Post by @internic@mathstodon.xyz

2026-10-14 04:05 UTC

@riverpunk@defcon.social I think it's an interesting question to which a good answer is probably complicated. If we take the web analogy seriously, then we'd expect to be able to connect to anyone (or almost anyone), just as there are very few web servers to which you cannot connect, except if you live in a limited number of totalitarian countries or the site is one who has had their domain seized. I think on the social web that's desirable too, to save you from having to have many accounts. On the other hand, I think you're absolutely right that it's not desirable to have one giant totally-connected graph that's a continuous culture clash. And if you want to have any moderation at all (and most sane people do), then you'll never be able to have one set of rules that all users on the net find acceptable. It will only work as a collection of enclaves with different norms (and even then moderation is quite difficult). It seems like the difficulty is in reconciling those, allowing a user to talk to all of their friends, even if they belong to different enclaves, without causing the culture clash to re-ignite in each of that users threads (where the enclaves would seem to naturally mix). I know many Mastodon users have the idea that each server will be its own community with different norms. Some servers even have an option to make local-server-only posts. I don't think this quite works, because individuals can belong to multiple distinct communities. But perhaps something inspired by similar thinking but a bit more de-centralized could work.

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@riverpunk@defcon.social 2026-10-14 05:36

@internic@mathstodon.xyz been brainstorming ideas for what the replacement of Big Tech could look like. Not necessarily something that would be Fedi, but something that could face mass adoption (perhaps disconnected from Fedi). Some ideas: There are a number of "networks". Each network is (theoretically) closed off to other networks. The network is made of a small handful of servers all federating together. The ability to run your own server to federate within the network is invite-only. So you don't have clashes between intense moderation discrepancies across servers. Read-only and client APIs remain open so that the servers can all interoperate, and it prevents enshittification. Multiply this across many many networks, and you get a whole social ecosystem with niches. Plus, since it's all open protocols, bridges could be built that allow you to follow people from different networks or even syndicate your whole account to another network. You could also use a migration tool to leave a network if they start doing right-wing bullshit, for instance. And since it's open, you could still have all your old followers who haven't moved yet -- kinda like Facebook's old MySpace migration tool. You can also add in all the fun engagement features that are common on social media sites by using the community to build it. Like those descriptions for trending hashtags on Twitter, users could fill those in themselves, Wikipedia-style (potentially with various privileges for more reputable users?). People could create categories of tags or posts. There's also nothing stopping the network from having a "recommended" tab separate from their home feed that gives actually good algorithmic recommendations for posts. ...or maybe none of this is a good idea. I'm just trying to think here about what would be good at replacing the thing that Big Tech social media is. Because Fedi as it currently stands is kind of not really filling that niche in any significant way, because Fedi is doing an entirely different thing than what consumers get from Instagram/Facebook/TikTok/etc

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