A better social network?

Solid point, I believe we could also use regular state IDs to verify as well. I do have a background on how botnets operate currently on the facebook platform so I could develop tooling and automation to detect most of these accounts if needed instead of the ID verification.

Just make it mandatory to identify as bot or else, and then there are only legal and illegal bots :man_shrugging:t2:

Thank you for the insight on this. The idea here is to have a more authentic experience with others on the site.

By default when you register you’re actually using a real name that has been verified, your profile would have your name and some other information as well. The alias(es) portion is just for if you wanted to remain ‘semi-anonymous’ when interacting in a community where you didn’t want your real name linked to the content. (adult content, nsfw content, or fandom type things)

This is kinda how I would like the feature to work… (still a WIP)…
You could share content (videos, pictures, etc) under your profile as ‘you’ stuff like family photos, personal vlogs or whatever. With the alias(es) it gives you the option to share under that alias account(s) which you could setup privacy settings to keep your friends and family from seeing content you usually wouldn’t share with them. (nsfw content, adult content, or whatever)

Other users would just see the post as either posted by you or your alias, if using your alias other users can’t link back to your profile or even figure out who the ‘alias’ account belongs too. (Only site admins can, and its only used in cases where moderating comes in to play.)

Example: User signs up, then creates an alias and starts sharing illegal content of underage kids or other explicit illegal content. If that content is reported or caught (human reported or software automation reporting) would allow us to link the alias account back to the actual owner so that we can either ban the alias, parent account, or report to the authorities.

a less extreme example…

Example 2: User signs up, creates an alias and broke some rules on the site. We can ban them from a page and because the punishment goes to both the alias account and is linked to the parent account it prevents them from using another alias to view the content and prevents them from circumventing the ban or punishment provided to said user.

Hopefully that makes sense, I’ve been up all night so its kinda all a blur now. :slight_smile:

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I don’t currently have any bots that would be allowed on the platform. If there is a bot account, it’s gonna have a hell of a time getting around the verification, the bot detection tools, and other user reports to make it worth while.

In the future if we did allow bots, they would be easily identifiable, and be privy to all the same privacy controls as other users.

The bot account would be linked back to the parent user, so blocks and bans would be handled the same way.

So I’ve read through about as much of this thread as I could and the general consensus is that Social Media should be a place to come and socialize with people, discuss topics and share experiences. It should offer a good amount of privacy and anonymity, have very little advertising and be an inclusive community. It should allow for free expression,be accepting of all points of view while simultaneously fighting fake accounts, dis-information and bots…

I think I’ll just stick to calling/texting my family, friends and co-workers and continue using online forums (like this one) instead of actively engaging on any of the major “social media platforms”.

For me, this, right here, is my social media.
2px0yl

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This exactly. I want to make sure this is done correctly. Facebook seems to have repeat mistakes when it comes to issues like this.

Cambridge Analytica for example… facebook just trusted them and it turned out very poorly for them in the end. As zuck would say “dumbfucks”…

By learning from the mistakes from Facebook and Reddit and not allowing 3rd parties access to the data. Applications, Games, and other items would need to be reviewed and the data would not be allowed to leave the network for any reason which really limits the capabilities of a leak or a cyber attack through those methods.

Lets say in theory that a server was compromised that had user data. The data would be encrypted and managed in such a way that it would be useless to the attacker. Lets say usernames and other profile data was hashed, salted, and encrypted and it would just look like a ton of random data that was not human readable and couldn’t be cross referenced with other data. Hell, I could store all the user data on our servers and make it so that only the user can decrypt said data with their hardware token or something… (still getting ideas and open to suggestions. The issue here is that we still need the ability to know what stuff is stored on our servers so that if authorities were trying to track down a sexual predator we wouldn’t be prohibiting an investigating and get bad news in the press about us harboring sexual predators… or if something less extreme like moderating forbidden content would be possible)

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Human - ads relationship currently

and I dont understand how has anybody ever made even cent with these shits which just promote that Elon tweet I was coming back to check anyways

Ads are 0% useful

At very least it shouldnt show me these things I know and are probably even just about to go check anyways, like just showing me 1 pc hardware related ad, once a day, from things I dont follow at all, would be 100% better than any current ads are

Podcast ads are different and I like some of them, and the key for me liking these is that not giving fuck attitude

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What would you want as far as features to make you join the platform?

The big issue is finding a balance between allowing free speech and privacy vs fighting hate groups and fake news.

If we were to moderate some of the hate groups or a group that has viewpoints that differ from most of the population it may be considered an attack on free speech.

If we don’t moderate the content, then were allowing such content and people to spread hate on to others which isn’t very cool at all and then we just have another facebook.

