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The solution to the problems of echo chambers and walled gardens is not to build another echo chamber or walled garden, but to build something that returns cont
by iuguy 10y ago
The solution to the problems of echo chambers and walled gardens is not to build another echo chamber or walled garden, but to build something that returns control to the user.
In this respect, decentralization is the key. A decentralized network cannot easily be censored, but people can choose not to view the content they don't want to see on a decentralized network.
Gab just seems to me to be another walled garden. If it's anywhere near as successful as other networks, it will encounter the same problems. If it's not, then it won't matter.
- AlwaysBCoding 10y agoYup. Whatever replaces twitter will be an open-source decentralized system that ends at the API layer with multiple competing client implementations. So, not Gab. But I do like to see a bit of momentum in the tech world against neoliberalism, I think it's healthy for everyone. The "censor all competing ideologies" cultural authoritarian nonsense has gotten out of hand.
- iuguy 10y agoI do sometimes wonder how much of this is made worse by keeping competing views in walled gardens. If you look at Twitter historically they've not been great at censorship. Consequently it's easy for views you may hold abhorrent to end up in your feed, along with the typical OTT reactionary crap resulting from it being a poor medium for nuanced conversation (ie the 140 character limit). This leads to calls on the garden maintainer to censor content, which then gets out of hand, resulting in people being banned rather than content being taken out via say, downvoting. Having an open, distributed and federated approach means that it's harder to block content, but it's also harder for content you don't like to end up in your feed, and easier for you to censor it, rather than relying on a central authority to perform that task for you.