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The issues highlighted by the author, about Signal, and indeed nearly any messenger app or platform, are societal issues that we keep trying to fix with technol

The issues highlighted by the author, about Signal, and indeed nearly any messenger app or platform, are societal issues that we keep trying to fix with technology. There are promising solutions to decentralizing and anonymizing but there remain to be any real tech solutions to the ultimate de-platforming issue. Signal is at risk of having their hosting or connection removed. What prevents the same thing from happening to decentralized services? ISPs have already shown willingness to censor. A decentralized service is at just as much risk of being blocked in a game of whackamole. Or having the apps needed for access removed from major mobile platforms. Apple already blocks magnet links on Safari for iOS. What stops them from blocking a webapp for one of these services? We need strong laws and regulations protecting everyone’s right to telecommunication infrastructure and the right to install and run our own code on end user devices to prevent another Parler.

Evidlo 6y ago
> What prevents the same thing from happening to decentralized services? Nothing, but at least knocking a server offline doesn't bring down the whole network, which is indeed "better than Signal" on this front.
- hiq 6y ago
  I don't think it's clear that a federated service has better chances against censorship. Take any federated service: if you ban the servers accounting for 90% of users, you end up in a situation mostly similar to censoring Signal, you need to migrate servers and accounts somehow. This should be easier for a centralized service (Signal) since they control everything. Banning servers that belong to n entities where n > 1 might be a bit more of a hurdle, but if n < 20 it's also not that much harder. Do we really expect that many prominent matrix servers, given how centralized email has ended up being? P2P on Matrix has been mentioned, and might be more resistant to censorship, but figuring out the UX in this case is pretty much an open problem (e.g. resetting your "address" whenever your reset your main device and lose your data is not acceptable). Also good to remember regarding centralized services: The Pirate Bay is still up and running. Will there be more pressure on Signal to close than The Pirate Bay?
op03 6y ago
Tech solutions to deplatforming will involve changes to how reward mechanisms work (ie Likes/Views/Clicks/Followers etc). No one needs to get banned but they can be thrown in the drunk tank (so no rewards ie Likes/Views/Clicks/Followers etc) for some period depending on offense type, seriousness, what have you. Currently getting agreement on Reward mechanisms when no one trusts anyone is complicated. But it will happen eventually after more and more shit hits the fan.

Evidlo 6y ago

> What prevents the same thing from happening to decentralized services? Nothing, but at least knocking a server offline doesn't bring down the whole network, which is indeed "better than Signal" on this front.

hiq 6y ago
I don't think it's clear that a federated service has better chances against censorship. Take any federated service: if you ban the servers accounting for 90% of users, you end up in a situation mostly similar to censoring Signal, you need to migrate servers and accounts somehow. This should be easier for a centralized service (Signal) since they control everything. Banning servers that belong to n entities where n > 1 might be a bit more of a hurdle, but if n < 20 it's also not that much harder. Do we really expect that many prominent matrix servers, given how centralized email has ended up being? P2P on Matrix has been mentioned, and might be more resistant to censorship, but figuring out the UX in this case is pretty much an open problem (e.g. resetting your "address" whenever your reset your main device and lose your data is not acceptable). Also good to remember regarding centralized services: The Pirate Bay is still up and running. Will there be more pressure on Signal to close than The Pirate Bay?

op03 6y ago

Tech solutions to deplatforming will involve changes to how reward mechanisms work (ie Likes/Views/Clicks/Followers etc). No one needs to get banned but they can be thrown in the drunk tank (so no rewards ie Likes/Views/Clicks/Followers etc) for some period depending on offense type, seriousness, what have you. Currently getting agreement on Reward mechanisms when no one trusts anyone is complicated. But it will happen eventually after more and more shit hits the fan.