https://pluralistic.net/2024/03/23/evacuate-the-platforms/
"Enshittification is the inevitable result of high switching costs. Tech bosses are keenly attuned to opportunities to lock in their customers and users, because the harder is to leave a platform, the worse the platform can treat you – the more value it can rob you of – without risking your departure."
Interesting read:
"But platform users are a heterogeneous, lumpy mass. Different groups of users have different switching costs. An adult Facebook user of long tenure has more reasons to stay than a younger user: they have more complex social lives, with nonoverlapping social circles from high school, college, various jobs, affinity groups, and family. They are more likely to have a chronic illness, or to be caring for someone with chronic illness, and to be a member of a social media support group they value highly. They are more likely to be connected to practical communities, like little league carpool rotas.
That's the terrible irony of platform decay: the more value you get from a platform, the more cost that platform can extract, a cost denominated in your wellbeing, enjoyment and dignity."
♲ Kurt Lupin - 2024-03-25 13:19:44 GMT
Pluralistic: Someday, we'll all take comfort in the internet's "dark corners" (23 Mar 2024)
Public Spaces
Wat betekent de nieuwe Digital Services Act (DSA) voor de Europese burger en hoe maak je er gebruik van? Bits of Freedom legt het uit op jouwplatformrechten.nl; een door PublicSpaces gesteund initiatief. (...)
(Tekst loopt door onder de foto.)
.
Door de nieuwe DSA wordt jouw privacy bijvoorbeeld beter beschermd, worden platformen transparanter en wordt er beter gemodereerd.
Ook je eigen controle over het platform neemt toe. Een mooi voorbeeld is het feit dat je zelf als gebruiker uit verschillende aanbevelingsalgoritmen je eigen voorkeursoptie kunt kiezen. (...)
Dit is goed nieuws, maar het lost nog niet alle problemen van big tech zomaar op. Gelukkig bestaan er tal van platformen die de DSA-punten al helemaal (en grondiger) onder de knie hebben, zoals Mastodon en PeerTube. Deze platformen hebben de nieuwe DSA-wetten in hun wortels. (...)
Tags: #nederlands #big_tech #dsa #digital_services_act #eu #europese_unie #privacy #internet #profilering #algoritme #sociale_media #mastodon #peertube #tracking #cookies #platforms
wishing the best for #bandcamp, during these troubles.
maybe time for #faircamp?
#selfhosting #union #bandcampunited
#platforms #centralised #decentralised #onetimeatbandcamp #epicgames #corporatebuyout #sellout #songtradr #thecorporation #principles #purpose #profits #wecanstillhostthis #selfhost #music #musicians
(i say while listening to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejbZFd9VAes (before perhaps looking through some of the many more articles and videos on this today.))
Content moderation doesn’t work at scale. Any scheme which attempts it is bound to fail. For sites which need continuous user growth, that is a problem. So what can they do? Well, we know what doesn’t work:
Simply having minimal or no moderation results in a trash fire of bigotry and illegal content, quickly hemorrhaging any potential revenue and potentially landing a platform in legal trouble. Automating moderation inevitably blocks legitimate content that wasn’t targeted, and is gamed by bad actors who get around it.Every approach comes to the same conclusion—a platform needs workers: Lots of them, around the clock. Sites are then stuck trying to minimize this labor cost somehow. The worst version of this is a system of poorly paid workers, typically outsourced, merely reviewing user reports and automated moderation decisions. These mods invisibly compare out-of-context posts to a set of ever-changing and arbitrary rules. It’s grueling work, where one only views the worst the internet has to offer while remaining totally alienated from the community.
Yep. This is the key thing!
#reddit #socialMedia #platforms
#GrafX2 - The #ultimate 256-color #painting #program
GrafX2 is a #bitmap #paint program inspired by the #Amiga #programs #DeluxePaint and #Brilliance. Specialized in 256-color drawing, it includes a very large number of tools and effects that make it particularly suitable for pixel art, #game #graphics, and generally any detailed graphics painted with a mouse.
The program is mostly developed on #Haiku, #Linux and #Windows, but is also #portable on many other #platforms.
https://publicinfrastructure.org/2023/03/29/the-three-legged-stool/
- Consists of many different platforms with a wide variety of scales and purposes;
- Users can navigate with a loyal client that aggregates, cross-posts, and curates;
- Is all supported by cross-cutting services rooted in interoperable data.
First, we propose a pluriverse consisting of existing platforms alongside a flourishing ecosystem of Very Small Online Platforms (VSOPs) that serve conversations and communities that are poorly served by today’s digital public sphere. Just as we do not exclusively gather in shopping malls in the physical world, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube are not the right place for every community and conversation online. We argue the need for civic-centered VSOPs like our platform Smalltown. We highlight existing VSOPs like Letterboxd and An Archive of Our Own and discuss what it takes to develop a new VSOP, using our work on Freq, a VSOP dedicated to music discovery and discussion, as a case study.\
\
Second, we sketch out a “loyal client” for navigating the digital public sphere. Akin to an email client like Apple Mail or a chat client like ICQ, our loyal client aggregates, filters, and posts to a person’s various social media feeds, be those VSOPs or established platforms like Twitter or Reddit. Such a tool depends on people being able to delegate authority to a loyal client, which comes with challenges related to privacy, adoption, and usability.\
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Third, we introduce the “friendly neighborhood algorithm store.” This is a marketplace that VSOPs and loyal clients can rely on for curation and Trust & Safety, tools which no single VSOP or loyal client could develop on their own, and which large platforms have developed over decades with significant resources. These include recommender systems, spam detection, anti-abuse tools, and powerful filters for CSAM and terrorist content.
PDF https://publicinfrastructure.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/The-Three-Legged-Stool-by-Chand-Rajendra-Nicolucci-Michael-Sugarman-and-Ethan-Zuckerman-iDPI-UMass.pdf
HTML https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ral-dsAcl_CjY0QZrELq4yWigq4rT3UB/view
I think it's important that alternative webs be simple at the protocol level so that many, many developers can reasonably quickly develop their own client and server software. Also, complexity is the enemy of security.
I'm really annoyed by the #Internet of today:
Once being an open platform geared towards information exchange and bringing people into contact, most of the public Internet today is nothing but annoying useless #marketing, #advertising and #data #collection. Providing information, connecting people, and making life convenient is definitely NOT the primary goal of whoever is big on the Internet today. It's shocking to see how much of it is only to sell you stuff or to sell your information.
And the worst is: we are even paying them to do this shit. #Marketing spending will be reflected in product prices, and with much of marketing being done in 1st world countries, a substantial amount of the price goes into this destructive industry.
I could go on with this for hours. Really sick of it.
