13 ms·

This is a growing problem. I'm not sure what the solution is, but something needs to be done to stem the absolute power that social media companies have to arbi

This is a growing problem. I'm not sure what the solution is, but something needs to be done to stem the absolute power that social media companies have to arbitrarily censor voices.

bart_spoon 7y ago
I don't see what responsibility social media companies have to host anyone's voice. They should be able to arbitrarily censor who they wish. The issue comes from their massive reach and people's reliance on them for information. But this is more rooted in the monopolistic power companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google wield, and should be fixed accordingly. Not by limiting private entities' power to decide whom they want using their service.
godgod 7y ago
So you're saying it's not a technical glitch? /s
rmc 7y ago
ActivityPub. Open Protocols. re-decentralize the web
manicdee 7y ago
We could go back to the days of personal blogs.
Traster 7y ago
A large world renowned media organisation was banned from another large world renowned media organisation. They can sort it out between themselves.
asimovfan 7y ago
Fediverse?
jbarciauskas 7y ago
I don't think the evidence is that that's the biggest issue in general, and certainly not in this case.
steveeq1 7y ago
blockchain?
- steveeq1 7y ago
  Why is this being downvoted? Services built on top of the blockchain are censorship-proof. it's a viable option.
  - SamReidHughes 7y ago
    It's a low-grade wisp of noise, not a real comment.
  - gerikson 7y ago
    What services exist? I know of Twetch (Bitcoin SV) and something based on Bitcoin Cash - the fact I can't remember its name is telling...
Notorious_BLT 7y ago
The solution to this seems pretty straightforward: force social media companies to choose to identify as a "platform" or a "publisher", rather than a mix of the two that gets to claim the most convenient aspects of both. If they choose "platform", then they can take no responsibility for content posted, but also allow all content, and only remove content when it is required of them by the legal system (when the content is illegal and has been reported as such) If they choose "publisher" then they are free to censor, "deplatform", delete, or restrict posting of anything they wish, but if someone posts something illegal, they take their share of legal responsibility for publishing it.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > If they choose "platform", then they can take no responsibility for content posted, but also allow all content, and only remove content when it is required of them by the legal system (when the content is illegal and has been reported as such) If you require the content to be illegal for a platform to remove it and there is a consequence for being wrong, that's a problem since the determination outside of platform competency, which encourages them not to act even against likely-illegal content. Section 230 was adopted specifically to address this problem, that attempts to constrain socially undesirable content (even if aimed at illegal content) risked making online providers liable for all content under the model applies to traditional media which was viewed as not functioning at web scale, at least without inhibiting innovation greatly (of course, it's pure coincidence that Section 230 support is eroding when there are now huge incumbents that have an advantage from drastically making it more expensive to scale up new challengers.)
  - sieabahlpark 7y ago
    Add a toggle switch to enable the content. Bam, now you have a free platform and for those who don't want to see the content they disagree with now don't have to. You even give an incentive to create an account. You literally cannot please everyone so trying to is a lost cause.
- emilfihlman 7y ago
  This would indeed be a good thing. I wonder if there's a push to do that already somewhere?
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
karatestomp 7y ago
More protocols, fewer platforms. Significantly reducing the money in web advertising and especially the monetizability/utility of data by and about users is probably necessary for that to happen. It's not for technical reasons that we stopped having a smallish number of viable standards with many implementations each, and started having many wholly incompatible and deliberately non-interoperable implementations of basically the same thing. I doubt Email could be invented today. [EDIT] point is capturing and controlling communication is currently a top priority of big tech players, and that won't change until it is, one way or another, no longer highly rewarded—until then, every no-funds or paid-for-by-actual-users solution is competing with bottomless pockets and "free".
- mongol 7y ago
  Yes, yes, yes. There needs to be more emphasis on common protocols. This space is much less vibrant in the, say, past 15 years, than before that. If we exclude cryptocurrency I can not think of any common, groundbreaking protocol introduced since Bittorrent. I am probably missing some, but in the 90s and early 00s protocols were where the exciting stuff happened.
  - dcolkitt 7y ago
    I think one reason this might be the case is because modern cloud-computing makes scaling a single centralized service super easy and straightforward. In the early 2000s if you wanted to build something "at scale", the only real way forward (besides raising tons of money upfront) was to build a decentralized protocol. Offload most of the compute, bandwidth and storage to the end nodes. Nowadays, you can just an AWS auto-scaling group behind a load-balancer and a CDN, and you can pretty much handle infinite traffic.
- barnabee 7y ago
