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Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#171

Post by Nbox9 »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #144

Every time I go looking for one of these open alternatives it’s filled with fringe conspiracy theorists, actual racists, etc. Example is LBRY. Bryan Lunduke says he’s switching off YouTube for LBRY, so I go there to check it out. Top trending video is some white supremacist thing why I shouldn’t forget my ancestry. Search for “how to repair furnace”, second result is video how Epstein is alive. Even Lunduke is taking…

Using a decentralized social network is currently like using email without a spam filter.

I have an idea of creating a plugin to a decentralized social network that acts as a moderator. The plugin will work on behalf of the user, compared to current moderation which acts on behalf of the platform. Different users can select either different moderators or different settings for the same moderators. Moderating could be a mix of AI and human flagging. Moderating could also include more editorial work such as suggesting people to follow.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#172

Post by blarg1 »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #144

Every time I go looking for one of these open alternatives it’s filled with fringe conspiracy theorists, actual racists, etc. Example is LBRY. Bryan Lunduke says he’s switching off YouTube for LBRY, so I go there to check it out. Top trending video is some white supremacist thing why I shouldn’t forget my ancestry. Search for “how to repair furnace”, second result is video how Epstein is alive. Even Lunduke is taking…

I think there needs to be a way of filtering out posts by certain users. Allow people to make lists to filter out the crazies, so other users if they want can use them.

And/or use an algorithm to classify posts, and allow users to pick and choose what kinds of stuff they want filtered.

Then by default have most of these filters on, but you can disable some of them if they go too far.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#173

Post by chrismorgan »

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…

On the topic of unclear pronunciations, “new” is a poor choice for description of pronunciation, because accents are split on whether to pronounce that /njuː/ (“nyew”, which I think I’ve heard called “liquid u”, though I’m not sure how that gets spelled) or /nu/ (“noo”). Broadly speaking, the general American and Canadian accents omit the /j/, and the rest of the world includes it. But a particularly fun fact is that certain singing styles can alter adopted accent also: the classical singing style uses the /j/, so that even Americans who would say “noo” will sign “nyew” when operating in the classical/opera style.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#174

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #144

Every time I go looking for one of these open alternatives it’s filled with fringe conspiracy theorists, actual racists, etc. Example is LBRY. Bryan Lunduke says he’s switching off YouTube for LBRY, so I go there to check it out. Top trending video is some white supremacist thing why I shouldn’t forget my ancestry. Search for “how to repair furnace”, second result is video how Epstein is alive. Even Lunduke is taking…

There’s an analogy here with programming languages. It’s super hard for a new language to get popular. It might do some things objectively better, but if that doesn’t impact the majority of its users, it needs more or else it ends up populated by ideologues. An exception can sometimes be found in languages with solid interop/foreign function interfaces. Python gets to build on decades of C libraries easily. Likewise with clojure and the JVM. Or Gmail and a standardized email protocol.

So what’s the analogue for social networks? Tim Berners Lee’s pods? Would it be an app that pulls from and pushes to Twitter/insta/fb in addition to its own servers? That’s how apple’s iMessage has done so well. It falls back to SMS if the other person isn’t an adopter of their system.

New systems that can take advantage of existing network effects seem so much more likely to gain popularity. And we really need more of the open interop with social media.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#175

Post by zhte415 »

zhte415 wrote: post #105

PMs: Email. Posts: Blog. [XML-RPC if you wanna email from your phone to your blog. Different post-type or tag for 'like' vs 'post' (heck, invent any 'like' 'like' you like).] Follow: RSS. It's all there and decentralised for years, just not in a polished package of a 140 character comment, and likely requires more than 15 seconds of thinking. Actually really straightforward. Only tricky thing would be SMS but that's.…

Hate to reply to myself, but if a webhost could do the above on a 1-click install managed service with a nice UI, it might be a winning ticket for this, Tumblr but better. An ansible or puppet script. UI make very smooth and nice looking, I think that would be a go-er. Where do I apply for funding (/s)?

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#176

Post by bra-ket »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #144

Every time I go looking for one of these open alternatives it’s filled with fringe conspiracy theorists, actual racists, etc. Example is LBRY. Bryan Lunduke says he’s switching off YouTube for LBRY, so I go there to check it out. Top trending video is some white supremacist thing why I shouldn’t forget my ancestry. Search for “how to repair furnace”, second result is video how Epstein is alive. Even Lunduke is taking…

Funny, I get the same impression when I go to Twitter, it’s full of far left loonies and communist sympathizers, not to mention raging cancel culture mobs, so brainwashed they disown their families for supporting Trump.

And the worst thing is that Twitter is based in Silicon Valley, with many of its key employees belonging to the same herd.

There must be an alternative platform.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#177

Post by bob33212 »

thebigspacefuck wrote: post #144

Every time I go looking for one of these open alternatives it’s filled with fringe conspiracy theorists, actual racists, etc. Example is LBRY. Bryan Lunduke says he’s switching off YouTube for LBRY, so I go there to check it out. Top trending video is some white supremacist thing why I shouldn’t forget my ancestry. Search for “how to repair furnace”, second result is video how Epstein is alive. Even Lunduke is taking…

People don't seem to be thinking through the "NO CENSORSHIP" goal. They want to go to a site where Trump can tell people to install "freedom software" with a link to Ransomware or Malware?

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#178

Post by manicdee »

jere wrote: post #149
thebigspacefuck wrote: post #144

Every time I go looking for one of these open alternatives it’s filled with fringe conspiracy theorists, actual racists, etc. Example is LBRY. Bryan Lunduke says he’s switching off YouTube for LBRY, so I go there to check it out. Top trending video is some white supremacist thing why I shouldn’t forget my ancestry. Search for “how to repair furnace”, second result is video how Epstein is alive. Even Lunduke is taking…

I think you're right. A little surprised about Mastodon because I've only heard that from people I follow on twitter who tend to not be crazy, but I guess it makes sense. I have an idea for an app whose primary motivation is offering a comment section for websites that don't normally have comments or have them disabled (yes, this idea is old as dirt and has been tried many times). The part I'm really struggling with…

So don’t highlight free speech as a feature since you clearly do not understand the market for whom that feature is important (ie: free speech absolutists and conspiracy theorists).

What the people who actually value free speech want is sensible, non-political moderation where the free speech absolutists and nutters are muzzled but the minorities complaining about oppression are not.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#179

Post by app4soft »

r721 wrote: post #101
app4soft wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Mastodon How decentralized alternative to Twitter works IRL: Never exists account - https://mastodon.social/@1234567890examplecom2021 > The page you are looking for isn't here. Suspended account - https://mastodon.social/@realDonaldTrump > The page you were looking for doesn't exist here anymore.

gargron (Mastodon dev)'s reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697378

> That being said, the actual Donald Trump would not be welcome on mastodon.social, nor would he be welcome on most servers that I am familiar with. He would likely have to host his own Mastodon server.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#180

Post by jdsalaro »

jaspax wrote: post #140
74d-fe6-2c6 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly, it seems to be dead.

...which is exactly what one should expect something called "GNU Social" to be. (not actually the op)

I agree. I say that a someone who doesn't tend to support popularity contests as a solution to everything. For example, privacy, buying local, supporting SMBs, thinking critically, and many more are hard, in different ways but those albeit important are not easy to do. Many people would say "make privacy easy!", OK we've got Signal, Tails, Tor, etc. "Make supporting SMBs more appealing!", OK we've got Shopify, Stripe Etsy, Gumroad etc. "Make thinking critically easier!!!" ... Wait a second, thinking critically is and will be hard, perhaps not hard but at least not easy.

GNU Social was called StatusNet and Laconica before that, but no, they still chose a deliberately uncool name in one of the most extreme popularity-driven markets. Not that we ought to drop our standards, but why choose such a petty hill to die on?

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