Because were changing up the way that content is handled on this platform, I believe we can allow users to curate their own feeds and make them feel like other viewpoints are not being shoved down their throat. (Politics is a perfect example of this.)

By allowing users to choose what they want to see, they are not forced to view content that they disagree with and I think that would bring down the toxicity and allow for some civility. (but this is the internet…) I see this as a major flaw with current platforms as they have a feed of stuff THEY think you want to see.

The other issue is that users could also end up in a bubble because of this and that usually doesn’t end up well either. (suggestions?)

Depends on the ads platform. They do make sites money. But I feel they need to be done correctly and be relevant to the content you are looking at and not harvest every bit of data they can get about you.

pc hardware, some software, games, tiddies, and possibly some random pc gadgets from china, cool jacket and boots once a year, tiddies

I dont get how you can get that so wrong, I could even list it by myself :face_with_raised_eyebrow:

The real point of my post was to show that this type of social interaction that people are looking for can be handled very well by platforms such as this Forum. You likely have a very defined view of what Social Media is supposed to look like because you worked directly for Facebook. The whole following people, friend requests, wall feed, supplying your personal info, advertising, etc that is current Social Media Platforms is terrible in my eyes.

I mean look at us right now, we are complete strangers, having a civil conversation about the current and future state of Social Media. I didn’t have to friend request or follow you, provide you any personal details, share what I ate this morning, provide my life’s history to you and yet we’re doing all of that on a platform that is well-moderated, mostly free of spam-bots, reasonably anonymous, not plastered with ads and filled with like-minded people who just want to socialize and discuss current events and technology.

Make a Social Media Network that checks all of those boxes and I might join.

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One of the best forms of random instant chitchats are from first WoW’s before that Dungeon Finder, and I still know few of them, and with many I had great discussions without any continuation

Discord is for some reason like forum, its IM, but its still not like that

buuut, I would think many Twitch chats to have same effect

Nah, I just like it mole than… adding more of them.

Lets say I allow fully anonymous users.

How do I deal with abuse on the platform in a scalable fashion?

Why not allow both? Verified accounts have more privileges or access than anon accounts. Maybe only allow posting content to verified users or something.

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I will say that this is where the big three have failed, and they have tried HARD. I’m not going to get in to my personal beliefs or use buzzwords, but the simple fact is that 95% of the drama surrounding this topic is because the platforms either did not define these terms well or at all, and/or enforced them poorly and with no apparent consistency.

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This really is the time that an alternative needs to appear. Currently in working on an app that allows for encrypted communication over sms. Pretty simple and will work for my family and friends though not an alternative to social media.

But what about a network of distributed hosted personal sites? Access a website to download some JavaScript that gives you access to the distributed network that propergates content. That content being encrypted with keys that are themselves encrypted with shared keys, given to select people that you wish to have access to your content. The content then being broken up into smaller pieces, where newer and more popular content is shared commonly between nodes while older and less common content is archived on less nodes.

Its far from an easy idea. But would give people the freedom to have social media with the aim of trusting only those who you share keys with.

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It never works. Have you seen how many times its been tried only for a monolith to take over that space.

As for using identity… That’s a great way to sensor and get rid of people you don’t like. You need a GPL like thing for ensuring the core cant corrupt, ever. Otherwise you’ll just end up where we are today again, with google, facebook, paypal, patreon, etc. deciding what is and isnt allowed, and what you should and shouldn’t see.

Seems like a lot of focus is way far ahead on this idea, rather than looking at the core problem first? How do you ensure a platform keeps its core principles when they arent tied to any technological standard? when the humans in control can just decide to change the rules?

You need a way to enforce a set of human standards around free speech etc. while also protecting the platform from being utterly destroyed by the competition. The answer to that isnt at any technological level i dont think.

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Hosted personal sites isn’t the correct wording. What I meant is to take the bitcoin distributed network idea, and rather than have a blockchain of which is completely the wrong choice for a social media platform, rather have algorithmic propagation of content. This is the same thing that Facebook and Google use, just hosted by a distributed network of users rather than cloud systems. For example, YouTube video’s commonly watched will be propagated among most nodes in the network, however less common ones will be left on fewer nodes. Reason why in regions like Australia, popular video’s load quickly while others can take time to buffer and load.

Thats peertube essentially. Distributed platform with distributed video streaming (bittorrent it think).

Watch how great it is…

Your idea is also done by YouTube as you mention. If you do it in a monolithic fashion you get youtube. if you do it distributed you get peertube. the problem with peertube like all distributed systems is they are unable to compete, hard to use, no central governance, and ultimately fail to reach any critical mass.