  This. If a company wants to to be a platform and enjoy certain protections from responsibility for content posted by its users, it should be required to open the protocol and the data and prevented from exercising absolute control over the user interface and from being able to deny access to some organisations, 3rd party clients, etc. If that kills a bunch of business models, do be it.
notlukesky 7y ago
The platforms have been muzzling speech for a long while and some through sneaky ways like making content hard to find or surface. So they can still restrict the spread of speech while claiming they do not interfere in the creation and publishing of it. So platforms will have to come clean on their algorithms and content discovery process as well.
- MagnumPIG 7y ago
  I don't think any individual knows anymore, it's just ML optimization for getting the most ads, presumably through engagement.
  - zionic 7y ago
    Except we know this isn't true. All of their systems have key word input with manual curation for suppression/boosting. Google maintains blacklists for news etc etc.
riffic 7y ago
journalists and the press should be taking a long hard serious look at running their own ActivityPub installations.
agumonkey 7y ago
Somehow to me the problem is that social networks are turning into implicit mobs, and that's surprisingly scary. The information highway became a confusion boulevard.
root_axis 7y ago
The solution is not to rely on for-profit corporations to host your content for free. Imagine a world where any average citizen could host their own web page on the internet.
- Notorious_BLT 7y ago
  I wish that we're still viable, and I want to return to that world, but it's pretty much impossible to compete with the reach a major platform gives today. It's possible that a publisher/platform legal split would do enough damage to our current major platforms to push us back in that direction.
  - root_axis 7y ago
    > I wish that we're still viable It is perfectly viable, it is now cheaper and easier than ever to host your own website; people do it all the time and sometimes even host their own platforms. > It's pretty much impossible to compete with the reach a major platform gives today I don't see why anyone should be entitled access to "the reach of a major platform". There are many thousands of "non-major" platforms thriving all around the internet that service many different needs and communities; this system works. On a personal level, I don't see the idea of guaranteeing access to social media websites as a worthwhile use of government resources, certainly, I think if we are using the government to force companies to offer free service to everyone no-questions-asked, there are more pressing needs that this level of government intervention could fulfill before even considering stepping into the realm of social media.
loceng 7y ago
The solution is easy: full data portability laws that "backs up" into a centralized database (could be blockchain to avoid manipulation) - and then each platform sets its own rules, and users then can utilize the platform of choice for their UI and UX - design and governance.
- mongol 7y ago
  This will not address the loss of audience that happens when Wikileaks followers are using Twitter for updates. You must own the interface to your audience, not just your data.
  - loceng 7y ago
    Maybe not the first time a specific type of offence occurs - but each bad action of a controller/leader will result in a migration the size reflective to the proportion of each offence. I don't disagree that people will benefit and will be necessary that people have their own, non-centralized interface.
newnewpdro 7y ago
The fediverse seems like a good start. Wikileaks should host their own instances of mastodon/diaspora etc, and we should stop participating in these centralized commercial enclaves expecting them to prioritize respecting and protecting our free speech on their web sites.
1f60c 7y ago
Using Twitter is a privilege, not a right.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- cambalache 7y ago
  On the opposite, Twitter having the opportunity to earn tons of money from a public good as the Internet is a privilege, not a right.
  - xxpor 7y ago
    Completely wrong. The Internet isn't a public good. The Internet isn't even really a thing. It's just a bunch of interconnected networks that are mostly privately owned.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mongol 7y ago
The solution that is within everyone's reach is to choose to use simple blogging as platform for communication. The standards (RSS, HTML, HTTP etc) are open and if you keep the domain name within your control you will be much less vulnerable from de-platforming.
- dilap 7y ago
  barrier of entry too high and ease of use too low. it’s like saying we should write letters to avoid the telephone being tapped.
  - mongol 7y ago
    Well if the telephone is tapped, writing letters will help.
jrockway 7y ago
Remember when RSS was a thing? It was actually pretty great.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  It's still a thing. It's still great.
dntbnmpls 7y ago
Agreed. But who is pressuring these social media companies to censor. Maybe something needs to be done to stem the absolute power of those pressuring the social media companies. Lets be honest here, twitter, reddit, google, etc didn't decide to censor all of a sudden. They were pressured into censoring. By whom?
erichocean 7y ago
[DELETED]
- shadowgovt 7y ago
  > That's not what we have in the US today—but we should It'd be a pretty huge encroachment on freedom of the press.
xwdv 7y ago
The solution is simple: self host your most important messages.
black_puppydog 7y ago
mandatory post shilling for ssb (secure scuttlebutt) and other fully decentralized means of communications.
sbx320 7y ago
