I'm an active user of @signalapp and I love their service, but there is one thing that concerns me sometimes.
Their leadership.
Katherine Maher, board member of Signal, started her career as a U.S.-backed agent of regime change and cultivated relationships with online dissidents and used US technologies to advance the interests of US.-supported Color Revolutions abroad. Concerning much?
https://www.city-journal.org/article/signals-katherine-maher-problem
Every Despot Needs A Chokepoint
https://fed.brid.gy/r/https://www.techdirt.com/2026/06/04/every-despot-needs-a-chokepoint/
Okay, so, with my decade+ of experience of being on social media, I've noticed a trend within recent years about pretty much all social platforms. I think there's a critical mass of users on a platform where it becomes impossible to properly enforce. Inevitably, there will be a sheer volume of bad actors that no matter what the platform does, cannot stop completely and it becomes public knowledge/source of scrutiny.
There isn't a single large platform I can name that doesn't have the problem of toxic behavior, child abuse/exploitation, NSFW rings, (the kind that aren't tagged/gated properly) etc. Doesn't matter what their moderation policies/enforcement is. It doesn't matter if a platform like #Discord files millions of NCMEC reports or bans millions of accounts a year. There's simply too many malicious users to handle and it's impossible to prevent them from coming back in some form or another or new ones joining the platform.
Sure, if you have say, 10,000 users, that's way easier for a small team of mods to handle, but what about 1 million? 10 million? 100+ million? There's no way a company/organization can afford a team to handle that sheer volume of communication and interaction, and we all know automated systems are deeply flawed and clearly do not stop the problem. Inevitably, a larger and larger number of bad actors slip through the cracks. Those cracks widen as more users join and moderation systems become increasingly strained. Regarding the NCMEC bit, Discord alone files over 500,000 reports, do you seriously think the NCMEC has the resources to look into every report and do something about it? Obviously not. And that's just Discord.
It's a huge reason why punitive actions don't work well, nor things like telling parents to monitor their kids. There's simply too many to keep track of all at once, and it's why I stress the importance of educational methods when it comes to protecting people. Education is a form of preventative measure instead of all the reactive ones we see on these platforms. Teaching a kid why this kind of content is harmful, how to avoid it, what to do if they do come across it, how to not get sucked into it or become a bad actor themself, etc will do way more than just a losing arms race of updating moderation systems and filters. It better addresses the cause rather than just the symptom.
All of this is simply the consequence of mass-centralization and the network effect on steroids. It's easier than ever before to connect with so many people and the possibility for interaction-- good or bad exponentially increases. Until eventually, it becomes unsustainable and causes huge swaths of harm.
#Essay #LongPost #Ramblings #SocialMedia #Commentary #Centralization #Reddit #Tumblr #YouTube #Roblox #Twitter #Facebook #Instagram #TikTok
Herfindahl–Hirschman Index (HHI) calculates how centralized a protocol has become by adding the squares of providers' usage share percentages.
- Fediverse is 748 by instance or 3952 by server software, and ATmosphere is 9684
- Web hosting is 744, and Git hosting is 9224
It shows how much Bluesky dominates ATproto and GitHub dominates public Git.
https://arewedecentralizedyet.online/
#decentralization #centralization #HerfindahlHirschman #HHI #fediverse #atproto #Git #GitHub
Guerre, victoire et verticalité cumulative : de la formation de l’État aux hiérarchies durables
Les études réunies ici convergent : la guerre ne produit pas seulement des États plus capables, elle sélectionne des trajectoires de centralisation, de légitimation et d’asymétrie centre/périphérie qui se stabilisent dans la durée. #war #state #centralization #centerPeriphery #politics #geopolitics Ces travaux (voir sources principales, ci dessous) dessinent une même…
Les études réunies ici convergent : la guerre ne produit pas seulement des États plus capables, elle sélectionne des trajectoires de centralisation, de légitimation et d’asymétrie centre/périphérie…
Guerre, centralisation et inégalités internes dans le Saint-Empire
L'étude de Cantoni (2025) montre que la guerre pousse les territoires du Saint-Empire à se centraliser fiscalement, à investir davantage dans l’administration et l’armée, et à survivre plus longtemps — mais au prix d’un renforcement durable du centre au détriment de la périphérie. #centralization #war #history #geopolitics #politics Cette étude revient sur un problème classique de sociologie historique…
Irrigation, pouvoir et despotisme : ce que Claessen conteste chez Wittfogel
H. J. M. Claessen (1973) montre que l’irrigation ne produit pas mécaniquement le despotisme : les grands travaux hydrauliques peuvent renforcer un pouvoir déjà centralisé, mais ils n’en sont pas la cause unique. #waterManagement #hydraulicInfrastructure #centralization #state #anthropology #power Dans “Despotism and Irrigation”, H. J. M. Claessen discute la thèse célèbre de Karl Wittfogel selon…
Quand la guerre fragilise l’État : bureaucratie, militarisation et fragmentation dans la Chine des Cinq Dynasties
Une étude récente (Li Li, 2024) nuance fortement la thèse classique selon laquelle la guerre fabrique automatiquement des États plus forts : dans la Chine des Cinq Dynasties et Dix Royaumes, elle a souvent nourri la fragmentation plutôt que la centralisation. #war #state #China #centralization #fragmentation #history #politicalPhilosophy L’étude examine le…
Une étude récente (Li Li, 2024) nuance fortement la thèse classique selon laquelle la guerre fabrique automatiquement des États plus forts : dans la Chine des Cinq Dynasties et Dix Royaumes, elle a…
Guerre, bureaucratie et formation de l’État dans la Chine pré-impériale
Chen montre que la guerre n’a pas un effet unique sur l’État : la défense encourage la décentralisation, tandis que l’offensive favorise la centralisation bureaucratique. #strategy #state #geopolitics #war #centralization #decentralization L’étude de Joy Chen propose une lecture nuancée du lien entre guerre et formation de l’État dans la Chine pré-impériale. Son idée centrale est simple mais…
𝗪𝗵𝘆 𝗜 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗽𝗽𝗲𝗱 𝗨𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗖𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘇𝗲𝗱 𝗔𝗽𝗽𝘀 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗕𝗶𝗴 𝗠𝗼𝘃𝗲𝘀
You may not realize it, but there is a fundamental difference between “having money” and “having access” to money.
Read more: medium.com/p/588cc8c263ac
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