18 ms·

Ask HN: What are decentralized Twitter alternatives?

• ignoranceprior 6y ago
  Mastodon, GNU Social, and the Fediverse: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mastodon_(software) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_social https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_social https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fediverse The two software systems are compatible (both comply with the OStatus standard) so you can interact with content on servers that use the system. Diaspora also exists, but it's arguably more like Facebook: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaspora_(social_network)
  • app4soft 6y ago
    > Mastodon How decentralized alternative to Twitter works IRL: Never exists account - https://mastodon.social/@1234567890examplecom2021 https://mastodon.social/@1234567890examplecom2021 > The page you are looking for isn't here. Suspended account - https://mastodon.social/@realDonaldTrump https://mastodon.social/@realDonaldTrump > The page you were looking for doesn't exist here anymore.
    • viraptor 6y ago
      I think you're mixing decentralised and unmoderated here. You're free to run those accounts from another instance or provision your own. But you can't force someone else to carry that account, just as I can't force your Mastodon instance to carry mine.
      • tgsovlerkhgsel 6y ago
        Which means that in practice, it's very debatable how much more free these decentralized platforms are than centralized ones, and whether they're worth the extra effort required to make decentralization work. Especially since Mastodon seems to have (from my limited understanding) a "if you dare to talk to the Bad People you're also a Bad Person and getting dropped" mentality, effectively meaning that you cannot run an instance that is federating with both the mainstream fediverse and anything the mainstream fediverse doesn't like.
        • dna_polymerase 6y ago
          > Which means that in practice, it's very debatable how much more free these decentralized platforms are 100% more freedom right there. Freedom doesn't mean you can force me to listen to you. It means I can't force you to stop. What Mastodon enables people to do is a very direct way of stopping conversation with people that can't behave.
        • jakelazaroff 6y ago
          This is like complaining that a public street isn’t free because people can walk away if they don’t want to deal with you.
          • hombre_fatal 6y ago
            No, it’s saying that it’s not enough of an improvement to warrant the gulf of work required to make it compelling to anyone beyond the few people who use it today. We really need to move beyond this mindset where we think anyone will use an exact replica of an incumbent with some silver bullet tweak nobody actually cares about. It’s like thinking “Twitter but built with Rust” is compelling and getting mad at the sheeple when they couldn’t care less.
            • jakelazaroff 6y ago
              The second paragraph is lamenting the fact that other instances can refuse to federate with you: > Especially since Mastodon seems to have (from my limited understanding) a "if you dare to talk to the Bad People you're also a Bad Person and getting dropped" mentality, effectively meaning that you cannot run an instance that is federating with both the mainstream fediverse and anything the mainstream fediverse doesn't like.
    • r721 6y ago
      gargron (Mastodon dev)'s reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697378 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697378
      • app4soft 6y ago
        > That being said, the actual Donald Trump would not be welcome on mastodon.social, nor would he be welcome on most servers that I am familiar with. He would likely have to host his own Mastodon server.
  • systemvoltage 6y ago
    GNU Social is exactly how I imagined it to be.
    • Spivak 6y ago
      It’s not exactly modern design but it does work and is super easy to set up.
      • pluc 6y ago
        It can be made relatively pretty: https://web.archive.org/web/20100413124819/http://identi.ca/ https://web.archive.org/web/20100413124819/http://identi.ca/
    • scarmig 6y ago
      That prompted me to imagine what a parody of a GNU-style Twitter would look like, and yes, the connection works from the opposite direction.
      • neilpanchal 6y ago
        Tilable interface, requires days to set it up, tweet with i "Hello World!" <ESC> t, native vim keymap support, and hard to quit.
        • jcranmer 6y ago
          > tweet with i "Hello World!" <ESC> t, native vim keymap support vim is not GNU, emacs is. That means it would actually be <M-t> Hello World! <C-x> <C-s>, and the documentation would have a lengthy section on what the "Meta" key is and why not just call it "Alt".
          • deleted 6y ago
            [deleted]
          • neilpanchal 6y ago
            That's unnecessarily complicated. The vim way is better.
  • cydactyl 6y ago
    I host a Mastodon instance and have posted below if anyone would like to learn/discuss more about both my instance, and Mastodon as a whole, https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697231 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25697231
• billylindeman 6y ago
  https://voice.com https://voice.com is blockchain based
  • holler 6y ago
    Nice, hadn't heard of this. Is it similar to steemit? Also how do you delineate being "decentralized" versus using blockchain to store data? Working on another site and I have contemplated whether using blockchain for some of the data would have any advantages.
  • Finnucane 6y ago
    How is blockchain a useful feature?
