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Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

platformer.news

231–240 of 361 posts

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If meta wanted to do something amazing. It'd enforce one reality tunnel on the networks. Rather than have a base set of rules. Have a base set of news and facts that everyone shares in. Just no. I don't want any large corporation to determine what the "news and facts" are -- and particularly not Facebook.

> Just no. I don't want any large corporation to determine what the "news and facts" are -- and particularly not Facebook. Its... a fairly common thing for big corporations to do.

Indeed it is. Doesn't mean I'm willing to go along with more of it.

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#232
post #83

What if, and hear me out: we ditch the idea of a better replacement social network and just ditch the concept in general? Let’s go back to not being bombarded by ads every 3rd post, to not getting lost in massive echo chambers, to not doom scrolling for 20-40% of our waking hours, being locked into mega platforms, etc... Is the proposition of “being more connected” really worth the downsides?

> What if, and hear me out: we ditch the idea of a better replacement social network and just ditch the concept in general? Good luck with that. Social networks is an idea that is as old as the Internet. MySpace and Facebook were merely a step in a progression that included IRC, Usenet, email. Arguably hypertext itself. If you're not connecting people, what is the point of the Internet?

Don't forget CompuServe and Prodigy, which predates the consumer internet. Back in the late '80s my parents subscribed to these, and I would read and post on their comic book forums, arguing about which super hero could beat who.

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#233
post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Obviously the utilization of social networks is fundamental to social engagement in modern life. That is not obvious at all. I think it's not even true.

It's so non-obvious that 60% of the entire population of the Earth uses it.

That doesn't support the thesis that it's "fundamental to social engagement". I understand that it actually may be in some places, but I haven't seen a reason to think that's the most common case.

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#234

Yeah. Meta is hiring, Meta is firing, Meta is about to publish their first coloring book, ML models available, discount mattresses, the boss-lost-his-mind-everything-has-to-go, Meta is taking VR to the next level, Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network. Sure, sure. Good luck, Meta!

The bastardization of the term "decentralized" in this post has energy levels over 9000 for sure. Should be flagged as click-bait.

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I like the metaphor. Next, people think “we need AirBnB! Not stodgy old hotels, but cool, real homes owned by real people, where individuals can provide hospitality to each other and everyone wins.” Consequence: independent operators take on the soulless characteristics of hotels but without the accountability or reliability. I can see us entering the AirBnB era of social networks soon…

Blogs with RSS?

There is a whole generation that isn't even familiar with this concept, so you could honestly re-introduce it.

It's "TikTok for Text!"

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, everyone needs to explicitly "choose some list of moderators whose decisions you trust, and subscribe to their block lists"

I would nuance that system a bit. Replace "moderator" with "any peer". Replace "block" with "vote". (And that vote could be as simple as "up down" or maybe something more sophisticated) Now everybody you meet (every "peer") has a "rating". Based on the cumulative voting of yourself and your peers. A peer that you upvote, his votes are weighted-up in that cumulative rating calculation. A peer that you downvote, his vo…

This doesn't really work because it doesn't allow a moderator to set the tenor of a community. People can filter out individual messages, but a dedicated set of bad actors can turn a community into swiss cheese or undermine discussion just by spamming, baiting and trolling and taking advantage of the variance in the level of tolerance for the bad behavior.

Communities function when there is a standard to which the community members adhere and when bad behavior is uniformly moderated away. Making each individual have their own moderation bubble is a recipe for incoherence, even with the improvements you suggest. Its also a lot of work.

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#237
post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The GP comment’s proposal is not incompatible with what you (and typical users) want. Moderation is very different from censorship. I want strong moderation and “banning” for myself . I would ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so. On the other hand, I don’t believe that I have any kind of…

>I want strong moderation and “banning” for myself. I would ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so. This is fine for you perhaps, but I don't want to be a moderator. I prefer social networks like, say, Hacker News where moderation is handled for me. >Email works this way today and most peo…

> but I don't want to be a moderator. I prefer social networks like, say, Hacker News where moderation is handled for me.

I don't think we're disagreeing on that. Per my comment:

"I would ideally like this to be as automatic as possible, perhaps via default blocklists that update on an ongoing basis, that I can still opt out of if I really cared to do so."

The implication of that statement is that Hacker News (or in this case, Facebook) handles moderation, but under the framework laid out by the GP commenter, one can opt out of that, or perhaps even opt into different moderation regimes. Political news outlets, for example, might be motivated to create their own moderation regimes if they feel that Facebook (or whomever else) is too biased against XYZ political group in their moderation.

> Most people only use email for work and don't particularly enjoy it. They prefer to spend their free time on other social networks.

I would be careful about speaking for other people. Perhaps this is true for you, but I (for one) love subscribing to email newsletters, and those are a part of my daily information diet. I'm free to subscribe and unsubscribe as I please, and others are unable to prevent me from doing so. As we can see with the continued existence of platforms like Substack, there's clearly a demand for that. Also, insofar as one might not "particularly enjoy" email, it's not particularly clear that the root cause of that is email's censorship resistance. It could also be because the email protocol is missing features that one might desire in the kind of decentralized protocol Facebook might create.

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You will get banned on Reddit if you say trans women aren’t real women. They call it promoting hate towards a marginalized group. You may be sympathetic towards that so think twice before moving the goalpost.

[flagged]

Believing that there are differences between trans women and AFAB women is not denying anyone’s right to exist.

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#239

Curious that the article speaks plenty about Dorsey and ommits the fact that he has been very active on the Nostr platform. Nostr is so far the only platform where I see a decentralized future. Mastodon does not provide portable identities that you can easily move to other servers, nor helps you to preserve your post from previous years. Nostr solved both obstacles. One private key, zero email addresses needed. Move…

I did a quick ctrl+f 'nostr' on the article and when no results came up I closed the browser tab. They obviously haven't done their research.

Basically that, or intentionally that. Kind of strange to mention Dorsey so often and some other project rather than the one where he is very active at the moment.

Re: Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

#240
post #83

What if, and hear me out: we ditch the idea of a better replacement social network and just ditch the concept in general? Let’s go back to not being bombarded by ads every 3rd post, to not getting lost in massive echo chambers, to not doom scrolling for 20-40% of our waking hours, being locked into mega platforms, etc... Is the proposition of “being more connected” really worth the downsides?

You mean, ditch the HN comments section?
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