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I'm launching a new microblogging platform called Sonata which presents a leap ahead in what I've called social responsibility, detailing the most important thi

• 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
  I'll give you some first impressions, admittedly superficial, but "social media platform" sounds like a technology platform, but when I open the site it seems more like a political movement with a set of policies and regulatory framework for social media. Frankly I'm not sure this is the right approach. We don't need 33 strict requirements for social media, we need social media developed from the ground up to naturally gravitate towards good outcomes for society. Constraints go only so far. It's like trying to hold onto water by squeezing it into your hand. It'll find small holes and leak out. This is also how social media implement regulation. Especially vague rules like "recognize UN Bill of Human Right and detail how the service will confirm". How is that supposed to help? We have entire nations like Russia disregarding UN Charter, are you going to ban Russia from being on a social network? If you do, there are proxies anyway. I find all this just a path covered with good intentions, and you know where those lead. Regarding what I mean by "social media developed from the ground up to naturally gravitate towards good outcomes for society". Look at the Internet. It's a simple protocol, anyone can join, anyone can implement. And it's overall good for society (so far, we'll see how AI goes). The Internet is not concerned with Bill of Rights or banning content, it's a communication protocol. And that's what a social network is supposed to be as well. But not for devices, but for humans using devices. You need the human identity equivalent of IP address. And protocols for message exchange. This central control of content, independent investigations, open-sourcing all code and what not... is simply too much. Simply no one will ever adopt this. What exactly would be the force to compel them to adopt this? A restrictive law without enforcement is useless.
  • unkemt 3y ago
    Hi, thanks for your reply, this is a huge help. This is the pre-launch info site, when we launch you'll be presented instead with an actual social media platform. I'll add a preview gallery to make this more obvious. This was always intended to be voluntary. The concept is that a platform will align themselves with these values and be subject to public criticism if they stray from them. If the concept grows enough, it could one day be a marketing point to promote that they are a 'third generation' platform. > Especially vague rules like "recognize UN Bill of Human Right and detail how the service will confirm". How is that supposed to help? We have entire nations like Russia disregarding UN Charter, are you going to ban Russia from being on a social network? If you do, there are proxies anyway. No of course not, maybe I will need to re-word this. The point was that platforms respect a person's rights at all times as mandated by the UNHR, irrespective of their native country's position. For example, article 19 refers to freedom of expression. A platform will need to provide a statement explaining how they handle this right in regards to their signup process, content moderation and content amplification. > Regarding what I mean by... This is entirely designed for the company or individual who is providing these services to undertake. Even in a decentralised system, someone is providing their servers and has moderation control over them, giving them censorship capabilities. Is it not reasonable to expect them to prove to us that we can trust them? > What exactly would be the force to compel them to adopt this? Society demanding better and the business decisions to capitalise on providing a more socially acceptable service. I'm well aware this is not compatible with the current big platforms and their revenue models, this is presented as a foundation for new or smaller platforms to align with.
    • 3cats-in-a-coat 3y ago
      Providing a service DOES NOT presume moderation. Does your ISP moderate what sites you look at? If yes, you should find a better ISP. I don't want to be a naysayer, but if you expect people will willfully adopt a disastrous set of constraints (such as open-sourcing a lot of their critical code), and do it so they can market as the "third gen social media" brand, we need to analyze the system and the scale of the agents inside. Usually this type of soft-franchise, where "seals of quality" are given to those who abide by a set of quality etc. principles work best when you have many small agents in a market, because these small agents don't have the ability to build a brand by themselves, so they look to "cling" to other brands that would give them legitimacy, authority, sense of trust and quality. But this is not the market of social networks, because social networks thrive on network effects, so the small networks just die, and only the big ones thrive. So now it's you, and a set of small networks who have everything set up against their success, and the likes of Meta, Google, China's TikTok, and their money, reach and propaganda machine. Even if you succeed and reach prominence, they'll discredit your entire effort only so they have an excuse why they won't abide by it. And then continue to dominate the market. That's how I see it. If you want to bootstrap this successfully at all, maybe reduce the friction and instead of 33 rules, pick one thing that is unquestionably good and everyone would agree with, even the big ones, and make this your initiative until you gather recognition. Then slowly build up as you have the feedback of more people so you can see where assumptions are wrong.