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