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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

#81

Post by teleclimber »

I'm kind of baffled that this article did not start with a statement of the problem, and doesn't even consider other technologies. Instead it goes straight to IPFS as the technological answer without bothering to define the kind of social network they are trying to build.

A "social network" can mean very different things to different people. Even among FB users you find a very wide range of primary use cases.

So if you're going to propose a new social network at least start by defining the desired characteristics of your network, and even more importantly in this day and age, talk about the kinds of threats you are going to defend against and those you won't.

Then you can explore possible technologies to see what fits best. And if you did that you might come across the DAT protocol[0] and find it's better suited than IPFS.

Characteristics I'd like to see discussed before launching into a solution:

- Is this meant for users to connect to wide audiences (like Twitter, Reddit), or is it meant for me to keep up with my known friends/acquaintances privately?

- what features are you going for? Groups? Events? Chat? Just basic timeline?

- What's the visibility model? If a friend replies to your post, does that mean friends of that friend see your post? [there are hundreds of questions similar to this one. laying out some general principles before starting on the solution seems like a good idea]

- is end-to-end encryption supported? How do you limit the distribution of private information when many of these decentralized protocols assume that knowing an unguessable url is enough to get the contents at the url.

Anyways sorry if this comes off as grumpy.

[0] https://datproject.org/

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

#82

Post by teleclimber »

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)…

> I like this model, but there's still a bit of unwelcome friction there

I remember being really frustrated and annoyed when I tried to sign up for Mastodon. Trying to decide what instance to sign up with by looking at a list of possible instances, where they all look the same, and knowing basically nothing about how Masto even really worked was just stupid.

Personally I think the federated model, as it has been implemented, is not a good solution. It just adds complexity and confusion.

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

#83

Post by eitland »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
evolve2k wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you pay to be a power user who can invite and manage say a dozen family & friends? In this model it might be possible to assist uptake by having a class of power user who can manage their group over onto an ad free network. Example: I have a private github account with repos I share with various friends who are not paying github users but are nonetheless now engaged in the github platform.

Yes, this is an under-appreciated idea that may be critical to having the whole thing work. If it's a paid service users should be able to pay for other users to use it.

WhatsApp had this. :-/

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

#84

Post by Eric_WVGG »

eitland wrote: post #80
jancsika wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused-- I thought all these HN posts about federation and distribution were appearing because Facebook looked like it could be crumbling. Facebook got its start for one reason and one reason only-- you could use it to find Waldo. Are you saying that global discoverability is not a valuable feature of a usable social network?

> Facebook got its start for one reason and one reason only-- you could use it to find Waldo. I though vanity was the main driver for Facebook adoption?

That was later. The original driver was “hey all my family and friends I lost touch with are right here.”

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

#85

Post by teleclimber »

amelius wrote: post #70
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…

> Basically, think of the most annoying person you can imagine I'd change that into companies or even governments that actively try to subvert your system.

You need to defend against both. Heck, if your social network ever becomes popular you'll need to deal with:

- fake instances / relays meant to vacuum personal data for sale and profit - identity thieves, both the broad-and-shallow, and the target-a-specific person kind - governments who got a taste of being a surveillance state thanks to FB and now can't kick the habit - massive numbers of people who decide to mess with someone at once (like when Twitter or 4ch put a bullseye on some person, whether it's deserved or not) - bots. bots bots bots. - maybe your client is super tight and solid, but what if company X decides to fork your client and lures people into using it? Now they have access to each user's stuff, and all their friends? Nice.

Obviously you can't realistically defend agains all of that. But it's worth thinking how best to mitigate before launching.

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

#86

Post by ColinWright »

alexandercrohde wrote: post #59
espadrine wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

  > ... get less than 1% spam,
  > handled by gmail spam filtering.
I'm starting to see more and more reports of people having their emails automatically go to gmail spam folders, unless the emails are coming from gmail itself. I've seen both sides of this - gmail regularly bins emails I sent from a non-gmail account, and my gmail accounts regularly bin genuine emails from non-gmail accounts, but apparently never from gmail accounts.

It's almost like there's a pervasive force, trying to make people use gmail.

I, for one, don't trust gmail at all any more.

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

#87

Post by acdha »

dozzie wrote: post #58
acdha wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Usenet, MUDs, etc. are interesting as examples which were simultaneously well-known but also strangely ignored as precedents for a lot of the bad behaviour we've seen on a much larger scale.

I think in a way those early examples might have held recognition back because a lot of the most authoritative people had learned “no big deal” back in the era when the Internet wasn't integral to our lives and harassment techniques were far more primitive and less routine (pre-SWATing, revenge porn, social network-driven harassment of people you actually known, etc.), and because so many of the people involved were affluent white men who just didn't tend to attract the kind of persistent hate campaigns which became famous years later. Kathy Sierra should have been a wakeup call but a lot of people shrugged and said “don't feed the trolls” as if that was useful.

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

#88

Post by guiambros »

eitland wrote: post #80
jancsika wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm confused-- I thought all these HN posts about federation and distribution were appearing because Facebook looked like it could be crumbling. Facebook got its start for one reason and one reason only-- you could use it to find Waldo. Are you saying that global discoverability is not a valuable feature of a usable social network?

> Facebook got its start for one reason and one reason only-- you could use it to find Waldo. I though vanity was the main driver for Facebook adoption?

In the beginning there was no news feed, so Facebook really got its start thanks to people wanting to get in touch with friends and family.

The news feed (and consequently vanity, people begging for attention etc) came much later.

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

#89

Post by fake-name »

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…

No, but they're not social networks.

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

#90

Post by pjkundert »

The problem is, moderation is actually a poor solution to the real problem - equal visibility of ignorant/vile and insightful comments.

https://pol.is/home presents a more viable option. But people self-grouping (eg. vile people only seeing other vile people) could also create echo-chambers.

For example, as a libertarian I’d love to see comments by anyone with “skin in the game” - regardless of political bent. How could we achieve that?

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