[social media] Community-driven, open (source) alternatives for "FresseBuch", TW;TR, WhatsApe etc.

[Mjölnir]

AFAIC, good(?) alternatives for the notorious commercial social media sites exist:

• [social network] FresseBuch, InstaGrab --> ???
• [microblogging] TW;TR --> identi.ca, mastodon sites, sites driven by GNU social
• [blog] TM;BLR --> ???
• [music] Tune.fm --> libre.fm
• [Instant-Messaging] What'sApe --> numerous; many clients support cross-posting
• what have I missed? Please complete the list!

Are the commercial services in fact better than the ones driven by community (poll above)? The latter have at least one big plus: they respect privacy. IMHO the main reasons that so many sheep do not use the community-driven, open services are

• avarice when it comes to money -- even small amounts -- & false generosity concerning privacy
• peer pressure: "all my friends are there, so what shall I do..."

What can be done to enhance the publicity of these alternatives?
EDIT the cacography of names in this post is intentional. FresseBuch (ger.)=facebook, InstaGrab=Instagram, TW;TR=twitter, TM;BLR=tumblr, What'sApe=you got it

 

[a6h]

I've tried a few alternative project/media/etc in the past, for different reason: being non mainstream, libre, open, non commercial, less-bias, non-propaganda, etc. For example Mastodon, Gab, Bitchute, LBRY, Signal messenger, etc. There's a fundamental problem with these form of technologies as a whole:

1. They eventually will become mainstream. They should do stuff to keep their supporter happy: donners, contributes, USERS!
2. Growth need capital, they ultimately need some form of big money and fundraising, i.e. big donners, advertisement, big tech and promoters.
3. I'm categorically against concept of social media. Yes I know I'm on this forum right now, men know yoga is good but they watch and play soccer!
4. Instant messaging is a bad form of communication. I'm not supposed to be 24/7 available to my contact list. There're some needy creeps out there.
5. I think privacy is a new phenomenon, tied to capital growth and technological advancement of modern life. Think about life of people in the past, in small community like villages and small towns. Living on those community literally means no privacy. I'm still not (may!) clear on privacy issue, as I'm not clear on similar subjects, for example Liberty. In the past I upheld the idea of: Franklin's Liberty Safety. But now, [...] Does groups of people should have the right and freedom, to systematically trash culture and destroy civilization, in the name of freedom of speech or liberty. To be honest I've formed my thoughts around these subject long time ago, but I choose to keep my thoughts to myself!

I choose the "Don't know / don't care" option. Frankly I hope the whole thing go down the toilet. I systematically choose to live an isolate life (to some extend!) and I'm happy with my decision. I'm literally living near mountain! But evidently most people are getting sick and loosing their mind, esp in large cities, engaging with these virtual/network things. I don't think homo sapiens are evolve to cope with these form of OVER-socialization.

 

[judd]

Don't know / don't care
Social networks should only exist for occasional cases, especially in the case of catastrophes, searches for people, etc.
As far as I'm concerned, I don't have Facebook or Twitter, I don't like to expose my life at the door of a public toilet.

 

[ekvz]

Regarding instant messaging: There is XMPP (aka. Jabber) and in theory it should be quite good. Open, Decentralized, clients for pretty much any major platform (often multiple for different tastes), a seemingly trustworthy encryption standard, multi user chat, even voice messages. Pretty much anything i'd want (or not want in case of voice messages) from an instant messaging protocol short of a widely supported VOIP implementation. Sadly in practice the protocol is an overengineered abomination (why on earth XML...) that should have never been dragged on for so long and a lot of the functionality feels clunky for various reasons (missing client support, half hearted implementations, overcomplicated design, ...).

Clients like Conversations (Android) and Chatsecure (IOS) are very much a step in the right direction (directly competing with all the proprietary fly traps) but what good are they when the protocol makes them into something that feels like it's in pre alpha stage by design and adding an actual "killer feature" like VOIP is being talked about for years with literally zero results since actually writing a working XMPP client is bad enough (really just read the protocol and assume you want to implement even just a simple chat bot - have fun...) but adding a feature is even way way worse.

