8 ms·

Protocols, not platforms: A technological approach to free speech (2019)

95 points by uberdru 4y ago

humanistbot 4y ago
(2019). Previously discussed at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059
- dang 4y ago
  Thanks! Macroexpanded: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942632 - Jan 2021 (269 comments) Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059 - Aug 2019 (67 comments)
karpierz 4y ago
I don't see how this approach stops a centralized service from taking over via the standard approach of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish [1]: - Embrace: BigTech implements the protocol. For example, say text messaging. - Extend: BigTech implements some custom additions to the protocol, that only work for their service. For example, add support for sending photos, but only ones stored on BigTech's servers. - Extinguish: Once people get hooked on your custom features, make it hard for competitors to replicate. For example, stop competitors from being able to load photos from BigTech's servers. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...
- vorpalhex 4y ago
  [2] is the step that can be addressed.
  - karpierz 4y ago
    Extend? How do you address it?
    - vorpalhex 4y ago
      "Protocol extensions must be able to be implemented by all users of the protocol and may not require a particular providers service but allow any alternative so long as it is protocol compatible" Basically force those extensions to be equally cross-compatible.
      - jacobr1 4y ago
        Though protocols are not law. You can have non-conforming implementations. If these are popular enough (potentially due to $proprietary_thing) then people will just use them. Other services will need to decide if they want to continue to interoperate.
      - karpierz 4y ago
        Two key issues with a rule like that: 1. What forces me to comply with this rule? 2. What does "able to be implemented" mean? In theory, you can re-implement my entire codebase. In practice, you'll find it very difficult to maintain feature parity with me if I repeatedly extend the protocol faster than you can implement it. Especially if I don't publish my code or document the extension or if I simply have more resources available to me (either in terms of server-bandwidth or programmers).
- userbinator 4y ago
  We've already seen this happen with Google and browsers. In this case, they extend so quickly and also manage to spread much propaganda about how their way is better, that they're basically using change as their weapon. Protocols aren't the solution when people are so easily manipulated. Perhaps stagnation is the solution. Something that stays static for a longer time is also going to have more implementations.
- cuteboy19 4y ago
  The most successful example of EEE is not Microsoft but rather Linux. It embraced the Unix* style, extended it with its own stuff and now all non Linux unices are basically an afterthought
  - __d 4y ago
    It doesn't really undermine your point, but, well ... iOS/macOS/watchOS/tvOS/etcOS is hardly an afterthought, and they are all non-Linux Unix systems.
- gweinberg 4y ago
  It depends on who cares, and how much. The world isn't one-size-fits-all, and if 90+% of internet users are happy with a platform that arbitrarily bans users or censors content as long as it supports the marquee tag, that's their business. Conversely, I could see using a system that only gets me a very limited amount of content as long as I consider it to be high quality, and if my friends' ex-wives or people I haven't seen since high school and wasn't close to then never use the system, well, I think I can handle that.
Barrin92 4y ago
I think this is largely a futile effort because the equilibrium the author thinks of when he talks about protocols does not exist. All existing internet platforms already sit on top of protocols, the internet's running on them. Anyone can built a platform on top of ActivityPub, on whatever crypto network or what have you. The old internet consisted of smaller islands not because of protocol technology, but because it had a small userbase overall and discovery was bad. The benefits of aggregation hadn't kicked in. If Mastodon gets to hundreds of millions of users I will bet that one or two instances will grow very large, develop their own rules, and what do you have then? A proprietary platform on top of what was once a 'first order' protocol. The protocol is still there but doesn't matter for end users, same way HTML doesn't to your average Facebook user or the blockchain doesn't matter to your average guy on coinbase. People need to recognize that anything that increases connectivity between people tends towards agglomeration. Tech is inherently centralizing, even ironically enough the superficially decentralizing tools, if they lower the cost of communication. This isn't just the history of internet companies, it's the history of movement of peoples from fractured townships to large urban centers. It's not malicious platform lock-in, but simply gravity.
- vannevar 4y ago
  Yes, and I don't think the author fully grasps the role of capital: you can create all the egalitarian protocols you want, but if there are massive wealth inequalities, capital will ultimately capture whatever communication channels are built on top of them.
  - ngcc_hk 4y ago
    But not all, unlike communism. That is where you can still have phoenix. Whilst rich man eating Twitter, people can revolt. Given option out is key, not what is in.
- veltas 4y ago
  This is very true and I think it applies to everything, not just software. I was an anarchist at heart until I understood that if you just remove all the rules they all just come back with different names, and often in an inferior form.
transfire 4y ago
And coming from the other end… “Protocols, not APIs”
slg 4y ago
