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Re:Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to... by kmeisthax on Friday April 15, 2022 @10:24PM (#31048684)
This already existed, it was called Freenet[0], and it was just as much of a trash dumpster as one might imagine. I have no idea if it still works.

The fact of the matter is that such a system absolutely would not scale. USENET crumbled under the weight of early 90s AOL subscribers; imagine even a fraction of today's Facebook or Twitter users moving to a similarly open system. It would be absolutely unusable chaos.

The thing is, these systems are not "the whole psyche of humankind projected into public view". That's far, far too generous for it. What usually happens is that the loudest extremists scream over everyone else, sock-puppet support for each other, create an echo chamber, and then proclaim that everyone who doesn't think like them isn't a real human being. The vast majority of people do not actually interact with the system.

[0] Technically speaking it was some extra overlay software on top of Freenet. I don't remember the name.

Re:Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to... by sweetbitter on Friday April 15, 2022 @10:37PM (#31048785)
No, it isn't impossible at all. However, it would be very subjective- like that Freenet overlay software that eliminates SPAM and child pornography with ease, such a system would be more based on subjective webs of trust and optional lists people could subscribe to, used to determine what you see.

The sender anonymity part could just be having every node act as part of a mixnet- wait until you receive X messages and/or Y time has elapsed, shuffle messages, send them out to randomly chosen nodes, repeat this for 3 hops and then your message is propagated.

I've wanted to make something like this for ages since 4chan has gone so downhill. Perhaps it should happen then. It would probably be easier to adopt than something as complex as Freenet FMS for sure.

Re:Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to... by a-dub on Friday April 15, 2022 @11:21PM (#31049119)
technically possible, yes. but what do you think people would use it for and what problem would it solve?

how could it be abused by trolls? both local and nation state funded?

Re:Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to... by psyc on Friday April 15, 2022 @11:31PM (#31049182)
I would most of all hope it would solve the problem of people asking such questions, by making them perfectly moot. Folks would be forced to settle for wistful speculation about what the world might have been had the thing not been created.
Re:Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to... by a-dub on Saturday April 16, 2022 @12:02AM (#31049347)
so you want to take actions that force a state of regret upon the world for you having taken them?

the human condition sucks sometimes, but wow, that's pretty dark.

you could also consider, you know, actions that make your life or the lives of others better. it's likely a more rewarding endeavor.

Re:Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to... by sweetbitter on Saturday April 16, 2022 @12:09AM (#31049385)
Trolls would need to avoid being too overtly inflammatory, lest they get blocked by kneejerk reaction.

> What problem would it solve

Well, we could have a bunch of discussion boards again, ones that aren't at the permanent whims of profiteers or atrocious moderation. And strong anonymity even against global passive adversaries. Clearly there is a case for it, I know a lot of people who would find lots of joy in such a thing!

Re:Twitter board adopts poison pill after Musk’s $43B bid to... by scythe on Friday April 15, 2022 @11:22PM (#31049121)
Freenet was also slightly slower than molasses in Antarctica. You had to really want to post there. The product of a messageboard is roughly:

sum[user_i in users](opinion(user_i)•engagement(user_i))

It's the second factor that causes all of the problems. But much like fast-food companies get a large fraction of their revenue from a small fraction of their customers, social media companies have trouble disempowering highly engaged users when functioning as a profit-oriented business.

It's interesting to consider what would happen with a "less moderated" messageboard where an individual's daily engagement is capped (supposing you solve the multiple account problem). It doesn't seem likely that we'll see that any time soon, though.