Threads, Bluesky, Federation and Our Data

As I understand it, and please do correct me if I'm wrong, Threads is connected to the ActivityPub protocol. Nor can I reliably and firsthand speak to whether threads is two-way or just a "data hoover," sucking in whatever it can from public Activity-Pub feeds, but even two-way connections between Threads and the Fediverse is a problem, because Meta use reaction data from online human interactions to target advertising and political manipulation.

In August, 2023, I downloaded the entirety of my Facebook data, deleted it completely from Facebook (not that I trust that deletion, I'm sure they have it squirrelled away somewhere) and shut down my Facebook account. It was a hard call to make. Some of the best people I've ever known, and Facebook was my only possible connection to them, are/were there. Have tried to maintain email contact with some, but that has dwindled. I have some limited activity on YouTube but, after a brief period on Mastodon, I stopped taking my "digital crack cocaine" and ended the addiction. No "12 steps programme" just cold turkey. The final trigger for this choice was Threads being added to the Fediverse.

Yeah, some admins have blocked their outgoing feeds to Threads, the instance I was using did so, but people I was connected to, on other instances, couldn't guarantee whether, or knew outright that, their instance was feeding Threads. In short, Meta are "hoovering up" all the interaction data they can get from the Fediverse, and they're getting it for nothing more than the cost of a low-tech server farm. Web 1.0 technology. I am not prepared to participate in the social manipulation that Meta, their venture capital backers and a few hyperwealthy asscoiates are attempting. My reactions are my property, I refuse to knowingly allow them to be used in an open plan to manipulate the gen-pop. I will not contribute to a panopticon culture. This is literally what George Orwell was warning us against.

So I left the Fediverse, as well.

Now there's talk of Bluesky getting a fediverse bridge. I've never signed up for Bluesky. Twitter was no social haven, even before Elon the Twat bought it, and Bluesky is founded by a former Twiter CEO who only looks like a saviour because he's not Elon. That's a pretty low bar, people. I don't trust capital. I never have. Your shouldn't, either, the people who pursue money and power rather than create things and give back, will do anything to get your money and all the power they can. Record labels and movie studios lock away culture, not only from you and me, unless we pay handsomely, but also from the artists they claim to represent. Look at how little spotify values music at the artist's end, 0.004c US per play. And people thought Apple were ripping audience and artists off when iTunes paid 63c per 99c download!

Then these theives in high castles have the gall to say they own our exchanges on social media. They say they can simply help themselves to all we post, analyse it and onsell the reaction patterns to advertisers and not pay us a cent for it? The fuck they can! Not mine! Stop consenting to this, people! You are losing your democracy because of this. Do you think Cambridge Analytica was the only firm to ever use this tech to manipulate an election? Every election since 2016 is your fault. You used social media, you got played. Every. Single. Time.

So, I'm bearing witness to discussion of "building a bridge" between the Fediverse and Bluesky and shaking my head. Jack Dorsey isn't a philanthropist. He might have a "kinder face" and a "warmer smile" than Elon the Twat and Mark Suckemallin, but he didn't establish Bluesky out of the kindness of his heart.

Jack Dorsey has something to gain, and a Fediverse bridge expands that gain. Bluesky might have a nicer mood, but what manipulations are at play in the code? I don't know, but neither do you. The difference is you trust a guy with a shit ton of money after leaving Twitter because it was taken over by a guy with a shit ton of money? Look, there is a better way. I know what it is, can can describe it to you, I just can't code it and I don't have the capital to get a lawyer to draw up NDAs, let alone pay coders who've signed those NDAs to code it. So, I'll share that idea, because that's what good people do.

The idea is severless peer-to-peer networks. One app to rule them all. No centralisation, no cyptocurrency, no data harvesting - just an addressbook app with a timeline and a secure document server that shares your posts to the people you are connected to. Protocols (internet connection proceedures) already exist to achieve this. Security is encryption, point-to-point authorised transfer and the absence of any middleman. (Servers being the latter, generally all owned by Mr Moneybags from your local Monopoly board.)

The technology already exists to do this. I've looked into it and, while I don't understand it well enough to code it, I do understand how it works. Lets look at the 3 parts.