I really wish there was a common messaging standard worth using but XMPP is sadly not that standard. Every non technical user i tried to stir into using it has rejected/dropped it because it felt subpar/unreliable and the worst part about it is that i understand them. I've really tried overlooking all the rough edges but by now i have uninstalled it myself too as none of my friends will ever use it (or even try to again) and i don't really do private chats with random persons from the internet so whats the point?

In my opinion XMPP for the most part does exactly two things: Take away much needed resources from projects that might actually build a useful open instant messaging standard and also mask the fact that said standard is missing. I bet the competition is quite pleased with XMPP.

[/rant]

 

[Mjölnir]

Chat & Instant Messaging seems to be the best supported realm when it comes to Open Source: Comparison of Instant Messaging Protocols. Since many user-friendly clients support cross-posting, as a user I do not care much about the flaws of the underlying protocol. Most important is that it's an open protocol, and the networks I use respect privacy (don't sell metadata) & do not harass me with annoying advertisements. Still your experience with XMPP is valuable, thank you.
I did not invest much time to research & I'm still searching free (as in freedom) alternatives for blogs & general social network à la FresseBuch/InstaGrab, based on open protocols. These does not neccessarily have to be non-commercial, I'm ok when the service providers get a reasonable, fair fee for their work, effort & hardware/network expenses.
A week ago I talked about social networks with a young guy (mid 30). The naiveté of the young generation concerning their usage of social media p*ses me off & scares me, but I felt ashamed I could not provide free & open alternatives.

 

[20-100-2fe]

I agree with vigole.
As long as hosting is not free, there can't be any difference: you have to pay the bills, so you have to get the money somewhere.
And the more successful, the more money you have to find.

That said, I don't care.
Not being into SM (sadomasochism), I've closed my Facebook and Twitter long ago and don't use SM (social media) other than 2 BSD forums.
I also have a LinkedIn account, but it hasn't proven useful yet and I don't use it any longer, I even contemplate closing it too.

 

[20-100-2fe]

A week ago I talked about social networks with a young guy (mid 30). The naiveté of the young generation concerning their usage of social media p*ses me off & scares me

Not all of them are like this.
Furthermore, every single person has a unique life path.
This means they cannot know what it took us decades to wholly and deeply understand, and also that what we deem an absolute bad can be a relative good to them.

Life in 2020 is harder than it has ever been and there is no way for this to improve, all the opposite.
Alcohol is a legal drug in many countries, cannabis is being gradually legalized, TV/VOD is yet another universally available drug.
Why not social media, if it helps some people going an extra mile on their life path?

 

[roper]

Hosting a web server, using a web browser, running a mail server, using a mail client, using an irc client and owning a flip phone meet my social media needs. I don't think this is ludditism.

 

[Hakaba]

Do not know vote here.
Why ?
Social media is just a marketing word for IRC, forums and blogs.
Why the hell I will open a Facebook account ?

The only «social media» that I use is for buisness (LinkedIn).

 

[Mjölnir]

As the principal of the survey (poll), I have already answered some of getopt's questions:

• Purpose: I want to be able to point others to reasonable free, open source-based social media platforms, because of the aforementioned reasons; getopt explained these more detailed.
• Long story short, I'm scared by the amount of power these SM platform gained in a very short time; misuse of metadata has been reported numerous times.
• Another example: in 2008, blogspot.com was the world's biggest spreader of malware.
• I found alternatives for some widely used social media domains, but not for all, i.e. general purpose/all-in-one plattforms like FresseBuch, and blogs (beyond micro-blogging).
• My list of social media domains might be lacking some categories, thus I asked to complete it.
• If there are no good free & open source-based alternatives for these two missing realms, maybe a group of committed FreeBSD enthusiasts will make contact here to create such platform(s). It's Corona time, some people have plenty of time IMHO it's urgent to not let our society drift towards science fiction horror scenarios even more than it already happened.
• The young people's need for social media is real & can neither be denied nor ignored.

