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Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

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Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#321

Post by ookie »

jstanley wrote: post #298
profalseidol wrote: post #262

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the near future, use DApps (Decentralized Applications) a few of them are already up and running.

I like the prospect of DApps with the client-side code served out of IPFS, and the backend on Ethereum.

Yeah, I completely agree. There are already some services in this space trying to combat filter bubbles and walled gardens, Akasha [https://akasha.world/] for social networks, DNN Media [http://dnn.media/] for news and Lemon Email [https://ipfs.io/ipns/dapp.lemon.email/#/] (dApp and the full beta version) for email system. The last one is completely in line of what you're talking about. I like the approach through blockchain systems because, if used properly, they have the potential to become direction in favor of democratization and decentralization of information.

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#322

Post by mikegerwitz »

Talk to others. More importantly, learn _how_ to talk to others. Know your audience. Learn what examples turn people on and off---what gets their attention vs. what sounds like a parent lecturing to their child. You don't want to put people on the defensive. Learn how to relate it to them. Learn how to make them _understand_ the problem and why it's important---otherwise they won't care, or if they do, it'll be short-lived.

Speak at events/conferences. Speaking generally to a broad audience with broad information and hard-hitting references not only gets the message out, but also makes it more difficult to make someone feel targeted, like you might one-on-one or in a small group.

I target two groups: technical people who can actually do something about it and teach others (but might not care or be aware of the issues), and average users and groups who might know or not care. Talking to your family and friends (and spouse) helps gain great insight on what people are thinking without quickly ending the conversation if it makes them uncomfortable. As does HN. ;)

Talk to groups you _know_ will be hostile to you. Learn common rebuttals. Learn how to respond to them. And harden yourself with relentless attacks on your facts and opinions.

Offering practical alternatives is difficult. Even if you can, people want to socialize where others socialize---I'm not going to get my friends all on GNU Social or Mastodon (or the fediverse in general) for example. Work security and privacy into their current practices the best you can understanding that compromise is _essential_. Maybe they can transition further in the long-term as they get used to certain ideas.

I encounter similar issues (and get a lot of practice with it) with free software activism---getting people to care about and understand software freedom is far more of a difficult battle than getting someone to care and understand about privacy and security issues.

For those looking for some resources to get them started:

https://mikegerwitz.com/projects/sapsf/plain/sapsf.bib https://mikegerwitz.com/talks/sapsf.pdf

And this is an _excellent_ resource:

http://crackedlabs.org/en/networksofcontrol

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#323

Post by blablabla123 »

intended wrote: post #299
blablabla123 wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When there was Windows 98 and ME 'we' thought the Microsoft's proprietary systems are the dominant platform. Maayybe Linux would win but being so difficult to even install, little chance someone outside of the IT world could productively use it, like install an Application, print something. Fast forward 15 years: many surprises happened, non-IT people don't even think of buying desktop computers. Laptops are borderli…

Bit hard to think positive when all of the bad things have been replaced by worse things. If things continue on this trajectory its going to be even worse,

I mean Windows 9x/XP, was this for me: my CD-ROM drive one time stopped working for 3 weeks, then, without doing anything it worked again. Or I had this weird boot error that also over the course of weeks, the boot process would be faster when opening and closing the CD-ROM drive during the Windows splash.

Oh man, or like you edit something in Office or, say Paintshop Pro, and the program just crashes, all data lost. Haha, or you boot and the filesystem is corrupt and you need to run chkdsk or whatever the name was. My god, Windows used to be such a bad operation environment. The worst where Microsoft's world domination tactics, pushing vendor lock to the limit and at the same time making the competion's life so hard that even international courts go to action.

Seriously, computing has become soooooo much become since Windows is not the dominant OS anymore. Many people are so lucky to have never used Windows, others like me might have stopped using it when it refused booting for good. (Becoming sentimental, thinking of my Windows XP/Ubuntu dual boot. The XP just showed a blue screen at some point. After that I stopped using Windows for almost 10 years. :-D)

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#324

Post by marcosdumay »

I was writing an email extension for private communication, and easier sharing and organization of things¹... But then there was an epidemics of first instance judges blocking private messaging systems on my country.

I'm currently waiting for our supreme court to decide if judges have that power before I spend more time on it (or not). Maybe I'll have my answer next week.

1 - https://sealgram.com/blog/yep-im-rewriting-email.html

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#325

Post by mxuribe »

jfktrey wrote: post #47
menacingly wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had no idea these standards were in any phase of existence and I'm really excited about them.

Existing is one thing. Adoption is something else entirely.

There are certainly adopters, some (who even leverage plugins such as via wordpress) may not even know that they're adopters. If you're interested, i encourage you to follow along in the discussion (through various means - e.g. irc, matrix, etc.): https://indieweb.org/discuss

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#326

Post by mondoshawan »

sumeno wrote: post #192
andrewwharton wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one said anything about hosting your own email or making your own website. eg. My wife has a small business with an online store hosted on Shopify and her email provider is Gmail. But her website is www.her_domain.com and her email address is @her_domain.com. She can easily switch out her providers and her contact addresses don't change. No real tech knowledge needed except for how to register a domain name and fo…

Registering a domain name may as well be magic to a large portion of the population.

So what can we do to make this simpler? Make the technology easier to understand?

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#327

Post by NoGravitas »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #313
NoGravitas wrote: post #311

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about indieauth[0]? Indieauth lets you authenticate to websites based on your control of a website you specify (via rel=me links). [0]: https://indieauth.com/

I haven't fully read your link yet, but wasn't that the point of the original opened spec too?

Yes? But indieauth does not require you to personally run an auth server, which makes it easier to adopt. Basically it will search through different online identities that you list on your home page and letting you choose any of their OAuth services.

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#328

Post by mxuribe »

mbrock wrote: post #52

I'm a resident in a "neighborhood activist collective" and I made a self-hosted web site for the house. Now it's expanding into a web app that's a tool for the organization (planning, etc). It's also being set up for similar houses in the same city, and we plan to make it into a kind of federated small-scale "social network" built around our own principles and premises. Another aspect of the project comes from a "hou…

Are there opportunities to cross-pollinate your efforts with GNU social? Sort of best-of-both-federated-worlds? See https://gnu.io/social/

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#329

Post by pikachuaintcool »

beefman wrote: post #155

It's too late. The culture of free exchange that existed on the usenet, over e-mail, and on the early web died circa 2013. It's tempting to blame Google and Facebook, and they definitely converted a lot of public value into private value. But I suspect it's mainly down to self-selection bias of internet early-adopters. I call the present state of affairs "eternal October".

Why do you say 2013?

Re: Ask HN: What are we doing about Facebook, Google, and the closed internet?

#330

Post by staticelf »

jgaa wrote: post #261

Me? I don't use Facebook. I consider Google evil and harmful and avoid them. On my phone I run my own apps, and apps from F-Droid - I don't even register with Google. I have a shit-list of companies I will never work for (Oracle, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and every Government entity anywhere in the world). I browse the net from VM's with specific purposes (one for HN). I use Tor for most browsing, including re…

That sounds incredible time consuming and very frustrating. How do you manage to stay so hostile against everything around you?

Do you never wake up and just feel depressed about the state of things? Ever wanted to just say fuck it and create a facebook account?

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