| federated software is the ability to migrate your profile
| somewhere else.
| mym1990 wrote:
| The crazy thing is that I can find people right now on the
| other side of the world and probably make some great
| connections and share stories, learn about cultures, etc...
|
| It just doesn't happen.
| jollofricepeas wrote:
| Social networks are hotels, right.
|
| - First they are new and cool. The young, hip and rich stay
| often.
|
| - New becomes old. Shoddy carpet, old fixtures, bad music in
| the lobby but older people stay until they die.
|
| - New hotels sprout up with cool carpet, music and fixtures.
| The cycle repeats.
|
| The only way we can ditch them is to ban them and then they'll
| go underground :(
|
| What is dead may never die.
| dangerwill wrote:
| I'm sorry what? This is absurd take, to think of hotels as a
| recent invention where they have been "new and cool", like
| social media. Hotels are just a formalized way to provide
| temporary accommodation for money, which has existed as a
| class of business since trade has existed. The wayside tavern
| in ancient villages is an exact 1:1 analog with your travel
| inn motel today.
|
| This comparison makes 0 sense
| [deleted]
| aaronharnly wrote:
| I like the metaphor.
|
| Next, people think "we need AirBnB! Not stodgy old hotels,
| but cool, real homes owned by real people, where individuals
| can provide hospitality to each other and everyone wins."
|
| Consequence: independent operators take on the soulless
| characteristics of hotels but without the accountability or
| reliability.
|
| I can see us entering the AirBnB era of social networks
| soon...
| [deleted]
| mmcgaha wrote:
| Blogs with RSS?
| mindtricks wrote:
| There is a whole generation that isn't even familiar with
| this concept, so you could honestly re-introduce it.
|
| It's "TikTok for Text!"
| wyre wrote:
| >TikTok for Text
|
| That's basically Reddit, except Reddit also has images
| and video.
| eriknj99 wrote:
| You can checkout any time you like but you can never leave
| 7thaccount wrote:
| _acoustic guitar intensifies for a brief solo_
|
| Seriously though, your comment gave me a great laugh this
| morning and made me think about how much of our
| communication is built off shared pop culture.
| shivekkhurana wrote:
| Most of them also happen to be in California.
| mym1990 wrote:
| To me the difference is that 1) you pay for hotels and you
| know exactly what the cost is 2) hotels provide a tangible
| benefit, mostly being the bed to sleep in.
|
| Social media often has this idea that it is "free" and so
| people don't think about the massive amounts of time and
| privacy that is given up as the hours whizz by.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Hotels where you don't pay rent, in exchange for the hotel
| recording everything you do in the room, in the lobby, and
| if you aren't careful, putting a GPS tracker on your
| person.
| gretch wrote:
| I don't know if you meant this facetiously or not, but
| I'm pretty sure a LOT of people would want to take this
| deal if it existed.
|
| Which is also why a lot of people are perfectly okay
| with, and use social media
| mym1990 wrote:
| Add to this: every 5 feet you walk you have to watch a 5
| second ad.
|
| I would actually not be surprised if that is a model in
| the future for hotels...
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| I doubt that a recording of everything I do in a hotel
| room would be valuable enough to pay for the room.
|
| Pity really, I'd quite like to do some touring without
| having to pay!
| 6510 wrote:
| I've done extensive research into providing free services
| (of many kinds)
|
| It is not at all problematic to extract enough value from
| a conventional hotel visitor to pay for their room. The
| real puzzle is that a free room doesn't attract that kind
| of people. You get people who feel obligated to draw
| penises on the wall, shit in the sink and stab holes in
| your mattress. The normal audience you get, after making
| the reservations and/or picking up the key mostly wont be
| in the room because they don't need it.
|
| Whatever plot one was to come up with to realize it it is
| almost guaranteed that it would work better if you
| charged extra for a room with such creative original
| features _all this wonderful product information_ as the
| deeper the pockets the more valuable and less annoying
| the promotional circus.
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| Hotels where you don't pay rent, but everything is sponsored
| ad placement. I wish I could run a hotel like that in real
| life, just ads everywhere.
| gibspaulding wrote:
| Sounds like a casino.
| bitxbitxbitcoin wrote:
| There's no free rent at a casino unless you are proven to
| be a gambler though - or am I mistaken.
| namaria wrote:
| Civilization is fast becoming a casino. Housing is
| increasingly expensive, most offers are some money-for-
| dopamine deal. Social media is a never ending row of slot
| machines. We keep betting small chunks of attention that
| we will have a mythical pay-off (fame, love, glory), and
| most just waste away pressing the buttons and looking at
| the colors change for ever.
| chao- wrote:
| In what way does something becoming expensive (in this
| case housing) make it like a casino? And what would be a
| flip-side for that metaphor ("housing prices are
| remaining where they are, which is like {{thing}}")?
|
| Not disagreeing you, just unable to follow the connection
| you are making.
| namaria wrote:
| Housing used to be about acquiring acceptable shelter.
| Now it's more like paying high fees for temporary
| arrangements... Civilization should be about diverse
| spaces people can build together but lately it's more
| like living in a planet size casino with a dumpster fire
| out back...
| mandmandam wrote:
| [dead]
| sleepybrett wrote:
| Yeah social networks seem to be 'generationally sticky'. This
| is probably just network effect shit. You and all your
| friends are on instagram and use instagram together as your
| 'main channel'. Tik Tok comes along, some join but some
| don't. But the next generation they join Tik Tok as their
| 'main channel' .. the process repeats.
|
| Essentially:
|
| Facebook = boomers Twitter. = genx insta. = geny ...
|
| (but for some other shorter generational definition)
| saos wrote:
| I still wouldnt use it
| freewizard wrote:
| using Instagram login is not decentralized, a text-based social
| network prototype doesn't sounds a lot of work, are they dusting
| off one project in past hackathon to make the news?
|
| Meta do have some good cryptography work and talent in FB msg /
| Whatsapp, that may lead them to build a somewhat ATP/Bluesky
| competitor. With that said, they are really behind in this game.
|
| My main concern is these new product from social OG will still be
| likely ad driven model, which made Facebook/Twitter what they are
| today.
| glitchc wrote:
| MySpace is still around. Maybe they could buy that. Or
| LiveJournal.
| yalogin wrote:
| Why is this obsession with decentralized? I don't see the
| benefits of it at all. A central server is better if they have a
| good moderation plan built in. This whole decentralized idea is
| to wash their hands off moderation and not take a blame for the
| hellhole it will become. From a pure functional point of view,
| how can a decentralized network provide any performance
| guarantee? What am I missing?