One approach would be to hold social media platforms to the same standard as the government in terms of user rights like freedom of speech - regardless of their terms of service. There have been a few court rulings in Germany that go into that direction. Facebook for example was disallowed to delete some posts/sites which violated Facebooks "standards", but were permissible under the freedom of speech clause of the German basic law. However thus far courts haven't really formed a consistent opinion and also ruled the opposite. As Facebook didn't appeal the courts rulings, it hasn't gone to the federal or constitutional court level yet.
shadowgovt 7y ago
Doesn't WikiLeaks own and operate their own website? I don't think they're censored; I think a private company stopped giving them an open platform to spread their info for whatever reason.
decasteve 7y ago
Stop using Twitter. Why is that not a solution? There is nothing forcing someone’s computer or smartphone from connecting. Just stop using it.
- stubish 7y ago
  If you stop using Twitter you stop being able to communicate with people using Twitter. There are many organizations who would love nothing more than to stop using Twitter, but they cannot because Twitter has a captive section of their audience. And it is a huge section of Wikileaks target audience, which is why this is a problem.
yogthos 7y ago
I think that decentralization has to be the solution. Having a handful of websites run by megacorps was not how the internet was meant to work. The fediverse around ActiviyPub is looking very promising. Mastodon is the most prominent service using it, and it has millions of users now. The experience is strictly superior to Twitter in my opinion. And there's no single central server on the network making it much harder to censor and manipulate Mastodon than centralized networks. There is no single company deciding what content can go on the network, and servers are hosted by regular people across many different countries. Mastodon also allows for account verification, where the account can reference a specific website that's owned by the user. So, if a reputable source wants to have a verified account they can link it up with their site.
- snisarenko 7y ago
  I've mentioned my similar thoughts in another comment on hackernews but will repeat them here. I think ActivityPub & federation looks like promising due to cost of cloud hosting going down every year. Thus allowing self-hosting to become easy and affordable for a lot of people. However there are other trends that need to continue for federation to succeed. - Continued competition in cloud hosting market not just in US, but globally - Automation & simplification of monitoring, upgrades, and security patching - Reducing the complexity of the federation software. Mastodon and Pixelfed are great, but I feel like the feature creep can make them difficult to maintain while self-hosting. Less software complexity = less upgrades, less package dependencies, less security issues
  - riffic 7y ago
    I'm going to make a bold prediction, but I think at some point within the next 2-3 years you'll see one of the incumbent commercial social media services white-labeling their application for organizations, much in the same way Gmail, Google drive, Google docs, etc is white-labeled as G Suite. It will probably implement the necessary federation protocols (ActivityPub) and provide an on-ramp to the fediverse for those not looking to "self-host" per se.
- rjblackman 7y ago
CryptoPunk 7y ago
Everything needs to move to decentralized platforms.
- jjordan 7y ago
  Unfortunately AFAIK there aren't any decentralized platforms that are ready for mass audiences. Techs like IPFS still have a long way to go before they can be reliably used for Twitter or Facebook-sized amounts of data.
alfiedotwtf 7y ago
Decentralise. That's the solution.
int_19h 7y ago
We need to get back to the pre-Bork interpretation of anti-monopoly regulation (where demonstrating extreme market dominance in and of itself was quite sufficient), and proactively enforce it. The problem with Facebook, Twitter etc is that they simply control too much of their respective market segments, and so their censorship decisions affect too many people. If something is "too big to censor", it simply shouldn't exist.
tree3 7y ago
No, it's not a problem. WikiLeaks is free to post whatever they'd like on their own platform, which they already have.
atoav 7y ago
We need to handle the root cause. In case of US companies it has to do with anything the patriot act brought — something which should have been a temporary "boost" turned out to become the new status quo. Nobody will voluntarily cut these new powers of your services and it breeds a climate of anticipatory obedience within US companies that will be hard to get rid of even if the patriot act isn't extended again. This problem can only be solved by electing fundamentally different actors into office.
edanm 7y ago
In what way can any social media company "censor" someone? I don't read Twitter much. I still get plenty of information from Facebook, Podcasts, Hacker News, random blogs and websites, news websites, Discord chats, YouTube, etc. Even if Twitter decided to kick out someone, all of those other avenues are available to them, some of which aren't under the control of almost anyone. It feels to me like we're living in the age where it's absolutely easiest to "publish" anything at all you want, and yet people are constantly complaining how hard it is. I just don't get it, it seems factually wrong.
- silverreads 7y ago
  Generally they shadowban you, which means you can post and interact normally so you don't get angry, but no one can see your posts. The algorithmic feeds also prevents many people from being heard when they need it most, such as in times of mental or physical suffering. They know you would rather see smiling people on the beach than suffering people.
- raxxorrax 7y ago
  Agreed in principle, but it does show the Twitter moderation to be completely arbitrary. Given, this is not the only case. Not sure where they are going with this, but they probably will blame the Russians.

