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diff --git a/ap_debian/transcriptish.rst b/ap_debian/transcriptish.rst new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f31e4d3 --- /dev/null +++ b/ap_debian/transcriptish.rst @@ -0,0 +1,89 @@ +=============================================== + ActivityPub and the federated social networks +=============================================== + +I believe a lot of people here care about Free Software, and I guess +that a number of those also care about freedom in general computing, +which nowadays involves more and more things running on computers that +we can't control. + +Today I'm talking about one of those things: social networks. + +They are a pretty useful thing, enabling an egalitarian access to +communication, and by stretching a bit the definition to include email +one can claim that they are involved in enabling the existence of +projects like debian itself. + +They are also, sadly, a great way to attract people to one's platform in +order to squeeze every bit of sellable personal data out of them. + +If this was about showing ads to make people choose between two +equivalent brands of, say, pasta, it wouldn't be a big deal, but that +data has already been used to manipulate elections and it has been +leaked multiple times and made available to criminals. + +On the topic of why social networks as a business model are toxic and +a cost on society, I'd recommend reading Cory Doctorow's article “Zuck’s +Empire of Oily Rags”, which is much better written than I could do. + +Free Software has been offering technical tools to solve this for a long +time, by developing federated, self-hostable server software to allow +people to have the advantages of social networks while keeping control +of their data and experience; like email, except designed in the current +millenium. + +The first such projects I know of were StatusNet in 2008, Friendica and +Diaspora in 2010, so federated social networks have been available for +more than 10 years. + +When I say networks, plural, of course I mean that there were a few +incompatible protocols, none of the platforms were completely mature, +and the kind of community they attracted meant that the federated social +networks back then were a great place to find people who were interested +in talking about federated social networks. I was there, I was happy +with it, but I'd be the first to admit that something like that wasn't +going to help more than a tiny minority of people. + +Since then, things have improved. Helped also by the policy changes of a +few centralised platforms, the number of people, and most importantly +the variety of people on the fediverse, and specifically mastodon have +grown. +The raw numbers are still low compared to the centralized platforms, so +you're not likely to find your old school mates on it, or any other +specific person you already know, but it's a great place to get to know +new people that share your interests, no matter what they are. +One day I've even stumbled on somebody who posted about soccer! +something that in the early, nerd-biased days would have been pretty +rare. + +The mastodon community also developed a set of community rules and +expectations about moderation which helps managing the social +interactions between instances with wildly different content rules. + +As for the technical part, in January 2018 the World Wide Web Consortium +released the ActivityPub standard which, while not perfect, has given a +big boost to interoperability between different projects. +This was followed by the summer of activity pub, when the ecosystem +grew significantly with the birth of many projects, often centered on +specific usecases, such as pixelfed for pictures or peertube for videos. + +Having such a standard also gives a platform for experimentation: new +projects can interoperate with all of the existing fediverse users, +helping them overcome the network effect in favour of existing +platforms. + +For the fediverse to work as designed, however, it is important that it +remains composed of many small instances rather than having a few big +ones that control most of its users, and here Debian could help. +Having packages in debian for a federated server would help more people +install and maintain a server, encouraging the existence of instances +sized for families and groups of friends. + +Sadly, as web apps, they tend to be pretty hard to package, and thus at +the moment work on those is mostly stalled; there are however a wiki page +and an IRC channel for people who are interested in improving this +situation. + +Another thing that Debian is doing, with way more success, is running +instances of a few federated platforms for Debian Contributors, but here +I'll let Rhonda talk, as she's actually part of the team doing so. |