Hiding abuse from the end user only stops direct forms of abuse, but it won't stop all abuse. Revenge porn is a classic example because that is usually directed at everyone in a target's life without needing to reach the target themselves. Imagine a scenario in which the target uses a client that aggressively hides content. However since this system is protocol based, other users would be using clients that aren't as aggressive. What happens if an abuser responds to every post their target makes with a revenge porn image? Maybe the victim of the abuse never sees that image because of their clients settings, but numerous people following them do. Isn't that still abuse even if the target doesn't see it? How do you stop this type of indirect abusive behavior without some centralized authority?
- wmf 4y ago
  At a certain point we need to remember that the legal system exists.
  - slg 4y ago
    Clearly a sizable audience wants protections above and beyond what the law requires or else there wouldn't be such strong support for these systems curtailing abuse. Saying the legal system will handle it is not a neutral position. It is a clear decision in favor of the anti-censorship side over the anti-abuse side.
  - mnd999 4y ago
    Revenge porn is illegal, at least in the UK.
    - wmf 4y ago
      That's my point. Don't ask the world to do the courts' job.
viksit 4y ago
Disagreements with this article via a claim that says technology inherently centralizes, to me, seems flawed. The concept of democracy was evolved as a system that could distribute social power in order to catalyze the wider involvement of its members in their own social and economic concerns. All the way back to Alexis De Tocqueville in the 1800s (in his book Democracy in America), Tocqueville attributes the ultimate success of liberty in America, however, to a feature of American political order he refers to as “administrative decentralization,” which–going beyond federalism as such–fosters the participation of citizens in “real . . . political life” beginning at the local (sub-state) level. [1] To me, a series of decentralized, shared ownership systems that come together to provide and replace the functionality that has today been built into centralized networks is the only way to achieve any kind of "liberty" (however one may define that word). The missing link for these systems has historically been cost - who runs the servers that runs these systems, and who pays to develop them? It is exactly for this reason that they were centralized in the first place. Today, we've got one way to solve for these problems (tokens). I'm sure there will be more. But they will all be catalysts towards this direction. Edit: To comments talking about how protocols won't just be replaced by big companies. All companies ultimately care about one thing -- distribution. They will continue to be the direct link between customers / users and the service they provide. The difference is that they will need to build upon the protocol that has the most distribution. If we imagine a new open protocol for "online document comments" that existed, Google Docs AND Office online could use it and have interoperable commenting from each other's identity systems vs the state of the landscape today. what would their motivation be to do it? Same as using open source libraries like ffmpeg or openSSL -- except this time, they don't pay to host the APIs that power this protocol. [1] https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9958 https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?rec...
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
  > The concept of democracy was evolved as a system that could distribute social power in order to catalyze the wider involvement of its members in their own social and economic concerns. Even in democracy there is a tendency to centralize. For example, there are big differences between ancient Athens, modern Switzerland, the USA, and the EU. They all are implementations of democracy, but as democracies have grown larger, it becomes more centralized.
amadeuspagel 4y ago
> Rather than relying on a few giant platforms to police speech online, there could be widespread competition, in which anyone could design their own interfaces, filters, and additional services, allowing whichever ones work best to succeed, without having to resort to outright censorship for certain voices. It would allow end users to determine their own tolerances for different types of speech but make it much easier for most people to avoid the most problematic speech, without silencing anyone entirely or having the platforms themselves make the decisions about who is allowed to speak. Most platforms have APIs that allow people to "design their own interfaces, filters, and additional services". Many also allow people to build their own platforms on top of them - subreddits, discord servers, facebook groups, etc. that they can moderate as they please. It would also be possible to build browser extensions that automatically block certain speech. But this is all besides that point, because this debate is not about letting people "determine their own tolerances for different types of speech", it's about preventing other people, who are willing to tolerate certain types of speech from doing so. This is the reason subreddits, discord servers and facebook groups get banned. The people who joined them have decided that they are willing to tolerate certain types of speech, but others are not.
cryptonector 4y ago
Protocols, sure, but then you still need to have HW running them, which enables platform building. Also, that HW (and bandwidth) has significant, non-zero costs, which again tilts the field in favor of those with the capital to pay for it, and they'll want to monetize their investment, which again means platform building.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