This is a growing problem. I'm not sure what the solution is, but something needs to be done to stem the absolute power that social media companies have to arbitrarily censor voices.

bart_spoon 7y ago

I don't see what responsibility social media companies have to host anyone's voice. They should be able to arbitrarily censor who they wish. The issue comes from their massive reach and people's reliance on them for information. But this is more rooted in the monopolistic power companies like Twitter, Facebook, and Google wield, and should be fixed accordingly. Not by limiting private entities' power to decide whom they want using their service.

godgod 7y ago

So you're saying it's not a technical glitch? /s

rmc 7y ago

ActivityPub. Open Protocols. re-decentralize the web

manicdee 7y ago

We could go back to the days of personal blogs.

Traster 7y ago

A large world renowned media organisation was banned from another large world renowned media organisation. They can sort it out between themselves.

asimovfan 7y ago

Fediverse?

jbarciauskas 7y ago

I don't think the evidence is that that's the biggest issue in general, and certainly not in this case.

steveeq1 7y ago

blockchain?

steveeq1 7y ago
Why is this being downvoted? Services built on top of the blockchain are censorship-proof. it's a viable option.
- SamReidHughes 7y ago
  It's a low-grade wisp of noise, not a real comment.
- gerikson 7y ago
  What services exist? I know of Twetch (Bitcoin SV) and something based on Bitcoin Cash - the fact I can't remember its name is telling...

