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Title: Social Media Critique
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Category: long-read test
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Slug: federation
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lang: en
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status: draft
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> This is in the end what Silicon Valley tries to prevent at all cost:
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> resistance and exodus. How can such a momentum be unleashed?
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So aside from the discussion of who listens (or didn't listen) to whose
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opinion it can be interesting to have a closer look at action and momentum.
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Three projects caught my attention and I think could be an interesting
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case for this 'next steps' discussion:
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Mastodon (2016) en Conversations (2014) and Peertube (2015) *
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All three are projects that during the past twelve months have somehow
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reinvigorated (the work on, attention for) their underlying protocols.
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Protocols that have been proclaimed dead or unsuccessful for many years.
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And probably will be for more to come.
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The first one, Mastodon (https://joinmastodon.org/), you may have read
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about or even tried out. It is essentially a twitter clone /
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alternative. Technically it is based on Ostatus, which is a protocol to
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distribute
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status updates across networks. Ostatus is the protocol that powered
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early 'alternative 2.0 style' social networks such as Friendica and
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Lorea. The latter was a product of and important site of organization
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for the Spanish Indignados and 15M movements. Mastodon also supports
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ActivityPub which is the likely successor of Ostatus as a protocol for
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further ongoing work on so-called federated publishing. The interesting
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thing is that Mastodon managed to attract a good chunk of the recent Twitter
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refugees. These where mostly voices which aren't white, loud or extreme
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right wing and for those reasons felt themselves increasingly out of
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place on twitter. Mastodon communities managed to involve so many of
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these people by focusing on developing tools for community moderation,
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content warnings and the ability to block other instances in the
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network. As a result (the english language) Mastodon became a site that
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is predominantly populated by the queer, PoC, left and artistic, or
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anyone that would otherwise be at risk of being on the receiving end of
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the Gamergate-style interactions on twitter. The decentralized nature of
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mastodon has created a culture of 'thematic mastodon servers (see
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https://instances.social/list) that have become a large part of what
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makes the network interesting and relevant to its several hundred
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thausand users.
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Conversations (https://conversations.im/) is a messaging application
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that is based on the very old XMPP protocol. This is a chat protocol
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which has at one point also been the underlying technology of both
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Google and Facebook chat before they closed it down and made it
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proprietary. From the onset Conversations focused on a combination of
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user friendliness, security and ultimately visual design to be on par
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with mobile messengers such as whatsapp and telegram. The work of
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Conversations has reinvigorated the XMPP protocol. Partly because it
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focused on implementing the double-ratchett encryption algorithm almost
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immediately after it was open-sourced. This is the modern userfriendly
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end-to-end encryption algorithm developed by Moxie Marlinspike for
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Signal and licensed to companies like Whatsapp. Another effect of the
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work of Conversations is that the decades old protocol has been updated
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in the span of a few years to work very well for mobile usage. For me
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one of the interesting aspects of the development of Conversations is
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the role that modern thinking on UIs, design and user friendliness
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played in its popularity. This especially becomes apparent in the very
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technical and awkward world of XMPP software. The developer has
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mentioned multiple times that he 'bases' his design on that of his GAFA
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'competitors'. Apropos tactical media, this project's appropriation of
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corporate design, yet very clear and
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solid political stance (see https://gultsch.de/objection.html) leading
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to an increase in popularity and community involvement is an interesting
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development.
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Lastly, Peertube (https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube) is an attempt
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at making the hosting of video content accessible to small
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organizations. The sheer amount of infrastructure and thus capital
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required to set up an alternative to the monopoly position of Youtube,
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forces any project trying to replace Youtube to use peer-to-peer
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technologies. Peertube does so by trying to implement WebTorrents. Like
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the older 'BitTorrent' protocol it is based on, WebTorrent tries to
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mitigate the sheer amount of data and bandwith involved with exchanging
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online media, by making sure these are streamed from many sources at
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once. Unlike torrents, which need separate applications, WebTorrents run
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in familiar web browsers. One could say the conceptual forbearer of this
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approach was a project called Popcorn Time (2014). An app that convinced
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many with its good UI and design to do 'Netflix-like' streaming on top
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of the torrent network. Again this is something that lead to a
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reinvigoration of the decaying (use-wise) torrenting protocol. (I'd also
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argue though, that Popcorn Time was simultaneously the nail in the
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coffin for torrenting because of the individualistic streaming mentality
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built into it. This also meant the definite end of what remained of
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-collectivist?- seeding/sharing culture on public trackers.)
