
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech - pwg
https://knightcolumbia.org/content/protocols-not-platforms-a-technological-approach-to-free-speech
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joe_the_user
What I'd like to see is a model where you a federated network of moderated
groups. Something like Discord except more micro-blog than chat and where you
can see popular posts of sister/brother servers, _very_ popular posts on
cousin servers and so-forth. Basically, a filter-tree keeping things
reasonable and creating groups of folks with some relation to each other.

~~~
cameronbrown
Decentralised group chat communication seems like it would work very well as
the future model of social networking. Content online could spread organically
instead of the surveillance panopticon telling us exactly what we want to
hear.

~~~
joe_the_user
Just to explain my preference for something allowing post/micro-
blogging/blogging, I use discord for organizing real life activity but it
really doesn't seem set-up for discussion of "issues" (political, programming,
etc), here Facebook, Reddit or HN does best imo.

That said, topics are a bit like tags and a bit like sub-channels and if you
could combine these qualities, you might have a nice merger of the approaches.

~~~
grawprog
A decentralized platform similar to reddit with more autonomy and control over
subreddits is sort of what I envisioned the parent poster's comment to be
referring to. Something that more easily allows a custom format, likely with
easier media uploading capabilities and a higher level of segregation between
disparate subreddits.

~~~
cameronbrown
Subreddit style communication is something I was considering yep, but I was
definitely referring to Discord style server based group chats. If Facebook
moved their entire platform in that direction (and hopefully abandoning news
feed) I'd be really happy.

~~~
grawprog
Yeah the discord group chat model is definitely better for talking actively
with people, but for any kind of lasting content I find it pretty difficult to
figure out.

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zzo38computer
I agree to use protocols, and not platforms (it would be better to do that
rather than what a lot of stuff including Hacker News are doing). I wrote my
own software for IRC and NNTP (both client-side and server-side), but you
don't have to use mine and you can use your own or others too. Regardless of
protocol services are still required, but you can use other services with the
same protocol; you can set up your own server if you do not want to (or
cannot) use theirs, for example. And, SMTP is good for email, compared with
having to use a web browser. (And, there still are free Usenet servers (some
require registration and some don't).)

Decentralized systems also will help. However, I think ActivityPub and so on
are too complicated; NNTP and IRC is good. Also, sometimes some federation
with others might not be wanted, or only partially, or whatever reason;
sometimes the policy also might not match what someone else has. That is one
reason I write a specification of Unusenet, which specifies a format for
newsgroup hierarchies which are not part of Usenet (it is possible for the
same server to feed both Usenet and Unusenet, though). Perhaps I think even
should set up a NNTP for Hacker News, too. (I also invented a Netsubscribe
protocol, which could be a simpler alternative to ActivityPub/Mastodon.)

Let's Make Internet Great Again

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patrickaljord
The "Protocols, Not Platforms" debate is naive and misses the point. Here is
why:

\- Let's say someone builds a social network protocol (including messaging,
photo sharing etc).

\- Let's be generous and say this protocol becomes so successful it turns into
a de facto standards.

\- The market will rush to build the best client for the protocol. Facebook,
Google, maybe an outsider will come up with the best client that has all the
features and added goodies (magic emojis, special video effects, something new
etc).

\- People wanting to get on the networks will never google the protocol just
like people who want to get an email client do not google "imap". They just
google the most popular client such as gmail.

\- Overtime, the most popular client will get a quasi-monopoly and will become
incompatible with the rest of clients, no one will notice except for us nerds
on HN.

\- This already happened with xmpp (facebook messenger, google hangouts and
others used to be on xmpp).

Now you might say, "but how about email"? Well, first of all, email is an
oligopoly and it's practically impossible for individuals to set up their own
servers and expect their emails to get delivered all of the time. So I
wouldn't call email such a great success story. Another thing is that email is
work oriented and so it makes sense to keep compatibility between businesses.
Email also arrived very early and had time to spread slowly at the beginning
of the internet among various small to big players, which explains why no
company could take over it.

For all these reasons, I do not believe in a magical protocol that would save
us from big tech. The protocol in itself would not be enough. A non-profit
would need to be in charge of the most popular client such as Mozilla with
Firefox, but even then this did not turned out as expected although Chromium
is open source so yay.

~~~
emptysongglass
It is not “practically impossible” for individuals to set up their own email
servers with good deliverability. I run my own and emails get delivered to my
intended receivers all the time. If you want email to become more distributed
someone ought to come along to make a Helm that isn't so expensive.

You just have to make the protocol sticky enough and distributed enough so one
corp doesn't wield Total Control.

~~~
randallsquared
> I run my own and emails get delivered to my intended receivers all the time.

That's a pretty low bar, unless you mean "all the time" as "every single
time". :)

Before I gave up and moved to AWS Workmail this year, I'd run a personal mail
server for about 20 years. Major issues were not too uncommon, and minor ones
were constant:

"Why can everyone in the world get mail from my server except outlook.com
users?" I can't remember if I ever resolved this.

"Why do more and more corporate servers ignore SMTP retry rules?" It was nice
when only spammers did that and graylisting was effective.

"No, it's not my server that's sending those spam emails that spoof my domain;
I checked. Yes, really." This happened more than a decade ago, and I assume it
either stopped or was solved by the spread of TLS or something.

