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Protocols Not Platforms - like Bitcoin which is mostly traded on a few exchanges, or email which is mostly handled by a few giant services? Mastodon will be no

by yosefk 4y ago

Protocols Not Platforms - like Bitcoin which is mostly traded on a few exchanges, or email which is mostly handled by a few giant services? Mastodon will be no exception with high likelihood. Choose it over eg Twitter if you prefer where it's going _as a platform._ I actually prefer where Twitter seems to be going, but to each his own

ido 4y ago
Where is Twitter going?
- 0x445442 4y ago
  Toward a platform and away from a publisher.
  - ceejayoz 4y ago
    What exactly is that supposed to mean? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-platform-it-doesnt-matter https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-platform-...
    - 0x445442 4y ago
      Did you read the Twitter files? Everything they were doing resembled the New York Times news room vetting a story?
    - 2devnull 4y ago
      Users will pay instead of the FBI. At least that’s one interpretation.
      - ceejayoz 4y ago
        The FBI paid legally required reimbursement for records requests. Twitter has kept this policy under Musk: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-law-enforcement-support#13.5 https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-law-e... > Twitter may seek reimbursement for costs associated with information produced pursuant to legal process and as permitted by law (e.g., under 18 U.S.C. §2706). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2706 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2706 > a governmental entity obtaining the contents of communications, records, or other information under section 2702, 2703, or 2704 of this title shall pay to the person or entity assembling or providing such information a fee for reimbursement for such costs as are reasonably necessary and which have been directly incurred in searching for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing such information $3M out of about $5,000M worth of annual revenue, and again, it’s reimbursement.
        2devnull 4y ago
        To me, 3 million dollars worth of record requests seems like more than would be optimal given the FBI’s purview. I mean, I’ve seen some terrible tweets, even some that I’d consider criminally bad. But 3 million dollars to police bad tweets doesn’t strike me as the optimal way to allocate citizen’s money. And it’s fair to ask, what results were achieved with that 3 million? If it were not a misallocation, certainly they could point to a high profile criminal, cartel or gang that they’ve prosecuted as the result of those record requests. But we don’t hear that. We hear crickets. Their response seems to be, “how dare anyone ask!” Certainly law enforcement is important. I think so. Most citizens do. But shouldn’t we hold law enforcement accountable? Ought not there be public oversight when millions of dollars are being spent, millions of dollars spent, supposedly, on our behalf? Perhaps you believe in more unchecked authority. Maybe crime has gotten so out of control that we should loosen some of the strictures put in place by the constitution. These are dangerous times. There are plenty of bad guys out there. Personally, I think the citizens deserve to know, and have some say in how millions of dollars are spent. Absolute, unconstrained authority tends towards abuse. It’s quite well documented.
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        I think you underestimate how many actionable threats, revenge porn, stalking etc. happen on a social network with over 100M people on it in a year. $3M is a small team of devs, legal, and support staff - maybe ten people at California salaries. If anything, it’s less than I’d expect.
        2devnull 4y ago
        In the context of mastodon, an interesting question is, will the FBI pay the same amount, if anything? Will there be any legal “speed bumps” at all when it comes to overreach from the long arm of the law? Presumably, a large company with high paid lawyers who are former FBI, like Twitter, Facebook, etc. would be able to pushback against quasi-constitutional requests. Clearly the FBI was able to get their way with Twitter, despite the big guns in the legal department. Will they be paying mastodon “operators” (or whatever they’re called) the same amount? I suspect they will not.
      - infotogivenm 4y ago
        Just out of curiousity, where do you get your news?
        2devnull 4y ago
        I don’t watch tv if that’s the question. I prefer reading news, and seeking out journalists and topics that interest me rather than passively consuming entertainment or ad supported “news.” Generally I prefer primary sources but there are a dozen or so journalists I like, some on sub stack some who write for wsj, nyt, wapo etc… What’s the saying, “if you get it for free, you’re the product.”
- heartbreak 4y ago
  Bankrupt, according to Musk himself.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  Hopefully it will stay on the internet rather than move to somewhere like the drive-in. Worst movie night ever.
devjab 4y ago
ActivityPub is sort of the protocol though. Mastodon is just the platform incorporating it that is becoming the twitter replacement. Maybe not for everything, but programming andtechwise my mastodon feed sure is more interesting than any of my other social media feeds in the wake of Elon. I think it's hard to say where things are heading though. We had RSS before, and that didn't stand up to American tech giants. I have my doubts this iteration of ActivityPub and the "fediverse" will, but I do think we need a decentral protocol like it if we want an interesting internet going forward. I mean, which of your centralized social media feeds are interesting in 2022? Even HN is becoming a page I visit on a weekly basis rather than on a daily basis, and this is the SoMe I use the most aside from mastodon and LinkedIn. Maybe I'm just the oddball, but at least in my circle of influence things like Facebook are now solely used to arrange things like Blood Bowl tournaments.
- robswc 4y ago
  I think thing the biggest threat to mastodon will be the “mods” and “admins.” It’s a matter of when, not if there will be drama and it’ll be interesting to see how that is handled. A lot of subreddits went so far as to make a bot that will ban users for posting on other subreddits. With mastodon that’s more or less “built-in.” You’re right though. Social media in general seems to be going downhill. Can’t really put my finger on “why” but “uninteresting” being a word I wouldn’t disagree with.
  - SyzygistSix 4y ago
    Because bots have been trained to get people to reply like bots do.
    - robswc 4y ago
      Oh I don't doubt that. I'm referencing the fact that some subs will run a bot that checks your post history and will ban you if you have previously posted in a sub they don't agree with or like. I've personally been "mass-banned" from a string of local sub reddits because I had an argument with a mod about the weather. (not global warming, literally about humid vs dry heat)

by yosefk 4y ago

ido 4y ago

Where is Twitter going?