Notorious_BLT 7y ago

The solution to this seems pretty straightforward: force social media companies to choose to identify as a "platform" or a "publisher", rather than a mix of the two that gets to claim the most convenient aspects of both. If they choose "platform", then they can take no responsibility for content posted, but also allow all content, and only remove content when it is required of them by the legal system (when the content is illegal and has been reported as such) If they choose "publisher" then they are free to censor, "deplatform", delete, or restrict posting of anything they wish, but if someone posts something illegal, they take their share of legal responsibility for publishing it.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> If they choose "platform", then they can take no responsibility for content posted, but also allow all content, and only remove content when it is required of them by the legal system (when the content is illegal and has been reported as such) If you require the content to be illegal for a platform to remove it and there is a consequence for being wrong, that's a problem since the determination outside of platform competency, which encourages them not to act even against likely-illegal content. Section 230 was adopted specifically to address this problem, that attempts to constrain socially undesirable content (even if aimed at illegal content) risked making online providers liable for all content under the model applies to traditional media which was viewed as not functioning at web scale, at least without inhibiting innovation greatly (of course, it's pure coincidence that Section 230 support is eroding when there are now huge incumbents that have an advantage from drastically making it more expensive to scale up new challengers.)
- sieabahlpark 7y ago
  Add a toggle switch to enable the content. Bam, now you have a free platform and for those who don't want to see the content they disagree with now don't have to. You even give an incentive to create an account. You literally cannot please everyone so trying to is a lost cause.
emilfihlman 7y ago
This would indeed be a good thing. I wonder if there's a push to do that already somewhere?

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

karatestomp 7y ago

More protocols, fewer platforms. Significantly reducing the money in web advertising and especially the monetizability/utility of data by and about users is probably necessary for that to happen. It's not for technical reasons that we stopped having a smallish number of viable standards with many implementations each, and started having many wholly incompatible and deliberately non-interoperable implementations of basically the same thing. I doubt Email could be invented today. [EDIT] point is capturing and controlling communication is currently a top priority of big tech players, and that won't change until it is, one way or another, no longer highly rewarded—until then, every no-funds or paid-for-by-actual-users solution is competing with bottomless pockets and "free".

mongol 7y ago
Yes, yes, yes. There needs to be more emphasis on common protocols. This space is much less vibrant in the, say, past 15 years, than before that. If we exclude cryptocurrency I can not think of any common, groundbreaking protocol introduced since Bittorrent. I am probably missing some, but in the 90s and early 00s protocols were where the exciting stuff happened.
- dcolkitt 7y ago
  I think one reason this might be the case is because modern cloud-computing makes scaling a single centralized service super easy and straightforward. In the early 2000s if you wanted to build something "at scale", the only real way forward (besides raising tons of money upfront) was to build a decentralized protocol. Offload most of the compute, bandwidth and storage to the end nodes. Nowadays, you can just an AWS auto-scaling group behind a load-balancer and a CDN, and you can pretty much handle infinite traffic.
barnabee 7y ago
This. If a company wants to to be a platform and enjoy certain protections from responsibility for content posted by its users, it should be required to open the protocol and the data and prevented from exercising absolute control over the user interface and from being able to deny access to some organisations, 3rd party clients, etc. If that kills a bunch of business models, do be it.

notlukesky 7y ago

The platforms have been muzzling speech for a long while and some through sneaky ways like making content hard to find or surface. So they can still restrict the spread of speech while claiming they do not interfere in the creation and publishing of it. So platforms will have to come clean on their algorithms and content discovery process as well.

MagnumPIG 7y ago
I don't think any individual knows anymore, it's just ML optimization for getting the most ads, presumably through engagement.
- zionic 7y ago
  Except we know this isn't true. All of their systems have key word input with manual curation for suppression/boosting. Google maintains blacklists for news etc etc.

riffic 7y ago

journalists and the press should be taking a long hard serious look at running their own ActivityPub installations.

agumonkey 7y ago

Somehow to me the problem is that social networks are turning into implicit mobs, and that's surprisingly scary. The information highway became a confusion boulevard.

root_axis 7y ago

The solution is not to rely on for-profit corporations to host your content for free. Imagine a world where any average citizen could host their own web page on the internet.