And the question deserves to be answered also by fair means because one cannot assume that the question is suggestive in any way. Hey, no kids around here. And of course here are no peers expecting wanted answers. Isn't it?

Yes to all three!
Hakaba, a forum is social media, so you're using it here... and no, I hope you do not open a FresseBuch account, obviously. EDIT AFAIK the term social media was not invented by marketing people, but to be honest I don't know where it comes from or who "invented" it. IMHO it's very straightforward to combine the two parts to describe the subject. Probably it was used by sociologists 1st?

 

[20-100-2fe]

IMHO it's urgent to not let our society drift towards science fiction horror scenarios

Let me kindly challenge you.

Why is it urgent?
Why would it even be necessary?
Are the several billions Facebook users incapable of reasoning, of making wise choices?
Shouldn't someone else decide what is good for them in their place?
Shouldn't this extend to other areas as well, then?
After all, if they are not capable of choosing a social medium, they're surely incapable of doing more important things.
The next question arising is: how to decide someone shouldn't be allowed to make choices himself?
And who should make that decision?

On a practical point of view, migrating to another social medium is impossible: all your contacts are on the current one, you can't make them change with you because they in turn have the same problem. However, I deem the questions raised above much more worth being discussed.

 

[getopt]

I'm not convinced that platforms should be promoted. They are centralist by design and perfect for exploiting and dominating.

I'd prefer a federated design. That would distribute costs of operation and keep other risks low.

 

[Deleted member 63539]

I use what my friends use to communicate with them. If my friends are not there, what's the point of using these services at all?

 

[wolffnx]

I dont use any of them....in the past I try mastodon,that is already a music band

 

[ekvz]

Chat & Instant Messaging seems to be the best supported realm when it comes to Open Source: Comparison of Instant Messaging Protocols. Since many user-friendly clients support cross-posting, as a user I do not care much about the flaws of the underlying protocol. Most important is that it's an open protocol, and the networks I use respect privacy (don't sell metadata) & do not harass me with annoying advertisements.

While i can see where you are coming from i wouldn't discount the protocols itself as something other persons have to deal with. The missing features and sporadic integration resulting from a bad protocol is going to hit the users quite directly. I also don't see fragmentation and multiprotocol clients as a solution. The way i look at it is that there is a vacuum left by IRC becoming/having become outdated and this vacuum needs to be filled with another more modern standard becoming widely used/accepted.

I think looking at IRC and it's success is quite interesting. In theory it should have long been replaced by something more fitting in with modern requirements but it wasn't and it just keeps going (or at least not declining nearly fast enough to be going anywhere soon) even while it misses features or had them tucked on as an afterthought in an often times not exactly elegant manner. A lot of it comes down to IRC being easy to integrate with unrelated 3rd party applications or having services added in form of bots. The results might not be pretty but they are easy to archive and quite functional. Don't get me wrong i don't want to paint IRC as a stellar example of a protocol done well (it really isn't) but (despite it's age and ton of rough edges) it still beats something like XMPP without even trying. There is a whole universe between dated and a bit annoying to parse and XMPP level of awkwardness.

A new protocol ironing out the shortcomings of IRC is in my opinion generally not a bad idea but if the result is something like XMPP it would have been better to build upon IRC. As in keeping the upsides while trying to eliminate the pitfalls and also define standards for whatever is missing right now (i.e. protocol level authentication, E2E encryption, VOIP, maybe internetwork communication, ...).

In regards to the protocol list: At least from my point of view there isn't as much reasonable entries as a first impression might suggest. Mumble for example is really just a VOIP protocol (if that is considered an instant messaging protocol where is Teamspeak or Ventrillo?). One might compare it to IRC but a Mumble server (there is no concept of a Mumble network) is nowhere the size of an IRC network and i really don't see how it would be useful for general instant messaging. Then there is protocols like MTProto. It might be open but i just really wouldn't want to support the company behind Telegram. The others are for the most part niche solutions with no measurable user base and after crossing those out too there isn't much left besides Matrix and Tox.

