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Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

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Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#31

Post by tgsovlerkhgsel »

viraptor wrote: post #26
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.

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 an instance that is federating with both the mainstream fediverse and anything the mainstream fediverse doesn't like.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#32

Post by icy »

dredmorbius wrote: post #19

There are federated networks which don't allow for centralised access restrictions as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, et al, are evidencing today. But projects such as Mastodon put control in the hands of site or node administrators, and at least on Mastodon, there's an exceedingly healthy culture of blocking sites which themselves advocate oppressive practices. So those looking for an uncensored microphone may be somewha…

> there's an exceedingly healthy culture of blocking sites which themselves advocate oppressive practices

Oppressive, but defined by whom? I've seen arbitrary blocks of instances simply because they run Pleroma or Soapbox. In fact, my own instance was briefly on fediblock.org's list because my bio says "I care about freedom—both in software, and in speech"; the reason stated was "free-speech". That's absurd!

As is often said on the fediverse, some switched over from Twitter due to too much censorship, others due to to little.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#33

Post by app4soft »

viraptor wrote: post #26
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.

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.

So, `@realDonaldTrump` was suspended at least from Mastodon.social.

How many instances left?

How many also suspended `@realDonaldTrump`?

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#34

Post by ryanSrich »

Isn’t everything effectively centralized in so far as a server host can cut your service? Or an ISP? Or even a payment processor? It seems the systems we built are too complex and rely on the judgment of too many humans. Humans that are easily influenced.

Even something like IPFS relies on unrestricted access to the internet. I’m against most government intervention, but requiring certain services to refrain from censorship seems like the only real path to an open web.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#35

Post by wolco5 »

lenkite wrote: post #22
trixie_ wrote: post #21

The web is already decentralized, you are free to setup your own new Twitter website and tell people about it. Want it to be hidden or hard to shutdown? Put it on the dark web. Don’t get sucked into the blockchain buzzword. Blockchain is a solution to a very specific problem / set of requirements. The real problem is that so many people joined a single service in the first place, but that’s up to them and has pros/co…

How do you put something on the "dark web" ? Is it something other than hosting on your PC ?

You host anywhere.

Follow this: https://medium.com/@jasonrigden/how-to-host-a-site-on-the-da...

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#36

Post by dna_polymerase »

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…

> Which means that in practice, it's very debatable how much more free these decentralized platforms are

100% more freedom right there. Freedom doesn't mean you can force me to listen to you. It means I can't force you to stop. What Mastodon enables people to do is a very direct way of stopping conversation with people that can't behave.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#37

Post by systemvoltage »

ignoranceprior wrote: post #2

Mastodon, GNU Social, and the Fediverse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_social https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse The two software systems are compatible (both comply with the OStatus standard) so you can interact with content on servers that use the system. Diaspora also exists, but it's arguably more like Facebook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(soc…

GNU Social is exactly how I imagined it to be.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#38

Post by zoobab »

app4soft wrote: post #33
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.

So, `@realDonaldTrump` was suspended at least from Mastodon.social . How many instances left? How many also suspended `@realDonaldTrump`?

"@realDonaldTrump" will spawn his own blockchain based social network.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#39

Post by zoobab »

ryanSrich wrote: post #34

Isn’t everything effectively centralized in so far as a server host can cut your service? Or an ISP? Or even a payment processor? It seems the systems we built are too complex and rely on the judgment of too many humans. Humans that are easily influenced. Even something like IPFS relies on unrestricted access to the internet. I’m against most government intervention, but requiring certain services to refrain from cen…

IPFS sucks big time, not censorship resistant.

And memory is lost when you do "garbage collect".

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#40

Post by systemvoltage »

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 Australia just diaspored"

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