Fallacy of Free Speech (Featuring the Fediverse)
In the midst of our society clamoring for an answer to the failings of Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, we’ve had a challenger rise to the occasion. Its name is Mastodon, and it’s a scrappy platform billed as the gateway to a new twist on a classic web structure called the Fediverse.
Barely a few months into its latest spike of user migrations, people are already being turned off by the unfamiliar first-time experience, misleading reliability of servers, and inconsistent moderation.
Recently, a tweet came on my wall, retweeted by a respectable mutual, which really gave me an excuse to pin this trend on a movement that is already poisoned by the wrong people.
Before even clicking on anything, there are two red flags in this suggestion.
First of all, there’s the fact that all of these mainstream platforms on the left side are each paired with individual lists of “alternatives”, each of those basically just clones with an extra gimmick if they’re lucky.
Second, Twitter “alternatives” here include Wrongthink and Gab, two platforms heavy on “free-speech” and noted alt-right havens. Needless to say, this guy’s profile says “#Gamergate supporter” out and proud. Yeech.
Which begs the question… why was this retweeted in the first place? Who in the right mind would believe this was a good idea?
So let’s risk the knives and delve into why all these alternatives, including the Fediverse, are completely wrong for evolving social media.
Divided We Fall
My last article talked about how modern social media sites are both relying on their gimmicks to stay relevant and also stealing features from each other to create a homogeneous mass of data.
The major reason that we had this problem with social media to begin with is because nobody else in this otherwise vibrant tech sector thought to suggest that maybe giving that much IPO to a bunch of different stripped-out concepts wasn’t really a safe idea in the super long term. Sure, these companies are making bank by letting advertisers take a peek, but a backlash was bound to happen.
And then you get companies like Soundcloud, MoviePass, and Uber, which all operated at huge losses but are basically getting constant write-offs just for existing.
The point though is that the enforced emphasis on variety is making new competition hard to envision. Any idea inevitably has to be funneled into a niche, so says gospel wisdom, and any answer to a major website has to be framed as a clone of that website.
Twitter but without mods.
YouTube but blockchained.
Once you frame it out in blatant words like that, it becomes more obvious. People love doing “X but Y” so much that it’s the default elevator pitch jingle, but when every “X” is so omnipresent that its shadow can cast over the Burj Khalifa, it’s basically missing the forest for the trees.
What you’re really looking for isn’t the answer to one site or the other. It’s the answer to a problem that all these sites are failing to address. It’s the foundation that we need to build a better tower atop.
Free (as in beer) Speech
“This website is free” was a phrase that waved around earlier this year on Twitter when alt-right skirmishes started ending in humiliation. It was posted in haikus and many a quoted tweet, and it has a pretty deep implication for what Twitter actually represents in this battle over social media identity and alternatives.
Users do not pay for Twitter or Facebook or any other similar site. It’s the same principle that allowed PDF to become a standard format — releasing Acrobat for free even while the document generator is not. That’s not a problem in and of itself.
The problem comes when rules are laid out, because ultimately it’s up to the humans behind the website to set the tone for what kind of people are welcome to the club.
Again in the last article, I talked about the fact that community managers are limited by the tools a platform gives them. But here, I’m going to put a spotlight on how running and moderating a platform itself is an even more important aspect that sets the tone for the whole enterprise.
Silicon Valley’s leadership is full of what’s described as “libertarian tech-bros”, which conjures up an image of teenagers who grew up with an old-world gamer attitude being put in board room meetings. Their companies outwardly act progressive, even while their staff have not unionized to a great degree, and misogyny is a millstone around their neck.
Twitter’s own Jack Dorsey gained quite a lot of notoriety for being a holdout on such vibrant people as Alex Jones, Donald Trump, and Richard Spencer. Under his watch, Twitter has embodied the same outlook that Facebook and Google are famous for — live and let live, chill with the political correctness — which isn’t really smart when your site has a big target on its back.
Also let’s not forget that “free speech” as we know it in the US is specifically about protection from government censorship. But here, we have the inverse problem — the people in charge and their allies on the front lines are declaring the right to say what they want as public figures and cult followers.