Now i haven't really tested those but from what i hear Matrix seems to be rather wide reaching feature wise (some might say overreaching) and resource hungry while Tox is quite radical with it's P2P architecture (which is interesting but i think the classic client-server model is a better fit for a reliable instant messaging solution).

These does not neccessarily have to be non-commercial, I'm ok when the service providers get a reasonable, fair fee for their work, effort & hardware/network expenses.

I am not opposed to paying for such a service either. My concern would mainly be about having a convenient private payment option. I sadly life in a country where it's not possible to just walk into a gas station and buy crypto coins with cash so that would be a point to consider. Cash in mail is obviously a possibility but sadly it's not exactly elegant.

On a site note: I've actually been toying a bit with a concept that's more or less a hybrid between Usenet and a crypto coin on top of onion network (Tor, I2P, ...). There every post would cost "money" (depending on how the group is set up likely a very tiny amount but still) and creating groups might even be somewhat expensive. It's less about generating revenue but more about preventing spam though and would for the most part automatically go to the group owners/moderators anyways but i really don't think good privacy solutions have to be free (of charge) by design.

A week ago I talked about social networks with a young guy (mid 30). The naiveté of the young generation concerning their usage of social media p*ses me off & scares me, but I felt ashamed I could not provide free & open alternatives.

While i agree that there is some kind of a visible trend across generations it depends a lot on the person itself. I like to pretend that i still fall into the mid thirties category myself which is more or less the last generation not entirely growing up with social media being omnipresent and while i see a lot of people around me not giving the least amount thought to the consequences of their social media use there is also a visible portion that's quite reluctant or outright rejecting it.

Actually my neighbors (a mid 20s couple) don't have any social media presence so even this generation isn't fully contaminated yet but from there on i agree about it becoming somewhat scary. Those are the generations that basically grew up on facebook/instagram/snapchat and see this behavior as perfectly normal. Not only would it be very hard to convince them to critically question it but abstaining would also seriously complicated for them due it basically being an accepted norm in their peer circles.

 

[ekvz]

Let me kindly challenge you.

Why is it urgent?
Why would it even be necessary?
Are the several billions Facebook users incapable of reasoning, of making wise choices?
Shouldn't someone else decide what is good for them in their place?
Shouldn't this extend to other areas as well, then?
After all, if they are not capable of choosing a social medium, they're surely incapable of doing more important things.
The next question arising is: how to decide someone shouldn't be allowed to make choices himself?
And who should make that decision?

On a practical point of view, migrating to another social medium is impossible: all your contacts are on the current one, you can't make them change with you because they in turn have the same problem. However, I deem the questions raised above much more worth being discussed.

I very much agree that the problem goes way deeper and having superior alternatives available to sway peoples opinion in a certain direction is basically sidestepping it. It's probably more practical to go at it this way than trying to address ignorance, laziness and herd mentality though.

As for being urgent: Well, it's probably always urgent to have good solutions available and a good solution won't automatically be a bad one tomorrow but sometimes there is just this moment where having something available would have more of an impact than at another point in time. For example if XMPP would have by now managed to have VOIP working at least among the major clients usage statistics would likely look way different. This would be a point where an open solution might not just compete but downright beat the mainstream alternatives so having such a feature first makes a huge difference.

 

[a6h]

The young people's need for social media is real & can neither be denied nor ignored.

Some/most of them need harsh Zen discipline in a very traditional way. It works.

 

[getopt]

ekvz as always there is no one fits for all solution. Different people do have different needs.

Regarding your lengthy talk on XMPP I wonder whether this is hearsay or if it is based on personal experience. When did you try XMPP last time? Must have been long time ago?

If anyone wants to contact me via XMPP, Matrix or Tox just mention your preferred address in a forum PN (aka "conversation").

 

[Mjölnir]

Some/most of them need harsh Zen discipline in a very traditional way. It works.