~~~
emptysongglass
I have had a Gmail account since the beginning and have, not infrequently, had
my sent email arrive in spam. These arguments against the ease with which we
may decentralize basic ubiquitious protocols lean on, I don't know, a basic
bleak outlook?

People thought I was crazy for unplugging from every Facebook service. No one
would follow me over to my messenger of choice they said. I proved them wrong.
And you can too. But it takes a little patience and a little persistence and
little sticking to your ideals. Our basic internet freedoms are worth this.

------
scottlocklin
I've said this 1000 times, but garbage like Facebook or Twitter could be
replaced overnight by a protocol. There is really zero reason it couldn't be
built from existing distributed tooling, be secure and just as useful without
lizard people getting in the way.

~~~
dragonwriter
> I've said this 1000 times, but garbage like Facebook or Twitter could be
> replaced overnight by a protocol.

No, it couldn't, and saying it more won't make it any more true. That is,
sure, you can design a protocol that supports manpy of the same basic
functions (and such protocols exist already), but centralized governance is
ultimately part of what people want, or at least essential to stop a social
network into degrading into what people don't want.

~~~
i_am_nomad
Neither of you have provided any meaningful arguments to support your
positions.

I would say that Mastodon is an example that supports the OP’s point. But in
the real, practical world, a social network needs investment and marketing to
catch on and extend to a useful amount of people. So in that sense, you’re
correct as well.

~~~
dredmorbius
Mastodon is minuscule, and has already been showing growing pains.

(I'm on Mastodon, have been for two years, and love it. But it is no majick
bullet.)

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marknadal
I care about Free Speech.

But most people don't.

In order for a protocol to be successful, it must bridge that gap.

That's what we've already done, gotten 15Million monthly active users onto
GUN's network ( [https://github.com/amark/gun](https://github.com/amark/gun)
), by focusing on value add - whether people are idealistic or don't care,
they're still using it.

This is how protocols will grow. Stay true to your values, but ship value add.

~~~
breck
I'm not sure exactly what this is, but looks very interesting. I'm going to
dive a little deeper. Thanks for sharing.

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MikeGale
People who want to take control of their own lives, and curate the mix of
knowledge / fact / falsity / opinion / propaganda / disinformation / useful-
idiocy in their own heads can technically head in this direction today.

I think a key ingredient is translators that move content out of the platform-
bubbles into the world you control. You can move material between RSS, email,
blog channel easily, if you choose. Harder but doable is to crack the walled
gardens of social media.

These can fuel development of better forms of expression than the primitive
nonsense so often used today.

Many people have major barriers; not interested in taking control, not going
to build anything myself, fear of leaving the mob, will accept advertising,
want somebody to tell me what to do, too rushed...

That's fine, they will continue. Those who want can, and are, going down the
other road.

~~~
paulryanrogers
Export options, even if mandated by the GDPR, are one avenue people could use.
Though I imagine the tooling probably demands a lot of maintenance to
harmonize all the different forms.

~~~
MikeGale
In that regard Facebook has improved recently. Their export now has a JSON
format which is useful. They still exclude so much that it may be better to
scrape from the UI though.

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rbanffy
The downside of empowering the best of us with the ability to organize without
constraints is that we empower the worst of us to do the same.

For whatever reference of best/worse you may have.

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PaulHoule
SMTP is a better example than NNTP because it is so much more mainstream.

SMTP had a spam crisis. Early on providers were loathe to filter at the
server. They didn't want the responsibility. Then there was the "love letter"
virus that brought the net to its knees. Filtering became a requirement for
survival but e-mail deliverability became a problem, first with AOL as a big
provider, later with gmail, etc.

SMTP is nominally open but if gmail wants to trash the mail you send you may
be helpless.

Any new protocol has to face spam not only as an annoyance but also a dos
threat. Look at how unusable the web has becomes with multiple pop-up windows,
sites that say mobile is the future but God forbid you try to close the ads on
your tablet, 50mbps downloads to see 5000 bytes of text, ...

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shanev
This is what we are aiming for in building TruStory
([https://beta.trustory.io](https://beta.trustory.io)).

The protocol is built as a distributed proof-of-stake network, where people
can earn a crypto token by contributing good content, or by running nodes of
the blockchain. Users and node operators can take ownership in, and govern the
network based on how much of the crypto token they own (or have earned).

I recently wrote about the architecture at
[https://blog.cosmos.network/building-a-decentralized-app-
wit...](https://blog.cosmos.network/building-a-decentralized-app-with-cosmos-
sdk-3c535cdc6a6a).

~~~
kbaker
How does this prevent a Sybil attack or astroturfing?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/50_Cent_Party)

~~~
shanev
We have a couple of mechanisms in place for this.

Users who have earned a certain amount of the token by being good citizens of
the network will have to vote in new users. These users also moderate content,
where offenders get some of their token taken away. Furthermore, network
operators (validators) can vote to remove malicious content and users. And as
with most crypto networks, a small fee (gas) is charged for usage.

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Causality1
I've long felt that we need a "post office of the internet". Some type of
communication platform that's truly neutral, doesn't attempt to censor or
manipulate the activities of its users aside from enforcing the law, and isn't
liable in any way for their behavior. Sure, you can send a bomb or a death
threat or an illegal copy of a movie through the mail, but the post office
isn't liable for the actions of its customers. Its only responsibility is to
filter illegal content as best it can, and that's all.

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mwilcox
MetaNet