Notorious_BLT 7y ago
I wish that we're still viable, and I want to return to that world, but it's pretty much impossible to compete with the reach a major platform gives today. It's possible that a publisher/platform legal split would do enough damage to our current major platforms to push us back in that direction.
- root_axis 7y ago
  > I wish that we're still viable It is perfectly viable, it is now cheaper and easier than ever to host your own website; people do it all the time and sometimes even host their own platforms. > It's pretty much impossible to compete with the reach a major platform gives today I don't see why anyone should be entitled access to "the reach of a major platform". There are many thousands of "non-major" platforms thriving all around the internet that service many different needs and communities; this system works. On a personal level, I don't see the idea of guaranteeing access to social media websites as a worthwhile use of government resources, certainly, I think if we are using the government to force companies to offer free service to everyone no-questions-asked, there are more pressing needs that this level of government intervention could fulfill before even considering stepping into the realm of social media.

loceng 7y ago

The solution is easy: full data portability laws that "backs up" into a centralized database (could be blockchain to avoid manipulation) - and then each platform sets its own rules, and users then can utilize the platform of choice for their UI and UX - design and governance.

mongol 7y ago
This will not address the loss of audience that happens when Wikileaks followers are using Twitter for updates. You must own the interface to your audience, not just your data.
- loceng 7y ago
  Maybe not the first time a specific type of offence occurs - but each bad action of a controller/leader will result in a migration the size reflective to the proportion of each offence. I don't disagree that people will benefit and will be necessary that people have their own, non-centralized interface.

newnewpdro 7y ago

The fediverse seems like a good start. Wikileaks should host their own instances of mastodon/diaspora etc, and we should stop participating in these centralized commercial enclaves expecting them to prioritize respecting and protecting our free speech on their web sites.

1f60c 7y ago

Using Twitter is a privilege, not a right.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
cambalache 7y ago
On the opposite, Twitter having the opportunity to earn tons of money from a public good as the Internet is a privilege, not a right.
- xxpor 7y ago
  Completely wrong. The Internet isn't a public good. The Internet isn't even really a thing. It's just a bunch of interconnected networks that are mostly privately owned.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

mongol 7y ago

The solution that is within everyone's reach is to choose to use simple blogging as platform for communication. The standards (RSS, HTML, HTTP etc) are open and if you keep the domain name within your control you will be much less vulnerable from de-platforming.

dilap 7y ago
barrier of entry too high and ease of use too low. it’s like saying we should write letters to avoid the telephone being tapped.
- mongol 7y ago
  Well if the telephone is tapped, writing letters will help.

jrockway 7y ago

Remember when RSS was a thing? It was actually pretty great.

thaumasiotes 7y ago
It's still a thing. It's still great.

dntbnmpls 7y ago

Agreed. But who is pressuring these social media companies to censor. Maybe something needs to be done to stem the absolute power of those pressuring the social media companies. Lets be honest here, twitter, reddit, google, etc didn't decide to censor all of a sudden. They were pressured into censoring. By whom?

erichocean 7y ago

[DELETED]

shadowgovt 7y ago
> That's not what we have in the US today—but we should It'd be a pretty huge encroachment on freedom of the press.

xwdv 7y ago

The solution is simple: self host your most important messages.

black_puppydog 7y ago

mandatory post shilling for ssb (secure scuttlebutt) and other fully decentralized means of communications.

sbx320 7y ago

One approach would be to hold social media platforms to the same standard as the government in terms of user rights like freedom of speech - regardless of their terms of service. There have been a few court rulings in Germany that go into that direction. Facebook for example was disallowed to delete some posts/sites which violated Facebooks "standards", but were permissible under the freedom of speech clause of the German basic law. However thus far courts haven't really formed a consistent opinion and also ruled the opposite. As Facebook didn't appeal the courts rulings, it hasn't gone to the federal or constitutional court level yet.

shadowgovt 7y ago

Doesn't WikiLeaks own and operate their own website? I don't think they're censored; I think a private company stopped giving them an open platform to spread their info for whatever reason.

decasteve 7y ago

Stop using Twitter. Why is that not a solution? There is nothing forcing someone’s computer or smartphone from connecting. Just stop using it.

