this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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Decentralized Social Media Is the Only Alternative to the Tech Oligarchy (www.404media.co)
submitted 2 days ago by FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/technology@lemmy.world
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[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.world 3 points 5 hours ago (1 children)

Distributed (and zero configuration needed), but with centralized development. Federated is not good enough - separate instances may lag behind in versions, or their admins do something wrong, and user identities and posts are tied to them.

Ideally when an instance goes down, all its posts and comments and users are replicated in the network and possible to get.

A distributed Usenet with rich text, hyperlinks, file attachments, cryptographic identities, pluggable naming\spam-checking\hatespeech-checking services (themselves part of that system).

It was a good system for its time, first large global thing for asynchronous electronic communication.

OK, if you are, you don't pretend, and if you pretend, you aren't. And if you talk about someone somewhere probably designing something, then you are not making that something closer. I'm tired of typing things in the interwebs people either already know and agree with, or won't take seriously.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Ideally when an instance goes down, all its posts and comments and users are replicated in the network and possible to get.

Federation allows this, no? Provided your instance is old enough to have federated with the content in the first place.

[–] shortrounddev@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago

I'm thinking of starting a friendica node for my city. I feel that a big problem with federated apps is that the audience isn't local enough; it's usually mostly tech-oriented people and doesn't have enough local services.

[–] boiledham@lemmy.world 8 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

All we need is people at this point. Still way too many people on Reddit and they've gone downhill significantly since the push for monetization

[–] shortrounddev@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (3 children)

Reddit became an outrage factory for me in ways that other social media doesn't. Facebook et al would push political news at me that was meant to piss me off, but Reddit suggests me nothing but videos of people being assholes in public, cutting each other off in traffic, getting into fights, etc. It's like clockwork orange or some shit. I like that here, I can set my default algorithm to only subs (are they called subs?) that I subscribe to, in chronological order only.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 1 points 7 hours ago

That's exactly what I did on Reddit, I'd only look at subreddits that I subscribed to. The only reason I'm here is because Reddit 180d on their API support and killed third party apps.

[–] boiledham@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Yeah suggestions have never been implemented well but I relied on just viewing what I subscribed to for content. That plus suggestions from others that turned out pretty well. Post monetization and the removal of 3rd party apps made reddit unbearable so I'm glad to move on

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 hours ago

They're called communities, but they're still your subscriptions, so in this context it works.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 3 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

More people will bring a lot of interesting problems we don't have right now. First and probably most important is money. High intensity traffic and storage is exponentially more expensive with increased load, and I don't know if it's possible to afford it without some kind of monetization

[–] boiledham@lemmy.world 1 points 7 hours ago

Yeah but it's tough to get some communities going, like the equivalent of r/NFL on reddit here is basically dead. More people also doesn't necessarily bring more interesting content, but it's tough finding similar communities that I had subbed to on other social media

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 1 points 8 hours ago

This is why some of us are so focused on spreading the load.

[–] Lila_Uraraka@lemmy.blahaj.zone 18 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I am so happy I have an account on here, even if some people can be quite abrasive

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 2 points 8 hours ago

Well, we need to remember that the longer ago someone registered the more likely they are to hold some strong views. For many of us it was just a strong feeling that corporate ownership is awful, but not for everyone.

[–] Pilferjinx@lemmy.world 6 points 23 hours ago

We tend to have strong opinions here that's for sure. Most people are good about giving space for honest discussion, which is nice.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 3 points 22 hours ago

Your mother - she's older than you!

[–] IndustryStandard@lemmy.world 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When I saw this article I was like oh damn if I post it here I’ll get loads of upvotes lmao.

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[–] kava@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (13 children)

I have a feeling this place and other decentralized social medias will be banned in the near future. Look at what's happening to TIktok. You either bend the knee or you get axed. It's why the other social media giants bent the knee. They understand the writing on the wall. There's more going on behind the scenes that they don't share with us. I think we're sort of watching a quiet coup.

[–] Mpdaves@lemmy.world 9 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Isn’t decentralization a thing that makes that much harder? There isn’t the same “national security” concern. I’m not saying it won’t happen just that the mechanism is much more difficult to make work.

[–] curious_dolphin@slrpnk.net 2 points 12 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago) (1 children)

You're mixing multiple subjects here, one being the logistics of blocking a federated system like Lemmy, the other being whether the wrong person finds the content of such a system objectionable and labels it a "national security issue."

I'm being a tad pedantic here, but my reason for pointing this out is that I think #2 is not far fetched at all, but I'm unsure of how feasible #1 might be and would love if somebody who knows more than I do would chime in.

EDIT: Looks like some have already discussed #2 in the other comment thread started by Teknikal.

[–] shrugs@lemmy.world 2 points 10 hours ago

There is a big difference. If a platform belongs to a single entity, you can pressure that entity especially if its profit driven. If there are thousands interconnected platforms that only share an open protocol the most you can do is shutdown a single instance. That's why an open protocol creating decentralized instances is so much different than a centralized platform. It's like trying to ban email or censor speak: not that has never been tried, but that is a whole different cup of tea.

[–] Teknikal@eviltoast.org 14 points 1 day ago (10 children)

Not saying you are wrong if anything though I think Reddit is probably the next obvious victim after TikTok they'll simply point to the Chinese Tencent who own shares and the next thing you know Musk will be part owner.

Fediverse I think will probably be the last hit simply because it's small and because of the design can't be hit easily, wouldn't surprise me if they just targeted the biggest servers though.

[–] Trainguyrom@reddthat.com 4 points 13 hours ago

Realistically if it is hit it'll be through some sweeping "social media safety" bill that makes the cost of administrating a social media site as a hobby prohibitively expensive and/or time consuming, maybe even as on the nose as requiring the software to receive a specific certification before it's allowed to open registration.

We've already seen the UK's online safety bill cause many admins of small forums and communities to shutter their communities as a result, and who knows how Australia's recent social media bill will affect Australian Fediverse servers & users

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[–] Landless2029@lemmy.world 43 points 1 day ago (4 children)

If social media becomes decentralized we might even gain traction reversing some of the brainwashing on the masses. The current giants are just propaganda machines. Always have been, but it's now blatant and obvious. They don't even care to hide it.

[–] 0ops@lemm.ee 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is why I don't agree with the "lemmy is cozy, it doesn't need to grow" point of view. There's always specific, largely defederated instances that provide that cozy feeling, but I really want decentralized platforms to replace the corporate ones. If that's ever going to happen, the fediverse needs to grow.

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 3 points 8 hours ago

I think it doesn't need to rapidly grow. The trickle of new users we get each time the main players fuck up is good enough for me.

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[–] source_of_truth@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Without the paywall: https://archive.is/TJzyt

[–] Spaniard@lemmy.world 30 points 1 day ago

Let's call it by it's name: neofeudalism/technofeudalism

[–] Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 29 points 1 day ago (2 children)

In the same way that email has been decentralized from the get go, social media could have been equally decentralized, and I don't mean in the older php forums, but in a different way that would allow people to reconnect with others and maintain contacts.

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