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > A central server is better if they have a good moderation
| plan built in
|
| If that's true, then the internet itself was (and continues to
| be) a mistake.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| You're talking about the web, which could indeed use some
| revision. The Internet is just fine.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I guess, if you think of the internet as being just a
| gigantic message board or something.
| onychomys wrote:
| Weirdo billionaires can't buy a decentralized network.
| baby wrote:
| > Why is this obsession with decentralized? I don't see the
| benefits of it at all
|
| To me this is the angle: we want to be available in China, this
| is the way to be available in China.
| rchaud wrote:
| > How can a decentralized network provide any performance
| guarantee?
|
| Why can't it just be like message boards like Xenforo and
| PHPbb? There are numerous sports-related boards created 10+
| years ago on that old tech that are still handling thousands of
| users concurrently.
|
| They're also well moderated too; that's something that becomes
| impossible if you are trying to manage hundreds of thousands of
| users.
| rakoo wrote:
| > A central server is better if they have a good moderation
| plan built in.
|
| "An authoritarian regime is better if they have a good dictator
| and the proper watchdogs"
| Spivak wrote:
| Call it what you want but yes, having strong empowered
| opinionated leadership has proven over and over to make
| products people prefer. This site is one of them.
|
| It's why freedom as in anarchy social media sites keep
| becoming far right nazi cesspools. Nobody who isn't one of
| them wants to be around them.
|
| I don't have to worry all that much on here because when the
| insane green accounts come around replying to me with death
| threats they're immediately deleted.
| rakoo wrote:
| I absolutely disagree. Far-right forums also has a strong
| empowered leadership and it doesn't make them pleasant for
| you or I to go. It's also a product some people prefer,
| just not us.
|
| Absence of hierarchy and ruler is also the norm in Usenet,
| and the community as put processes for everyone to manage
| lunatics without the need of a central authority.
|
| "Freedom", or rather control, allows a community to choose
| for themselves. I don't agree with everything here, for
| example, and I don't have the power to change things, but
| that's alright because I can live with that. On the other
| hand I have my own Fediverse instance which means I can
| choose what I see and what I don't see. I still believe
| it's important.
| turnsout wrote:
| > a good moderation plan
|
| ^ This is the reason decentralized is better for everyone,
| including Meta. At a certain scale, content moderation goes
| from "hard" to "actually impossible."
|
| With enough users, you will eventually have an Kurdish knitting
| group that meets in Turkey, who uses ethnic slurs ironically as
| a commentary on the government's treatment of immigrants, and
| you'll have to unravel the whole thing when someone complains.
| And the whole conversation is happening in Kurdish.
| m3kw9 wrote:
| There is ideal and there is practical, most people will not
| just switch from twitter because it allows someone to by pass
| govt. It will be difficult if no content is there.
| turnsout wrote:
| People will follow people--we've already seen that with the
| tech community and Mastodon. Within niches like the iOS dev
| community, virtually everyone has jumped from Twitter to
| Mastodon. If a good centralized alternative comes along,
| other communities may jump to that. But so far, there are
| no centralized contenders on the Twitter front.
| mariusor wrote:
| Decentralized implies smaller scale than centralized. Smaller
| scale means less burden on moderation. Smaller scale means less
| resources required. Smaller scale means a better community.
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| It depends how decentralized.
|
| If they go so far as to be partition tolerant then you get a
| lot of resiliency wins. i.e. if a solar flare knocks out
| anything attached to a long enough cable to induce circuit-
| damaging current, you can still gossip messages between
| colocated devices, some of which might be en route to someplace
| distant. Secure Scuttlebutt Protocol works in this mode for
| example.
|
| In such a scenario, being able to piggyback messages on
| travellers you don't know (even if it takes a few days to
| propagate) could be lifesaving.
|
| There's also something to be said re: censorship. If you can
| facilitate comms between otherwise firewalled groups of people
| by simply sneaking a SD card across the border from time to
| time, that's right in line with Meta's mission statement.
|
| I doubt that Meta is going to make it this decentralized.
| Whatever they build is going to be decentralized(tm). But it
| would be pretty cool to see this design space explored.
| themagician wrote:
| "Why is this obsession with decentralized?"
|
| From a business perspective: absolution from liability. If it's
| decentralized then you can conveniently say you can't control
| it and you can't shut it down. All you can do is make money
| from it.
| olah_1 wrote:
| > Why is this obsession with decentralized?
|
| One reason could be that decentralization reduces the liability
| on the company. They could save huge costs in letting users
| self-moderate and in not being responsible for illegal content.
| swayvil wrote:
| A central authority that has total control over the
| conversation is considered by many to be a bad thing. Some
| think that a more democratic approach is preferable.
| chasd00 wrote:
| "decentralized, text-based social network" just sounds like IRC
| all over again.
| usrbinbash wrote:
| > The app is codenamed P92 and will allow users to log in through
| their existing Instagram credentials
|
| So if it relies on the servers of one centralized entity for
| authentication, how exactly is this thing "decentralized"?
| foul wrote:
| In the best case it will speak ActivityPub as to embrace,
| extend and extinguish. Because all this effort is, imho
| obviously, an EEE tactic.
| charcircuit wrote:
| The same way gmail is but with ActivityPub instead of email.
| You sign in with your Google account, but you can send emails
| to an email server run by anyone.
|
| For an example of decentralized servers + centralized
| authentication just look at video games. It's common to have a
| common identity, but be able to join a server hosted by anyone.
| grugagag wrote:
| It's decentralized in name only, it's marketing talk. It'll
| still be behind Meta's walled garden
| Spivak wrote:
| They're using the language of Discord/Slack were rather than
| one massive firehose where you curate who you follow you
| instead create "servers" for your friends, family, and
| different online communities.
|
| Social networks got supermassive scale, it ended up being
| kinda awful unless you're a public figure, and now all the
| "good" communities are on Reddit and Discord.
| salmonellaeater wrote:
| > Individual servers would let different groups set their own
| community standards, though likely with a "floor" of rules set by
| Meta, in a fashion similar to how Reddit's individual communities
| work.
|
| This is not praise. Reddit bans people for expressing widely held
| beliefs. Subreddit mods are required to enforce the site-wide
| rules regardless of the subreddit's own preferences.
|
| As another commenter put it [1], the property that makes a
| decentralized social network desirable is actually that it's non-
| excludeable. There's no outside entity that can exclude people
| from the network. This is very similar to the core of what
| censorship is: there is a speaker and a listener who both want to
| communicate, but some third party prevents them.
|
| What I would like from a social network is opt-in filtering,
| where you can choose some list of moderators whose decisions you
| trust, and subscribe to their block lists. But users should
| always have the final say on whose posts they view. If this new
| social network Meta is building puts users in control, it could
| be great.
|
| [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35091164
| rusticpenn wrote:
| How is it different from whatsapp?
| Fatnino wrote:
| So everyone needs to explicitly block cheese pizza for
| themselves just so a few perverts can share that stuff in the
| name of "free speech"?
| hnbad wrote:
| I suppose "cheese pizza" refers to CSAM?
|
| FWIW I think it's a sign of intellectual dishonesty to
| complain vaguely about censorship of "widely held beliefs"
| without stating what those beliefs are. All social networks
| have "ground rules", they're just not always the same. For
| any social network that somehow can be pinned to someone's
| physical identity, those rules will at least include the laws
| of that person's jurisdiction.
|
| "Free speech" is widely mocked as a supposed principle
| because it's a rallying call, not a specific thing. Even
| people who'll proudly tell you "I may not agree with what you
| say but I'll defend your right to say it" will have limits if
| you keep pushing them on it. "Free speech" just means "I want
| to be able to say things I'm not allowed to say" and the
| first response should always be "what and for what purpose".
