A lot of folks are responding to the whole Reddit situation by calling for the return of decentralised forums, and I think it's important to remember that, contrary to certain popular narratives, the reason early 2000s forum culture has fallen by the wayside is not because people are Just Lazy. Certainly, ease of use is part of it, but a much larger part of it is how vulnerable self-hosted forums are.

Basically, the problem is that even the largest and most carefully managed self-hosted forums can be rendered unusable more or less indefinitely by a single sufficiently determined hostile actor. This can take the form of both attacks on the forum's social infrastructure (i.e., via sock-puppet accounts, botting, organised "raids", etc.) and attacks on its technical infrastructure (i.e., via hacking, DDoS, etc.). In either case, a self-hosted forum has no real defence, and the majority of decentralised forum communities survive only by virtue of their relative obscurity; once a self-hosted forum manages to attract the attention of That One Guy who's willing to devote his life to shitting the place up over some microscopic slight, it's effectively game over.

Right now, there are essentially only two mitigation strategies:

Gathering huge numbers of communities under a single, massively centralised technical infrastructure that's simply too large and robust for any one hostile actor to bring down; and

Hardening the community's social infrastructure either by going private and invite only (i.e., the Discord approach), or by making use of a vast centralised pool of volunteer labour to aggressively enforce community standards (i.e., the Reddit approach).

To be clear, these are not intractable problems; other solutions may well exist. However, any proposed plan for bringing decentralised public forums back needs to address them. If you're going in operating under the assumption that forums have become marginalised simply because corporations are evil and people are lazy, you're setting yourself up to learn the hard way why self-hosted forums no longer seem to be capable of growing beyond a certain point.

Five of Pentacles. Art by Suzanne Treister, from HEXEN 2.0.

Internet Governance

love when ppl defend the aggressive monetization of the internet with "what, do you just expect it to be free and them not make a profit???" like. yeah that would be really nice actually i would love that:)! thanks for asking

Future of the Internet | Unlocking Tomorrow's Digital Frontier

The Internet has become an integral part of our lives, connecting people worldwide in ways unimaginable just a few decades ago. As we embark on a new era of technological advancements, it is essential to examine the future of the internet and its potential to shape our societies. And the way we interact with the digital world in the years to come. We will explore the exciting possibilities and…

View On WordPress

Abused by a moody & angry AI on World Folklore Day! Taking on the Tech Giants!

AI and the Clash of Traditions and Technologies n World Folklore Day Dr Kris Rampersad confronts the tech giants

When is Open AI not Open-minded AI.? As I head to the 19th Internet Governance Forum hosted by the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (see more below) , I am greeted by Bing, the Microsoft search engine, announcing it is World Folklore Day, only to be abused by an angry AI! You would be surprised – or would you? – to see the end when Bing’s AI angrily, yes angrily, terminated the conversation…

View On WordPress

GHANA INTERNET GOVERNANCE SCHOOL FELLOWSHIP

Application for Participation in the 3rd Annual Edition of The Ghana Internet Governance School Fellowship Program(GIGS)Be part of the Ghana’s prestigious fellowship and learn about:     Evolution of the Internet    Internet Governance in Theory & Practice    Domain Name System    Internet Access- Challenges & Opportunities    Digital Skills & Rights    Cyber Safety and Security  …

View On WordPress

MEGANETS: HOW DIGITAL FORCES BEYOND OUR CONTROL COMMANDEER OUR DAILY LIVES AND INNER REALITIES - David B. Auerbach (2023)

I’ve always been impressed by the writing on David Auerbach’s blog. His article The Bloodsport of the Hive Mind: Common Knowledge in the Age of Many-to-Many Broadcast Networks should be obligatory reading: it’s a very sharp and original analysis explaining some of what ails our current society – antivaxxers, conspiracy theories, etc. I’ve been equally impressed by his year-end lists: the sheer…

View On WordPress

Motherboard Sword

SIGN THIS PETITION AS AN ATTEMPT TO STOP KOSA--WE'RE GETTING CLOSE!

