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Meta is building a decentralized, text-based social network

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321–330 of 361 posts

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

#321
post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think people fall into this delusion, but if you can peel yourself out of it, you’d find it’s not really true at all. One of the best politically served groups in the US are elderly evangelical Christians - this doesn’t come from being on social media.

Indeed, I think you could actually argue that social networks produce a lot of hot air but very little actual action. People seem to burn themselves out on political discussion and ripping on each other for having different opinions, but then they seem to do very little actual participating in the political process. Places like Facebook and NextDoor suck all the air out of the room for a lot of peoples' political amb…

A lot of people think that social media activity is their significant contribution to a cause. Post or like or share something pertaining to social issue of the day and their little soul can now go feel great about the change they've made in the world!

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

#322

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pollutants are people as they’ve always been. Social media is a natural progression of society. It has all the same positives and negatives of an local social structure.

Is there really a "natural" progression of society? Especially in an age of computers and advanced communication, it is difficult to know what is natural anymore.

[deleted]

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

#323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i'm on board with this. Just a big "ignore" button where i never see the person's content or any interactions with it again would work just fine for me. I think to provide feedback the other way a counter on your view of the number of people that have you on ignore would be good too.

IMHO that's not a solution at all. It merely creates information bubbles. I don't want diverging opinions to go into a killfile, I want mechanisms that force all users to deal with each other in civil and minimally polite ways , just like the vast majority of them already they do under normal circumstances in face to face communication.

I think your glasses are a little rose colored for in-person communication. The rule older than my grandparents is just don’t talk about anything controversial, and only see “those” family members once a year at Thanksgiving.

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

#324

> The app is codenamed P92 and will allow users to log in through their existing Instagram credentials So if it relies on the servers of one centralized entity for authentication, how exactly is this thing "decentralized"?

It’s decentralized in name only, it’s marketing talk. It’ll still be behind Meta’s walled garden

They’re using the language of Discord/Slack were rather than one massive firehose where you curate who you follow you instead create “servers” for your friends, family, and different online communities.

Social networks got supermassive scale, it ended up being kinda awful unless you’re a public figure, and now all the “good” communities are on Reddit and Discord.

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

#325
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? Why do "we" need to ditch anything? People are building it because they want to, and will use it if they want to. Or not.

Facebook is not building things 'because they want to'...that is not a business reason. They are buildings things because there are billion and billions to extract.

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

#326
post #317

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. "An authoritarian regime is better if they have a good dictator and the proper watchdogs"

Call it what you want but yes, having strong empowered opinionated leadership has proven over and over to make products people prefer. This site is one of them.

It’s why freedom as in anarchy social media sites keep becoming far right nazi cesspools. Nobody who isn’t one of them wants to be around them.

I don’t have to worry all that much on here because when the insane green accounts come around replying to me with death threats they’re immediately deleted.

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

#327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!"

>TikTok for Text

That’s basically Reddit, except Reddit also has images and video.

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

#328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No he wasn't. Most of the people I have connected to via social networks do not appear in my phone contacts. And the social networks themselves do not have my phone number.

> And the social networks themselves do not have my phone number. Yeah, they probably do… Back in the before times people would keep up with their “Social Networks” by running into them at parties or whatever and “Update their Status”. Sometimes people would even “PM” each other over dinner and drinks outside of these “Group Chats”. Hard to believe, I know, but somehow the human race managed to keep going.

> Yeah, they probably do…

If so then they got it from some one else outside the network because it never appears in my conversations and I use the networks exclusively via a web browser.

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

#329
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.

I'm sorry what? This is absurd take, to think of hotels as a recent invention where they have been "new and cool", like social media. Hotels are just a formalized way to provide temporary accommodation for money, which has existed as a class of business since trade has existed. The wayside tavern in ancient villages is an exact 1:1 analog with your travel inn motel today.

This comparison makes 0 sense

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

#330
post #326
post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A central server is better if they have a good moderation plan built in. "An authoritarian regime is better if they have a good dictator and the proper watchdogs"

Call it what you want but yes, having strong empowered opinionated leadership has proven over and over to make products people prefer. This site is one of them. It’s why freedom as in anarchy social media sites keep becoming far right nazi cesspools. Nobody who isn’t one of them wants to be around them. I don’t have to worry all that much on here because when the insane green accounts come around replying to me with…

I absolutely disagree. Far-right forums also has a strong empowered leadership and it doesn't make them pleasant for you or I to go. It's also a product some people prefer, just not us.

Absence of hierarchy and ruler is also the norm in Usenet, and the community as put processes for everyone to manage lunatics without the need of a central authority.

"Freedom", or rather control, allows a community to choose for themselves. I don't agree with everything here, for example, and I don't have the power to change things, but that's alright because I can live with that. On the other hand I have my own Fediverse instance which means I can choose what I see and what I don't see. I still believe it's important.

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