The addressbook, you already understand. All your friends', families' and associates' phone numbers and emails are in there. It's a database, it's local, it's behind a firewall, so it's secure. Only you own it, only you control it. So, straight up, big data can't see who you're connected to.

The timeline you know, too, your "feed", your "'verse", the collected, daily works of you, family, friends and workmates. It's also a database, only it's currently VERY centralised and, if you read your Bluesky, X, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, etc terms, they own it. Some won't even allow you to delete it.

The way a social medium works is via databases. Web 1.0 forums were a database and a web server. Reddit is a database and a web server. Facebook, X, Bluesaky, Mastodon instances, all the rest, are a web server backed by a database. What if we remove the centralised server? Impossible?

No! Launch any app on your phone. Go on, I'll wait while you do. Done it? Now, we can't tell, but there's a good chance that, if the app isn't provided by Google or Apple, it's probably written in Javascript and, if it is written in Javascript, the app consists of a client web browser and a locally running web server on your phone. The app may also make use of a centralised server, too, Facebook's app, Instagram, X, etc all have apps that fit this model. The centralised, remote web server at "Big Data HQ" handles the database. What if I told you that there's a database technology that is "local first"?

We know the database part of any social network stores your contacts and posts, right? See 3 paragraphs above if you still don't understand this. "Graph" databases are local first, that is, the primary storage location of the data is on your device. In fact, even when displayed to a contact, it's seen via remote connection, it's not the actual document. It can be "cached" for viewing when the author goes offline (if they've allowed this) but, if the author edits it, the cache at your end will be overwritten with the new version. The author retains control over their creation. If they delete it, the cache on your device is overwritten with nothing. The post ceases to exist. That is "local first" and graph databases excell it this.

The reason you haven't found an app like this is because Big Data spend so much time and effort on making their brands "felt" that you haven't bothered looking into setting up a private, personal, closed network. It's OK, tech can be confusing. Also, money drives most silicon entrepeneurship, why would it be any different to any other capitalistic venture? Also, if you have tried an app like this, because they're written by small groups of true believers, they're more the product of dreamers who are barely a page ahead of the tutorials for the code systems they're using. To those who know me, friends and fam, think how long it takes me to get something useful out of one of my projects! I'm always learning on the job, scrapping ideas for new ones, getting despondent at bugs, and I only program micronctrollers, modern versions of what silicon computer chips looked like in the 1970s.

What I have created in regard to a social medium, that we each as individuals control, each the centre of our own network, our connections fanning out only to those we choose to connect with and our data staying put on our devices... is the scope that I just outlined.

The app would be a classic, javascript Node-based app, it's "backend" local, held in a gun.js graph database. It's a slightly slower disseminating system, because of its distributed nature, but information transfer is arguably too quick, too reactive. If our posts take slonger to filter through to our friends, and theirs to us, than our feed updates steadily throughout the day. We don't blow our daily dopamine in one massive hit. There are apps that already work like this, they're the obvious work of volunteers rather than professionals, but they work. They lack zing, many of them. They also lack interoperability. The solution is, to an extent, at least, is to have an open protocol. SSB does this, but SSB doesn't have identity portability between devices. A new device means a new identity. That isn't good enough for the ordinary technophobe. Facebook's power (and the abuse of that power) is the single identity across any device or browser. Gun.js is the database behind a couple of social platforms where your identity on your web browser is the same as your identity on your phone app.

Just think, React Native, NodeJS, gun.js and a little javascript to tie it all together, but with an open protocol and open source, and there is the power to create a jungle drums network without corporate manipulation. An old fashioned app, fixed price purchase, no subscriptions. Deeply standardised and simple connection protocols, with the code kept up to date but the connection standards only changed in ways that maintain compatibility with older versions. The price relevied for a new generation when upgrading from version 1 to version 2, for instance, but version 1 remains useable on the social network for as long as it remains compatible with the system it runs on. Others may create a version of the app - competition creates a tested platform - but the source is only licenced to those who fork with the intent of maintaining compatibility across their competitors' versions. Who builds the best user experience builds the best customerbase. The project is only licenced to those who fork an open source version, with a pay once pricetag and commit to the standardisation and compatibility of the other forks.

Anyone want to be CTO/coder to my CEO/product design role - equal partnership? I know I'm hollering into the void again, but... Hello? ['ello] ['ello]...