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It feels like federated networks with open-sourced feed algorithms are the best path forward. If AI removes any technical limitations, and automates content ma

It feels like federated networks with open-sourced feed algorithms are the best path forward. If AI removes any technical limitations, and automates content management, what's stopping a content creator from owning what they create and distributing it themselves? How can centralization continue to survive?

pjc50 8mo ago
The magic lies in the two-sided coin of promotion vs. spam filtering. The web started off as a pretty peer to peer system, but almost immediately people built directories and link farms as means to find things. You can make a system as distributed as you want, but that only works for content which people know to find. Which is great for piracy, as e.g. movies and TV shows are advertised everywhere else and can be found by title. For social media, the recommendation engine is a critical part of the appeal to users.
- causalscience 8mo ago
  The distinction between promotion and spam is solely that the promotion side can be entertaining enough that the users will willingly chase it.
AlienRobot 8mo ago
Do you actually believe anything you just wrote? If TikTok falls TikTokers will just use another centralized app. Content creators don't have peertube instances for a reason.
jmyeet 8mo ago
Why do so many tech people push this "federation is a panacea" idea despite all evidence to the contrary? I don't get it. First, the obvious: if federation was clearly superior, it would've won. No medium since email has been federated and even that's dominated by a handful of players. Running your own email server is... nontrivial. Second, users don't care abou tthis. Like at all. Third, supposedly tech-savvy people don't seem willing or able to merely scratch the surface of what that looks like and how it would work. Fourth, there's a lot of infrastructure you need such as moderation and safety that would need to be replicated for each federated provider. Lastly, zero consideration is given to the problems this actually creates. Look at POTS. We have spam and providers that are bad actors and effectively launder spam calls and texts. You need some way to manage that.
- shimman 8mo ago
  Well for one we've seen how great and powerful federation can be, email is completely federated and the design of email has enabled hundreds of multibillion dollar companies. Why wouldn't this also apply to social media? Why is it better for 5 players to exist rather than 1000s?
- MattDaEskimo 8mo ago
  Running your own email server is not trivial. Federated networks are theoretically and systematically superior to centralized, that's why people push it. Humanity and social media isn't about technological superiority. Current platforms have inertia. Why would people fragment when all they care about is basic actions, and their network is already built? Federated networks have been burdened by an onboarding tax, but this, along with moderation, can all be abstracted away by AI. Let's see the current reality: social media platforms are currently American-dominated. A serious geopolitical problem, especially considering the amount of time younger generations spend on it. There is more and more reason for governments to get involved and force the fragmentation of these platforms.
- megolodan 8mo ago
  For almost all of human history information has been centralized among a small actors, for some time period we had a large independent press but those days are gone. Everyone has a stake in getting accurate information, and therefore they have an interest in owning part of that system.
- beepbooptheory 8mo ago
  If the better, truly good thing was always also the winning, "superior" thing, we would live in a very different world.
- ddtaylor 8mo ago
  The utility of federated networks increases a lot when bad actors cause harm to people. What had a minimal value and failed to get attention yesterday when they need was low may be drastically different today when that need is high.
- 8mo ago
megolodan 8mo ago
Beyond federated systems, P2P systems seem to have a strong advantage here in identifying bad actors. Ranking posts/comments by the exponential of inverse IPAddress-post-frequency would solve bad actors posting behind VPNs/proxies like evil bot farms / state actors and marketers. Real users have their own IP address, and IP addresses are expensive like $20-50 a month which would make mocking traffic an extremely expensive proposition. Mocking 1% of reddit's 120M daily active user would cost 58M and you wouldn't want to share/sell these addresses with other actors since it would ruin your credibility
- skulk 8mo ago
  > Ranking posts/comments by the exponential of inverse IPAddress-post-frequency Doesn't this just incentivize posting a bunch of comments from your residential proxy IP addresses to launder them? This smells like a poor strategy that's likely to lead to more spam than not. Also, everyone has to start somewhere so your legit IP addresses are also going to seem spammy at first.
  - otterdude 8mo ago
    I think residential proxy IP's still have the same associated cost, and arent those often for bundled traffic? I'm not much of a blackhat so excuse my lack of knowledge on tricks of the trade
  - megolodan 8mo ago
    Hmm consider an established social network which sees lots of bad actor activity, these folks will likely be sharing IP's on these residential network severly damaging their reputation. You should only see one user-id per MAC / IP. If you see multiple then its a sign of a bad actor. Before you're established using something like a captcha prevents most spam, except for state actors, and they wont be focused on the site until its larger.
- direwolf20 8mo ago
  I think it would do the opposite. The regular user posts 5 times per day, but the spammer has bought access to 65536 IP addresses and posts once from each, boosting his posts 5x. And the town in South America with one CGNAT IP address to go around gets censored.