So that’s a loaded political question, and another millstone to weigh them down. But because it’s political, the question hangs over everyone who even looks at the issue, let alone tries to tackle it with a new solution.
With Great Power
Facebook and Twitter have the wiggle room in resources and funds to make a meaningful pivot in their policy, but their structure as a business funded by public investment inherently hampers their incentive to do so.
These alternatives, however, have a different sort of responsibility. They are largely run by nonprofit collectives or small open-source teams with the chance to set a new precedent in how they operate.
Nonprofits in tech are doing well as bastions of standards. MediaWiki actively drives learning through collaborative documenting. Mozilla always has a hand in net neutrality and web innovation. Social media could really use a nonprofit voice to standardize the conversation.
However, the Fediverse is a unique sort of beast, and being the frontrunner in this trend is a frightening prospect.
Think about it from the perspective of a developer and prospective CM. You’re creating a platform that no individual owns, sending it out and hoping people — any people — latch onto it. You’re not only competing with other decentralized standards, but you’re also going to compete with new instances that are better than yours and probably don’t want you in their parties.
Also, let’s be frank. It’s two steps backwards from where we’re supposed to be at. This is like if instead of transitioning from Skype to Discord, you tried to get everyone to transition from Skype to Mumble.
I tried that once. Failed miserably.
Open-Sourcing the Floodgates
A few people I know on both sides of the issue are following the legal battle over 3D printing gun parts and releasing the schematics, essentially open-sourcing gun manufacturing. It’s being billed as a stake in the heart of gun control, allowing people to make and wield their own guns and bypassing any way to do background checks.
That’s a topic that I won’t get into here, but that sort of Pandora’s Box has the same sort of effect on certain people as this glut of social media alternatives has on the people looking for anything new.
Open-source/libre software has a long and treasured history full of anecdotes about taking innovation out of the corporations and giving it to the people. The Robin Hoods of software. Prometheus without the punishment.
Except now it’s becoming clear that the punishment involves those freedoms being used in part to challenge the freedoms of others. For instance, WordPress is the biggest name in the web, and is used by InfoWars and Daily Stormer. MediaWiki, the libre software behind Wikipedia, is notable for being used by Encyclopedia Dramatica and Metapedia.
It must be said that even though lots of popular software and platforms were born from the open-source community, only a few ever really made it to the mainstream.
While writing this article, this tweet came up by Jamie Kyle announcing a solution to this problem for open-source software, giving developers some leverage against unethical uses of their software and libraries.
Of course, the effectiveness of an ethics license depends on how well it can replace current licenses for major libraries and frameworks, and proprietary versions tend to focus more on consumer restrictions in their EULAs. But it’s definitely a crucial step that needs to be done, and I’ll be following its progress.
Separating the Artist from the Gallery
Finally, let’s address a fallacy that comes up a lot in certain circles of people, especially creators.
People tend to define their online life by the apps and sites they use. “Post a lot of videos, and chances are it’s YouTube. If someone takes photos a lot, then it’s Instagram. Making a living off some obscure artform, Patreon’s a good bet.”
The most common defense of these sites against evidence of abuse is that they’re where the audience is. If we can just play nice with the site and be indifferent to whatever changes they make, then we can be blessed with a big audience and praise upon our work.
It’s a statement not without merit. Instagram got a lot of attention, and it has Facebook’s entire population to pull from. YouTube is built to scale for trillions of videos, most of which are filler anyway. Patreon is being used by a lot of major YouTube channels as a supplement or substitute for ads, and by a lot of artists who like to pledge to each other in a web of support.
But after a while of repeating this statement, it falls apart at the margins.
“Twitter is the only place to speak your mind… at reasonable length. Telegram is the only safe way to chat with a friend. Anger the YouTube gods, and your career as a videographer is ruined.”
It’s this depressing conceit on the part of users that has linked with the “enforced variety” outlook of web startups and created a stalemate in the social media scene.
Users don’t want to move to another place unless it’s proven. Developers don’t want to make a new place unless people really ask for it.
That’s why a relatively simple concept like “decentralized clone of a popular site” has caught on so easily. It was the first able to answer the call, because it was there all along.
But it’s not the right fit, and the call is still on the line.
