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Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

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

#251

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

yalogin wrote: post #133

Why is this obsession with decentralized? I don’t see the benefits of it at all. A central server is better if they have a good moderation plan built in. This whole decentralized idea is to wash their hands off moderation and not take a blame for the hellhole it will become. From a pure functional point of view, how can a decentralized network provide any performance guarantee? What am I missing?

It depends how decentralized.

If they go so far as to be partition tolerant then you get a lot of resiliency wins. i.e. if a solar flare knocks out anything attached to a long enough cable to induce circuit-damaging current, you can still gossip messages between colocated devices, some of which might be en route to someplace distant. Secure Scuttlebutt Protocol works in this mode for example.

In such a scenario, being able to piggyback messages on travellers you don't know (even if it takes a few days to propagate) could be lifesaving.

There's also something to be said re: censorship. If you can facilitate comms between otherwise firewalled groups of people by simply sneaking a SD card across the border from time to time, that's right in line with Meta's mission statement.

I doubt that Meta is going to make it this decentralized. Whatever they build is going to be decentralized™. But it would be pretty cool to see this design space explored.

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

#252

Post by notShabu »

IMO decentralization should never be a key selling "feature" that users should experience.

Similar to the philosophy behind the "right to bear arms" it's best as a self-imposed framework of checks and balance on the centralized system. The majority of people are better off in a centralized system.

Decentralization is the solution to the "who will guard the guards" problem of power & corruption. I don't currently have a desire to become a gun-prepper-hoarder but living in a country where this is a potential-possibility model of life gives a sense of freedom even as I overly-specialize in typing alphanumeric letters in a specific format and rely on the System to transmute this effort into tokens-of-worth to trade for things like toilet paper and housing rights.

Where Meta and other companies fail here is that they're trying to ride the hype w/o understanding that it's not a feature in of itself but a "meta"-feature to allow for better features.

Decentralization forces the leader to actually lead through leadership qualities. Not through owning 51% of voting rights, not through golden handcuffs, not through implicit H1B or EB1-C visa and greencard threats.

The failure mode for decentralization is when it enforces a meritocracy that no one single human is capable of living up to. The leaders are ceremonial or non-existent.

The desire for decentralized technologies is a frustration with how fallible and incompetent the current set of leaders feel and a desire to shorten or outright eliminate the complexity of the brittle chain of value transformations necessary to maintain a living.

It's a desire to ascend technology into a force of nature like the sun or the wind. This goes against every company's reason-for-being because nature is free while a company is a system that harvests nature and makes a profit by selling customers concentrated forms of it.

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

#253

Post by charcircuit »

rchaud wrote: post #249
charcircuit wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>There was no "connecting people" reason for them to do it Not all posts are equally important. If someone only has time to read 5 posts then they should see important life updates from their friends and what they are interested in and not just show you 5 posts from them same person about how much they enjoyed their dinner and how good it looked.

Absolutely nothing about FB is optimized for the "I only have 5 minutes" user. The whole point is to be constantly scrolling because FB intentionally doesn't tell you what you may have missed.

I disagree and would say that it optimizes for both. I have no issue in seeing the most important pests at the top of my feed. Of course I can keep scrolling and find interesting posts, but were those posts actually important for me to see? Not really.

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

#254

Post by __MatrixMan__ »

commandlinefan wrote: post #177
yalogin wrote: post #133

Why is this obsession with decentralized? I don’t see the benefits of it at all. A central server is better if they have a good moderation plan built in. This whole decentralized idea is to wash their hands off moderation and not take a blame for the hellhole it will become. From a pure functional point of view, how can a decentralized network provide any performance guarantee? What am I missing?

> A central server is better if they have a good moderation plan built in If that's true, then the internet itself was (and continues to be) a mistake.

You're talking about the web, which could indeed use some revision. The Internet is just fine.

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

#255

Post by sleepybrett »

mym1990 wrote: 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?

I think facebook realizes that their uptake among younger audiences is way down and their userbase is aging. They've buttressed themselves so far via instagram, but I imagine they are maybe seeing a bit of the same trend. A generation seems to, more or less, engage with some social network and it becomes pretty sticky for them. So maybe this is just their 'next wave' play.

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

#256

Post by sleepybrett »

jollofricepeas wrote: post #90
mym1990 wrote: 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?

Social networks are hotels, right. - First they are new and cool. The young, hip and rich stay often. - New becomes old. Shoddy carpet, old fixtures, bad music in the lobby but older people stay until they die. - New hotels sprout up with cool carpet, music and fixtures. The cycle repeats. The only way we can ditch them is to ban them and then they’ll go underground :( What is dead may never die.

Yeah social networks seem to be 'generationally sticky'. This is probably just network effect shit. You and all your friends are on instagram and use instagram together as your 'main channel'. Tik Tok comes along, some join but some don't. But the next generation they join Tik Tok as their 'main channel' .. the process repeats.

Essentially:

Facebook = boomers Twitter. = genx insta. = geny ...

(but for some other shorter generational definition)

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

#257

Post by mgkimsal »

sangnoir wrote: post #250
yazzku wrote: post #234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

* * What if it's going to be part of the Fediverse?

And all participants can be paid in Libra!

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

#258

Post by namaria »

bitxbitxbitcoin wrote: post #181
gibspaulding wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a casino.

There’s no free rent at a casino unless you are proven to be a gambler though - or am I mistaken.

Civilization is fast becoming a casino. Housing is increasingly expensive, most offers are some money-for-dopamine deal. Social media is a never ending row of slot machines. We keep betting small chunks of attention that we will have a mythical pay-off (fame, love, glory), and most just waste away pressing the buttons and looking at the colors change for ever.

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

#260

Post by ditonal »

hnbad wrote: post #78
Fatnino wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So everyone needs to explicitly block cheese pizza for themselves just so a few perverts can share that stuff in the name of "free speech"?

I suppose "cheese pizza" refers to CSAM? FWIW I think it's a sign of intellectual dishonesty to complain vaguely about censorship of "widely held beliefs" without stating what those beliefs are. All social networks have "ground rules", they're just not always the same. For any social network that somehow can be pinned to someone's physical identity, those rules will at least include the laws of that person's jurisdic…

I can provide two specific examples of "widely held beliefs" that have been mass-banned on Reddit. I also want to note I don't endorse or subscribe to either of these beliefs but I felt neither were deserving of a ban and I was open-minded to hear arguments in their direction.

1) Reddit banned /r/NoNewNormal and "Covid misinformation" after activist moderators started shutting off subreddits. I personally got a Covid vaccine and complied with mask regulations, but I was interested in hearing coherent arguments related to lockdown / mask / vaccine skepticism. Obviously these skeptic views were very widely held beliefs, and some of them like the "lab leak theory" went from "misinformation" to "possibly true"

2) Reddit banned /r/GenderCritical which was a subreddit representing feminists who expressed skepticism over modern transgender ideology in the spirit of JK Rowling. Again, JK Rowling has millions of followers so this qualifies as a widely held belief. While I want to be inclusive and supportive of transgender people, I'm interested in hearing skeptical arguments related to things like whether it's really a good idea to give puberty blocker to teenagers .

I believe both of these bans happened not for good reasons but because of ideological crusades from Reddit power-moderators who skew heavily on certain political and ideological topics.

I'm not trying to start a flamewar or debate on either of these topics, I'm not endorsing either of those subreddits, I'm addressing your critique that specific examples were not provided of "widely held beliefs" that have been unfairly censored.

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