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| >"Free speech" is widely mocked as a supposed principle
| because it's a rallying call, not a specific thing.
|
| To many of us the mockery of people who think that way is a
| badge of honor.
| ditonal wrote:
| I can provide two specific examples of "widely held
| beliefs" that have been mass-banned on Reddit. I also want
| to note I don't endorse or subscribe to either of these
| beliefs but I felt neither were deserving of a ban and I
| was open-minded to hear arguments in their direction.
|
| 1) Reddit banned /r/NoNewNormal and "Covid misinformation"
| after activist moderators started shutting off subreddits.
| I personally got a Covid vaccine and complied with mask
| regulations, but I was interested in hearing coherent
| arguments related to lockdown / mask / vaccine skepticism.
| Obviously these skeptic views were very widely held
| beliefs, and some of them like the "lab leak theory" went
| from "misinformation" to "possibly true"
|
| 2) Reddit banned /r/GenderCritical which was a subreddit
| representing feminists who expressed skepticism over modern
| transgender ideology in the spirit of JK Rowling. Again, JK
| Rowling has millions of followers so this qualifies as a
| widely held belief. While I want to be inclusive and
| supportive of transgender people, I'm interested in hearing
| skeptical arguments related to things like whether it's
| really a good idea to give puberty blocker to teenagers .
|
| I believe both of these bans happened not for good reasons
| but because of ideological crusades from Reddit power-
| moderators who skew heavily on certain political and
| ideological topics.
|
| I'm not trying to start a flamewar or debate on either of
| these topics, I'm not endorsing either of those subreddits,
| I'm addressing your critique that specific examples were
| not provided of "widely held beliefs" that have been
| unfairly censored.
| bink wrote:
| I'm not familiar with the reasons behind those particular
| subs being banned, but in my experience "toxic
| communities" are a more common reason for a ban than the
| subject matter. If a sub wants to discuss gender identity
| and politics that's one thing. If that same sub then
| becomes a rallying place for those who brigade and harass
| other users or subs and the mods don't respond to admin
| requests to stop it then the sub gets banned. It's not
| true of all cases, of course, but it is common and
| something that most users of those subs will probably
| never be made aware of as the content is controlled by
| the mods who may or may not support the behavior that got
| the sub banned.
| mmcwilliams wrote:
| In the case of both of the topics you listed, there are
| still plenty of places online you can go to entertain
| your curiosity about those views. What I don't understand
| is the assumption that a corporate product should be
| compelled to host discussions it deems inappropriate in
| either topic, tone or corresponding action by users.
|
| Through what mechanism do you believe website owners
| should be forced to allow users to operate by their own
| terms? Should anyone who hosts a comment section on a
| personal website be forced to keep all posted comments in
| perpetuity?
| bardan wrote:
| How about you initially "trust" all of your friends. If one
| friend blacklists a bad actor, all their friends
| automatically blacklist them as well. If it turns out the
| friend blacklisted an innocent person out of spite or
| something, word should eventually get around and people can
| manually revoke trust from that friend.
| johannes1234321 wrote:
| I myself block a ton of stuff, which isn't illegal not
| offensive, not ... but just boring for me. That list
| shouldn't spread to others. Also I don't want to have to
| think about personal vs. global block.
| SuoDuanDao wrote:
| would be an easy option, to autoblock with your friends
| or not. or even with individual friends - I value the
| opinions of lots of people who filter out people I'd want
| to hear from.
| [deleted]
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Or the police can do their job and catch pedos?
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| No, everyone needs to explicitly "choose some list of
| moderators whose decisions you trust, and subscribe to their
| block lists"
| swayvil wrote:
| I would nuance that system a bit.
|
| Replace "moderator" with "any peer".
|
| Replace "block" with "vote". (And that vote could be as
| simple as "up down" or maybe something more sophisticated)
|
| Now everybody you meet (every "peer") has a "rating". Based
| on the cumulative voting of yourself and your peers.
|
| A peer that you upvote, his votes are weighted-up in that
| cumulative rating calculation.
|
| A peer that you downvote, his votes are weighted down.
|
| So we have peers, votes and a cumulative rating
| calculation.
|
| And then we filter out view by rating.
|
| Voila! Personalized decentralized moderation.
| nathan_compton wrote:
| This doesn't really work because it doesn't allow a
| moderator to set the tenor of a community. People can
| filter out individual messages, but a dedicated set of
| bad actors can turn a community into swiss cheese or
| undermine discussion just by spamming, baiting and
| trolling and taking advantage of the variance in the
| level of tolerance for the bad behavior.
|
| Communities function when there is a standard to which
| the community members adhere and when bad behavior is
| uniformly moderated away. Making each individual have
| their own moderation bubble is a recipe for incoherence,
| even with the improvements you suggest. Its also a lot of
| work.
| 8note wrote:
| That is to say, every community is for meme pictures
| giantrobot wrote:
| You're describing the exact thing people do when logging
| onto a Mastodon instance. They're choosing to accept the
| moderation/federation policies of that instance.
| lmpdev wrote:
| That still implies either: A) Cheese pizza is permitted B)
| There are a "floor" of rules
| xigoi wrote:
| "Cheese pizza" is banned by law in most countries, so it
| won't be "permitted" either way.
| frodetb wrote:
| "Permitted" is a strong word for activity enabled by a
| protocol. It implies some moral acceptance from the ones
| who designed the tool. I think a better word would be
| "possible". Similar to how e-mail makes it possible to
| send all kinds of content.
| traviswt wrote:
| This is why free speech is so hard to maintain. There are
| so many cases where you want to ban or censor something
| obviously repugnant, but once the power is created to do
| so, it will be abused, probably as soon as someone you
| don't like is now in charge.
| 8note wrote:
| It really isn't - the cheese pizza lover can make their
| own instance
| dmonitor wrote:
| That content is prohibited by law anyway so it's not
| really relevant to internet moderation standards anyway.
| ptman wrote:
| isn't that what matrix is doing with their decentralized
| moderation?