95 points by uberdru 4y ago

(2019). Previously discussed at: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059

dang 4y ago
Thanks! Macroexpanded: Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942632 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25942632 - Jan 2021 (269 comments) Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20841059 - Aug 2019 (67 comments)

karpierz 4y ago

I don't see how this approach stops a centralized service from taking over via the standard approach of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish [1]: - Embrace: BigTech implements the protocol. For example, say text messaging. - Extend: BigTech implements some custom additions to the protocol, that only work for their service. For example, add support for sending photos, but only ones stored on BigTech's servers. - Extinguish: Once people get hooked on your custom features, make it hard for competitors to replicate. For example, stop competitors from being able to load photos from BigTech's servers. 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguis...

vorpalhex 4y ago
[2] is the step that can be addressed.
- karpierz 4y ago
  Extend? How do you address it?
  - vorpalhex 4y ago
    "Protocol extensions must be able to be implemented by all users of the protocol and may not require a particular providers service but allow any alternative so long as it is protocol compatible" Basically force those extensions to be equally cross-compatible.
    - jacobr1 4y ago
      Though protocols are not law. You can have non-conforming implementations. If these are popular enough (potentially due to $proprietary_thing) then people will just use them. Other services will need to decide if they want to continue to interoperate.
    - karpierz 4y ago
      Two key issues with a rule like that: 1. What forces me to comply with this rule? 2. What does "able to be implemented" mean? In theory, you can re-implement my entire codebase. In practice, you'll find it very difficult to maintain feature parity with me if I repeatedly extend the protocol faster than you can implement it. Especially if I don't publish my code or document the extension or if I simply have more resources available to me (either in terms of server-bandwidth or programmers).
userbinator 4y ago
We've already seen this happen with Google and browsers. In this case, they extend so quickly and also manage to spread much propaganda about how their way is better, that they're basically using change as their weapon. Protocols aren't the solution when people are so easily manipulated. Perhaps stagnation is the solution. Something that stays static for a longer time is also going to have more implementations.
cuteboy19 4y ago
The most successful example of EEE is not Microsoft but rather Linux. It embraced the Unix* style, extended it with its own stuff and now all non Linux unices are basically an afterthought
- __d 4y ago
  It doesn't really undermine your point, but, well ... iOS/macOS/watchOS/tvOS/etcOS is hardly an afterthought, and they are all non-Linux Unix systems.
gweinberg 4y ago
It depends on who cares, and how much. The world isn't one-size-fits-all, and if 90+% of internet users are happy with a platform that arbitrarily bans users or censors content as long as it supports the marquee tag, that's their business. Conversely, I could see using a system that only gets me a very limited amount of content as long as I consider it to be high quality, and if my friends' ex-wives or people I haven't seen since high school and wasn't close to then never use the system, well, I think I can handle that.

Barrin92 4y ago

I think this is largely a futile effort because the equilibrium the author thinks of when he talks about protocols does not exist. All existing internet platforms already sit on top of protocols, the internet's running on them. Anyone can built a platform on top of ActivityPub, on whatever crypto network or what have you. The old internet consisted of smaller islands not because of protocol technology, but because it had a small userbase overall and discovery was bad. The benefits of aggregation hadn't kicked in. If Mastodon gets to hundreds of millions of users I will bet that one or two instances will grow very large, develop their own rules, and what do you have then? A proprietary platform on top of what was once a 'first order' protocol. The protocol is still there but doesn't matter for end users, same way HTML doesn't to your average Facebook user or the blockchain doesn't matter to your average guy on coinbase. People need to recognize that anything that increases connectivity between people tends towards agglomeration. Tech is inherently centralizing, even ironically enough the superficially decentralizing tools, if they lower the cost of communication. This isn't just the history of internet companies, it's the history of movement of peoples from fractured townships to large urban centers. It's not malicious platform lock-in, but simply gravity.

vannevar 4y ago
Yes, and I don't think the author fully grasps the role of capital: you can create all the egalitarian protocols you want, but if there are massive wealth inequalities, capital will ultimately capture whatever communication channels are built on top of them.
- ngcc_hk 4y ago
  But not all, unlike communism. That is where you can still have phoenix. Whilst rich man eating Twitter, people can revolt. Given option out is key, not what is in.
veltas 4y ago
This is very true and I think it applies to everything, not just software. I was an anarchist at heart until I understood that if you just remove all the rules they all just come back with different names, and often in an inferior form.

