Many commenters argue that free speech is being infringed upon, but isn't this really about protecting user data and preventing an adversarial and autocratic foreign power from influencing U.S. citizens? Sure, it is hypocritical to not protect the same user from U.S. companies harvesting their data, but you get my point.
Shutting down TikTok in the U.S. doesn't prevent people from expressing their opinions. There are countless other ways to share and publish thoughts freely.
None of these platforms, like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X, are public squares where citizens have any of these rights. They are privately owned and regulated by unending terms of service agreements, with users often moderated or banned for minor infractions by company algorithms. Free speech has never truly existed in these spaces, nor is it likely to ever do so.
The photo organizing software Ente [0] can do this, and is packaged into a really neat product. I have not gotten around to try the self hosted version yet, but it is on my list!
I have had something similar in mind for a while, but nothing so fleshed out as you have here!
One question; how would you implement identity? I can imagine spam and unwanted content becoming a problem, so maybe a reputation system or network of trust mechanism would be needed?
Yeah this is something I've been thinking about recently, not so much in terms of the difficulty of managing spam on a per post basis, as I'm thinking that the instances will be very small and moderation on that front should be easy, so long as you can keep the problematic user from signing up in the first place. One thing I've been thinking is that perhaps there could be a captcha-like solution that will benefit from the limited location. For instance: Select only images that are of this location. Local users will know, bots will struggle. It doesn't stop anyone else from using Google street view or something but it does make the bar the bit higher. I don't know how to deal with the obvious accessibility issue with this though so I'm going to keep it in mind until I get around to that sort of thing. Long term of course we're going to have the issue with federated spam also, so I don't want to implement a solution that will only be in my way in the long run.
> there could be a captcha-like solution that will benefit from the limited location. For instance: Select only images that are of this location. Local users will know, bots will struggle.
Hah, that is a fun idea! But it could be a challenge to implement, unless you have a trusted person in that location selecting an image or some other local funfact – and at that point you might as well implement a graph of trust, spreading out from the first user in that area. Kind of like an invite system, where everyone vouches for the next one they invite in.
Come to think of it, having a limiting factor that an invite system imposes, might make the whole concept more attractive and a bit mystical, as it takes some effort to access the network.
I can see a lot of challenges implementing this though, but it is fun to explore different new directions this could take!
Thanks, I'll give the trust system some thought. These are both systems that could be turned on or off per instance so I'm theory they could both exist. I was thinking that the instance administrator would have to be the one to prove the images for the captcha.
The OP does not take issue with the algorithm part, but the claim of decentralization. I'm currently running my own instance of an ActivityPub server (GoToSocial), just for me, and it works like a charm. I would not know how to do the same with BlueSky, and I have tried to understand how.
A PDS is an independent data store of everything you’ve done with atproto. If bsky.app shuts down, and you’ve self hosted your PDS (or created one and migrated your records over by replaying them from the network) you could spin up your own copy of bsky and continue on as normal.
The main caveat to this currently is that someone would have to run an alternative to https://plc.directory, and everyone else would have to agree which one to switch to. I'll be a lot more comfortable with atproto once the directory has moved to a non profit like ICANN (as @pfraze mentions), or a different DID method gains wide adoption.
Is this a thing that is easily discoverable in settings where people can choose to use a different directory? OR is this buried and hard to find or know it could be a thing?
It's currently built into the applications, not configurable by default. It's preferable if everybody in a thread / space / community uses the same one because otherwise differences can cause validation failures and conflict and thus break threads, resulting in that people can't follow many discussions, thus applications don't really expose it.
It's the kind of thing where it's preferable that either everybody switch at once, or that new applications with different "lexicon" (post types / social media format) picks a new default from the start.
That's too bad, it made me think if there were easy to switch user perferences then it would be truly decentralized..
Is there a way to clone the app and make this easy to find as a button to switch?
(unfamiliar with the licensing and the app in general, some things I have seen make me excited that it's possible to be uncensored and decentralized, then things like this come up and I wonder if I should put time into it or something else to promote)
Everything is open source so yes you can, it's mostly a question of practicality.
There's already third party clients, account hosting servers, etc, as well as different apps building on the same system (and which can use the same accounts and data store!) like blogs and more. Most devs are trying to coordinate their custom extensions so it doesn't cause conflict.
If it weren't coordinated we'd easily end up in the same place as Mastodon with their spurious server blocks where large parts of conversations are broken for most users.
I'd love more info about "Mastodon with their spurious server blocks where large parts of conversations are broken for most users."
- who and why that happens and what it looks like to the different users that have servers blocked or what not.. is it clear they are missing messages that are from blocked servers?
and will a bunch of hostile feminists be able to place derogatory "labels" on my self hosted account or put me on nasty and rudely named lists branding me a right winger or a transmysoginist or whatever like they currently do on bluesky?
This is not an outright ban, but a sensible regulation. Kids can stil use simple messaging apps, but have to wait to get their first fix of attention grabing, personalized ad feeds.
"Another study indicated that alternating between sitting and standing, combined with brief walks, was more effective for health than standing alone."
Standing desks is not the problem, but standing or sitting all day long can be. The key is to mix it up and avoid static positions for hours at a time.
Wow. Simple user interface, fas and it gives interesting results! It did not find two of my favorite groups, gusgus and subgud, but I added a suggestion. Bookmarking this for later use!
Shutting down TikTok in the U.S. doesn't prevent people from expressing their opinions. There are countless other ways to share and publish thoughts freely.
None of these platforms, like TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, and X, are public squares where citizens have any of these rights. They are privately owned and regulated by unending terms of service agreements, with users often moderated or banned for minor infractions by company algorithms. Free speech has never truly existed in these spaces, nor is it likely to ever do so.
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