8 ms·

Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech

235 points by pwg 7y ago

joe_the_user 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.
  - ChristianBundy 7y ago
    You might dig: https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    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 7y ago
      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 7y ago
        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 7y ago
        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.
    - dansman805 7y ago
      On the other hand, discord server's do exist for that kind of communication; there are discord servers I am in that contain thousands of members and are about robotics, and often will have meaningful technical discussion about programming, design, etc.
      - joe_the_user 7y ago
        How does that work? I've only been on discords with maybe ten people and it seems earlier comments basically get lost in the flood of later comment. You may communicate to another person or other people and those people might learn stuff but a given comment effectively isn't public, post isn't equivalent to publishing. Even adding channels for official documents, things simply get lost in the stream.
        cameronbrown 7y ago
        How is this different than Slack? Or even worse, Facebook News Feed, where the average lifespan of content seems to be converging on zero.
- rolleiflex 7y ago
  I made something like this, called Aether. (https://getaether.net https://getaether.net) It’s not federated, but distributed / fully serverless. It has already made its way up here on HN a few times already, this was the latest one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19161171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19161171 The protocol underlying Aether is called Mim, and it’s close to what the article is asking for: https://getaether.net/docs/developers/ https://getaether.net/docs/developers/
  - joe_the_user 7y ago
    I will take a more detailed look. Still, I think "federated" is important in that different pieces of the system should be able to break off. If a mod can't leave a group, what use is it? Also, "mod election" doesn't make sense. Mod should be (able to be) petty dictators - a member doesn't like a mod, they can easily go to another group and a majority means little-to-nothing online where a random number of socks or confederates can be easily recruited.
marknadal 7y ago
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 7y ago
  I'm not sure exactly what this is, but looks very interesting. I'm going to dive a little deeper. Thanks for sharing.
breck 7y ago
Disclosure: I work on Tree Notation (https://treenotation.org https://treenotation.org). Our open source non profit lab is helping dozens of companies and groups develop new, simpler, better protocols for all sorts of domains on top of tree notation. If you are interested and we can help you, feel free to reach out.
scottlocklin 7y ago
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 7y ago
  > 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.
  - naringas 7y ago
    why not? it certainly is technically feasable
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > it certainly is technically feasable It's technically feasible to build a protocol that supports the distributing social status updates group chat, direct messaging, etc.; many such things are around, some are, IIRC, older than Facebook. The product Facebook, and why people use it, is more than just that technical underpinning, but involves active management. A protocol doesn't replace that, and a distributed protocol where nodes do their own active management, while possible, isn't a stable equilibrium. Which we've seen with open protocols in spaces related to what Facebook does many, many times already.
      - dogcomplex 7y ago
        Can you give an example of how active management is done by Facebook (etc) in a way that a distributed protocol (with a team of developers and incentivized crowds) could not? It seems to me the major differences between centralized and decentralized solutions are first-mover advantages, network effect advantages (big gets bigger), and advertising budget. I'm skeptical that the quality of the product is the defining reason for Facebook et al's success, or that it would save them against a viably-large decentralized solution.
mwilcox 7y ago
MetaNet
patrickaljord 7y ago
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.
- wmf 7y ago
  So the outcome of this would be that Nazis wouldn't be banned from the protocol but the client(s) that 99% of people use would not display anything the Nazis post (Mastodon is getting there already). Sounds fine to me but it would probably just shift the debate from deplatforming to client-stealth-banning.
  - patrickaljord 7y ago
    No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying the most popular client will make its protocol proprietary and incompatible with any other clients, nazi or not. And no one will notice. Just like no one noticed when google hangouts or facebook messenger dropped xmpp.
wrnr 7y ago
This sounds like it could have been written by the uni-bomer
MikeGale 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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.
zzo38computer 7y ago
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
brandonbryant12 7y ago
Bitcoin SV is an entirely protocol driven ecosystem with the Metanet
brandonbryant12 7y ago
Bitcoin SV is taking this approach while building out the Metanet
- smitop 7y ago
  The Metanet protocol isn't Bitcoin SV specific. Any immutable datastore could serve as the backend for a Metanet.
Causality1 7y ago
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.
shanev 7y ago
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-with-cosmos-sdk-3c535cdc6a6a https://blog.cosmos.network/building-a-decentralized-app-wit....
- kbaker 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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.
PaulHoule 7y ago
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, ...
rbanffy 7y ago
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.

