Re:The promise and paradox of decentralization
by preseinger on Saturday November 06, 2021 @04:35AM
(#29128431)
> [Twitter] are going to be purposefully and continuously ejecting users. As long as the users are people who nobody wanted to listen to anyway then that is fine.
> But the situation changes because sooner or later (potentially already happened) Twitter will eject actual community leaders and a community will need to reform somewhere else.
You're saying this as if it's inevitable. It's not. The incentives are aligned to keep all reputable "community leaders" on the platform. If you're concerned about how a market driven organization judges reputability, well, (a) that's a different conversation, and (b) check to see who you're aligned with.
Re:The promise and paradox of decentralization
by cbsmith on Saturday November 06, 2021 @01:17PM
(#29131974)
"But the situation changes because sooner or later (potentially already happened) Twitter will eject actual community leaders and a community will need to reform somewhere else."
"Actual community leaders" is a matter of perspective though. "Actual community leaders" don't need a megaphone like Twitter, because they're already leaders that have an audience. Social media is a way to tap in to a broader distribution platform, and it seems appropriate that said platform would restrict that access to those that serve the interests of that broader audience.
Using Twitter as an example - they are going to be purposefully and continuously ejecting users. As long as the users are people who nobody wanted to listen to anyway then that is fine.
But the situation changes because sooner or later (potentially already happened) Twitter will eject actual community leaders and a community will need to reform somewhere else.
When that happens, open protocols and open platforms will help the community reform. It is quite hard to stop a community reforming on the internet for example because there are so many parallel communication channels that are basically free. So using Twitter isn't much of a risk because if they go bad then the community can reasonably move somewhere else.
People seem to expect "decentralised" leads to some sort of semi-utopia where everyone has equal status or act like some sort of saintly community driven by consensus. I don't see how it can work that way. It really just makes it easier to transfer power when the currently powerful start acting abusively.