Discussion
It's 01:44 am, so naturally I'm working on my "The Future is Decentralized and Federated" talk for @oscl .
I'm at the part where I explain the need for decentralized (and federated) platforms and the adverse effects of centralized platforms.
Besides the obvious examples of big tech shutting down services, I'm considering including the hostile take-over of TikTok by Oracle, a private equity firm, and an Abu Dhabi based VC firm.
@Gina I also miss TikTok every day 😭
The moment United States people started getting that "Trump saved the app!" popup I jumped ship.
I mostly just scroll Fedi and Xiaohongshu now.
@Gina I was never a user so I don't miss it...but I do miss the time when I'd expect my PM and other PMs around the world to not stand side-by-side or even arm-in-arm with private companies seizing our most important communication systems & small-D democratic tools.
Similar as to how Twitter got ruined by tech bro money, TikTok was also hijacked. And it's genuinely so harmful to our freedom of information. TikTok was way more than a silly little dance app.
Had TikTok been decentralized, like @joinloops , or like @Mastodon in the case of Twitter, they couldn't have taken over the whole community. Anyone could have started a new server and excluded the one that was now poisoned. Take over the whole company? Cool, the project gets forked.
@Gina @joinloops @Mastodon where's the loop video!
@Gina @joinloops @Mastodon Proprietary software ruins all the fun.
This is why decentralization matters. This is why it's important to have open source platforms, that you're able to self-host, and preferably also federate with other self-hosters.
This is way bigger than 'it's fun to tinker with servers.' This is about preventing hostile take-overs of community run projects, and about building alternatives to centralized platforms that threaten our democracy.
...
And yes it's about the cat videos too.
@phillycodehound @oscl I don't think it will be recorded, but I'll see if I can turn the slidedeck into a blog post. Or otherwise just share the deck :)
Install bonfire.cafe
Get the full app experience
Because man do I miss TikTok every day. In between cat videos, the journalism on there was peak. Freedom of information and media pluralism is a pillar of democracy. TikTok was close to free press.
Nowhere else did you get first person accounts of political events happening irl, like that guy in Nepal during the gov overthrow. Or in-depth pieces on Gaza. Or the influence of big tech on democracy. Or the rise of fascism in the US. Or the real economic effects of policy on regular people.