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Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

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Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

#11

Post by i_am_nomad »

dragonwriter wrote: post #9
scottlocklin wrote: post #7

I've said this 1000 times, but garbage like Facebook or Twitter could be replaced overnight by a protocol. There is really zero reason it couldn't be built from existing distributed tooling, be secure and just as useful without lizard people getting in the way.

> I've said this 1000 times, but garbage like Facebook or Twitter could be replaced overnight by a protocol. No, it couldn't, and saying it more won't make it any more true. That is, sure, you can design a protocol that supports manpy of the same basic functions (and such protocols exist already), but centralized governance is ultimately part of what people want, or at least essential to stop a social network into de…

Neither of you have provided any meaningful arguments to support your positions.

I would say that Mastodon is an example that supports the OP’s point. But in the real, practical world, a social network needs investment and marketing to catch on and extend to a useful amount of people. So in that sense, you’re correct as well.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

#12

Post by rolleiflex »

joe_the_user wrote: post #2

What I'd like to see is a model where you a federated network of moderated groups. Something like Discord except more micro-blog than chat and where you can see popular posts of sister/brother servers, very popular posts on cousin servers and so-forth. Basically, a filter-tree keeping things reasonable and creating groups of folks with some relation to each other.

I made something like this, called Aether. (https://getaether.net) It’s not federated, but distributed / fully serverless.

It has already made its way up here on HN a few times already, this was the latest one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19161171

The protocol underlying Aether is called Mim, and it’s close to what the article is asking for: https://getaether.net/docs/developers/

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

#13

Post by gaogao »

scottlocklin wrote: post #7

I've said this 1000 times, but garbage like Facebook or Twitter could be replaced overnight by a protocol. There is really zero reason it couldn't be built from existing distributed tooling, be secure and just as useful without lizard people getting in the way.

Mastodon does exist and isn't perfect in all regards.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

#14

Post by dragonwriter »

i_am_nomad wrote: post #11
dragonwriter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've said this 1000 times, but garbage like Facebook or Twitter could be replaced overnight by a protocol. No, it couldn't, and saying it more won't make it any more true. That is, sure, you can design a protocol that supports manpy of the same basic functions (and such protocols exist already), but centralized governance is ultimately part of what people want, or at least essential to stop a social network into de…

Neither of you have provided any meaningful arguments to support your positions. I would say that Mastodon is an example that supports the OP’s point. But in the real, practical world, a social network needs investment and marketing to catch on and extend to a useful amount of people. So in that sense, you’re correct as well.

> I would say that Mastodon is an example that supports the OP’s point.

I would say Mastodon’s degree of success in replacing Facebook, etc., is an example which refutes OP’s point. (Also, Mastodon is more than just a protocol, but even if you ignore that...)

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

#16

Post by patrickaljord »

The "Protocols, Not Platforms" debate is naive and misses the point. Here is why:

- Let's say someone builds a social network protocol (including messaging, photo sharing etc).

- Let's be generous and say this protocol becomes so successful it turns into a de facto standards.

- The market will rush to build the best client for the protocol. Facebook, Google, maybe an outsider will come up with the best client that has all the features and added goodies (magic emojis, special video effects, something new etc).

- People wanting to get on the networks will never google the protocol just like people who want to get an email client do not google "imap". They just google the most popular client such as gmail.

- Overtime, the most popular client will get a quasi-monopoly and will become incompatible with the rest of clients, no one will notice except for us nerds on HN.

- This already happened with xmpp (facebook messenger, google hangouts and others used to be on xmpp).

Now you might say, "but how about email"? Well, first of all, email is an oligopoly and it's practically impossible for individuals to set up their own servers and expect their emails to get delivered all of the time. So I wouldn't call email such a great success story. Another thing is that email is work oriented and so it makes sense to keep compatibility between businesses. Email also arrived very early and had time to spread slowly at the beginning of the internet among various small to big players, which explains why no company could take over it.

For all these reasons, I do not believe in a magical protocol that would save us from big tech. The protocol in itself would not be enough. A non-profit would need to be in charge of the most popular client such as Mozilla with Firefox, but even then this did not turned out as expected although Chromium is open source so yay.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

#17

Post by dragonwriter »

naringas wrote: post #10
dragonwriter wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've said this 1000 times, but garbage like Facebook or Twitter could be replaced overnight by a protocol. No, it couldn't, and saying it more won't make it any more true. That is, sure, you can design a protocol that supports manpy of the same basic functions (and such protocols exist already), but centralized governance is ultimately part of what people want, or at least essential to stop a social network into de…

why not? it certainly is technically feasable

> it certainly is technically feasable

It's technically feasible to build a protocol that supports the distributing social status updates group chat, direct messaging, etc.; many such things are around, some are, IIRC, older than Facebook.

The product Facebook, and why people use it, is more than just that technical underpinning, but involves active management. A protocol doesn't replace that, and a distributed protocol where nodes do their own active management, while possible, isn't a stable equilibrium. Which we've seen with open protocols in spaces related to what Facebook does many, many times already.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

#19

Post by wmf »

patrickaljord wrote: post #16

The "Protocols, Not Platforms" debate is naive and misses the point. Here is why: - Let's say someone builds a social network protocol (including messaging, photo sharing etc). - Let's be generous and say this protocol becomes so successful it turns into a de facto standards. - The market will rush to build the best client for the protocol. Facebook, Google, maybe an outsider will come up with the best client that ha…

So the outcome of this would be that Nazis wouldn't be banned from the protocol but the client(s) that 99% of people use would not display anything the Nazis post (Mastodon is getting there already). Sounds fine to me but it would probably just shift the debate from deplatforming to client-stealth-banning.

Re: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

#20

Post by patrickaljord »

wmf wrote: post #19
patrickaljord wrote: post #16

The "Protocols, Not Platforms" debate is naive and misses the point. Here is why: - Let's say someone builds a social network protocol (including messaging, photo sharing etc). - Let's be generous and say this protocol becomes so successful it turns into a de facto standards. - The market will rush to build the best client for the protocol. Facebook, Google, maybe an outsider will come up with the best client that ha…

So the outcome of this would be that Nazis wouldn't be banned from the protocol but the client(s) that 99% of people use would not display anything the Nazis post (Mastodon is getting there already). Sounds fine to me but it would probably just shift the debate from deplatforming to client-stealth-banning.

No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying the most popular client will make its protocol proprietary and incompatible with any other clients, nazi or not. And no one will notice. Just like no one noticed when google hangouts or facebook messenger dropped xmpp.
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