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Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

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Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#41

Post by espadrine »

xorcist wrote: post #40
fake-name wrote: post #12

If you're thinking about building a distributed social network, you HAVE to have answers to the question: How do you moderate it? (Or how do the users moderate what they consume, if you will) Basically, think of the most annoying person you can imagine, give them infinite free time, and a uncontrollable urge to do EVERYTHING they can think of to make your life miserable on said social network (doxxing, abusive messag…

So, in your view, email and the web are examples of garbage networks? Decentralized networks (such as the web) work differently from centralized network (such as cable TV and Facebook) and have different strategies for coping with misuse. You can not moderate a permissionless network. That's literally part of the meaning. In a decentralized network, I follow you by subscribing to your data. Conversations usually foll…

> So, in your view, email and the web are examples of garbage networks?

Mostly so, but it is worth the trouble.

About 90% of emails I receive are spam. So, email is 90% garbage. The 10% left is the sinews of my life.

Fortunately, the industry found ways to cope, by contributing to mostly centralized DNSBL services such as spamhaus.

The same goes for the Web: centralized services like Google or (is there something else? ) filter out the irrelevant, dangerous, and fake (with varying degrees of success).

Moderation? Inevitable. Distributed moderation? Not so much.

The parent post is right: if you don't make it built-in, it will not be how you like.

Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#42

Post by stareatgoats »

I believe the main problems of "the social network" (FB) can't be solved in this way, it focuses almost entirely on the privacy and "freedom from surveillance" aspect, to the detriment of other vital aspects (like non-anonymity).

What we seem to need is a solution that does what Facebook does right, which corresponds to the networking needs of billions of people, combined with a transparent and ethical content policy approach. Plus: that doesn't leak data at an individual level (except after a court order), to name some of the requirements that seem most important.

On the other hand, a non-corruptible utility-type service like this might be too much to hope for as well ... ?

Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#43

Post by [deleted] »

Alex3917 wrote: post #6

Why not just pay a few bucks a month for a social network, and get all the benefits of centralization without the evils of ad-supported corporations? Most of us here use and trust GitHub, and imho that's what we need more of. While I'm a huge supporter of blockchain projects and their allies, in the case of social networks I don't see how this is going to turn out any differently than FOAF.

[deleted]

Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#44

Post by orbifold »

stareatgoats wrote: post #42

I believe the main problems of "the social network" (FB) can't be solved in this way, it focuses almost entirely on the privacy and "freedom from surveillance" aspect, to the detriment of other vital aspects (like non-anonymity). What we seem to need is a solution that does what Facebook does right, which corresponds to the networking needs of billions of people, combined with a transparent and ethical content policy…

In principle every problem solved by facebook in a centralised fashion has already been solved by phone companies in a decentralised fashion. You can buy one or several numbers, which are quasi anonymous and distribute them to anyone you care to share them with. Noone can easily find you unless you give them that number, it easily possible to separate between work and private numbers and you get a new number if you change your job. Calling by phone is nearly universal as is access to SMS, it already connects all people across the globe without any need to sign up to a centralised service. The only advantage services like WhatsApp and Facebook have is that it is really cheap to communicate over them, whereas the only way of operating a traditional phone service is to charge money.

I think what will eventually happen is that the traditional telco providers will gradually improve their service quality, prices and infrastructure and eliminate the need for parasitic communication platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram by introducing standardised and provider agnostic solutions. For example why not extend the protocol that is used to route phone calls to a protocol that allows to route arbitrary packet or streaming data transfers.

Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#45

Post by stareatgoats »

orbifold wrote: post #44
stareatgoats wrote: post #42

I believe the main problems of "the social network" (FB) can't be solved in this way, it focuses almost entirely on the privacy and "freedom from surveillance" aspect, to the detriment of other vital aspects (like non-anonymity). What we seem to need is a solution that does what Facebook does right, which corresponds to the networking needs of billions of people, combined with a transparent and ethical content policy…

In principle every problem solved by facebook in a centralised fashion has already been solved by phone companies in a decentralised fashion. You can buy one or several numbers, which are quasi anonymous and distribute them to anyone you care to share them with. Noone can easily find you unless you give them that number, it easily possible to separate between work and private numbers and you get a new number if you c…

> "Noone can easily find you unless you give them that number"

Yeah well, finding anyone is not a flaw; it's a one of Facebooks killer features, without which it would not have become the de facto global registry of single individuals.

> "The only advantage services like WhatsApp and Facebook have that it is really cheap"

I believe this is a gross misunderstanding of the utility of social networks compared to older systems like telephony. But granted, the brave new world comes with a number of problems as well.

Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#46

Post by jeswin »

Some of the points made in the "why ipfs" are inaccurate wrt scuttlebutt. Secure Scuttlebutt is a signed immutable log/database of a person's posts, replicated with peers. It is also distributed, instead of federated. (Add:) And because SSB is a database, you could build pretty much any app on top of it.

The SSB network is very active, take a look - https://www.scuttlebutt.nz/

Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#47

Post by orbifold »

stareatgoats wrote: post #45
orbifold wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In principle every problem solved by facebook in a centralised fashion has already been solved by phone companies in a decentralised fashion. You can buy one or several numbers, which are quasi anonymous and distribute them to anyone you care to share them with. Noone can easily find you unless you give them that number, it easily possible to separate between work and private numbers and you get a new number if you c…

> "Noone can easily find you unless you give them that number" Yeah well, finding anyone is not a flaw; it's a one of Facebooks killer features , without which it would not have become the de facto global registry of single individuals. > "The only advantage services like WhatsApp and Facebook have that it is really cheap" I believe this is a gross misunderstanding of the utility of social networks compared to older…

Actually the real name requirement and the fact that anyone could easily find me is what kept me off Facebook, so I don't consider it a killer feature at all. If you know my real name it is easy enough to find me with some additional information on google and get a work email + current office phone number, I don't feel like sharing more than that with random strangers anyways.

Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#48

Post by dingaling »

xorcist wrote: post #40
fake-name wrote: post #12

If you're thinking about building a distributed social network, you HAVE to have answers to the question: How do you moderate it? (Or how do the users moderate what they consume, if you will) Basically, think of the most annoying person you can imagine, give them infinite free time, and a uncontrollable urge to do EVERYTHING they can think of to make your life miserable on said social network (doxxing, abusive messag…

So, in your view, email and the web are examples of garbage networks? Decentralized networks (such as the web) work differently from centralized network (such as cable TV and Facebook) and have different strategies for coping with misuse. You can not moderate a permissionless network. That's literally part of the meaning. In a decentralized network, I follow you by subscribing to your data. Conversations usually foll…

Good examples. Plus Usenet too.

All of the above work by permitting the end-user to moderate to the extent he / she wishes, or not at all.

I had kill-lists for Usenet, I can DNS-blacklist websites I never want to see, I can grey-list or silently drop troublesome e-mailers. No-one makes the choice as to degree or method except me and yet it works.

Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#49

Post by gregknicholson »

tscs37 wrote: post #37
wjnc wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Robert Nozicks' "Anarchy, State and Utopia" (1974) describes how a system of multiple concurring "governments" could work. Quite a stretch from social networks but first thing that came to my mind when reading your comment. Moderation is a form of social network government, right? One could subscribe to a government / moderation scheme and the governments form meta-governments to decide which content from competing g…

That's somewhat what federation solves. You pick out an instance which represents a particular way of moderating. You can still listen in on (most) of the other network. If you don't like the moderation/government of your instance, you pick another.

I like this model, but there's still a bit of unwelcome friction there, at least in Mastodon and Matrix: your identity is tied to your home server.

That could be solved by a robust way of confirming that 2 identities are the same person: so all traffic for user@example.horse is also directed to user@example.golf and vice-versa.

Coming at the same sort of thing from a distributed approach (I'm thinking of Scuttlebutt): you could make it possible to subscribe to another person's followers and blocklist, delegating your moderation to someone else.

I suppose there would soon be well-known and popular options to delegate to, much like popular ad-blocking lists; but still, each person can choose which ones to use.

Re: Blueprint of a distributed social network on IPFS, and its problems

#50

Post by stareatgoats »

orbifold wrote: post #47
stareatgoats wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Noone can easily find you unless you give them that number" Yeah well, finding anyone is not a flaw; it's a one of Facebooks killer features , without which it would not have become the de facto global registry of single individuals. > "The only advantage services like WhatsApp and Facebook have that it is really cheap" I believe this is a gross misunderstanding of the utility of social networks compared to older…

Actually the real name requirement and the fact that anyone could easily find me is what kept me off Facebook, so I don't consider it a killer feature at all. If you know my real name it is easy enough to find me with some additional information on google and get a work email + current office phone number, I don't feel like sharing more than that with random strangers anyways.

Yes, it's a sentiment you share with many here on HN, I'm sure. But Facebook doesn't address our needs primarily; it addresses the networking needs of the average person, which may add up to half the global population or more by the time they are done.

Who can at any time reach out to another average person on the other side of the globe, be it acquaintance or stranger, and discuss matters of mutual interest, without jumping though hoops or even knowing how to google, and (because of the real name policy) be reasonably safe from harassment.

But hey, to each his or her own.

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