    • pluc 6y ago
      Immutable, attributable, verifiable/secure? Can't see anything else really
• rasengan 6y ago
  There's Nomad [1] based on the footnote [2] protocol. [1] https://nmd.co https://nmd.co [2] https://github.com/kyokan/footnote/ https://github.com/kyokan/footnote/
• Finnucane 6y ago
  How much of a hive of scum and villainy are you willing to tolerate? If you were on Twitter, I’d assume at least some.
• bigphishy 6y ago
  Secure scuttlebutt comes to mind, https://scuttlebutt.nz/ https://scuttlebutt.nz/ but you specifically asked about twitter, so I would recommend mastodon
• holler 6y ago
  It isn't decentralized but I'm working on a new alternative and you're welcome to check it out. It's focused on low-friction, open, live discussion (messaging meets news aggregator). While some may not be interested because isn't decentralized, I'm a firm believer that we need more options, more competition. https://sqwok.im/p/QBKItu9bkEPXfA https://sqwok.im/p/QBKItu9bkEPXfA (cross posted this page)
• vimy 6y ago
  https://getaether.net https://getaether.net is decentralized reddit.
  • MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
    I've used it and unfortunately nobody is on it. Not even for boring discussions. Imo your best bet nowadays is to find obscure discord servers. it has wide adoption and doesn't have mass appeal since each server casts its net only as wide as it's admins can reach.
    • icy 6y ago
      Discord is neither decentralized nor censorship resistant. Discord (the company) has full control over what is allowed to be discussed on there.
      • MeinBlutIstBlau 6y ago
        it's at least decentralized and discord afaik doesn't have employed mods that police every discord made out there unlike reddit. also discord, you need to opt in to ANYTHING. twitter you kinda do as well, but they've sort of turned into a weird news site now.
        • albatruss 6y ago
          As the commenter you are replying to stated, Discord is not decentralized.
        • icy 6y ago
          Do you somehow have the notion that Discord is decentralized because they have "servers"?
• endori97 6y ago
  http://twister.net.co/ http://twister.net.co/
• blackrock 6y ago
  The Blockchain
  • ppezaris 6y ago
    oh please no. imagine if each tweet consumed as much energy as a current bitcoin transaction. that'd be great. /s
    • blackrock 6y ago
      He said he wanted decentralized.
• sumnole 6y ago
  https://mas.to https://mas.to
• DenisM 6y ago
  I always wondered if one could start "tweeting" by dropping messages directly into the Bitcoin blockchain. Lots of people are very invested in it, and forking the blockchain is a lot of work and is unlikely to happen causally for the purpose of censorship.
  • Retric 6y ago
    Sure, it would cost something like 50$ a tweet and nobody would read em, but the protocol allows it.
    • dominojab 6y ago
      you're clueless , try https://twetch.app/?filter=top&duration=day https://twetch.app/?filter=top&duration=day
  • FreeTrade 6y ago
    Here you go. https://member.cash https://member.cash
  • Sargos 6y ago
    Smoke Signal on Ethereum does this. Uncensorable messages. https://foundrydao.com/smokesignal/ https://foundrydao.com/smokesignal/
• nameless_noob 6y ago
  There's Urbit and Twetch. First uses some of ethereum, and calling a twitter replacement is 1% of it's story. Twetch uses a bitcoin fork as a db and users have to pay to post, but get impression revenue directly
  • ekam 6y ago
    Urbit is interesting but $120 for a planet is egregious
    • chc4 6y ago
      Urbit using Ethereum as a global consistent PKI store seemed like a perfectly fine idea, until transaction costs for distributing those keys bloomed 11,000% in a year :(
      • buddha420 6y ago
        It's being worked on. If the plan to use ZK-STARKs to rollup PKI transactions goes through, it should be only a few cents to set up a planet. In the meantime though, it is a major barrier :(
    • gw666 6y ago
      That's what I said about Bitcoin at $1 (groan).... I'm heavy into Urbit now, learning their programming language, Hoon (more mindbending than Brainfuck). I just checked on opensea.io; you can get a planet for 0.04 ETH--around $50. Urbit is the Next Big Thing--I haven't seen anything like it in 40 years; it's a "computing platform" blank slate! I don't think it'll ever go away because there are enough tech people to keep it going. I can also see academia using it. Setting up your own planet is a real hassle. Soon, you will be able to "rent" your own planet for a monthly fee (like paying for an ISP), and the provider will take care of all hardware and software. On the other hand, you can put your planet on a server for $10-$20/month. Look into it; it's going to be a wild ride!
  • riffic 6y ago
    urbit: because templeOS wasn't nutty enough.
