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Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#111

Post by aldanor »

rishav_sharan wrote: post #93
darksaints wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking of GNU social, I have always thought that GNU was quite possibly the worst name to use for the project, simply because nobody knows how to pronounce it, and maybe if you do know how to pronounce it, someone else might pronounce it completely differently, so it you end up pronouncing it in two (or more!) ways until the person you're talking to knows what you're talking about. Is it 'new'? Or 'nyew'? I've also…

New? I have always pronounced it as Ginu. -_-

Gnoo

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#112

Post by BlueTemplar »

While somewhat offtopic, an important question is why would you want one ?

IMHO the main issue of Twitter is not even the way how it's now a walled garden (and since recently, effectively outside of the Web).

It's how the combination of a ~~140~~ 280† character limit, personal walls, hashtags, likes and an horribly hard to navigate comment system has resulted in a medium where constructive debate is almost impossible, while feelings-driven mobs rule.

†While moving to a 280 character limit probably made Twitter better, I'm wondering about the loss of compatibility with texts. One actually remarkable way in how Twitter was good is for post-disaster communication, which is the very situation where Internet might be down while basic cellphone communication still up.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#113

Post by erk__ »

tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #31
viraptor wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're mixing decentralised and unmoderated here. You're free to run those accounts from another instance or provision your own. But you can't force someone else to carry that account, just as I can't force your Mastodon instance to carry mine.

Which means that in practice, it's very debatable how much more free these decentralized platforms are than centralized ones, and whether they're worth the extra effort required to make decentralization work. Especially since Mastodon seems to have (from my limited understanding) a "if you dare to talk to the Bad People you're also a Bad Person and getting dropped" mentality, effectively meaning that you cannot run a…

I think the amount of instances that would want to distribute anything from Gab [0] which is based on Mastadon is very very limited.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gab_(social_network)

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#114

Post by benhurmarcel »

salamanderman wrote: post #87
systemvoltage wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1, I really like it. It's cute, short and playful.

Definitely cute, short and playful. It has the downside that "toot" is also used as a more polite, kid-friendly word for fart. Though I do love the thought of hearing a newscaster saying something like "Breaking news: President Trump has just tooted, and critics are calling it inappropriate and disgusting."

"Tweet" sounded ridiculous at the beginning too. Everyone has just gotten used to it.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#115

Post by benibela »

wombatmobile wrote: post #57

This likely isn't what the op had in mind, but if you're open to it, the best alternative to both reading and authoring on Twitter is to get up from your desk and exercise outside for 10 or 15 minutes. If you see other people, start a friendly, civil conversation. The skills you develop once you get the hang of doing this, and the information you'll stumble upon outclass Twitter, which is merely an interaction betwee…

The audience is too small

On Twitter you can easily reach thousands of people, in person you only talk to a handful

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#116

Post by derwiki »

benhurmarcel wrote: post #114
salamanderman wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Definitely cute, short and playful. It has the downside that "toot" is also used as a more polite, kid-friendly word for fart. Though I do love the thought of hearing a newscaster saying something like "Breaking news: President Trump has just tooted, and critics are calling it inappropriate and disgusting."

"Tweet" sounded ridiculous at the beginning too. Everyone has just gotten used to it.

"iPad" as well

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#118

Post by ZguideZ »

robertheadley wrote: post #89
pokstad wrote: post #62

Forget Twitter alternatives. How about a social network that mirrors real world social interactions? Only adding people you actually know. Keeping conversations private. Encryption to prevent censorship. What is the social media equivalent of signal?

This is what Google thought Google+ would be, but users were more about connecting to anyone and everyone and it became too messy for Google to want to deal with.

G+ was glorious in the beginning days. With no qualms it was the best social network I've experienced yet. IMO, what killed it was Google requiring the real names - which I still believe was a good idea - but then the death knell was when they waffled on that. If they would have stood firm on the real names policy, I'm convinced they would still be here today and there is a very good chance they would have surpassed both Facebook and Twitter.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#119

Post by TeMPOraL »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #49
tgsovlerkhgsel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which means that in practice, it's very debatable how much more free these decentralized platforms are than centralized ones, and whether they're worth the extra effort required to make decentralization work. Especially since Mastodon seems to have (from my limited understanding) a "if you dare to talk to the Bad People you're also a Bad Person and getting dropped" mentality, effectively meaning that you cannot run a…

This is like complaining that a public street isn’t free because people can walk away if they don’t want to deal with you.

No, it's like me telling you that you can't be talking to 'tgsovlerkhgsel, or I'll start petitioning everyone you know to stop talking to you, giving each of them the same ultimatum to ensure maximum compliance.

The toxic part here isn't someone banning/defederating you, but someone who didn't ban/defederate you getting threatened by others that they'd better do that or else everyone else will defederate them.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#120

Post by hyperpallium2 »

darksaints wrote: post #70
systemvoltage wrote: post #40

Part of the genius of Twitter is the name and its brand. Twitter, tweet, tweeting, tweeted, etc. Even if Twitter had no goodwill, it's an excellent name for such a service. None of the options presented here have that. "Hey dude, did you see that mastodon post?" "I'll add you on GNU Social" "Fediverse is getting popular, wanna fediverse?" "Nmd'ed you!" "Totally Aaether that!" "Breaking News: The Prime Minister of Aus…

Speaking of GNU social, I have always thought that GNU was quite possibly the worst name to use for the project, simply because nobody knows how to pronounce it, and maybe if you do know how to pronounce it, someone else might pronounce it completely differently, so it you end up pronouncing it in two (or more!) ways until the person you're talking to knows what you're talking about. Is it 'new'? Or 'nyew'? I've also…

or expand it.
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