Arvind Narayanan
Mike Masnick ✅It's been six months since Elon took over Twitter. I have some thoughts on the "Twitter diaspora" and the current decentralized alternatives: https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/28/six-months-in-thoughts-on-the-current-post-twitter-diaspora-options/
David@mmasnick Prediction: Elon would buy any Twitter alternative that becomes too popular. This is how tech companies prevent competition e.g. Microsoft buying Activision.
Random Damage 🌻
joel b
Bear1989
daviomac@mmasnick Sigh. I kind of miss the socials I had on Twitter, but I refuse to buy into the new regime by rejoining
Dwmiller18@mmasnick thanks for writing that. I saw some buzz over Bluesky recently and you cleared up some of the parts that I found confusing.
uthne@mmasnick Norwegian police are leaving after providing updates since 2011 on Twitter. Rumors have it they are setting up a Mastodon instance.
Evan Prodromou
Mark H@mmasnick "It’s uncanny that one guy could be so bad at this" feels like a phrase that should be attached to everything written about Elon from now on. His business cards should have that on it just to set expectations and save time for any new people he meets.
Gabriele Pollara@mmasnick
Thought that was a very enjoyable, well written and balanced article, nice one.
Thought that was a very enjoyable, well written and balanced article, nice one.
Rufus J. Cooter@mmasnick Great write-up! I guess the one quibble I have is that I'm probably going to be more skeptical of BlueSky until we see exactly how the mechanics of blocking, federation, and defederation work in practice.
The devil, after all, is in the details...
@RufusJCooter yup. i'm interested as well, but I did see some of their early planning, and it was way more comprehensive and thorough than basically *any* startup I've seen. They're not just making off-the-cuff decisions.
@mmasnick I don't doubt it! Not for a second! I'm certain, however, that I don't need to explain to you the difference between "having a good plan," and "executing a plan well," and "having a good plan, and then executing that good plan, well"
@RufusJCooter yup. absolutely. just saying, that if they fail it's not going to because of a lack of forethought, which many seem to be assuming.
@mmasnick you don't really talk about governance.
One of these is an open standard developed and supported by the W3C, with dozens of implementations.
The others are house protocols, created and controlled by a single entity, with one implementation.
I like to hear that BS is downplaying their snowflake protocol. I hope they switch over to ActivityPub soon.
Thanks for the good article!
chops@mmasnick
I think I may become interested in Bluesky more when they have federation sorted and I can self-host.
These days I'm strictly not interested in yet another VC-funded platform with a board that has a need to monetize.
Community is obviously an important aspect to many, but I was never able to find one on Twitter, so Twitter2 isn't very attractive.
ShachihokoHuh. This is a good article, and it does take some of the steam out of my Bluesky snark (particularly the fact that the current terms of service are subject to extensive revision).
Reposting the link for others to see (without pulling up the thread): https://www.techdirt.com/2023/04/28/six-months-in-thoughts-on-the-current-post-twitter-diaspora-options/
Kelson's Sorta Old Account@mmasnick I'm also impressed by all the development activity on top of Nostr.
I just wish it wasn't so thoroughly dominated by cryptocurrency enthusiasts. In my testing so far, most of the accounts I've found that looked interesting to follow...are bridged from the Fediverse. If I were moving over there, great! But since I'm here anyway...?
I'm hoping that will change if more non-bitcoin-people join, but I suspect there's going to be an awful lot of cryptocurrency-only features.
@KelsonV yeah, that's my take as well. the crypto focus people are kind of a drag on nostr. but it has potential.
troethe
Robot@mmasnick If it weren't for posts like this on Mastodon, I would continue to forget that twitter still existed.
podkaynelives@mmasnick Excellent overview, Mike. I especially liked this description of a decentralized system:
"[It] avoids the possibility of one random jackass controlling everything."
With that in mind, happy first anniversary to this quote by Dorsey, who helped fund Elon's purchase of Twitter:
"Elon is the singular solution I trust,” Dorsey wrote in late April. “I trust his mission to extend the light of consciousness.”
Anthony Dean@mmasnick nice article. I'd add to the long-term options:
- A "Chromebook" version of Mastodon, i.e. a non-techie, user-friendly version of Mastodon (a customized instance/app/etc.) that makes it appealing to the average person, who has zero interest in federation/servers/etc. Just as Chromebooks are customized-but-user-friendly Linux desktops, and became way more popular vs. Ubuntu/Linux Mint/etc. Linux/Mastodon purists wouldn't like them, but, well...
- A "Chromebook" version of Mastodon, i.e. a non-techie, user-friendly version of Mastodon (a customized instance/app/etc.) that makes it appealing to the average person, who has zero interest in federation/servers/etc. Just as Chromebooks are customized-but-user-friendly Linux desktops, and became way more popular vs. Ubuntu/Linux Mint/etc. Linux/Mastodon purists wouldn't like them, but, well...
@mmasnick
- Twitter gets replaced with... nothing. People could opt to just give up on Twitter-like social networks (especially after Musk's antics) and just go back to using Facebook (or Instagram/etc.).
Twitter didn't have as big a user base vs other networks to begin with, and the push in social media (and investors in such) these days is "pivoting to video/multimedia" (TikTok, Instagram, etc.), not text.
@dtgeek yeah, early on I referred to that ideas as the "gmail of mastodon." Just a simple clean, easy to use, implementation that you tell your parents to use.
Tim Chambers@mmasnick This is a great and fair summary to all - am most optimistic for bridges between each becoming real and scalable…. 👍
@tchambers
Hope you're right Tim. From your knowledge of the situation, is it possible for any one service to put up barriers to said bridges? (thinking especially Bluesky, could they decide they're growing fast enough and don't need /want ActivityPub & co)?