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The position of the Peertube as a viable alternative or successful
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project is the most tenuous of the three. However, one might argue that
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our definition of success in this context should also be readjusted -
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away from the Silicon Valley, venture capitalist sense of success using
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metrics like usage counts, market cap, patent value etc. By nature of
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being built upon open, compatible and federative technologies,
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developments happening in all three projects could, and probably will,
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end up supporting one another. They do so to the extent that one project
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could even become an integral part of the other. As an example both
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Mastodon and Peertube use the same underlying ActivityPub, allowing one
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to become the underlying video delivery function of the other. As was
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the case with Friendica, Lorea and Mastodon, projects might stop but
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then become stepping stones and inspirations for newer generations of
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projects. In this sense definitions of success should consider the
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quality of longer term technological ecosystems within larger
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socio-political contexts.
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So the striking things for me to take away from these projects are:
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All three projects have managed to reinvigorate 'decaying' protocols in
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large part through their focus on UX, language and interestingly design.
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Which seems to me a huge opportunity for the arts which has been left
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largely unused in the first round of social media critique. Perhaps the
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model of artistic production in this domain should move away from the
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artists being on the forefront, sensing out emerging tendencies and
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taking the spotlight by creating mostly harmless critical and
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speculative works
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around these tendencies. Next steps for artistic social media critique
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should instead take a much more humble and supportive role contributing
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expertise, time and exposure to people working in and with these ecosystems.
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All three projects are based on federation. Which is the idea that
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various actors making up a network decide to cooperate in a collective
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fashion. Distributing responsibility and power as they do so. The future
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of social media has to be federated or there won't be any (for those
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privileged enough to retreat..). I think the case of Mastodon, where
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servers in the Ostatus federation are experimenting with blocking
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hostile content altogether from other servers in the federation (while
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still maintaining technical compatibility) are interesting experiments.
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For one, the debates over on-line harassment and fake news show that the
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grand 'electronic agoras', where one can find anyone and everyone
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clearly aren't conducive to productive interchange of ideas. Perhaps
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smallish, self caring communities are a good answer to the profit driven
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model of infinite interconnectedness.
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Lastly, I think it is no coincidence that two out of three of the
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projects have Germans leading development and all three are European
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based projects. I guess the following is anecdotal and partial evidence.
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Yet, I've not seen Google and Facebook run full page advertorials in
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leading daily newspapers except in the German ones. Ostensibly, part of
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an attempt on their side to prevent mass user exodus out of discomfort
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with the platform. It is in part German historical sensibility that
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leads to this kind of sensitivity on the issues of privacy, but it is
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also a sensitivity that is actively nurtured in public discourse. No
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Silicon Valley apologies are required for there to be scepsis. At the
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same time the European context apparently provides good enough living
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conditions for people to risk investing time in this kind of work. Risk
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which is also partly mitigated by initiatives such as German Prototype
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Fund and other European funding streams. However, testament to the fact
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that these projects have healthy communities and are part of wider
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ecosystems of support is that all projects finance themselves from
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diverse revenue streams, user contributions being the main one.
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So I'd say next steps for a social media critique would be to be more
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involved in (and involve more) these communities. To use positions of
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power to create opportunities for people working on these projects.
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While the center of development of these projects is Western-Europe they
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have many contributors outside of Europe as well, that could benefit
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even more from such opportunities. At the same time, doing close
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readings of the technical underpinnings of these media will also improve
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understanding of what is (not) going on. Now obviously all this was a
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news flash from within a very specific filter bubble, but actually from
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there 2017 was a very promising year for alternative media.
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> I still believe in vital methods to mass delete Facebook accounts.
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I'd say start doing so, but help your friends. Use your network effect
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to transition together to different kind of media. This is slow and
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laborious so mutual support is important. The time is always right, but
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now more than ever.
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* these are the dates of the project's source code first appearing in
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public, they are still actively updated and used.
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greetings,
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Roel
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