https://www.change.org/p/stop-the-kosa?recruiter=1331807538&utm_source=share_petition&utm_medium=sms&utm_campaign=psf_combo_share_initial&utm_term=psf&recruited_by_id=57368c40-d0fd-11ee-98f7-2175430f819f&share_bandit_exp=initial-36809664-en-US

stopkosa.com

change.org petition

a post with other helpful links

KOSA or the Kids Online Safety Act is an Internet bill being pushed by the American government. It claims its purpose is to "protect" kids, but really its methods of enforcing this is mass censorship and control of the Internet. The passing of this bill would lead to LGBTQ+ related information, reproductive healthcare, and other topics that government officials may find "dangerous" to children be restricted or censored.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

In the website linked above, there is a petition you can sign as well as a pre-filled message you can send. You can also write to your representatives, and if you don't want to come up with an entire message, I've attached sample scripts. Also, go to badinternetbills.com for another petition that references similar bills. For more information about KOSA, you can see this article: eff.org/deeplinks/2024/02/don… .

Spread information about this, and do what you can. This bill being passed would mean an era of censorship for the Internet.

Do lawmakers even know how stupid KOSA truly is as a bill, if not dangerous. Think about it: having to give ID containing SENSITIVE INFORMATION (literally against Internet Safety 101) just to go on the internet. Being a minor having to do that is so dangerous and would put them in more danger at the hands of predators.

People who have to use the internet for educational uses will have to go through stupid, unneeded steps just to look up the purpose of the mitochondria!

Trans and Queer youth are in danger. Fandom spaces are in danger. Children, the very group of people that this bullshit bill is claiming to protect, are in DANGER!

The States having full monopoly over the internet is so, so ungodly stupid and dystopian. I can’t imagine being someone not from the States and having to witness all of this.

The bill doesn’t protect kids, it only puts them in more danger.

CALL YOUR REPS! SIGN PETITIONS! KEEP KOSA TRENDING! LET PEOPLE KNOW WHAT IS HAPPENING!

THIS IS AN ISSUE FOR ALL OF US! NOT JUST A SELECTIVE!

SIMILAR BILLS HAVE HAPPENED BEFORE AND BEEN STOPPED THANKS TO THE INTERNET! LET’S DO THAT AGAIN!

STOP KOSA!

If you care about Palestine, and you care about your ability to join and organize protests for Palestine and other issues on the internet, then now is the time to care about KOSA. This bill is going to the senate early next week, according to omarsbigsister on TikTok. This bill will force everyone to upload their ID online, and essentially will result in the death of the third great American space—AKA, the internet. This third space is pretty much our last community space that isn’t completely interlocked with a capitalistic society, and that millions of Americans use! KOSA is not a bill that will protect kids, KOSA is a bill that will censor the internet, control and distort narratives, and affect freedom of speech for generations to come. Call. Your fucking. SENATORS. The amount of people I’m seeing engage with this news is abysmal. They will do anything to censor your voice! Omarsbigsister made a linktree for this, so I’m going to leave it in this post. You can also go to stopKOSA.com and sign the petition there. Do not sleep on this!!

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"

-Evelyn Beatrice Hall, The Friends of Voltaire

The first amendment allows us to say what we want, whenever we want, without our government punishing us for our words. KOSA, therefore, is violating our first amendment rights. It's mass censorship of the internet, and our right to freedom of speech is being suppressed BY THE GOVERNMENT. Our founding fathers created this as THE FIRST AMENDMENT, and clearly thought this was important. Oh, wouldn't they be disappointed to see what their descendants are doing now. KOSA, a mass censorship bill that will contradict our constitution as we know it. KOSA, which instead of protecting the kids is in fact putting them in harms way. KOSA, which will put so so many people in danger. And we can stop it, but we have to fight. We MUST fight

To hear one voice clearly, we must have the freedom to hear them all

Sure you hate nazis but do you, like, actually respect Jews?

HI YALL IMMA NEED YA TO SPAM YOUR SENATORS VOICEMAILS AND SUCH TO STOP THIS BILL. WE CANNOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN