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Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#181

Post by Rumudiez »

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…

> an app whose primary motivation is offering a comment section for websites that don't normally have comments

Disqus has done this to a fairly wide extent. They allow site maintainers to moderate comments IIRC.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#182

Post by hayst4ck »

bra-ket wrote: post #176
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.

I would encourage you to answer in good faith:

1. What would make someone “disown their families for supporting Trump”? What are their motivations? How are they arriving at the conclusion they need to do this? Does the disowned family member supporting trump play any responsibility in this engagement? What values do you hold dear to yourself that might make you disown another family member if violated?

2. When you call someone a “moronic sheep…” Do you think that person feels like a sheep? Do you think they might see you as a sheep for being apart of a different “herd”? I would encourage you to explain why they are moronic sheep rather than taking the mental shortcut of calling them a moronic sheep and therefore unworthy of having valid opinions.

3. You summarize behavior as: “‘orange man baaad’ chants.” Why do you think they see him as bad? Why do you think they “chant” it? Is there anything you say, that they might characterize as a chant?

Your post pretty much says “I want a place that doesn’t have people that think differently,” “I want a place where I won’t be challenged,” “I want a place without sheep,” “I want a place with people that think the same as me.”

Do you think what you’re actually looking for is an echo chamber?

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#183

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#184

Post by bra-ket »

hayst4ck wrote: post #182
bra-ket wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I would encourage you to answer in good faith: 1. What would make someone “disown their families for supporting Trump”? What are their motivations? How are they arriving at the conclusion they need to do this? Does the disowned family member supporting trump play any responsibility in this engagement? What values do you hold dear to yourself that might make you disown another family member if violated? 2. When you ca…

1. 4 years on non-stop propaganda by left wing owned mainstream media, amplified by online echo-chambers, will do that to you. Especially if the other side is labeled all shades of evil, like ‘racists’ and ‘fascists’ indiscriminately and without evidence. Slander is a powerful political weapon.

2. "Moronic sheep" is a poetic way to describe people who tend to trust lies they've been force-fed, without questioning. I blame the lack of critical thinking, groupthink, and deep internalized 'herd following' attitude nurtured from schools to colleges. Which, btw, a possible reason for larger Trump support among people who haven't passed through the brainwashing machine of the US college/academia.

I guess anti-individualism is the best way to call it. I always refer to excellent "Excellent Sheep" book by William Deresiewicz who succinctly described just what I experienced first hand during years of Ivy League un-education.

3. see 1.

if we can't get free speech on BigTech platforms then we shall part our ways, each stuck in its own 'safe space'. As for me personally I prefer swimming against the current.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#185

Post by pengo »

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…

If you can create your own node on your own server with your own rules, it doesn't matter (so much) if there's a short-term infestation of disagreeables elsewhere.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#186

Post by zzo38computer »

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 don't like that kind of mentality much either, but is there a way they can suppress only some of the messages on their instance, while other ones are still federated on their instance? Maybe there would be a way to allow such a thing to work, that admininstration of some instance can program it to copy only the message they want to copy, or to let you to program your instance to only send some messages to their instance, so that some links including only some messages, and other links between instances will have all messages because they allow you to copy all of them.

(I think that the client-based filtering, although with default settings provided by the server (which the user can choose to use, customize, or ignore), might be better, but server-based could be used if needed, e.g. to avoid flooding the bandwidth. If you are using NNTP, then you can filter by From header, References header, Injection-Info header, Newsgroups header, etc. The server probably could still ban users who misuse those headers for ban evasion, I suppose, but if those headers are not misused, and the connection does not waste too much memory/disk space/bandwidth, then a hard ban is not needed and the filtering can be used instead.)

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#187

Post by hayst4ck »

bra-ket wrote: post #184
hayst4ck wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would encourage you to answer in good faith: 1. What would make someone “disown their families for supporting Trump”? What are their motivations? How are they arriving at the conclusion they need to do this? Does the disowned family member supporting trump play any responsibility in this engagement? What values do you hold dear to yourself that might make you disown another family member if violated? 2. When you ca…

1. 4 years on non-stop propaganda by left wing owned mainstream media, amplified by online echo-chambers, will do that to you. Especially if the other side is labeled all shades of evil, like ‘racists’ and ‘fascists’ indiscriminately and without evidence. Slander is a powerful political weapon. 2. "Moronic sheep" is a poetic way to describe people who tend to trust lies they've been force-fed, without questioning. I…

I don't think you answered the questions in good faith, and I think I responded to you in good faith.

If a sheep is someone who: "tends to trust lies they've been force-fed, without questioning." Then what is a good measure of who is a sheep or not? I questioned your beliefs, and you gave me back lines from your echo chamber verbatim.

Here's some good questions for you:

   "What are some of the weak points of my belief system?"
   "What might I be wrong about?"
   "What is a good faith summary of the other person's argument?"
If you're acting in good faith, those shouldn't be even remotely hard questions. If those are hard questions and can't be answered directly, you should re-examine who is a sheep.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#188

Post by [deleted] »

hayst4ck wrote: post #187
bra-ket wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. 4 years on non-stop propaganda by left wing owned mainstream media, amplified by online echo-chambers, will do that to you. Especially if the other side is labeled all shades of evil, like ‘racists’ and ‘fascists’ indiscriminately and without evidence. Slander is a powerful political weapon. 2. "Moronic sheep" is a poetic way to describe people who tend to trust lies they've been force-fed, without questioning. I…

I don't think you answered the questions in good faith, and I think I responded to you in good faith. If a sheep is someone who: "tends to trust lies they've been force-fed, without questioning." Then what is a good measure of who is a sheep or not? I questioned your beliefs, and you gave me back lines from your echo chamber verbatim. Here's some good questions for you: "What are some of the weak points of my belief…

[deleted]

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#189

Post by pharke »

onpointed wrote: post #160
74d-fe6-2c6 wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With RSS you have to follow explicitely. I like the non-linear composition of the suggested tweets.

That's a good point! Could someone (or many someones) provide 'suggested' blogs/posts as a service on top of the existing infrastructure?

That would be a good idea, provide a list of things you subscribe to and get back a list of things you might like.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#190

Post by VoxPelli »

civilized wrote: post #162
VoxPelli wrote: post #121

There are two approaches: * The federated approach, where many Twitter like sites can interconnect and exchange messages. One current example of this is Mastodon, older examples are Status.net/Identi.ca * An indie approach, where everyone basically hosts their own profile and there are no Twitter like sites at all, one instead uses readers that are completely separate from ones hosted profile, just like it was in the…

> just like it was in the blogosphere days so if it's just like the blogosphere days, how exactly is this different from just advocating for a return to the blogosphere, which hasn't happened for many years and hence probably isn't happening for a reason?

It's different because the blogosphere was all about posting blog posts whereas social media, which started out being called "microblogs", is about posting other types of material and doing other kinds of social interaction.

In essence the indieweb enables posting all of those types of content, and making all of those interactions, through ones own site, in a way that can give a user experience comparable to eg. Twitter.

It's the classic pendulum of innovation – Twitter and friends spearheaded new interactions and UX that once proven can be standardized and implemented in the open, just like the blogosphere was an open implementation of the pattern of news sites.

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