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The fact that Donald Trump is the President of the United States should be evidence enough that democracy is in serious danger.
That is democracy working as intended. We have just realized that democracy and widespread, instant communication are incompatible.
I think the idea that Facebook is putting democracy in peril is a bit farfetched.
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>> I think the idea that Facebook is putting democracy in peril is a bit farfetched. Why? History has proven at least a few times that he who controls information can control people, and it never ends well. Even if Facebook is not deliberately trying to implant any ideas or spread misinformation and fake news, its platform can be (and has been, demonstrably) used for this purpose.
There's some irony in the fact that the ongoing scandal is about Facebook partially relinquishing control of information to a third-party (in fact, all third parties), and that the implied remedy was for Facebook to keep total control of information to itself.
Any other social media can be abused in roughly the same way. Twitter has its bot problems, and I'm sure given enough popularity mastodon will face the same issues too.
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> We have just realized that democracy and widespread, instant communication are incompatible. I'd say that's absolutely not true - it's a demonstration that the republic system is broken. He lost the popular vote, yet still won. That's anti-democratic, whilst being pro-republic. True democracy would still work fine if done pragmatically - have people, when registering to vote, be given a PGP key. Have them send in a…
Not sure if you forgot the '/s' tag. Please consider how widely PGP is used, and how capable someone in the bottom decile of technical savvy would be of doing that. I think it is important that our elections use systems that are readily comprehensible to laypeople.
You could make it as simple as downloading an app, going to get you physically registered, having the govt. official input relevant keys into the app, and then:
Type In Your Preferred Candidate Here: [INPUT BOX]
[SEND BUTTON]
With an automatic reply saying "Thank you for voting!" at the end of it.
I'm using an unfederated node of Madtodon running on a Raspberry pi with Let's Encrypt certs as a private family social network. Works well and family response has been massively positive. You can disconnect while staying connected on your own terms.
I fear it might all be plaintext, despite the insanity of doing that in the present post-Snowden world, rather than the appropriate end-to-end combined with point-per-point encryption.
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Comments like yours are tiring an meaningless. Facebook and Google have their tentacles in nearly everything . If you want to get a message out, it's going to intersect with their platforms in some way, even if you're directly criticizing them. AFAIK, there are no purist corners at this time that attract enough eyeballs.
"Tiring and meaningless" eh? As opposed to your meaningful and engaging strawman reply? Even if it were true that an essay or article couldn't be disseminated effectively without Facebook getting involved at some point, it doesn't mean that readers must be burdened with a popup that asks them to log in to Facebook before viewing.
IMHO, those comments might as well be "First Post!" for all they add.
> it doesn't mean that readers must be burdened with a popup that asks them to log in to Facebook before viewing.
The first step to that world is getting people off Facebook so it's not so ubiquitous that making a request like that seems reasonable.
I think the idea that Facebook is putting democracy in peril is a bit farfetched.
I'm using an unfederated node of Madtodon running on a Raspberry pi with Let's Encrypt certs as a private family social network. Works well and family response has been massively positive. You can disconnect while staying connected on your own terms.
That's intriguing. You're just hosting it at your house? How hard was it to convince your family members to try using it?
Convincing - tried it with just my partner first and smoothed out some rough edges. I then sent a group email to extended family that included a brief justification, some screen shots of it in action, a picture of the actual server, and an offer to create an account for them. Transparency, ease of use, and privacy were all important factors.
Most live far away and have griped about various facets of Facebook but felt like it was a necessary evil. This has been a good alternative for daily communication, discussions about weather and children, and so forth. The closest to game support is sharing crossword solving times with a hashtag.