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| I think you're wrong and not the typical user. Personally, I
| would never use any social network without strong moderation
| and banning of toxic users, and I'm that many if not most
| people share this sentiment. Places without strong moderation
| turn into hellholes and are generally less interesting.
|
| Whether a network is decentralized or not is a completely
| different, purely technical question. I don't understand why
| two issues get mixed up so often. The design of a community
| should never be based on technical considerations.
| adrr wrote:
| You don't like hanging out on 4chan? It's not what users want
| anyway, it is what advertisers want. They don't want toxic
| content next to their ads.
| drowsspa wrote:
| Most people don't like hanging out on 4chan.
| anoy8888 wrote:
| Wow , you are very different from most people as most
| (99.9999?)can't stand toxic trolls.
| adrr wrote:
| It was a sarcastic remark to emphasis that majority of
| people don't like toxic content.
| astura wrote:
| The vast majority of 4chan users are children or very young
| adults. Most people grow out of that.
| _HMCB_ wrote:
| Agreed 100%.
| drowsspa wrote:
| Case in point: we're discussing this on Hacker News, a very
| well moderated website.
|
| Libertarian tech bros love the idea of technical solutions
| for political problems. What they don't realize is the real
| service platforms offer is moderation.
| ddren wrote:
| I see many comments here every day that would get anyone
| instantly banned from most of the biggest subreddits.
| However, I think that most people would agree that this
| place is a lot less toxic than reddit. Smaller subreddits
| are somewhat better, but at this point this behavior has
| become pervasive in site, and users are expected to respond
| aggressively to any disagreement. As a result, any
| discussion becomes impossible and most comment sections are
| filled with users mindlessly agreeing with each other.
| Moderation is important but the way it is implemented in
| reddit has only managed to turn the site into an extremely
| toxic echochamber.
| bink wrote:
| Reddit admins only set some very basic guardrails,
| typically around things like hate speech. Everything else
| is controlled by the mods. There are subs that are toxic
| and many that are not. Which you subscribe to is up to
| you and will determine your experience. The example often
| used here is /r/AskHistorians.
| mrguyorama wrote:
| You should consider that HN is just a different bubble
| with a different overton window, and that neither
| actually reflect reality
| Zetice wrote:
| If you think this place is well moderated, try having a
| civil discussion on DNI initiatives or anything at all that
| gets the tech-bro SV hate culture engine fired up.
|
| You will be downvoted, flagged and throttled before the
| hour is up.
| bhupy wrote:
| The GP comment's proposal is not incompatible with what you
| (and typical users) want.
|
| Moderation is very different from censorship.
|
| I want strong moderation and "banning" _for myself_. I would
| ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via
| default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I
| can still opt out of if I really cared to do so.
|
| On the other hand, I don't believe that I have any kind of
| entitlement to prevent _other people_ from seeing content
| once it's been permanently hidden from my own view. I don't
| really care if _other people_ are able to see content that I
| don't wish to see.
|
| This article describes the distinction in a pretty clear and
| concise way:
| https://astralcodexten.substack.com/p/moderation-is-
| differen...
|
| Email works this way today and most people are perfectly fine
| with that.
| chasd00 wrote:
| i'm on board with this. Just a big "ignore" button where i
| never see the person's content or any interactions with it
| again would work just fine for me. I think to provide
| feedback the other way a counter on your view of the number
| of people that have you on ignore would be good too.
| jonathanstrange wrote:
| IMHO that's not a solution at all. It merely creates
| information bubbles. I don't want diverging opinions to
| go into a killfile, I want mechanisms that _force_ all
| users to deal with each other in _civil and minimally
| polite ways_ , just like the vast majority of them
| already they do under normal circumstances in face to
| face communication.
| Spivak wrote:
| I think your glasses are a little rose colored for in-
| person communication. The rule older than my grandparents
| is just don't talk about anything controversial, and only
| see "those" family members once a year at Thanksgiving.
| Zetice wrote:
| You would spend your days blocking people, and not much
| else.
| bhupy wrote:
| You already do this today with email for anything that
| isn't already swept away by your spam filter, i.e. by
| clicking "Mark as Spam". Over time, you end up having to
| do that less because the filter learns your preferences.
| You can also always go back into your spam folder and
| teach the system to unlearn something it shouldn't have
| in case it overcorrected.
|
| It's not perfect, and there's a very real concern that
| spam filters are becoming increasingly biased, but (to my
| knowledge) the level of outrage around spam filters is
| much MUCH lower than that around platform "censorship".
| It's a stable equilibrium.
| Zetice wrote:
| I don't spend all day on email blocking! Gmail does a
| great job.
| bhupy wrote:
| Correct, and with blocklists / opt-in moderation,
| whatever system that is would do a similarly great job.
|
| With email, you can manually block wherever anything
| falls through the cracks, and that's effectively what
| your parent commenter is proposing. I don't think anyone
| thinks that having to manually block _every single person
| from scratch_ is a sustainable equilibrium.
| Zetice wrote:
| Oh I read it as "I _only_ want to block people manually
| ". For sure if there are existing "moderation" tools in
| place to clear spam and wildly offensive material then
| yeah manually blocking the rest seems... mostly fine?
|
| I guess the problem arises when we talk about what
| "wildly offensive" means. Deadnaming people and trying to
| claim there is no racial inequality in the American
| criminal justice system are two "wildly offensive"
| concepts to me that may not be to others, for example.
| bhupy wrote:
| I like your examples a lot, because they illustrate the
| challenges well.
|
| "there is no racial inequality in the American criminal
| justice system" is not particularly offensive to me; even
| if I may disagree, I'm still interested in commentary.
| Ditto deadnaming, it isn't a dealbreaker for me,
| especially if it's done within a post that is making some
| greater point that I find to be insightful.
|
| In an ideal setup, there would be an off the shelf
| moderation blacklist that caters to your needs, and
| another off the shelf moderation blacklist that caters to
| mine (both updated on an ongoing basis), and neither of
| us have to do anything manually to get the experience we
| both separately desire. Pluggable spam filter algorithms,
| if you will.
| spaced-out wrote:
| >I want strong moderation and "banning" for myself. I would
| ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps
| via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis,
| that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so.
|
| This is fine for you perhaps, but I don't want to be a
| moderator. I prefer social networks like, say, Hacker News
| where moderation is handled for me.
|
| >Email works this way today and most people are perfectly
| fine with that.
|
| Most people only use email for work and don't particularly
| enjoy it. They prefer to spend their free time on other
| social networks.
| bhupy wrote:
| > but I don't want to be a moderator. I prefer social
| networks like, say, Hacker News where moderation is
| handled for me.
|
| I don't think we're disagreeing on that. Per my comment:
|
| "I would ideally like this to be as automatic as
| possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on
| an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really
| cared to do so."