• mxuribe 6y ago
  Oh wow, @InInteraction there are plenty of federated twitter (and facebook, and youtube, and instagram, etc.) alternatives...The key term to search for is "fediverse" (sort of a portmaneau of federated univers of social networks). The following info site might help with a brief overview: https://the-federation.info/ https://the-federation.info/ There are many other sites that can provide an overview/intro. Plus, the following is a sample of alternatives: Blogging => Plume, Write.as/WriteFreely => Comparable to Blogger.com, Medium, Tumblr Image Hosting => PixelFed, MediaGoblin => Comprable to Instagram Microbloging => Gnu social, Mastodon, Microblog.pub, Pleroma, postActiv, pump.io, etc. => Comparable to twitter Pastebin => distbin => Comparable to Pastbin.com, ~GitHub Social networking => Diaspora, Friendica, Honk, Hubzilla => Comparable to Facebook Audio/Video hosting => PeerTube, funkwhale, NodeTube => Comprable to Youtube, SoundCloud, vimeo Events => Mobilizon => Comparable to Facebook, Meetup.com Forum/Link Aggregator => Lemmy => Comparable to Hacker News, Lobste.rs, Reddit Good luck!!!
• 015UUZn8aEvW 6y ago
  the world wide web?
  • AnthonyMouse 6y ago
    Yes, but no. I think what people are really looking for is some kind of software platform that allows them to put up their own website, so nobody else can delete it out from under them, but also have some kind of interaction with other people with their own independent sites. So that they can press a button and "retweet" something someone else said, or reply to it without creating a new account on the site of everybody you want to reply to etc. The hard problem is probably to get some kind of a distributed user accounts database, so that you own your account based on cryptography rather than the capricious whims of billionaires, but still use it on more than your own website. Maybe something like Namecoin but for usernames.
    • dane-pgp 6y ago
      > Maybe something like Namecoin but for usernames. I seriously think that solving decentralized identity (and trust) is the most important current goal in the field of online technology. Once it is solved, all future innovations become ten times easier to implement and adopt. That's probably an exaggeration, but it could certainly be a more foundational technology than cryptocurrency, for example. Anyway, to get a sense of the state of the art, I recommend this paper[0] from late last year. To pick just one of the approaches discussed in it, let me mention BrightID which is documented here[1]. [0] https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.05300.pdf https://arxiv.org/pdf/2008.05300.pdf [1] https://brightid.gitbook.io/brightid/ https://brightid.gitbook.io/brightid/
    • rakoo 6y ago
      You're describing the indieweb: your identity is decentralized and is your domain name (not at the whims of billionaires), you put up whatever content you want but typically articles, interact with other people's content (likes, retweet, comment) without the need to create an account anywhere. The real blocker is that in practice there is a huge step between creating an account on a commercial service and buying your domain name, setting up a website and making it reachable to the world.
• dredmorbius 6y ago
  There are federated networks which don't allow for centralised access restrictions as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, et al, are evidencing today. But projects such as Mastodon put control in the hands of site or node administrators, and at least on Mastodon, there's an exceedingly healthy culture of blocking sites which themselves advocate oppressive practices. So those looking for an uncensored microphone may be somewhat disappointed. I welcome their tears.
  • zoobab 6y ago
    "I welcome their tears." Hopefully we have mathematics and physics on our side.
  • icy 6y ago
    > there's an exceedingly healthy culture of blocking sites which themselves advocate oppressive practices Oppressive, but defined by whom? I've seen arbitrary blocks of instances simply because they run Pleroma or Soapbox. In fact, my own instance was briefly on fediblock.org's list because my bio says "I care about freedom—both in software, and in speech"; the reason stated was "free-speech". That's absurd! As is often said on the fediverse, some switched over from Twitter due to too much censorship, others due to to little.
    • jamesgeck0 6y ago
      “Free speech” servers are sort of infamous for nazis and brigading, unfortunately. There have been enough incidents that some moderators block first and ask questions later.
  • cesarvarela 6y ago
    Don’t you think the tears might be yours someday? Will you always be on the “right” side? Will the people with the power to censor you always be “good”? I think censorship is a game where everybody loses eventually.
    • hpcjoe 6y ago
      This. Precisely. All you need is for the definitions of various words to change over time. And then you find yourself on the wrong side of an (arbitrary) line. Then you get deplatformed. I'd say think carefully before you open that door, and walk past that particular dangerous line, but our "platforms" seem to have driven their mobs/herds over that line, with nary a thought to what comes next. The slope is slippery. And we are gathering speed. Whilst people cheer the actions.
• trixie_ 6y ago
  The web is already decentralized, you are free to setup your own new Twitter website and tell people about it. Want it to be hidden or hard to shutdown? Put it on the dark web. Don’t get sucked into the blockchain buzzword. Blockchain is a solution to a very specific problem / set of requirements. The real problem is that so many people joined a single service in the first place, but that’s up to them and has pros/cons. Federated services have a rough history - see XMPP.
