Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives? • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#81

Post by viraptor » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:12 AM UTC

app4soft wrote: post #68

viraptor wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He can afford his own instance which will never block him. Let's not pretend he's being stopped from running an independent social broadcast. It doesn't matter how many instances block him - nobody can be forced to listen to him.

> He can afford his own instance which will never block him. Yeah, something like Hillary Clinton's private email server , right?

Not sure what you're trying to say, but it sounds like a bad take. Pick any/all reasons:

- Trump family also using private email server for gov communication

- Implying that a random Mastodon instance on the internet would be more trusted than his own

- Implying that it matters at all for posting public messages or is similar in any way to private messages

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#82

Post by StanislavPetrov » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:14 AM UTC

Hive is a decentralized, blockchain based alternative, though the layout resembles Reddit a bit more than Hive. There are a variety of front ends people use to connect to the Hive blockchain (and you can create your own, if you're so inclined).

PeakD is one of the most popular and user-friendly ways to connect, and they have a bunch of links on their front page that have a lot more information:

https://peakd.com/

Direct link:

https://hive.blog/

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#83

Post by dane-pgp » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:14 AM UTC

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #28

015UUZn8aEvW wrote: post #18

the world wide web?

Yes, but no. I think what people are really looking for is some kind of software platform that allows them to put up their own website , so nobody else can delete it out from under them, but also have some kind of interaction with other people with their own independent sites. So that they can press a button and "retweet" something someone else said, or reply to it without creating a new account on the site of everyb…

> Maybe something like Namecoin but for usernames.

I seriously think that solving decentralized identity (and trust) is the most important current goal in the field of online technology. Once it is solved, all future innovations become ten times easier to implement and adopt. That's probably an exaggeration, but it could certainly be a more foundational technology than cryptocurrency, for example.

Anyway, to get a sense of the state of the art, I recommend this paper[0] from late last year. To pick just one of the approaches discussed in it, let me mention BrightID which is documented here[1].

[0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.05300.pdf

[1] https://brightid.gitbook.io/brightid/

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#84

Post by systemvoltage » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:19 AM UTC

krallja wrote: post #80

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…

Mastodon posts are toots

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

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#85

Post by neilpanchal » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:21 AM UTC

jcranmer wrote: post #74

neilpanchal wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tilable interface, requires days to set it up, tweet with i "Hello World!" t, native vim keymap support, and hard to quit.

> tweet with i "Hello World!" t, native vim keymap support vim is not GNU, emacs is. That means it would actually be Hello World! , and the documentation would have a lengthy section on what the "Meta" key is and why not just call it "Alt".

That's unnecessarily complicated. The vim way is better.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#86

Post by icy » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:24 AM UTC

MeinBlutIstBlau wrote: post #58

vimy wrote: post #7

https://getaether.net is decentralized reddit.

I've used it and unfortunately nobody is on it. Not even for boring discussions. Imo your best bet nowadays is to find obscure discord servers. it has wide adoption and doesn't have mass appeal since each server casts its net only as wide as it's admins can reach.

Discord is neither decentralized nor censorship resistant. Discord (the company) has full control over what is allowed to be discussed on there.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#87

Post by salamanderman » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:28 AM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #84

krallja wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mastodon posts are toots

+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."

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#88

Post by app4soft » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:29 AM UTC

viraptor wrote: post #81

app4soft wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He can afford his own instance which will never block him. Yeah, something like Hillary Clinton's private email server , right?

Not sure what you're trying to say, but it sounds like a bad take. Pick any/all reasons: - Trump family also using private email server for gov communication - Implying that a random Mastodon instance on the internet would be more trusted than his own - Implying that it matters at all for posting public messages or is similar in any way to private messages

> Not sure what you're trying to say

I'm not trying to say, I'm just saying!

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#89

Post by robertheadley » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:31 AM UTC

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.

Re: Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

#90

Post by ahurmazda » Sat, Jan 09, 2021, 5:33 AM UTC

pokstad wrote: post #71

hombre_fatal wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is already how people use social media like Instagram and features like Stories only viewable to your list of special friends. It’s pretty old hat by now. I use Facebook and Stories every day (Stories seem lame but are too useful for, say, meeting women, to dismiss) but if you went to my profile you’d think I haven’t used Facebook in seven years. In case you don’t know, the Stories system replicated on every soc…

That’s not encrypted and free from censorship.

Are you willing to pay for such a service? More importantly, are you willing and able to convince enough of your network to pay for it?

Otherwise, any system will asymptotically look like Twitter/Blah. You could very well use your group chat feature on regular cell phone as a start (takes care of the payment aspect). But soon you or your friends will want feature X. So, cough up more $$ again.

Another option is to cultivate real life friends/family that you can hang out with, chat, share photos in the privacy of your home/blah (wait till covid passes please).