Building alternative social media
*planted: 26/11/2021last tended: 13/03/2022
1. As per Anarchist Cybernetics
There's a chapter called exactly this, "Building Alternative Social Media" in Anarchist Cybernetics on this.
With a list of desirable features:
- Forums for conversation
- Direct messaging
- Sharing content with meme/viral potential
- News feed with curated and user-generated content
- Public relations function
- Linking alternative and mainstream platforms
- Central resource hub
- Noise and overload filters
- Overuse addiction warning system
- General assembly function
- Pad function
- Memory / narrative
- File sharing and knowledge exchange
- Procrastination
- Online decision making embedded in offline structures
- Sections open to non-members
- Architecture for collective autonomy
- Flexible engagement options
- Responsibility and commitment
- Privacy, security and data
- Easy backup of information
I like this list. Is it solely social media though? What explicitly is social media?
Anyway, I would probably advocate to attain the above in a patterny / Unixy way I feel. i.e. bridge and glue together the different pieces, avoid a behemoth platform.
I suppose a behemoth matters less if it's libre. But it feels like the pieces are already there to glue together, so don't reinvent the wheel.
2. Elsewhere
2.1. In my garden
Notes that link to this note (AKA backlinks).