stubish 7y ago
If you stop using Twitter you stop being able to communicate with people using Twitter. There are many organizations who would love nothing more than to stop using Twitter, but they cannot because Twitter has a captive section of their audience. And it is a huge section of Wikileaks target audience, which is why this is a problem.

yogthos 7y ago

I think that decentralization has to be the solution. Having a handful of websites run by megacorps was not how the internet was meant to work. The fediverse around ActiviyPub is looking very promising. Mastodon is the most prominent service using it, and it has millions of users now. The experience is strictly superior to Twitter in my opinion. And there's no single central server on the network making it much harder to censor and manipulate Mastodon than centralized networks. There is no single company deciding what content can go on the network, and servers are hosted by regular people across many different countries. Mastodon also allows for account verification, where the account can reference a specific website that's owned by the user. So, if a reputable source wants to have a verified account they can link it up with their site.

snisarenko 7y ago
I've mentioned my similar thoughts in another comment on hackernews but will repeat them here. I think ActivityPub & federation looks like promising due to cost of cloud hosting going down every year. Thus allowing self-hosting to become easy and affordable for a lot of people. However there are other trends that need to continue for federation to succeed. - Continued competition in cloud hosting market not just in US, but globally - Automation & simplification of monitoring, upgrades, and security patching - Reducing the complexity of the federation software. Mastodon and Pixelfed are great, but I feel like the feature creep can make them difficult to maintain while self-hosting. Less software complexity = less upgrades, less package dependencies, less security issues
- riffic 7y ago
  I'm going to make a bold prediction, but I think at some point within the next 2-3 years you'll see one of the incumbent commercial social media services white-labeling their application for organizations, much in the same way Gmail, Google drive, Google docs, etc is white-labeled as G Suite. It will probably implement the necessary federation protocols (ActivityPub) and provide an on-ramp to the fediverse for those not looking to "self-host" per se.
rjblackman 7y ago

CryptoPunk 7y ago

Everything needs to move to decentralized platforms.

jjordan 7y ago
Unfortunately AFAIK there aren't any decentralized platforms that are ready for mass audiences. Techs like IPFS still have a long way to go before they can be reliably used for Twitter or Facebook-sized amounts of data.

alfiedotwtf 7y ago

Decentralise. That's the solution.

int_19h 7y ago

We need to get back to the pre-Bork interpretation of anti-monopoly regulation (where demonstrating extreme market dominance in and of itself was quite sufficient), and proactively enforce it. The problem with Facebook, Twitter etc is that they simply control too much of their respective market segments, and so their censorship decisions affect too many people. If something is "too big to censor", it simply shouldn't exist.

tree3 7y ago

No, it's not a problem. WikiLeaks is free to post whatever they'd like on their own platform, which they already have.

atoav 7y ago

We need to handle the root cause. In case of US companies it has to do with anything the patriot act brought — something which should have been a temporary "boost" turned out to become the new status quo. Nobody will voluntarily cut these new powers of your services and it breeds a climate of anticipatory obedience within US companies that will be hard to get rid of even if the patriot act isn't extended again. This problem can only be solved by electing fundamentally different actors into office.

edanm 7y ago

In what way can any social media company "censor" someone? I don't read Twitter much. I still get plenty of information from Facebook, Podcasts, Hacker News, random blogs and websites, news websites, Discord chats, YouTube, etc. Even if Twitter decided to kick out someone, all of those other avenues are available to them, some of which aren't under the control of almost anyone. It feels to me like we're living in the age where it's absolutely easiest to "publish" anything at all you want, and yet people are constantly complaining how hard it is. I just don't get it, it seems factually wrong.

silverreads 7y ago
Generally they shadowban you, which means you can post and interact normally so you don't get angry, but no one can see your posts. The algorithmic feeds also prevents many people from being heard when they need it most, such as in times of mental or physical suffering. They know you would rather see smiling people on the beach than suffering people.
raxxorrax 7y ago
Agreed in principle, but it does show the Twitter moderation to be completely arbitrary. Given, this is not the only case. Not sure where they are going with this, but they probably will blame the Russians.