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Open Social

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Re: Open Social

#261

Post by SilverSlash »

This is a fine example of technical exposition. Very easy to read and understand! Like many others, before this post I hadn't the vaguest idea what atproto was; I always assumed it was some decentralized thing a la crypto. But this actually makes a lot of sense to me and it feels like an objectively good thing.

Except for one thing which has been pointed out by others. Anyone can access *all* of my data over this protocol. I like the idea that a lot of my data is directly accessible similar to the early web. But it would be nice if some of that data was only accessible if the accessor was permitted.

I don't really know much about auth tokens but I'm guessing they shouldn't be that hard to incorporate into this thing? When BlueSky or whatever app queries "@username.com/private/documents" the server expects an auth token, whereas it does not when the app tries accessing "@username.com/bluesky/posts".

Re: Open Social

#262

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

It doesn't matter who controls social media; federated or not, social media is inherently harmful to humans. In a few years we will find out it's like cigarettes. Addictive and harmful, and needs regulation, if not outright bans.

But going back to this obsession about data. It's really an obsession with control. But none of you really have control. You hope that you can "engineer" your way into control of your own lives, of your data, even of the way the world works. But engineers do not have power. Businessmen do. Until you realize that, you will continue writing technical specifications like this, making micro-communities, and missing the big picture. Control requires power. Power requires money. If you can't monetize it, you have no control.

Whatever federated thing you think is going to win, isn't going to win, if there isn't enough money to back it. Because someone with money will just make the biggest "federated thing" (or not; it could be completely proprietary and billions of people will still use it), and eventually close it off once they have enough users. You cannot engineer your way out of money, politics, or human nature.

Re: Open Social

#263

Post by xigoi »

_cart wrote: post #137
ceayo wrote: post #30

Wow, I always imagined Activitypub to be the better protocol and AT a cheap knock-off, but reading this article made me realize at is, actually, way better - primarily because multiple programs can access the same identity. This is really a great feature to have! This article was a real mind-opener for me.

The AT vs AP issue is full of nuance. Our community has gone back and forth on this: https://github.com/bevyengine/bevy/discussions/18302

> We should pick a platform that is federated, where you have ownership and autonomy over your identity and your audience. Social media should not be own-able by a single group or person. Social media is serious business. It ties directly to human rights and business outcomes. It shouldn't be in anyone else's control but yours.

I agree, but why not also apply the same logic to the other two communication platforms you are using (Discord and GitHub)?

Re: Open Social

#264

Post by linza »

steveklabnik wrote: post #193
xrisk wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If your pds refuses to serve you your CAR file I don’t think you can do anything about it, can you?

Yes, if you are really worried about this you’d want to regularly back that up.

I read your reply as the scenario from GP is unlikely to happen in practice or has low impact. To me it seems you need to make frequent backups of "your" data to have a copy of it.

Can i run multiple PDSes with my own single identity to not give one provider exclusive power over access to "my" data?

Re: Open Social

#265

Post by niutech »

tantalor wrote: post #5

We already had that in 2007: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OpenSocial It was a complete disaster

Why disaster? Google used it successfully in their products like Orkut. It was a novel federation protocol at that time.

Re: Open Social

#266

Post by hirenj »

SilverSlash wrote: post #261

This is a fine example of technical exposition. Very easy to read and understand! Like many others, before this post I hadn't the vaguest idea what atproto was; I always assumed it was some decentralized thing a la crypto. But this actually makes a lot of sense to me and it feels like an objectively good thing. Except for one thing which has been pointed out by others. Anyone can access *all* of my data over this pro…

I was ruminating about how Atproto would be great for re-thinking the peer review system for scientific journals.

Imagine a world where a preprint is “published” onto the social web, from which you could aggregate reviews/comments. I eventually ended up thinking about exactly what you raise - it would be great to have some degree of access control on this so both comments and published things can be selectively shared (with an option to make everything public later on, maintaining all the links).

Re: Open Social

#267

Post by xigoi »

kevinak wrote: post #112
numpad0 wrote: post #47

I'm starting to feel many of "next big Twitter to fill its power vacuum" projects are tackling the problem slightly wrong - they all perfect the Twitter feature set, then hit the wall with user growth and content deprivation chicken and egg problem. People gather where there are others and that's still around the rotting whale. That OpenAI timeline thing that just launched is more better approach, it solves content p…

...and this is why Nostr is different! You can build basically anything on it. A blog, a Twitter like application, a streaming service, messaging apps, the sky is the limit! Here's a selection of things built on the protocol: https://nostrapps.com

Unfortunately Bitcoin has strong ties with the planet-burning-coin community.

Re: Open Social

#268

Post by xigoi »

geokon wrote: post #257

the view of social media as just data that can be rehosted i think misses a large part of its success Twitter and Instagram are fundamentally different scenes bc of their restricted formats. Twitter has/had character limits. Instagram was primary for photo sharing. if you try to cram a long political rant in an instagram photo or description.. it is fighting against the app format and limitations. This sculpts the ap…

> Twitter has/had character limits. Instagram was primary for photo sharing. if you try to cram a long political rant in an instagram photo or description.. it is fighting against the app format and limitations. This sculpts the apps "culture"

A big part of Twitter’s “culture” is creating “threads” to work around the character limit, which kind of defeats the point.

Re: Open Social

#269

Post by hollowonepl »

I think it would be better articulated if comparisons to ActivityPub were made. Those are I believe two competing visions of Open Social defined as communication protocol, not a platform. Otherwise it just sounds like evangelizing employer and that compromises the whole “open” concept of the article, fairly.

Re: Open Social

#270

Post by xigoi »

motoxpro wrote: post #197

I really hope this doesn't catch on. Having ever random site on the internet being able to see every bit of my data sounds like a nightmare. Unless I am misunderstanding something.

They will only see the data you post publicly. You know, like with a personal website or with any other social media platform.
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