transfire 4y ago

And coming from the other end… “Protocols, not APIs”

slg 4y ago

Hiding abuse from the end user only stops direct forms of abuse, but it won't stop all abuse. Revenge porn is a classic example because that is usually directed at everyone in a target's life without needing to reach the target themselves. Imagine a scenario in which the target uses a client that aggressively hides content. However since this system is protocol based, other users would be using clients that aren't as aggressive. What happens if an abuser responds to every post their target makes with a revenge porn image? Maybe the victim of the abuse never sees that image because of their clients settings, but numerous people following them do. Isn't that still abuse even if the target doesn't see it? How do you stop this type of indirect abusive behavior without some centralized authority?

wmf 4y ago
At a certain point we need to remember that the legal system exists.
- slg 4y ago
  Clearly a sizable audience wants protections above and beyond what the law requires or else there wouldn't be such strong support for these systems curtailing abuse. Saying the legal system will handle it is not a neutral position. It is a clear decision in favor of the anti-censorship side over the anti-abuse side.
- mnd999 4y ago
  Revenge porn is illegal, at least in the UK.
  - wmf 4y ago
    That's my point. Don't ask the world to do the courts' job.

viksit 4y ago

Disagreements with this article via a claim that says technology inherently centralizes, to me, seems flawed. The concept of democracy was evolved as a system that could distribute social power in order to catalyze the wider involvement of its members in their own social and economic concerns. All the way back to Alexis De Tocqueville in the 1800s (in his book Democracy in America), Tocqueville attributes the ultimate success of liberty in America, however, to a feature of American political order he refers to as “administrative decentralization,” which–going beyond federalism as such–fosters the participation of citizens in “real . . . political life” beginning at the local (sub-state) level. [1] To me, a series of decentralized, shared ownership systems that come together to provide and replace the functionality that has today been built into centralized networks is the only way to achieve any kind of "liberty" (however one may define that word). The missing link for these systems has historically been cost - who runs the servers that runs these systems, and who pays to develop them? It is exactly for this reason that they were centralized in the first place. Today, we've got one way to solve for these problems (tokens). I'm sure there will be more. But they will all be catalysts towards this direction. Edit: To comments talking about how protocols won't just be replaced by big companies. All companies ultimately care about one thing -- distribution. They will continue to be the direct link between customers / users and the service they provide. The difference is that they will need to build upon the protocol that has the most distribution. If we imagine a new open protocol for "online document comments" that existed, Google Docs AND Office online could use it and have interoperable commenting from each other's identity systems vs the state of the landscape today. what would their motivation be to do it? Same as using open source libraries like ffmpeg or openSSL -- except this time, they don't pay to host the APIs that power this protocol. [1] https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?recnum=9958 https://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?rec...

RcouF1uZ4gsC 4y ago
> The concept of democracy was evolved as a system that could distribute social power in order to catalyze the wider involvement of its members in their own social and economic concerns. Even in democracy there is a tendency to centralize. For example, there are big differences between ancient Athens, modern Switzerland, the USA, and the EU. They all are implementations of democracy, but as democracies have grown larger, it becomes more centralized.

amadeuspagel 4y ago

> Rather than relying on a few giant platforms to police speech online, there could be widespread competition, in which anyone could design their own interfaces, filters, and additional services, allowing whichever ones work best to succeed, without having to resort to outright censorship for certain voices. It would allow end users to determine their own tolerances for different types of speech but make it much easier for most people to avoid the most problematic speech, without silencing anyone entirely or having the platforms themselves make the decisions about who is allowed to speak. Most platforms have APIs that allow people to "design their own interfaces, filters, and additional services". Many also allow people to build their own platforms on top of them - subreddits, discord servers, facebook groups, etc. that they can moderate as they please. It would also be possible to build browser extensions that automatically block certain speech. But this is all besides that point, because this debate is not about letting people "determine their own tolerances for different types of speech", it's about preventing other people, who are willing to tolerate certain types of speech from doing so. This is the reason subreddits, discord servers and facebook groups get banned. The people who joined them have decided that they are willing to tolerate certain types of speech, but others are not.

cryptonector 4y ago

Protocols, sure, but then you still need to have HW running them, which enables platform building. Also, that HW (and bandwidth) has significant, non-zero costs, which again tilts the field in favor of those with the capital to pay for it, and they'll want to monetize their investment, which again means platform building.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]