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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

#51

Post by tscs37 »

gregknicholson wrote: post #49
tscs37 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)…

IIRC people on mastodon are working on making an identity independent of the home server so you can migrate elsewhere.

I don't think subscribing to moderation is particularly useful, I considered such an approach at some point but the approach fragments the network too much (IMO)

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

#52

Post by jsilence »

gregknicholson wrote: post #49
tscs37 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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)…

Red Matrix, a descendant of friendica, not to be confused with matrix, solves this with portable profiles. The account is tied to an instance, but your profile is liberated:

https://redmatrix.info/help/accounts_profiles_channels_basic...

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

#53

Post by kromem »

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…

This is really more of a client issue than a server issue.

In a distributed scheme, people I "block" or even content I filter out should only happen in regards to me fetching content from the distributed network.

In particular, if the content pathways are P2P (which they should be, even if other measures in place such as relays or caching), inappropriate content ends up being reduced by a result of less peers propagating.

Once the right solution appears for the network, ideally there will be multiple clients working through the UX of using the network.

Personally the best I've seen in this space is Secure Scuttlebutt. I just wish they'd drop the write only aspect for the log, and switch pubs over to acting as relays.

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

#55

Post by acdha »

kromem wrote: post #53
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…

This is really more of a client issue than a server issue. In a distributed scheme, people I "block" or even content I filter out should only happen in regards to me fetching content from the distributed network. In particular, if the content pathways are P2P (which they should be, even if other measures in place such as relays or caching), inappropriate content ends up being reduced by a result of less peers propaga…

Think a little more deviously: you block someone but your personal data, slanderous fakes, etc. is still out there. They can’t message you directly but can send it to everyone you interact with. They can setup new accounts faster than you can block them and those could either swamp a target or try to impersonate them so it’s hard for the target to have any unpoisoned interactions.

A client side solution can’t stop any of that. Anyone thinking about social software needs to look at what motivated assholes like 4chan have done and think about how they’d stop the next weev, GamerGate, etc. If you don’t have a good answer all you’re doing is building weapons for them.

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

#56

Post by ema »

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…

Sometimes I do want to see the messages of people I did not subscribe to. For example when they reply to my message. In this case I need to have some filtering (read: moderation) system in place that ensures I do not get overwhelmed with spam, or gore[1] for that matter.

[1] of course the beauty of a distributed system is that those who want to see gore can not be denied this right.

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

#57

Post by douglaswlance »

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…

I believe we should look to the human brain to discover how it filters out noise; then try to replicate in our human-scale networks.

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

#58

Post by dozzie »

acdha wrote: post #55
kromem wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is really more of a client issue than a server issue. In a distributed scheme, people I "block" or even content I filter out should only happen in regards to me fetching content from the distributed network. In particular, if the content pathways are P2P (which they should be, even if other measures in place such as relays or caching), inappropriate content ends up being reduced by a result of less peers propaga…

Think a little more deviously: you block someone but your personal data, slanderous fakes, etc. is still out there. They can’t message you directly but can send it to everyone you interact with. They can setup new accounts faster than you can block them and those could either swamp a target or try to impersonate them so it’s hard for the target to have any unpoisoned interactions. A client side solution can’t stop an…

> Think a little more deviously: you block someone but your personal data, slanderous fakes, etc. is still out there. They can’t message you directly but can send it to everyone you interact with.

Also known as "please don't pull this idiot out of my killfile" problem known on the usenet for decades. Maybe you won't see the messages directly, but most probably you will see the quotes of the messages.

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

#59

Post by alexandercrohde »

espadrine wrote: post #41
xorcist wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 els…

You're speaking way too strongly. Email is a huge success, it's potentially the most successful network. I've had my email address over a decade and get less than 1% spam, handled by gmail spam filtering.

You can say that you personally want moderation in your networks, but you have no basis to make general claims about moderation being necessary.

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

#60

Post by alexandercrohde »

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…

I'd be content to have a feature where I give the network a salted hash of my name (i'll hash it myself on my own machine), as a lookup. This way I can be discovered by only people who I want to discover me (I give the salt to my email contacts, put it on my blog, or use no-salt if I want).
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