@mmasnick
Hope you're right Tim. From your knowledge of the situation, is it possible for any one service to put up barriers to said bridges? (thinking especially Bluesky, could they decide they're growing fast enough and don't need /want ActivityPub & co)?
@mmasnick
Blake Leonard@gpollara @tchambers @mmasnick i imagine Bluesky could probably pull that off, the same way a lot of servers have blocked the Nostr bridge.
@gpollara @tchambers I don't think the Bluesky team has any interest in blocking stuff like that... but we'll see.
Gordon Cowtan@mmasnick really interesting article. Thx
hammancheez@mmasnick great write up
Esp “no they’re not blocking screenshots” like lol. If you thought that was a serious thing for a SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM - blocking advertising their platform’s content- all I have to say is, again, ell oh ell
serklarvel@serklarvel the whole point, though, is that jack can't control it like he could with twitter. the idea is to make it immune to the whims of billionaires.
Sean Gonsalves@mmasnick this is really good - so good that I wanna quote retoot it (or whatever you call it) telling my “followers” they should read it
Jeroen Baert@mmasnick good overview, nice!
hybrid havocGreat article from @mmasnick breaking down the three front-runner decentralized social protocols. For anybody interested, check it out. Loved seeing shoutouts for #Calckey, and for alternative Mastodon web clients like #Phanpy.
https://mastodon.social/users/mmasnick/statuses/110278258978335092
I’m still betting on #ActivityPub of course, and have tried #Nostr. I look forward to getting invited to #Bluesky at some point, and in seeing what their federation actually looks like. Until that’s in place it’s all kind of moot.
John (he/him) 
@mmasnick I was glad to read about nostr here, I’ve been trying to understand it a bit better - but I still feel like I’ve missed some vital concepts. The simplicity seems useful, but it also seems that the central relay, client-driven system makes account spamming and harassment campaigns easier.
To be clear, it is definitely possible to do that here in AP land. However, standing up an instance with a new domain name is more difficult than creating a new accoun, so I’m curious if the folks at nostr have put energy into mitigations for these types of coordinated, malicious, attacks… but I’ve been unsuccessful in finding any writings about it.
@cd24 there are discussions! see this for example: https://s3x.social/nostr-content-moderation
@mmasnick thanks! This is definitely more nuance than I’ve seen before, and it’s reminiscent of Blueskys approach.
Shoq
Mike Taylor 🦕@mmasnick I'm not 100% sure I'm following your article, and the Wikipedia page on Nostr isn't helpful, but: is this peer-to-peer?
@mike it's not quite peer to peer. there are relays, and your client connects to relays.
Dr Audrey Glover@mmasnick I have become more a fan of Mastodon since using Elk, and find interacting on here feels more normal than Twitter
Gingerspeckle@mmasnick Great article, Mike. I agree with your point about the lack of an algorithm. I'm not sure why there's such pushback on this. No one wants Twitter again but what's wrong with an openly defined spec or as a user selected plug-in or configurable system. I would definitely like more control on the prioritization of my stream.
Matt Hames@mmasnick Thanks for all you do.
David Blue ⁂ ∆@mmasnick aahhhhhh Mike.
I don't wanna pick on you but citing Jay's Medium post as the *definitive* exploration of decentralized social is... in urgent need of revision.
this is the one on my mind (because I found it yesterday) - and I know academia isn't really in-scope for the dirty boyz - but ... https://dr.amy.gy
@mmasnick also ... using the term "diaspora" specifically got at least one or two old heads spinning given the persistence of Diaspora, one of the og decentralized social networks lol. https://diasp.org
@mmasnick this is also a real winner. https://dci.mit.edu/decentralizedweb
The Decentralized Web — MIT Digital Currency Initiative
The Web is a key space for civic debate and the current battleground for protecting freedom of expression. And yet, it has steadily evolved into an ecosystem of large, corporate-controlled mega-platforms. This report evaluates the potential for new technologies to enable shifts toward decentralizati
Skelleton@mmasnick it's only been 6 months?!
Troed Sångberg@mmasnick Thank you! You've changed my opinion on #BlueSky with this post.
Also, maybe you intended for this to be the obvious conclusion of your own, and if it was I agree. It won't matter if we use BlueSky, #Mastodon or #nostr in the end. Content will mostly federate freely inbetween the protocols.
As an example: If people ask me if I'm still on #IRC the answer is "yes", although for me IRC channels are just additional #Matrix rooms nowadays.
msgbi
Mike McCue@mmasnick excellent summary. The pace of progress over the past 6 months has been very fast and it is still accelerating. So much more to come this year.
Cali@mmasnick great article
@Mildlyoppugnant |@mmasnick Good read. Ty. Food fir thought
Robert Rees@mmasnick great piece, I enjoyed reading a more measured overview of the bigger picture
Martin Hamilton@mmasnick The BS "you automatically keep a copy of your data" thing is a great example of a new idea that seems obvious in retrospect, with the added benefit of being immediately familiar to POP/IMAP users. Feels like it could readily be retrofitted to ActivityPub clients, too, or least those running on more capable hardware 😉
Mariner@mmasnick
I am actually very happy Musk took over Twitter.
I had planned to close down my account for some time, and he helped me to decide. Byebye.
BduzBoop@mmasnick I joined bluesky and although it makes me laugh at times, and a few of my follows that got confused here and gave it up, went there. It still feels like less engagement, which again for me very twitter like. Post feels like 'important' people talking to other 'important' people.
All in all, my diverse interests have led to a everything scattered, and I have to give those up or check 4 different places. sigh
All in all, my diverse interests have led to a everything scattered, and I have to give those up or check 4 different places. sigh