|
| The implication of that statement is that Hacker News (or
| in this case, Facebook) handles moderation, but under the
| framework laid out by the GP commenter, one can _opt out_
| of that, or perhaps even opt into different moderation
| regimes. Political news outlets, for example, might be
| motivated to create their own moderation regimes if they
| feel that Facebook (or whomever else) is too biased
| against XYZ political group in their moderation.
|
| > Most people only use email for work and don't
| particularly enjoy it. They prefer to spend their free
| time on other social networks.
|
| I would be careful about speaking for other people.
| Perhaps this is true for you, but I (for one) love
| subscribing to email newsletters, and those are a part of
| my daily information diet. I'm free to subscribe and
| unsubscribe as I please, and others are unable to prevent
| me from doing so. As we can see with the continued
| existence of platforms like Substack, there's clearly a
| demand for that. Also, insofar as one might not
| "particularly enjoy" email, it's not particularly clear
| that the root cause of that is email's censorship
| resistance. It could also be because the email protocol
| is missing features that one might desire in the kind of
| decentralized protocol Facebook might create.
| nmz wrote:
| Suppose I create a bot and create millions of accounts. post in
| each article, now you're spending a huge, myriad of time just
| filtering/ignoring users.
| mattigames wrote:
| The huge problem is scaling, the bigger the social network gets
| the more moderators you would need to subscribe because the
| ones you already subscribed to are not cutting enough noise
| anymore, so it's almost inevitable that there would be a
| scarcity of moderators, at some point the only useful
| moderators would be paid ones or more likely bots, the bots
| with the most success at banning "toxic people" using AI or
| whatever would quickly win that race... and then you just would
| have created Facebook again.
| papito wrote:
| Just because over 10 million Americans believe that Tom Hanks
| violates, kills, and eats children - a widely held belief -
| does not mean that a private company can't tell those people to
| go suck a bug.
|
| A private company does moderation and it's the end of the
| world. Ron DeSantis bans books and he is just "anti-woke". The
| _actual_ government.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Dont you think there are some books that shouldn't be in
| schools? Surely you can grant that it's correct not to
| disseminate certain information to children.
|
| I don't think you have a problem with that, I think you agree
| with what critics call wokeism.
| joenot443 wrote:
| It's a bit amusing that your comment is making fun of
| Americans for widely holding an untrue belief, and then you
| conveniently make an example of yourself doing the exact same
| thing. I usually find it's about three comments deep that
| Americans find a way to start taking potshots at the other
| team whenever the concepts of "censorship" or "freedoms"
| arise. Canadians and Europeans are usually able to discuss
| these things without referencing Trump or Biden or Clinton or
| whomever is on the American mind these days. It's as if one
| can't imagine a world where censorship is anything but a tool
| the evil Red/Blue team will use to steal the next election.
| snakeboy wrote:
| I fail to see any value in trying to compare hugely diverse
| populations of hundreds of millions of people against each
| other and their ability to discuss nuanced political
| topics. It feels like you're just hashing out some
| intuitions based on what's come across your twitter feed or
| something? It's your prerogative to do so, but don't
| convince yourself it's a meaningful insight.
|
| "whatever is on the American mind these days" lol.
| papito wrote:
| Not sure what gave you the impression that I have any love
| for the MAGA or the self-righteous "woke".
| zmgsabst wrote:
| [flagged]
| papito wrote:
| So, you have no problem, I assume, with the "woke"
| governors banning or revising classic children's books to
| remove anything offensive? Right?
|
| You know, to prevent "government employees and licensed
| child educators from providing certain books to children,
| in the context of government mandated education."
|
| I'll wait.
| traviswt wrote:
| This seems like a great case against public education,
| since the mechanism to address this "whoever is in power
| decides" situation is of course competition and free
| choice.
|
| Indoctrination of children is just natural a natural
| consequence of everyone having their biases. Parents are
| the ones who should choose, because that is how we have
| diversity. Home schooling gives parents the most choice,
| private school a step down, but public school is where
| the parent matters the least and we end up in perpetual
| holy wars like this.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I agree with this strongly except indoctrination is not
| inevitable. It's not synonymous with teaching/learning.
|
| But it absolutely points to the problem of government in
| education. I don't think most people realize how recently
| the schools came under the thumb of the federal
| government. Department of Education only started in 1980
| and it hasn't exactly raised the bar in that time.
|
| It places constraints on educators (the experts) which
| make it easy to administer but harder for the educators
| to educate.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Indoctrination of children is just natural a natural
| consequence of everyone having their biases
|
| Not for a second. There is such thing as education.
| zpeti wrote:
| Exactly, and its actually generally blue states that have
| centralised education, and places like florida that allow
| chartered schools and similar ones.
|
| So if you want to setup a private school in florida with
| LGBTQ+ education, I'm pretty sure you can just do that.
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Not if you want to receive school voucher funds.
| zpeti wrote:
| OK, and? It's still a free market. If people want schools
| with LGBTQ+ education, set one up, and do it. You can.
|
| Why should local government help? Especially if that
| local government was specifically elected to not support
| issues like this?
| matthewdgreen wrote:
| Because local government has the power to collect taxes.
| If it chooses to selectively hand them out only to
| favored political institutions, then in practice this
| means many students won't be able to afford to attend
| their favored schools, and some schools will be
| financially non-viable. It may be the case that such
| schools will still exist in this environment (with a
| smaller student body), but that doesn't make the issue
| less problematic.
| shagmin wrote:
| Are you talking about a hypothetical place where schools
| are self-funded or something, or are you talking about
| Florida still? It's not that much of a free market if
| conservative-friendly charter schools get subsidized by
| the state but LGBTQ friendly schools don't.
| edgyquant wrote:
| No that's the point. He's just doing what those people
| have been doing since I was a kid and only once it goes
| the other way is it some horrible censorship. This is why
| he's liked by so many, he's effective at beating them at
| their own game.
| zpeti wrote:
| I don't get your reasoning, sorry. Desantis banned
| certain books from being taught. Anyone can go out and
| buy those books.
|
| You specifically say "woke" governors banning or revising
| classic children's books" which is not the same thing.
| While I'm not familiar with this idiotic part of american
| politics, that does sound like the governors are actually
| banning these books or changing them?
|
| That's NOT what Desantis did.
|
| And as far as I'm concerned, yes, any publisher as a
| private company should have the power to change a book if
| they want, but then don't be upset about the blowback.
| You can do whatever you want as a private company, but
| don't expect your customer to just take it. Eventually it
| might hurt your profits, at which point your shareholders
| might have a case for a lawsuit too.
| chimineycricket wrote:
| In parent's defense, banning kids from reading certain
| books is not the same as "woke" governors banning or
| revising classic books for _everyone_, not just kids.
|
| If people are banning books at school because the content
| can be bad for kids (debatable on what "bad" means
| obviously) then the parents can go get the book from
| elsewhere and have their kids read it at home. Whatever.
| But changing books for everyone is stupid.
| [deleted]
| nonethewiser wrote:
| I have never heard of this "widely held belief".