235 points by pwg 7y ago

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 7y ago
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.
- ChristianBundy 7y ago
  You might dig: https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork https://github.com/ssbc/patchwork
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  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 7y ago
    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 7y ago
      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 7y ago
        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.
  - dansman805 7y ago
    On the other hand, discord server's do exist for that kind of communication; there are discord servers I am in that contain thousands of members and are about robotics, and often will have meaningful technical discussion about programming, design, etc.
    - joe_the_user 7y ago
      How does that work? I've only been on discords with maybe ten people and it seems earlier comments basically get lost in the flood of later comment. You may communicate to another person or other people and those people might learn stuff but a given comment effectively isn't public, post isn't equivalent to publishing. Even adding channels for official documents, things simply get lost in the stream.
      - cameronbrown 7y ago
        How is this different than Slack? Or even worse, Facebook News Feed, where the average lifespan of content seems to be converging on zero.
rolleiflex 7y ago
I made something like this, called Aether. (https://getaether.net https://getaether.net) It’s not federated, but distributed / fully serverless. It has already made its way up here on HN a few times already, this was the latest one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19161171 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19161171 The protocol underlying Aether is called Mim, and it’s close to what the article is asking for: https://getaether.net/docs/developers/ https://getaether.net/docs/developers/
- joe_the_user 7y ago
  I will take a more detailed look. Still, I think "federated" is important in that different pieces of the system should be able to break off. If a mod can't leave a group, what use is it? Also, "mod election" doesn't make sense. Mod should be (able to be) petty dictators - a member doesn't like a mod, they can easily go to another group and a majority means little-to-nothing online where a random number of socks or confederates can be easily recruited.

marknadal 7y ago

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 7y ago
I'm not sure exactly what this is, but looks very interesting. I'm going to dive a little deeper. Thanks for sharing.

breck 7y ago

Disclosure: I work on Tree Notation (https://treenotation.org https://treenotation.org). Our open source non profit lab is helping dozens of companies and groups develop new, simpler, better protocols for all sorts of domains on top of tree notation. If you are interested and we can help you, feel free to reach out.

scottlocklin 7y ago

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 7y ago
> 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.
- naringas 7y ago
  why not? it certainly is technically feasable
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > it certainly is technically feasable It's technically feasible to build a protocol that supports the distributing social status updates group chat, direct messaging, etc.; many such things are around, some are, IIRC, older than Facebook. The product Facebook, and why people use it, is more than just that technical underpinning, but involves active management. A protocol doesn't replace that, and a distributed protocol where nodes do their own active management, while possible, isn't a stable equilibrium. Which we've seen with open protocols in spaces related to what Facebook does many, many times already.
    - dogcomplex 7y ago
      Can you give an example of how active management is done by Facebook (etc) in a way that a distributed protocol (with a team of developers and incentivized crowds) could not? It seems to me the major differences between centralized and decentralized solutions are first-mover advantages, network effect advantages (big gets bigger), and advertising budget. I'm skeptical that the quality of the product is the defining reason for Facebook et al's success, or that it would save them against a viably-large decentralized solution.

mwilcox 7y ago

MetaNet

patrickaljord 7y ago

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.

wmf 7y ago
So the outcome of this would be that Nazis wouldn't be banned from the protocol but the client(s) that 99% of people use would not display anything the Nazis post (Mastodon is getting there already). Sounds fine to me but it would probably just shift the debate from deplatforming to client-stealth-banning.
- patrickaljord 7y ago
  No, that is not what I'm saying. I'm saying the most popular client will make its protocol proprietary and incompatible with any other clients, nazi or not. And no one will notice. Just like no one noticed when google hangouts or facebook messenger dropped xmpp.

wrnr 7y ago

This sounds like it could have been written by the uni-bomer

MikeGale 7y ago

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 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.

zzo38computer 7y ago

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

brandonbryant12 7y ago

Bitcoin SV is an entirely protocol driven ecosystem with the Metanet

brandonbryant12 7y ago

Bitcoin SV is taking this approach while building out the Metanet

smitop 7y ago
The Metanet protocol isn't Bitcoin SV specific. Any immutable datastore could serve as the backend for a Metanet.

Causality1 7y ago

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.

shanev 7y ago

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-with-cosmos-sdk-3c535cdc6a6a https://blog.cosmos.network/building-a-decentralized-app-wit....

kbaker 7y ago
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 7y ago
  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.

PaulHoule 7y ago

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, ...

rbanffy 7y ago

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.