pjc50 8mo ago

The magic lies in the two-sided coin of promotion vs. spam filtering. The web started off as a pretty peer to peer system, but almost immediately people built directories and link farms as means to find things. You can make a system as distributed as you want, but that only works for content which people know to find. Which is great for piracy, as e.g. movies and TV shows are advertised everywhere else and can be found by title. For social media, the recommendation engine is a critical part of the appeal to users.

causalscience 8mo ago
The distinction between promotion and spam is solely that the promotion side can be entertaining enough that the users will willingly chase it.

AlienRobot 8mo ago

Do you actually believe anything you just wrote? If TikTok falls TikTokers will just use another centralized app. Content creators don't have peertube instances for a reason.

jmyeet 8mo ago

Why do so many tech people push this "federation is a panacea" idea despite all evidence to the contrary? I don't get it. First, the obvious: if federation was clearly superior, it would've won. No medium since email has been federated and even that's dominated by a handful of players. Running your own email server is... nontrivial. Second, users don't care abou tthis. Like at all. Third, supposedly tech-savvy people don't seem willing or able to merely scratch the surface of what that looks like and how it would work. Fourth, there's a lot of infrastructure you need such as moderation and safety that would need to be replicated for each federated provider. Lastly, zero consideration is given to the problems this actually creates. Look at POTS. We have spam and providers that are bad actors and effectively launder spam calls and texts. You need some way to manage that.

shimman 8mo ago
Well for one we've seen how great and powerful federation can be, email is completely federated and the design of email has enabled hundreds of multibillion dollar companies. Why wouldn't this also apply to social media? Why is it better for 5 players to exist rather than 1000s?
MattDaEskimo 8mo ago
Running your own email server is not trivial. Federated networks are theoretically and systematically superior to centralized, that's why people push it. Humanity and social media isn't about technological superiority. Current platforms have inertia. Why would people fragment when all they care about is basic actions, and their network is already built? Federated networks have been burdened by an onboarding tax, but this, along with moderation, can all be abstracted away by AI. Let's see the current reality: social media platforms are currently American-dominated. A serious geopolitical problem, especially considering the amount of time younger generations spend on it. There is more and more reason for governments to get involved and force the fragmentation of these platforms.
megolodan 8mo ago
For almost all of human history information has been centralized among a small actors, for some time period we had a large independent press but those days are gone. Everyone has a stake in getting accurate information, and therefore they have an interest in owning part of that system.
beepbooptheory 8mo ago
If the better, truly good thing was always also the winning, "superior" thing, we would live in a very different world.
ddtaylor 8mo ago
The utility of federated networks increases a lot when bad actors cause harm to people. What had a minimal value and failed to get attention yesterday when they need was low may be drastically different today when that need is high.
8mo ago

megolodan 8mo ago

Beyond federated systems, P2P systems seem to have a strong advantage here in identifying bad actors. Ranking posts/comments by the exponential of inverse IPAddress-post-frequency would solve bad actors posting behind VPNs/proxies like evil bot farms / state actors and marketers. Real users have their own IP address, and IP addresses are expensive like $20-50 a month which would make mocking traffic an extremely expensive proposition. Mocking 1% of reddit's 120M daily active user would cost 58M and you wouldn't want to share/sell these addresses with other actors since it would ruin your credibility

skulk 8mo ago
> Ranking posts/comments by the exponential of inverse IPAddress-post-frequency Doesn't this just incentivize posting a bunch of comments from your residential proxy IP addresses to launder them? This smells like a poor strategy that's likely to lead to more spam than not. Also, everyone has to start somewhere so your legit IP addresses are also going to seem spammy at first.
- otterdude 8mo ago
  I think residential proxy IP's still have the same associated cost, and arent those often for bundled traffic? I'm not much of a blackhat so excuse my lack of knowledge on tricks of the trade
- megolodan 8mo ago
  Hmm consider an established social network which sees lots of bad actor activity, these folks will likely be sharing IP's on these residential network severly damaging their reputation. You should only see one user-id per MAC / IP. If you see multiple then its a sign of a bad actor. Before you're established using something like a captcha prevents most spam, except for state actors, and they wont be focused on the site until its larger.
direwolf20 8mo ago
I think it would do the opposite. The regular user posts 5 times per day, but the spammer has bought access to 65536 IP addresses and posts once from each, boosting his posts 5x. And the town in South America with one CGNAT IP address to go around gets censored.