@kim the social web is not.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@kim the social web is not.

[kim@social.gfsc.studio]

@evan what is the "social web" in this context and why is it not decentralised?

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@kim

Social networking platforms. There are a handful that have billions or hundreds of millions of users. It's not possible for most to connect with other users across network boundaries.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_social_platforms_with_at_least_100_million_active_users

Decentralisation means letting other entities, like individuals, families, enterprises, governments, universities, and civil society organisations, set up or manage their own social platforms and still stay connected to other people.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@kim Just engaging with the ecosystem at the presentation level -- I can use a Web browser to use all (almost all?) social network platforms -- doesn't recognise that there are data siloes that can't be connected to others.

[kim@social.gfsc.studio]

@evan to me you're advocating for interoperability, not decentralisation there. those actors already can set up all those things - precisely because the web is decentralised. they just cant expect them to integrate with Facebook.

(maybe see my full thead for more context where im going with this)

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@kim Social networks are important. They are how we get news, engage with family and friends, have conversations about topics that matter with our communities. Having only one model for social platform governance -- ad-supported commercial platforms -- is bad for us as individuals, as societies, and as a planet. The Fediverse movement is about establishing other modes of governance and making sure the existing platforms allow cross-network connections.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@kim I think your distinction between interoperability and decentralisation is maybe too fine for me. I think interop is a necessary condition for decentralisation.

And yes, we can set up interoperability! That is what we are doing with ActivityPub.

[kim@social.gfsc.studio]

@evan the point im making is i dont think decentralisation is a very exciting thing on its own. i feel like theres already a theoretical slippage happening where "decentralised" is synonymous with "has activitypub" and i dont like it - it feels like we are veering into technosolutionism. i would rather hang my hat on moral values about the kind of world we want to build than implementation details of a protocol.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@kim that's fine. It's not like there's one message or one audience. "We need to run our own platforms" seems pretty straightforward for most people.

[kim@social.gfsc.studio]

@evan i dont think thats straightforward at all for most people sorry to say :) most people would describe a facebook page as "running our our platform" ime

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@kim Sorry, you're right. I meant people who are involved in anti-fascist/anti-capitalist organising.

[evan@cosocial.ca]

@kim I should point out that I don't find "decentralisation" on its own very compelling either. It's framed as a negative -- undoing the social harm of centralisation -- without presenting a positive alternative. I don't know if "inclusive governance" or "collective governance" is compelling either, but framing the goals in a positive way is something I'd like to see.