If I were the King of Germany I'd enact a directive to teach yoga for all children in school... But I'm not. I'm an average nerd with some limited knowledge in computer science & programming skills (both limited). IMHO we (older) can not convince the young generation to avoid commercial social media platforms. They want/need alternatives. So I came up with this thread. I don't have a facebook account (obviously, neither on any other mainstream SM platform), so I can't judge what makes them so great that justifies billions of users. Brainstorming about alternatives - maybe alternative open protocols as well - is my escape from the dilemma that some of my buddies are around 30 and when it comes to their communication manners I feel like an alien. They don't write e-mails, neiter some of them like to phone (except the females ), instead SMS go back and forth multiple times a day...

 

[a6h]

If I were the King of Germany I'd enact a directive to teach yoga for all children in school

You have my vote.

 

[ekvz]

ekvz as always there is no one fits for all solution. Different people do have different needs.

Of course but there should at least be a one fits most solution, don't you think?

Regarding your lengthy talk on XMPP I wonder whether this is hearsay or if it is based on personal experience. When did you try XMPP last time? Must have been long time ago?

I used to run a server and looked into writing clients for different specialized use cases (scratched that fast after realizing what kind of trainwreck i was dealing with). I guess i've probably finally uninstalled it (both server and client) like 1,5 years ago which i feel is not exactly a long time considering how old XMPP is. Even if it was it wouldn't make much of a difference. XMPP is BAD (yes, in all capital letters). It's rotten from the core because of the choices made during it's design and no amount of work will ever fix that. I mean seriously, there is a reason why it didn't gain any kind of noteworthy adoption during the last 20 years. It was even briefly used by Google and it didn't help. The only thing XMPP needs to do is finally make space for something worthwhile. The idea of promoting a failed protocol from the late 90s as something to compete with modern messaging services is almost mental.

 

[getopt]

i've probably finally uninstalled it (both server and client) like 1,5 years ago which i feel is not exactly a long time considering how old XMPP is. Even if it was it wouldn't make much of a difference. XMPP is BAD (yes, in all capital letters). It's rotten from the core because of the choices made during it's design and no amount of work will ever fix that. I mean seriously, there is a reason why it didn't gain any kind of noteworthy adoption during the last 20 years.

1,5 years were a long time in the sixties of the last century. All I could read is opinion without giving any reason.

I've seen some people trying Prosody and going back to ejabberd. OMEMO has become a choice next to OTR and both have different usecases. Some clients improved nicely.

 

[Mjölnir]

Why is it urgent? Why would it even be necessary?

Are you serious? Read the news from all over the world! Clowns (literally, look at Italy *****) are doing political campaigning through TW;TR, remember the Cambridge Analytica scandal, fake news are spreading through SM platforms, I'm surrounded by 75% autistic people, and the mentally healthy ones are declared to be ill...

Are the several billions Facebook users incapable of reasoning, of making wise choices?

They are capable of reasoning, but they have no reasonable alternatives...

Shouldn't someone else decide what is good for them in their place?
Shouldn't this extend to other areas as well, then?

Obviously not. See below on suggestive quenstioning.

After all, if they are not capable of choosing a social medium, they're surely incapable of doing more important things. The next question arising is: how to decide someone shouldn't be allowed to make choices himself? And who should make that decision?

You can freely decide to stop posting suggestive questions & stay on-topic.

On a practical point of view, migrating to another social medium is impossible: all your contacts are on the current one, you can't make them change with you because they in turn have the same problem.

This is 100% hypothetic as long as there are no reasonable alternatives. Once there are, some users will change, and for those who are influencers, others will follow.

However, I deem the questions raised above much more worth being discussed.

Then create another thread? Maybe in a forum dedicated to philosophics & sociologic topics? The one I created here is at least related to IT/computer application & it's impact on society...

 

[a6h]

I'm really not a right person to suggest an alternative to mainstream social media, but as far a messaging systems goes, I strongly recommend to use Signal messenger. Its protocol passed formal security analysis: Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2016/1013 and it became European Commission’s messaging app of choice.

 

[getopt]

20-100-2fe and mjollnir
Trying to make the world a better place is a good thing as long as you are keeping to hack yourself. We are responsible on what we decide to do. We do have a choice. And we are free not to choose.