  • lenkite 6y ago
    How do you put something on the "dark web" ? Is it something other than hosting on your PC ?
    • wolco5 6y ago
      You host anywhere. Follow this: https://medium.com/@jasonrigden/how-to-host-a-site-on-the-dark-web-38edf00996bf https://medium.com/@jasonrigden/how-to-host-a-site-on-the-da...
• mshenfield 6y ago
  There hasn't been a post with the words "twitter alternative" in 3 weeks [0]... but this probably has nothing to do with Twitter banning Donald Trump today. [0] https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=twitter%20alternative&sort=byDate&type=story https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
  • ralusek 6y ago
    I think it has to do with Google Play Store and Apple App Store banning Parler.
• zoobab 6y ago
  Bitcoin has resisted censorship. Other decentralized services don't allow free speech.
  • viraptor 6y ago
    You can run an instance where you can post whatever you want. That's the decentralised part.
• username3 6y ago
  You can choose your own moderators on Aether. https://getaether.net/ https://getaether.net/
• ryanSrich 6y ago
  Isn’t everything effectively centralized in so far as a server host can cut your service? Or an ISP? Or even a payment processor? It seems the systems we built are too complex and rely on the judgment of too many humans. Humans that are easily influenced. Even something like IPFS relies on unrestricted access to the internet. I’m against most government intervention, but requiring certain services to refrain from censorship seems like the only real path to an open web.
  • zoobab 6y ago
    IPFS sucks big time, not censorship resistant. And memory is lost when you do "garbage collect".
  • nanomonkey 6y ago
    Scuttlebutt works quite well gossiping over a wifi router, doesn't even need to be connected to the internet. One could easily set up a mesh network in your home town and "socialize" over scuttlebutt without any further services.
• systemvoltage 6y ago
  Part of the genius of Twitter is the name and its brand. Twitter, tweet, tweeting, tweeted, etc. Even if Twitter had no goodwill, it's an excellent name for such a service. None of the options presented here have that. "Hey dude, did you see that mastodon post?" "I'll add you on GNU Social" "Fediverse is getting popular, wanna fediverse?" "Nmd'ed you!" "Totally Aaether that!" "Breaking News: The Prime Minister of Australia just diaspored"
  • optimalsolver 6y ago
    Ease of adoption is also being overlooked here. The average person doesn't want the hassle of self-hosting their own social media server. Not when they can join Twitter and be tweeting at the world within seconds without ever worrying about the technicals. That means the kind of people you'll be talking to on these platforms will most be techno-libertarian types. A plus for some, a strong negative for others.
    • nine_k 6y ago
      You don't need to run your own Mastodon server. It's like email: you can run your own, but it's easier to join some of the numerous existing servers. Also, I don't see how decentralized service can live without decentralization of control and ownership of nodes. Without the latter, you just get a multi-DC centralized service. So there's no alternative to a certain degree of self-hosting. Either you yield control to a central authority, or you care enough to maintain a node under your control. OTOH self-hosting should be made as simple as possible for an average user. Much like running a Skype node, or a torrent node did not feel like hosting, and felt like just running an app. This is ruined by the need to run on mobile clients (can't be reasonable servers) and exacerbated by the widespread NATting of home networks, so your desktop can't easily be a server, too.
  • jonas21 6y ago
    While Mastodon and Diaspora may be distinctly bad names, perhaps you don't need a great name either. Take Facebook, for example. Even with Twitter, I think there are probably thousands of words that would sound as natural as "tweet" if people were constantly saying it (and shouldn't it be "twit" anyway?).
• FreeTrade 6y ago
  https://member.cash https://member.cash The website is a window to the platform, but anyone can host a mirror or a personal version, all it requires is a Bitcoin Cash node. Its fully decentralised, with self-sovereign identity and is uncensorable.
• itsbits 6y ago
  I don't think there is any social media platform that will remain decentralised/open. Remember Twitter or for that matter Facebook in the beginning were not moderated as much as now. Entities like Governments can end up forcing that.
  • thu2111 6y ago
    The problem those firms have is not government coercion but unchecked extremism in their own employee base.
• wombatmobile 6y ago
  This likely isn't what the op had in mind, but if you're open to it, the best alternative to both reading and authoring on Twitter is to get up from your desk and exercise outside for 10 or 15 minutes. If you see other people, start a friendly, civil conversation. The skills you develop once you get the hang of doing this, and the information you'll stumble upon outclass Twitter, which is merely an interaction between human and keyboard.
  • InInteraction 6y ago
    This is what op practices every day :) And thank you for posting this reminder here.