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > Ron DeSantis bans books and he is just "anti-woke"
|
| Although I don't necessarily disagree with you in principal
| here, it's worth noting that the precedent that allows him to
| ban LGBT books is the original banning of prayer in schools.
| The fact that school attendance is actually compulsory takes
| a little of the bite off of your argument, though - social
| media participation is entirely voluntary.
| exitb wrote:
| That's roughly how Mastodon works. Each instance is responsible
| for moderation of their own users. If an instance does not meet
| arbitrary standards of moderation, other instances may choose
| not to federate with them, but nothing can stop willing
| instances from federating.
| thr717272 wrote:
| One problem: as far as I understand a number of high profile
| instances enforced a rule where they would block any instance
| that didn't block certain other instances.
|
| I'm all for blocking a good number of instances myself, but
| putting limits on others, that is a whole different thing.
| 8note wrote:
| That sounds like US secondary sanctions.
|
| A working system when your community is popular to deal
| with
| RobotToaster wrote:
| Unfortunately that's ended up with a netsplit between
| covenanted and free servers, some servers will even de-
| federate you for federating with the "wrong" servers. So the
| only way to access the whole fediverse is either have
| multiple accounts, or run your own server.
| JohnFen wrote:
| I don't think I consider that a bad thing.
| giantrobot wrote:
| You say all that like it's a problem. If I run a gay furry
| porn instance, like wall to wall kitsune dicks, why should
| anyone federate with me? If you want fox dicks you come to
| my server. If you don't you avoid my server.
|
| You shouldn't have to see a bunch of raunchy furry gifs at
| work to decide you don't want to see those and block me
| manually. Federation should be a totally voluntary thing
| between servers. Only instances with compatible policies
| _should_ federate.
|
| Accessing the whole fediverse should only ever be a client
| problem in logging into multiple instances. Instances
| shouldn't be expected to just federate with everyone.
| exitb wrote:
| This is not a technical problem, but a societal one.
| Zardoz84 wrote:
| And allow us to kick out any fascist guy and/or instance from
| the federated network.
| thr717272 wrote:
| Problem is people have no idea what Facism and Nazism is.
|
| You find people here in the west who hate Jews claiming to
| be anti-facists and people starting a massive invasion of a
| very peaceful central European country - all while
| repeating much of Hitlers playbook - while claiming they do
| it to crush the "Nazis" there.
| altairprime wrote:
| That same property of inviolable non-excludable makes a social
| network inaccessible to those who are frequently harassed. The
| right to shun some participants is a necessary function of
| social spaces, to mitigate known and documented human
| tendencies over the past couple thousand years to drown out,
| abuse, and in general commit conversational warfare upon
| others.
|
| "Just block them" doesn't scale when each harasser is harassing
| thousands of people. "Just block scripts" is no more effective
| than blocking adblockers. "Opt-in moderators" is no more
| legally viable than "No moderators".
|
| If you want to moderate a space, then set up and run a space of
| your own. If you want to federate with others, you'll comply
| with the moderation requirements of your federations. If you
| want your space to stay online, you'll comply with the
| moderation requirements of your hosting and transit providers.
| If you want your federation to stay online, you'll comply with
| the moderation requirements of your organization's laws. This
| is true today for all social sites, whether solo or
| distributed.
|
| Facebook thinks they can opt out of expensive and difficult
| moderation duties by transferring the legal requirements for
| moderation to their users. They may succeed briefly, but the EU
| will not look kindly upon their attempt to circumvent the law.
| giantrobot wrote:
| > But users should always have the final say on whose posts
| they view.
|
| The difficulty there is the end users are not hosting or
| distributing content. Some server(s) need to host content. No
| one can be _forced_ to host content. A host is always going to
| be the final arbiter of what content is ultimately available.
|
| Even if someone wants to run a Mastodon (or whatever) instance
| filled with Nazi content no one else is obligated to federate
| with them.
| gonzo41 wrote:
| You see mods on reddit go on ego trip ban spree's all the time.
| It's classic 90's mod meltdown stuff. I don't think subscribing
| to a benevolent master is a good model. What happens if their
| gaze turns to you?
|
| Moderation is really hard. And it's especially hard because a
| lot of people have very para-social relationships between
| themselves and rando's they talk to online.
|
| Whilst I know that sometimes those rando's turn into real
| friends in the real world. For the most part people are
| strangers, and the better form of moderation is getting off
| social media for a while.
|
| If meta wanted to do something amazing. It'd enforce one
| reality tunnel on the networks. Rather than have a base set of
| rules. Have a base set of news and facts that everyone shares
| in. Bubbles are generally bad. And everything goes to shit,
| even on HN, when we start getting into politics.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| There is an open music making forum. It is completely toxic.
| Even if I set to ignore garbage users they influence the
| discussions and most threads. A relevant music making
| subreddit deleted my music on an open to all feedback request
| thread without giving me any reason, yet I still prefer that
| subreddit because it's not just pure toxic negativity. We
| need a mix of both with people free to choose their model.
| JohnFen wrote:
| > If meta wanted to do something amazing. It'd enforce one
| reality tunnel on the networks. Rather than have a base set
| of rules. Have a base set of news and facts that everyone
| shares in.
|
| Just no. I don't want any large corporation to determine what
| the "news and facts" are -- and particularly not Facebook.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Just no. I don't want any large corporation to determine
| what the "news and facts" are -- and particularly not
| Facebook.
|
| Its... a fairly common thing for big corporations to do.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Indeed it is. Doesn't mean I'm willing to go along with
| more of it.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| > You see mods on reddit go on ego trip ban spree's all the
| time. It's classic 90's mod meltdown stuff. I don't think
| subscribing to a benevolent master is a good model. What
| happens if their gaze turns to you?
|
| Unsubscribe
| crawsome wrote:
| Widely held beliefs
|
| Can you elaborate on these "Widely held beliefs"? You appear to
| have done some research into the topic so I think it would be
| beneficial to your point if you gave examples of the beliefs.
|
| Because of Bandwagon fallacy, because we know just because
| something is widely-held doesn't necessarily make it valid, so
| these popular beliefs, I'd like to see what they are.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| You will get banned on Reddit if you say trans women aren't
| real women. They call it promoting hate towards a
| marginalized group. You may be sympathetic towards that so
| think twice before moving the goalpost.
| turnsout wrote:
| The goalpost is always moving--it's called the Overton
| window. And whether you like it or not, the window is not
| moving in your direction on this issue.
| figlett4 wrote:
| If you look more closely, it's moving towards the gender
| critical viewpoint. Good news for women and children.
