The Extra Dimension

Almost all of the social networks that we use are centralized, meaning that one company owns everything. Ian, Brandon, and Brian explore what a social network would look like if it were distributed, meaning that there are many servers owned by different people that still communicate with each other.

Episode Summary 00:00:00 | Overview

• Distributed social network – Wikipedia
  • A system where there are servers run by different entities, and users on the various servers can interact with each other
  • Think of it like email, which is a distributed messaging system
  • Different from a social media aggregator, which helps users manage accounts from several different social media platforms
• Comparison of software and protocols for distributed social networking – Wikipedia

• In theory, it helps bring control back to the users rather than a single corporate entity that owns the entire stack
• Much harder for oppressive regimes to block access, since content could be coming from any server
• Total service outages are much less likely, as content is spread among many servers
• If a particular server goes offline, users on other servers won’t see content from users on that server until it comes back; they will still see content from users on all other servers though

• Potentially more confusing for the user
• Some features are infeasible, like verified accounts (except with emoji hacks )
• Is adding new features harder, since each instance admin would have to update their server?
• Establish a base protocol, and then extra optional features that can be implemented in order to get more users? Maybe something like IMAP for email?

• Not really
• Email is ubiquitous because it has been around for forever, and back when email was created everything was distributed; now the norm is centralized services
• An email address is required to sign up for most other online accounts, and that won’t be the case for social networks

• GNU social

• Intended as an alternative to Twitter, so it shares many similarities
• Increases character limit to 500
• Privacy and harassment prevention were a focus from the start
• Individual posts have several levels of privacy you can choose from
• Blocking a user prevents anything from them from showing up, even if boosted by accounts you follow
• Content can be hidden behind a content warning, often used for spoilers, NSFW content, or trigger warnings
• Different instances can have different content rules
• The idea is that smaller communities can police themselves more effectively than a small team at a corporation
• Instances (servers)
• The administrator of a particular instance can choose whether or not it will be federated with other instances
• Some instances are set up as communities of their own around a particular theme
• Mastodon allows you to view a timeline of accounts you follow, accounts in your instance, or accounts from any federated instance
• Mastodon (software) – Wikipedia
• GNU Social compatible
• A beginner’s guide to Mastodon, the hot new open-source Twitter clone – The Verge
• Mastodon.social is an open-source Twitter competitor that’s growing like crazy – The Verge
• Welcome to Mastodon – Hacker Noon
• Learning from Twitter’s mistakes – Eugen Rochko – Medium
• What would Twitter be if it adopted Wikipedia’s politics? | openDemocracy
• Mastodon Bridge
  • A tool for finding your Twitter followees on Mastodon
• Latest update on the status of Mastodon
  April post-mortem – Eugen Rochko – Medium
• BunsenLabs Linux

• Free Music Archive: The Zombie Dandies – Lo-Fi Hero

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This episode of The Extra Dimension has a Fringe episode. You should really listen to The Fringe #425: TED #21 — Audacity Does!!

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