  • benibela 6y ago
    The audience is too small On Twitter you can easily reach thousands of people, in person you only talk to a handful
    • deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
• turblety 6y ago
  Does federated count? There is the opensource project here: https://github.com/jointwt/twtxt https://github.com/jointwt/twtxt And a public instance at: http://twtxt.net/ http://twtxt.net/
• pokstad 6y ago
  Forget Twitter alternatives. How about a social network that mirrors real world social interactions? Only adding people you actually know. Keeping conversations private. Encryption to prevent censorship. What is the social media equivalent of signal?
  • hombre_fatal 6y ago
    This is already how people use social media like Instagram and features like Stories only viewable to your list of special friends. It’s pretty old hat by now. I use Facebook and Stories every day (Stories seem lame but are too useful for, say, meeting women, to dismiss) but if you went to my profile you’d think I haven’t used Facebook in seven years. In case you don’t know, the Stories system replicated on every social media platform including Youtube and Twitter most recently lets you post ephemeral images/video/text and anyone who responds to it is sending a private 1:1 message. It’s a surprisingly healthy direction away from the awful default public posts with public comments and likes. It’s liberating to post stuff as a story where nobody can know if 0 or 100 of your friends engaged with it. Just throwing this out there since most HNers aren’t really hip with how social media is used these days. In others words, people are on Twitter quibbling in public because, like HN arguments, we actually like doing it. Not because there aren’t alternatives.
    • pokstad 6y ago
      That’s not encrypted and free from censorship.
      • ahurmazda 6y ago
        Are you willing to pay for such a service? More importantly, are you willing and able to convince enough of your network to pay for it? Otherwise, any system will asymptotically look like Twitter/Blah. You could very well use your group chat feature on regular cell phone as a start (takes care of the payment aspect). But soon you or your friends will want feature X. So, cough up more $$ again. Another option is to cultivate real life friends/family that you can hang out with, chat, share photos in the privacy of your home/blah (wait till covid passes please).
• exolymph 6y ago
  The network effects are irreplaceable, unfortunately.
• jonas_kgomo 6y ago
  i remember once peepeth[0] was trending in the ethereum ecosystem. There used to be something called tsu[1] a few years ago, that paid fiat for its users. [0] https://peepeth.com/welcome https://peepeth.com/welcome [1] https://www.vox.com/2014/10/21/11632070/new-social-network-tsu-which-pays-users-who-post-raises-7-million https://www.vox.com/2014/10/21/11632070/new-social-network-t...
• Meekro 6y ago
  Any company that can censor will eventually be pressured by governments (or its own employees) to do so. Therefore, I see Signal as a model for how everything should operate in the future: your "account" in the company's database is just an encrypted blob that they can't read. Is there no way to make a Twitter-like broadcast messaging app work on top of a Signal backbone? It'd take a smarter programmer than me to figure out the details, but it's got to be possible, right? I mean, right now we have several well-accepted cryptocurrencies that I can use to send an uncensorable, untraceable payment anywhere in the world for about $5 in fees. It's a bit clunky, but it basically works. Why can't I post an uncensorable tweet for $5, too?
  • FreeTrade 6y ago
    You can, http://member.cash http://member.cash It is on BCH, so cost is more like a fraction of a cent, but same idea.
• cydactyl 6y ago
  I am the admin of both a Mastodon Instance(https://zee.li https://zee.li), and a Peertube Instance(https://tube.zee.li https://tube.zee.li), both of which are ActivityPub based federated instances. While individual nodes are not decentralized the federated network as a whole is. It is ultimately up to you to choose a well-federated, fast, and reliable instance that meets your criteria for information freedom and user protections. You can find an uncurated list here(https://instances.social/list https://instances.social/list) or a curated list of instances committed to "active moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia." here(https://joinmastodon.org/communities https://joinmastodon.org/communities). My instance while valuing user protection, errs on the side of information freedom as a valuable principle to protect as a whole. Both Mastodon and Peertube include pretty effective and comprehensive moderation tools to ensure you never see what you do not want to see, but that decision is not made for you on my instances. The content policy below applies to both instances- Moderation will be minimal and limited to abusive or illegal content, ultimately we want to foster an inclusive environment without draconian, biased, puritan, or emotional moderation. Moderation is taken care of by server host & volunteers. NSFW content is allowed but must be blurred by default. Gore/Porn/Nudity = NSFW. Any content that abides by Illinois, New York City, New York State, and U.S. Law is allowed. Server Specs: i7-9700k 512GB NVMe SSD 64GB DDR4 1Gbps Backend Infrastructure- Hosted in NYC, Wasabi S3 storage backend, with BunnyCDN as CDN provider for both instances. Who we are- This instance is ran voluntarily. I have been a server administrator for going on 10 years now starting with a passion for gaming private servers and evolving into running a business that offers web/service hosting for various clients & personal projects. These instances will not disappear overnight given my track record with various volunteer services(Tor Non-Exit Relay, Free VPN for my Mumble, Mumble, Various websites for musician/artist friends, that I have and still host). Why we created this instance- Freedom of speech & information is paramount in a free society. While not legally obligated, centralized platforms have increasingly infringed on societal and moral obligations to appease advertisers & coddle the fragile. How long we plan to maintain this instance- Indefinitely How we will pay for this instance- Donations, Personal Funds. More instances are in the works and I plan on hosting more instances for the community and web at large that follow the same principles, Gitlab, Pixelfed(ActivityPub), and Funkwhale(ActivityPub) instances immediately come to mind.