| ROTMetro wrote:
| Your denial of their existence only serves to try and force
| them underground and is a much harsher form of the
| 'moderation' you are trying to rail against only instead of
| just virtual it has been used against trans people in all
| aspects of their lives (not just internet communities)
| their entire lives to DENY THEM THE RIGHT TO EXIST. I don't
| know about you, but fuck ANYONE that wants to deny someone
| else the RIGHT TO EXIST when they have caused no one else
| harm.
|
| You want to deny their right to exist, I don't want them to
| be subjected to your abuse in one tiny virtual space that
| if I am going to contribute to it. But yes, you are the
| oppressed/censored.
| wilsonnb3 wrote:
| Believing that there are differences between trans women
| and AFAB women is not denying anyone's right to exist.
| figlett4 wrote:
| How silly. They obviously exist. What people are pointing
| out is that they are actually men, and therefore
| shouldn't be in women's spaces. This is a very common
| perspective and it is daft for Reddit to attempt to
| censor this.
| commandlinefan wrote:
| > Can you elaborate on these "Widely held beliefs"
|
| My reddit account was permanently banned for _upvoting_
| vaccine hesitancy - i.e. that people shouldn't be forced to
| take a vaccine they don't want to take.
| 13415 wrote:
| That's good to hear. This ban very likely has prevented
| some deaths. If people in the US had taken public health
| measures more seriously, hundreds of thousands of deaths
| could have been prevented in the last epidemic alone.
| rakoo wrote:
| You're probably interested in Aether then:
| https://getaether.net/
| 1270018080 wrote:
| "Decentralized" has become a red flag term for businesses. It's
| been corrupted by crypto scams. There needs to be a new word.
| Quindecillion wrote:
| Permissionless
| Clubber wrote:
| Pier to pier is what we always called it, or shortly, P2P. It's
| how the internet was designed. Now, all piers are equal, but
| some piers are more equal than others.
|
| On a side note, the Napster model was almost perfect, its
| downfall was centralized indexing. I wonder if a blockchain
| could be used for distributed indexing using the same P2P
| communication model of Napster.
| goodpoint wrote:
| > Pier to pier is what we always called it
|
| Not quite.
| Eumenes wrote:
| Its not as bad as "democratizing" something
| bawolff wrote:
| The real problem is decentralized is too ambigious. There are a
| billion different ways something can be decentralized. The term
| is meaningless.
| mattwilsonn888 wrote:
| Decentralized doesn't capture what you want it to mean anyways.
| When crypto people say decentralized, they don't mean AWS edge
| locations or The Federal Reserve Central Bank which are both
| decentralized. How about we start saying exactly what we mean?
|
| "Non-excludable" captures the important aspect. It doesn't
| matter if your network is decentralized if it can't maintain
| this feature. Bitcoin being non-excludable implies that it is
| secure in terms of consensus control - even if a powerful agent
| is out to exclude you from the network, they would fail. That
| is the core property and it leaves no room to hide behind as a
| buzzword; it means exactly what it means.
| bawolff wrote:
| I think censorship-resistence is the usual term for that
| outside of the bitcoin world.
| alxmng wrote:
| "Peer-to-peer" is the appropriate term for a decentralized
| network where each node is treated equally and communicates
| through any other node.
| givemeethekeys wrote:
| I call it .. Metastatic.. oh wait.
| notShabu wrote:
| IMO decentralization should never be a key selling "feature" that
| users should experience.
|
| Similar to the philosophy behind the "right to bear arms" it's
| best as a self-imposed framework of checks and balance on the
| centralized system. The majority of people are better off in a
| centralized system.
|
| Decentralization is the solution to the "who will guard the
| guards" problem of power & corruption. I don't currently have a
| desire to become a gun-prepper-hoarder but living in a country
| where this is a potential-possibility model of life gives a sense
| of freedom even as I overly-specialize in typing alphanumeric
| letters in a specific format and rely on the System to transmute
| this effort into tokens-of-worth to trade for things like toilet
| paper and housing rights.
|
| Where Meta and other companies fail here is that they're trying
| to ride the hype w/o understanding that it's not a feature in of
| itself but a "meta"-feature to allow for better features.
|
| Decentralization forces the leader to actually lead through
| leadership qualities. Not through owning 51% of voting rights,
| not through golden handcuffs, not through implicit H1B or EB1-C
| visa and greencard threats.
|
| The failure mode for decentralization is when it enforces a
| meritocracy that no one single human is capable of living up to.
| The leaders are ceremonial or non-existent.
|
| The desire for decentralized technologies is a frustration with
| how fallible and incompetent the current set of leaders feel and
| a desire to shorten or outright eliminate the complexity of the
| brittle chain of value transformations necessary to maintain a
| living.
|
| It's a desire to ascend technology into a force of nature like
| the sun or the wind. This goes against every company's reason-
| for-being because nature is free while a company is a system that
| harvests nature and makes a profit by selling customers
| concentrated forms of it.
| uhtred wrote:
| Another social network, yay.
|
| I don't see us realizing the star trek utopia anytime soon.
| aaroninsf wrote:
| Work for them? Quit. Considering it? Don't. Using them? Don't.
|
| Few companies members of this site convince themselves it's OK to
| work for, have done and continue to do more harm to our society,
| psyches, and body politic.
|
| Just don't.
|
| No one asked for a surveillance-first Shitter.
| pie_flavor wrote:
| > Twitter's decline
|
| Where?
| exodust wrote:
| > "Twitter's decline..."
|
| Is Twitter in decline? According to what measure?
|
| I use Twitter as a read-only way to follow a handful of
| interesting people in tech, science, journalism etc. All of them,
| regardless of their political leaning, are still posting the same
| as ever. If anything I see more activity than before.
| jeena wrote:
| I've been using Twitter for the last 10 years in write-only
| mode and have even given up that a couple of month ago.
| whywhywhywhy wrote:
| As someone who uses it but isn't a fan of it, it's exactly the
| same as it's always been.
| UncleOxidant wrote:
| " The P92 app will support ActivityPub, MoneyControl reported."
|
| Big if true. Color me skeptical, though. How would they be able
| to control that? (and FB likes control)
| plorg wrote:
| Remember when Facebook (and Google, etc.) supported federated
| XMPP? I can't bring myself to expect any different outcome this
| time.
| xeeeeeeeeeeenu wrote:
| >Remember when Facebook (and Google, etc.) supported
| federated XMPP?
|
| Facebook's XMPP server wasn't federated. You couldn't use it
| to talk to people on other servers.
| plorg wrote:
| Thank you, I must have misremembered.
| [deleted]
| emaro wrote:
| I'm afraid of the same outcome too. However I think many
| admins in the Fediverse are aware and I expected most servers
| to block any instance from Meta.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| Why should they be blocked?
| emaro wrote:
| Because you don't have a decentralized network anymore if
| one server has 2B users while the second largest has
| 200k.
|
| Also moderation as the sibling comment mentioned.
