Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)

GitHub is an interesting example, because if I push code to GitHub, I still have my local source, and being an open protocol I can easily push it elsewhere as well.

"build protocols, not platforms"

When something (in this case technology) becomes a problem, I'm not usually in favor of trying to add more of that same thing to solve the problem. Similarly, if a platform is going to control speech, I don't see the point of adding more control to control Facebook's control. I think this is a structural rabbit hole that constantly repeats itself in our institutions.

And even if "we" did apply more technology, who exactly is going to lead this effort? If we drop solutions with n more protocols in the market, the same 3 companies will end up owning the content on them. And through some remarkable defiance of probability, all of those companies will act in identical lockstep when it comes to behavior and policies. Of course, there's no evidence of collusion, they just happen to be culturally identical in every way. And that is reasonably believable given how few actual people are involved in running the organizations.

"Some feel that these platforms have become cesspools of trolling, bigotry, and hatred."

Some? I'm assuming (possibly wrongly) that this sentence is intended to express one particular side's feeling about the other particular side. But I think everyone feels this. Both sides make arguments (some more data driven than others) that show how the other side is motivated by hate. In fact, the prevalence of the conviction that love, compassion, and morality exist exclusively on one side appears to be a large part of the problem.

There are over 3000 counties in the US and if you colored them by their political and cultural sentiment and look at the map of the country, you would see the full diversity and distribution of ideas - at least geographically. The lack of this level of resolution on Internet platforms is the problem imo.

Maybe there can't be 3000 platforms. But there can be more than 3-5 groupings of capital that control them all and they can be more culturally diverse. Not sure about the value of being more protocol diverse.

Decentralized doesn't have to mean "everyone self-hosts": it just means there's more than one offering on the market.

I pay an email provider because I don't want to deal with configuring Dovecot, but I don't use Gmail because I don't want the risk that some algo deletes my account, and I'm glad that's (so far still) an option.

I read, and re-read the article and I am yet to understand how a protocol will help what the author describes in the first few paragraphs. (BTW very nicely walked around that hot bowl of mess!)

First, Usenet was just as much of a dumpster fire as Reddit et al. in some branches (alt. I am looking at you). The rest (comp. soc. sci. etc) were heavily self moderated.

Second, I am not sure the author is clear on what is the primary product of social media, as I see it. We, the users are the product. By moving to a protocol, there is little to no opportunity to capture private information about the product. (Not complexity, too big, or filter bubble.)

Why would a platform give up such income stream?

Am I misunderstanding what the author means by protocol here?

It's so bizarre to me that people think that the only thing libertarians can advocate for have to do with government.