  • 6y ago
• StanislavPetrov 6y ago
  Hive is a decentralized, blockchain based alternative, though the layout resembles Reddit a bit more than Hive. There are a variety of front ends people use to connect to the Hive blockchain (and you can create your own, if you're so inclined). PeakD is one of the most popular and user-friendly ways to connect, and they have a bunch of links on their front page that have a lot more information: https://peakd.com/ https://peakd.com/ Direct link: https://hive.blog/ https://hive.blog/
  • StanislavPetrov 6y ago
    Edit: *..resembles Reddit a bit more than Twitter.
• probinso 6y ago
  Paper and pencil has historically been very useful
• joseph_ven 6y ago
  Yes! Do join Venturon.org, a social media platform for good, where we can together ideate, volunteer and build solutions.
• joseph_ven 6y ago
  Yes!! do check out venturon.org a social media platform for good, where people can come together, create teams, volunteer and also ideate trend issues.
• 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
  i have a question for signal users. what happens when signal will be used by teams to organise the capitol building style attacks? or a disinformation campaign by a crony government? or racial message storms that make rounds on whatsapp (why they introduced the 5 forward limit)
  • deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  • eplanit 6y ago
    They called it Springtime in Egypt.
    • 2Gkashmiri 6y ago
      Will usa see an American spring? Ala Arab spring? I dont care about that. I am asking the technology. How will it handle such stuff
• zhte415 6y ago
  PMs: Email. Posts: Blog. [XML-RPC if you wanna email from your phone to your blog. Different post-type or tag for 'like' vs 'post' (heck, invent any 'like' 'like' you like).] Follow: RSS. It's all there and decentralised for years, just not in a polished package of a 140 character comment, and likely requires more than 15 seconds of thinking. Actually really straightforward. Only tricky thing would be SMS but that's... 'depreciated' as a popular feature today.
  • avian 6y ago
    > Blog [...] Different post-type or tag for 'like' vs 'post' See also Webmention for a way to have likes and replies on a blog that behave more like what you see on Twitter. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webmention https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webmention
  • VoxPelli 6y ago
    Micropub is a more recent alternative to XML-RPC: https://indieweb.org/Micropub https://indieweb.org/Micropub
  • 74d-fe6-2c6 6y ago
    With RSS you have to follow explicitely. I like the non-linear composition of the suggested tweets.
    • onpointed 6y ago
      That's a good point! Could someone (or many someones) provide 'suggested' blogs/posts as a service on top of the existing infrastructure?
      • pharke 6y ago
        That would be a good idea, provide a list of things you subscribe to and get back a list of things you might like.
        • onpointed 6y ago
• edwnjos 6y ago
  I'm working on one, every account is based around a bitcoin wallet and the source of truth is one the client side. Will be open to testing soon!: https://chapo.app https://chapo.app
• BlueTemplar 6y ago
  While somewhat offtopic, an important question is why would you want one ? IMHO the main issue of Twitter is not even the way how it's now a walled garden (and since recently, effectively outside of the Web). It's how the combination of a ~~140~~ 280† character limit, personal walls, hashtags, likes and an horribly hard to navigate comment system has resulted in a medium where constructive debate is almost impossible, while feelings-driven mobs rule. †While moving to a 280 character limit probably made Twitter better, I'm wondering about the loss of compatibility with texts. One actually remarkable way in how Twitter was good is for post-disaster communication, which is the very situation where Internet might be down while basic cellphone communication still up.
  • mumblemumble 6y ago
    There's this sort of thing, definitely, but I'll note that Facebook lacks many of these features, and is still a toxic environment, although perhaps less overtly so. My own guess is that the most fundamental problem is that Dunbar's number is real, and bad things happen if you blow past it. Large scale human communication works best when it is not modeled as an endless, 24/7 masquerade ball where the theme of the party is bullhorns.
  • clairity 6y ago
    for better discussion, 280 would be a minimum rather than a maximum, but twitter doesn't want better discussion as that also depresses engagement.
    • mumblemumble 6y ago
      Maybe? But, on the other hand, even at 147 characters, your comment seems like a complete and well-composed observation. I don't see how requiring it to be 90% longer would improve it. I only got past 280 by counting just 185 characters, and deciding to add this sentence as filler.