| lispegistus wrote:
| Having an instance with a x million users is impossible
| to moderate. Instances have been blocked for not being
| able to moderate low thousands of users due to
| incompetent/unresponsive mods. Having a poorly moderated
| instance federate with yours is seen as a threat to your
| users and a proactive admin would not allow federation.
| Also most admins are aware of EEE tactics and we all know
| we cannot expect anything even remotely resembling
| ethical behavior from big corporate instances, they are a
| threat to the network by default.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| I was just going to reply with EEE, but the situation
| you're describing presents a problem.
|
| Suppose the network wants to be able to handle billions
| of users, but you want to keep each instance "small,"
| i.e. thousands of users.
|
| Then you'll have millions of instances.
|
| Having each instance manually curate a list of others it
| federates with isn't going to work, but neither is
| instances not federating with the large majority of other
| instances.
|
| You all need to figure out a way to get rid of this
| instance-level whitelisting or blacklisting, because that
| ends with either Meta or an intractable scalability
| problem.
| hnbad wrote:
| This assumes you (or rather: those users) want all of
| those billions of users to be directly interconnected.
|
| Most people on Mastodon seem to be perfectly fine with
| living in a microcosm compared to Twitter.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Don't know if they "should" be, but I would certainly
| block anything from Facebook. I don't want to dance with
| the devil.
| pndy wrote:
| If my memory serves me well, their Messenger was once XMPP-
| based (perhaps still is somewhere beneath) and you could use it
| without a fuss in any Jabber client. But then smartphones
| bloomed and the _possibilities_ having a mobile app arrived.
|
| So, I'd expect same scenario here: open at the beginning and
| walled later - once they capture enough people within. That is,
| if this thing ever manages to gain attention.
| xena wrote:
| It's going to make the fediverse crumble from the load.
| timcavel wrote:
| [dead]
| giancarlostoro wrote:
| This sounds like they want to take the spot of Twitter and have
| no images or video. At the same time an opportunity to harvest
| data from other connected social media platforms.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| > decentralized, text-based social network
|
| We had that. It was called Usenet, and it was great. Google
| destroyed it, so Facebook is going to own the next one from the
| get-go? Doesn't sound good.
| fer wrote:
| Usenet was destroyed by spam.
|
| Even if you set up your client to have your groups clean, for
| any new arrival without guidance it was a horrible experience
| that required a lot of effort in bringing signal out of the
| noise.
|
| What killed it was not having a distributed spam filtering as
| it became popular.
| throwaway81523 wrote:
| Usenet had spam filtering that was at least somewhat
| decentralized and that worked, though maybe not fully
| distributed. Some alt groups that didn't use it became
| unusable, and a few groups (sci.crypt) were intentionally
| destroyed by sporgery that was hard to stop by filters. There
| were also moderated groups that were hard to spam because of
| cryptographic signatures in the moderation approval. IIRC the
| signatures were 512 bit RSA, so maybe the keys can be cracked
| by now.
|
| I think spam may have been less of an issue than the
| exploding size of binary newsgroups used for distributing
| warez and pr0n. That is a big reason ISP's gave up on it.
| Plus politicians like NY Gov Cuomo (not sure which Gov Cuomo,
| there were two that I know of) crusaded against it since OMG
| people could post anonymously.
|
| I think Usenet with a few adjustments for velocity control is
| still a perfectly viable scheme. Every time I look at BBS
| software and think about how to do it better, the answer
| turns out to be Usenet.
|
| If you read the novel "A Fire Upon The Deep" you might be
| amused to find that in it, Usenet still exists in an era of
| interstellar travel.
| specialist wrote:
| BBS networks (eg FidoNet, PC-Relay) were pretty great too.
|
| FWIW, I believe, but cannot prove, that content moderation on
| Internet accessible "open" messaging systems (aka store &
| forward, decentralized) is not feasible.
|
| Back in the day, I was hub for a small BBS network as well as
| moderated a forum on CompuServe. It was manageable, but a lot
| of work, esp for volunteers like me. These days, there's no way
| I could do a reasonable job.
|
| I guess we'll see if I'm correct with the Mastodon experiment.
| giantrobot wrote:
| The Google graveyard is expansive but they most certainly
| didn't kill Usenet. Spam put Usenet on life support and ISPs
| dropping NNTP hosting pulled the plug.
|
| By the late 90s spam killed actual conversations on Usenet.
| Eternal September had already raised the noise floor but spam
| just got out of control.
|
| First ISPs dropped retention of even text-only hierarchies and
| then by the early 2000s dropped NNTP hosting entirely. So even
| people willing to wade through the spam had to go hunting for
| independent Usenet hosting.
|
| Google didn't have anything to do with either of those things.
| bawolff wrote:
| You have to really be rewriting history to blame google for the
| downfall of usenet.
| illumego wrote:
| Wake me up when September ends.
| papito wrote:
| To put it another way, Deja put Usenet out of a coma, and
| Google finally pulled the plug.
| NuSkooler wrote:
| "Is the Twitter replacement we've been waiting for?"
|
| ...by Meta. No. No sir, it is not.
|
| ActivityPub (Mastodon variety) has been a breath of fresh air for
| me. That's my Twitter replacement, though that's bad wording,
| because I don't want what Twitter has been for years.
| pipeline_peak wrote:
| The whole benefit of centralized social media is that a large
| corporation has the resources to maintain it and the control that
| gives them. I don't understand what's in this for them. Maybe
| there will still be forced ads embedded into the instances.
|
| My guess is it'll be a lot easier to self host than other
| existing ActivityPub platforms like Mastodon. That's the sales
| pitch at the price of an augmented proprietary service. And who
| knows what restrictions that's entailed to.
|
| There's not a lot known, but who's this for? Anyone conscious
| about this enough to even think about hosting expects freedom to
| use their own algorithms, moderation, etc.
|
| I could only imagine it serving for commercial use. But no
| customer wants to install MyHomeDepotLife and upload a profile
| pic just to return a belt sander, I'm at loss for words.
| illumego wrote:
| _All_ of it has _always_ served a commercial use. It 's meant
| to be for you, whether you like it or not.
|
| Or you could just go outside.
| echobear wrote:
| "decentralized"?
| INTPenis wrote:
| What's in it for them? ActivityPub is a lot like e-mail and that
| is now basically controlled by the large centralized players like
| Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft.
|
| It was just a matter of time before one of those large actors got
| into ActivityPub. People who want to communicate with their
| instances will have to conform.
|
| Yes many in the fediverse are very distrusting of the large
| corporations and will instantly block Meta. But many others just
| love the technology, the ability to communicate across platforms,
| and will try hard to be part of it.
| fooker wrote:
| >What's in it for them?
|
| Commoditize your complement.
| uhtred wrote:
| Social networks and "apps" to the great unwashed masses are akin
| to giving a shiny new rock to a chimp. No think just use look
| nice better way tell people more bout me.
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