0x445442 4y ago
Toward a platform and away from a publisher.
- ceejayoz 4y ago
  What exactly is that supposed to mean? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-platform-it-doesnt-matter https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/12/publisher-or-platform-...
  - 0x445442 4y ago
    Did you read the Twitter files? Everything they were doing resembled the New York Times news room vetting a story?
  - 2devnull 4y ago
    Users will pay instead of the FBI. At least that’s one interpretation.
    - ceejayoz 4y ago
      The FBI paid legally required reimbursement for records requests. Twitter has kept this policy under Musk: https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-law-enforcement-support#13.5 https://help.twitter.com/en/rules-and-policies/twitter-law-e... > Twitter may seek reimbursement for costs associated with information produced pursuant to legal process and as permitted by law (e.g., under 18 U.S.C. §2706). https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2706 https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2706 > a governmental entity obtaining the contents of communications, records, or other information under section 2702, 2703, or 2704 of this title shall pay to the person or entity assembling or providing such information a fee for reimbursement for such costs as are reasonably necessary and which have been directly incurred in searching for, assembling, reproducing, or otherwise providing such information $3M out of about $5,000M worth of annual revenue, and again, it’s reimbursement.
      - 2devnull 4y ago
        To me, 3 million dollars worth of record requests seems like more than would be optimal given the FBI’s purview. I mean, I’ve seen some terrible tweets, even some that I’d consider criminally bad. But 3 million dollars to police bad tweets doesn’t strike me as the optimal way to allocate citizen’s money. And it’s fair to ask, what results were achieved with that 3 million? If it were not a misallocation, certainly they could point to a high profile criminal, cartel or gang that they’ve prosecuted as the result of those record requests. But we don’t hear that. We hear crickets. Their response seems to be, “how dare anyone ask!” Certainly law enforcement is important. I think so. Most citizens do. But shouldn’t we hold law enforcement accountable? Ought not there be public oversight when millions of dollars are being spent, millions of dollars spent, supposedly, on our behalf? Perhaps you believe in more unchecked authority. Maybe crime has gotten so out of control that we should loosen some of the strictures put in place by the constitution. These are dangerous times. There are plenty of bad guys out there. Personally, I think the citizens deserve to know, and have some say in how millions of dollars are spent. Absolute, unconstrained authority tends towards abuse. It’s quite well documented.
        ceejayoz 4y ago
        I think you underestimate how many actionable threats, revenge porn, stalking etc. happen on a social network with over 100M people on it in a year. $3M is a small team of devs, legal, and support staff - maybe ten people at California salaries. If anything, it’s less than I’d expect.
        2devnull 4y ago
        In the context of mastodon, an interesting question is, will the FBI pay the same amount, if anything? Will there be any legal “speed bumps” at all when it comes to overreach from the long arm of the law? Presumably, a large company with high paid lawyers who are former FBI, like Twitter, Facebook, etc. would be able to pushback against quasi-constitutional requests. Clearly the FBI was able to get their way with Twitter, despite the big guns in the legal department. Will they be paying mastodon “operators” (or whatever they’re called) the same amount? I suspect they will not.
    - infotogivenm 4y ago
      Just out of curiousity, where do you get your news?
      - 2devnull 4y ago
        I don’t watch tv if that’s the question. I prefer reading news, and seeking out journalists and topics that interest me rather than passively consuming entertainment or ad supported “news.” Generally I prefer primary sources but there are a dozen or so journalists I like, some on sub stack some who write for wsj, nyt, wapo etc… What’s the saying, “if you get it for free, you’re the product.”
heartbreak 4y ago
Bankrupt, according to Musk himself.
SyzygistSix 4y ago
Hopefully it will stay on the internet rather than move to somewhere like the drive-in. Worst movie night ever.

devjab 4y ago

ActivityPub is sort of the protocol though. Mastodon is just the platform incorporating it that is becoming the twitter replacement. Maybe not for everything, but programming andtechwise my mastodon feed sure is more interesting than any of my other social media feeds in the wake of Elon. I think it's hard to say where things are heading though. We had RSS before, and that didn't stand up to American tech giants. I have my doubts this iteration of ActivityPub and the "fediverse" will, but I do think we need a decentral protocol like it if we want an interesting internet going forward. I mean, which of your centralized social media feeds are interesting in 2022? Even HN is becoming a page I visit on a weekly basis rather than on a daily basis, and this is the SoMe I use the most aside from mastodon and LinkedIn. Maybe I'm just the oddball, but at least in my circle of influence things like Facebook are now solely used to arrange things like Blood Bowl tournaments.

robswc 4y ago
I think thing the biggest threat to mastodon will be the “mods” and “admins.” It’s a matter of when, not if there will be drama and it’ll be interesting to see how that is handled. A lot of subreddits went so far as to make a bot that will ban users for posting on other subreddits. With mastodon that’s more or less “built-in.” You’re right though. Social media in general seems to be going downhill. Can’t really put my finger on “why” but “uninteresting” being a word I wouldn’t disagree with.
- SyzygistSix 4y ago
  Because bots have been trained to get people to reply like bots do.
  - robswc 4y ago
    Oh I don't doubt that. I'm referencing the fact that some subs will run a bot that checks your post history and will ban you if you have previously posted in a sub they don't agree with or like. I've personally been "mass-banned" from a string of local sub reddits because I had an argument with a mod about the weather. (not global warming, literally about humid vs dry heat)