      • clairity 6y ago
        it's not that you can't have a single, good point fit into a small number of characters, but that good discussion requires more than one good point, and plenty of nuance and thought. it's strictly true that the number limit is arbitrary (and only loosely correlated to 'goodness'), but assuming there is a limit at all, my (simple) point was it should be a minimum rather than a maximum, for better discussion.
• VoxPelli 6y ago
  There are two approaches: * The federated approach, where many Twitter like sites can interconnect and exchange messages. One current example of this is Mastodon, older examples are Status.net/Identi.ca * An indie approach, where everyone basically hosts their own profile and there are no Twitter like sites at all, one instead uses readers that are completely separate from ones hosted profile, just like it was in the blogosphere days. One example of this is https://indieweb.org/ https://indieweb.org/ I favor the indie approach as the federated approach seems to in practice often end up with interoperability issues and mono-cultures, at least historically. + there’s still central providers, just a few more than in the case of Twitter, whereas in the indie world everyone is basically a provider themselves and one can eg. put up a static site and use that (through various Micropub tricks and such)
  • jb775 6y ago
    For the indie approach, you would need to automate the self-hosting setup to gain realistic traction with the masses. What about somehow utilizing wireless router hardware for the local hosting? Pretty much everyone has a similar router/modem setup that's always connected to the internet. Could create a script that sets up a file structure directly on the router (or a usb stick plugged into the router) that stores/hosts that person's data (and maybe even stores/hosts misc data of others to backup other people's data)
    • VoxPelli 6y ago
      I myself don't think it's necessary to host it locally at home. The most key thing to me is to control the domain name so that I can move from one provider to another.
      • jb775 6y ago
        But if all the data is stored in a central database, wouldn't that essentially make it centralized?
  • civilized 6y ago
    > just like it was in the blogosphere days so if it's just like the blogosphere days, how exactly is this different from just advocating for a return to the blogosphere, which hasn't happened for many years and hence probably isn't happening for a reason?
• jariel 6y ago
  "the only winning move is not to play."
• FinalDestiny 6y ago
  There is a crypto project by the imfamous Tim called SAV3 launching soon. It aims to be a decentralized, uncensorable Twitter alternative. Definitely worth a look: Medium: https://thetimtempleton.medium.com/what-is-sav3-d31ccb979ea1 https://thetimtempleton.medium.com/what-is-sav3-d31ccb979ea1 Testnet: https://testnet.sav3.org/ https://testnet.sav3.org/ Website: https://sav3.org/ https://sav3.org/
• instakill 6y ago
  Lots of talk about federated services in this thread. Anyone have a link to a good YouTube video running through the fundamentals + any principles required to build the "hello world" version of a federated service?
• iFire 6y ago
  Most of the decentralized Twitter alternative systems required AGPL to join. Are there any MIT licensed social protocols?
  • wut42 6y ago
    Protocols aren't licensed. You're totally free to implement an ActivityPub server with any license you like. AGPL is preferred by the community, but it's not mandatory. Honk uses ISC, Smithereen is unlicense, pubgate is BSD-3-Clauses, ….
    • iFire 6y ago
      I appreciate listing some non-AGPL ActivityPub servers! Thanks.
• thebigspacefuck 6y ago
  Every time I go looking for one of these open alternatives it’s filled with fringe conspiracy theorists, actual racists, etc. Example is LBRY. Bryan Lunduke says he’s switching off YouTube for LBRY, so I go there to check it out. Top trending video is some white supremacist thing why I shouldn’t forget my ancestry. Search for “how to repair furnace”, second result is video how Epstein is alive. Even Lunduke is taking the opportunity to start his red-pilled politics channel. I have similar story with Mastodon. The fundamentals are there but the big challenge is no censorship actually makes these smaller platforms something that people don’t want to use.
  • jere 6y ago
    I think you're right. A little surprised about Mastodon because I've only heard that from people I follow on twitter who tend to not be crazy, but I guess it makes sense. I have an idea for an app whose primary motivation is offering a comment section for websites that don't normally have comments or have them disabled (yes, this idea is old as dirt and has been tried many times). The part I'm really struggling with is how one would market such an app without targeting free speech absolutists and nutters, despite it being really useful for everyone. It seems like the moment you start highlighting free speech as a feature you become a magnet for the absolute worst kind of people.
    • Rumudiez 6y ago
      > an app whose primary motivation is offering a comment section for websites that don't normally have comments Disqus has done this to a fairly wide extent. They allow site maintainers to moderate comments IIRC.
      • jaredsohn 6y ago
        I think this is more about something like running a chrome extension to have comments without the site owner's involvement. https://www.google.com/search?q=chrome+extension+comments+for+any+site https://www.google.com/search?q=chrome+extension+comments+fo...
