Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival • Hacker News Board

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#311

Post by JohnFen » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

halbritt wrote: post #52

ishanjain28 wrote: post #25

This just makes me think why do I need a social network. I never did anything remotely useful on Facebook/Instagram(Although, Twitter is useful). Why would I want to use this?

In the bay area, I have hundreds of acquaintances that are burners, hippies, makers, etc. I've been keeping up with these folks for nearly two decades now and would like to continue to do so as they have enriched my life immeasurably. Many of us get together on at least a yearly basis and often do special events together. All the other tools that we would've used to communicate and coordinate with each other have die…

That's too bad.

I'm lucky -- in my area, the burners, hippies, and makers don't use Facebook for coordination. They have mailing lists for that.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#312

Post by hutzlibu » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:41 PM UTC

AndrewStephens wrote: post #300

ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please. What Reddit and similar sites bring to the table is a single pool of authenticated users. Once a user is logged into Reddit, posting on different subreddits is frictionless. Even with oauth and the like, it is hard to replicate that with a distributed set of sites.

"There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please"

But can your grandmother do this ... or just the common person?

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#313

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

AndrewStephens wrote: post #300

ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please. What Reddit and similar sites bring to the table is a single pool of authenticated users. Once a user is logged into Reddit, posting on different subreddits is frictionless. Even with oauth and the like, it is hard to replicate that with a distributed set of sites.

Could something like keybase be adapted for this purpose?

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#314

Post by jacquesm » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

hutzlibu wrote: post #312

AndrewStephens wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please. What Reddit and similar sites bring to the table is a single pool of authenticated users. Once a user is logged into Reddit, posting on different subreddits is frictionless. Even with oauth and the like, it is hard to replicate that with a distributed set of sites.

"There already is a decentralized Reddit where subreddits are called websites and anyone can start one and run it as they please" But can your grandmother do this ... or just the common person?

Once upon a time, yes.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#315

Post by zionic » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #303

ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

One of the reasons that reddit can avoid 'blog spam' is because as a centralized service, they can control user registration and take measures to prevent bots from signing up for thousands of accounts and upvoting their spam. How would this be prevented in a decentralized system? Spammers would join the network, create thousands of bots, and upvote all their spam.

I wonder if crypto could play into this. Blockchain prevents sybil attacks by making interaction not free so that large scale influence is incredibly expensive.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#316

Post by devinjflick » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:47 PM UTC

jeena wrote: post #83

realbarack wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel the same. I find social networks pretty valuable but don't like or trust Facebook. I'd happily sign up (and pay for) a social network that brought the same benefits but was (1.) ad-free and (2.) didn't employ tons of people trying to maximize my engagement.

Then check out https://joinmastodon.org/ you can either host it yourself or join someone else's server where you can either pay/donate or just use it for free.

So mastondon is an open source twitter clone right? is there anything out there yet or in the works that is more in line with Facebook's product offerings with out the surveillance and tracking?

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#317

Post by mdgrech23 » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

zionic wrote: post #315

cortesoft wrote: post #303

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the reasons that reddit can avoid 'blog spam' is because as a centralized service, they can control user registration and take measures to prevent bots from signing up for thousands of accounts and upvoting their spam. How would this be prevented in a decentralized system? Spammers would join the network, create thousands of bots, and upvote all their spam.

I wonder if crypto could play into this. Blockchain prevents sybil attacks by making interaction not free so that large scale influence is incredibly expensive.

I mean couldn't you just require a phone number for all accounts?

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#318

Post by devinjflick » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

thekyle wrote: post #202

jasondclinton wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was on Mastodon for more than a year and loved it: great conversation that reminded me of the hope and promise of the Internet in the late 90's. Then my instance admin went AWOL, the site crashed, and all of my data and social graph were lost. I still can't get the admin to respond to emails. I could host my own server but who really has the technical know-how and time to do that kind of work? Mastodon has got to s…

Yeah part of the problem with Mastodon is trusting that you're instance will stick around. The only ways I can think to do that are: 1. Host it yourself 2. Use one of the paid instances backed by an established company (I use Librem Social) Perhaps over time some ad supported Mastodon instances will pop up for those willing to pay that way.

Does mastodon have a tool that can create regular back ups to email to you??? Seems relevant for a common problem like this

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#319

Post by zanny » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:49 PM UTC

cortesoft wrote: post #303

ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

One of the reasons that reddit can avoid 'blog spam' is because as a centralized service, they can control user registration and take measures to prevent bots from signing up for thousands of accounts and upvoting their spam. How would this be prevented in a decentralized system? Spammers would join the network, create thousands of bots, and upvote all their spam.

Instances can A. block bots on themselves, B. block other instances known to harbor bots the same way they ban bots on their own instances, and if necessary C. whitelist federation if there is a pandemic of hostile actors.

Re: Jimmy Wales has quietly launched a Facebook rival

#320

Post by zionic » Fri, Nov 15, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

smt88 wrote: post #298

ratfaced-guy wrote: post #294

What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs. Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content. I actually find Reddit to be a better source of information and knowledge than Google at this point, mostly because Google has been inundated with paid blog-spam. It's a bit harder to get away with that in Reddit (for the time being, and for whatever reason).

> What I want is a decentralized Reddit not under the control of advertising needs Isn't this basically what Disqus was trying to do? There were a lot of these. I think moderation ended up being a huge problem that none solved. > Reddit redesign has been bad for quality content I've had the opposite experience. I only started browsing reddit after advertisers forced them to purge the most toxic users/content from the…

> I only started browsing reddit after advertisers forced them to purge the most toxic users/content from the site.

Reddit, as a site, is built around you having to subscribe to things to see it on your front page.

Are you saying that opinions you disagree with (toxic) merely existing invisibly prevents you from using a platform? Because if that's not the case you were never forced to interact with those subs unless you explicitly sought them out. The one exception would be /r/all, but again the default is your "home" page so you'd never see that content.