I know of Matrix, Mastodon, and PixelFed (and use the first two), but is there a 'facebook killer' in development right now?
My concern is that, while seizing control of social networking from big corporations is surely a great idea, it may be initially inundated (and thus, socially formulated) by the same whackjob culture that flocked to Parler from Twitter.
How can we ensure that balanced and healthy communities form on the decentralized web?
Sigh. The problem with all decentralized platforms/solutions is that they're focused on "decentralized", not on "platform".
So high level plan should be: 1. Make platform that actually compete with w/ FB, Twitter, etc. 2. Decentralize it.
This may sound like it places a lot of burden on the individual but I plan on having reference implementations from super simple all the way up to clustered nodes ready to run in Docker containers. And hopefully with it all be open source and API-specified only, people can contribute other implementations.
The API is extremely simple. It is REST based and easy to comprehend. Anyone could write a simple server and reader who can program PHP, Node Express, or anything else.
The driving idea is to put individuals in complete control of their data and experience, and maximize interoperability. Much like an HTML img tag only has a src attribute, but the browser know how to retrieve the image from a server (which knows how to serve it) and then display it in the browser. Conceptually pretty simple.
If anyone is interested in knowing more, please ping me. I would like to release an API specification soon for discussion and refinement. Email in bio.
It's probably impossible to create a decentralised social network where don't constantly have to reblock the same trolls but also don't get locked into a tiny closed community. I want to be able to talk and share with the whole world, but I don't want to have to block the same assholes over and over again because they keep making new accounts. And I assure you that trolls can get pretty bad on any open, decentralised system. They certainly do on Diaspora.
Maybe something where your network only expands through trusted nodes in your network: if a friend follows a lot of trolls, maybe keep him as a friend, but don't allow your network to expand that way. But someone else might follow a lot of interesting people, so open up your network a bit more in that direction.
More importantly, we should all revisit the world politic of exactly 10 years ago, where the biggest story was the Arab Spring--anti-government protests in the middle east. At the time, social media was heralded as a major factor in spurring the protests, despite tens of thousands eventually dying in the conflict. Governments were condemned for blocking access to the sites and many free-speech advocates attempted to develop work-arounds. Social media enabled the self-determination of the people in the middle east, something we should all care about.
Regardless of how people feel about the capitol riots, the war on free speech from silicon valley should scare the shit out of all of us. They are setting the precedent now for curbing any revolution in the future. The idea that "healthy communities" are the target really depends on who's doing the diagnosis.
- privacy is not only not respected, but in fact actively and aggressively undermined
- online culture is increasingly polarized and extremist. Misinformation and disinformation are symptoms of this.
The reason for this, as I see it, is that social media platforms make their money off the actual online conversations. So to make money, they need to get more and more people on their platforms, they need to trigger strong emotional responses to "engage" their users, and they need to mine as much personal information from their users so that they can sell that to advertisers and other interested parties.
Contrast that with pre-digital social networks and hubs, like bars and pubs. The business model there is to sell food and drink, with the providing of a social place as an ancillary service, not the main product. To make money as a pub, you provide food and drink people actually want and an atmosphere they enjoy, but you're not attempting to directly monetize your customers' conversations.
I'd like to see a decentralized social network in the sense of online conversation hubs attached to actual businesses. No "global" platform, just thousands of smaller hubs where certain online shops get known for hosting good online conversations which draws an audience who _then buys things_. Social networks need to go back to being a way to attract customers, not actually being a direct source of income.
Every publisher/user runs their own node, or from a node-service provider. And then you "friend" and follow built around RSS with signed or crypted items in the feed. Other nodes operate as aggregators and discovery services.
Beyond that, I think originating your content on your property is key. If someone repeats it on a social network, that's fine. Just don't create it there.
Clearly, though, taking control over their own data, and not allowing a FB or similar to own it would require an investment on that person's part. Either hosting their own data or finding an online host they could use would require $$$.
My plan is to get some code editing functionality going, add VR support, build cool stuff in it and expand functionality slowly towards a VR OS-shell (think Windows 3.1).
Eventually I want to also build some sort of network experience which will require communication with other instances.
You can follow my progress here:
https://www.awesemble.de/cgi-bin/fossil/public/vrkbnch/home
At the moment I'm cleaning up another repo with experiments and salvaging what I can before I rewrite my AST visualizer.
Time is the biggest challenge, unfortunately.
It requires members to vote once in a while but eliminates biases and increase diversity.
I got some activity but did not have the time to keep alive and experiment. I still think the concept have potential, maybe someone will refine it one days.
What about designing the entire system around tagging and filtering? Anyone can post anything, but users can choose which tags they want automatically hidden.
Example - any post with the word Trump in it gets automatically tagged with Trump, politics, etc.
This would remove the “filled with whackjobs” problem while simultaneously allowing for free speech.
As long as people are primed to viscerally pre-hate any competitor, it won't work.