    • 6y ago
• suyash 6y ago
  How about having one's own news/update feed on your website that people can follow/subscribe to using something like RSS ? I'm looking to build something like this and open source it, will you use ? any suggestions ?
• runjake 6y ago
  Stick with me here: your own website connected to a webring[1]. Unfortunately, both went all but extinct when we gave up autonomy for convenience and shininess. 1. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Webring
• jeffreyrogers 6y ago
  >...and the scale of supporting such a centralized network in the future could be unsustainable. I don't think this is borne out in practice. Centralization seems to be the rule for large systems since networking scales O(n^2) otherwise, so decentralization has to provide pretty compelling advantages to overcome this large disadvantage.
• kain_niak 6y ago
  I use a protocol on the Bitcoin Cash blockchain, through my software wallet. It also has a bunch of portal sites like memo.cash and member.cash These protocols were initially developed for Bitcoin but after it dropped the ball on scaling everything was ported over to Bitcoin Cash.
• kain_niak 6y ago
  I use a protocol for a decentralised message board that builds on top of the Bitcoin Cash blockchain. Initially it was developed for Bitcoin but it can only work on Bitcoin if transactions under 1 cent are possible. The protocol is also used by various portal sides like memo.cash and member.cash I prefer member.cash because it has that feel of reddit. It's pretty cool actually, if somebody upvotes you instead of karma you get satoshis!
• lgats 6y ago
  If you’re looking to browse twitter with less of the privacy invasive tracking mechanisms , https://github.com/zedeus/nitter https://github.com/zedeus/nitter Public instances: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances
• dboreham 6y ago
  To a first approximation: none.
• Larrikin 6y ago
  Are there any tools out there that will posts your content to multiple platforms simultaneously? The current fringe sites are worthless to me since currently they are mostly created and used by people who were kicked off the top sites. However, as an example, if there was a tool that would post my video to youtube, dailymotion, and however other many video sites are out there I'd gladly do it. You could still maintain a preferred network to help consolidate likes and subscribers, but you are less beholden to any one company if your content has existed many places for years. It could be difficult in mediums like twitter where there is a real two way interaction, perhaps a comment consolidator within the tool? If it doesn't exist I think government should atleast build the tool for themselves. There's no reason for communication from the government to exist first on a private platform. It should be put out on a .gov platform that then goes to whatever popular platforms of the day exist.
  • selfishgene 6y ago
    Maybe the Matrix project will eventually offer something like this: https://matrix.org/bridges/ https://matrix.org/bridges/
• prologic 6y ago
  This is a question I had been asking for several years until I came across Twtxt (the spec/format originally created by Felix, @buckket, read about it at https://twtxt.readthedocs.org https://twtxt.readthedocs.org) -- When I came across it I saw a bit more potential so I created (what is effectively) a multi-user client also called Twtxt over at https://twtxt.net https://twtxt.net (launched in Aug 2020). Since then we've also created a Mobile App (Goryon) available in the App Store (iOS) and Play Store (Android), we also offer free (at this time) hosting of pods (individual instances) at https://twt.social/ https://twt.social/ -- Today we have a dozen pods/instances and some ~300 users. My own pod (twtxt.net) sees around ~4M hits/month :O
• pasttense01 6y ago
  IRC (Internet Relay Chat): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irc https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irc
• alexmingoia 6y ago
  Blogs and RSS/microformats. Use your own feed reader of choice, send webmentions for notifications or cross-blog comments. See https://indieweb.org https://indieweb.org It’s decentralized, and more importantly it’s based on web standards. It works today.
• thepra 6y ago
  I would say pleroma.social, you host your own instance and it's much lighter on computer resources than Mastodon.
• companyhen 6y ago
  https://arweave.org https://arweave.org has some options
• AntiImperialist 6y ago
  We don't need "decentralized" anything. It's expensive, impractical and unnecessary. All we ever need is a few uncompromising brave people. Trump. Assange. Snowden. Lincoln. You don't have to agree with them. Look at Rob Monster. He has singlehandedly kept several domains alive which would have otherwise succumbed to the mob. If Trump had joined Gab back in the day, it would be huge by now with a lot of users, and not necessarily just those who agree with him... except he would still have his account.
• davidhq 6y ago
  https://uniqpath.com https://uniqpath.com p2p search and newsfeeds (soon) join the discussion ^_^
• RMPR 6y ago
  Many people mentioned it already, but Mastodon. Shameless plug, I wrote an article[0] about my experience migrating 0: https://rmpr.xyz/Migrating-from-Twitter-to-Mastodon/ https://rmpr.xyz/Migrating-from-Twitter-to-Mastodon/