Peer-to-Peer Network Models and their Implications

"corporate-run social media implies a structure [and]... content limits the users have no say in, which favor harmful [content] ... while inhibiting freedom of expression. ... the next platform has the same problems ... “I’ll just build my own platform” leads to ... “alt-tech” platforms ... to host right-wing extremist content... So what does “decentralized” look like?"

A tour of common decentralized network models and their implications when applied to social media: Distributed Hash Tables, blockchains, sidechains, federation & pubs.

"Federation is an interesting combination of centralization and decentralization... Each server ... an independent miniature social community", but they can be federated - "bidirectionally linking the two servers, exchanging messages to create a larger collaborative social network. Collections of federated servers are referred to as a fediverse...

When Gab ... became a Mastodon instance ... most other server operators refused to federate with [them]... isolating them on their own server... Mastodon also suffers from the singleton problem... difficult to convince ... a major server to [federate] ... with a minor one... three Mastodon servers contain almost 60% of the known Mastodon population... Diaspora ... also follows a federation model" as does Usenet, which "allows servers to exchange news postings and comments to create a shared community".

"Pubs ... invert the idea of federation... users connect to several servers, and serve as the links...