In my opinion, every government, public entity, association, foundation, etc., that needs to communicate with the public should have its own communication channel, with full control over its data and the messages it delivers. When I read “my Discord server,” I feel like responding “there’s nothing ‘yours’ about it - tomorrow morning they could shut everything down, and you would have lost EVERYTHING.”. Own your data!

Sometimes, I read that instances are not opened because of “costs not balanced by the number of users.” But even public television channels are often economically unprofitable, yet they are considered an essential service for public communication. Open, decentralized technologies that ensure control over one’s data should be treated the same way.

#OpenData #OwnYourData #Fediverse #CommunicationFreedom

  • Stefano MarinelliOP
    0•1 month ago

    @[email protected] I believe there has been a misunderstanding: no one is saying we should go back to websites, but rather to open social platforms where users can have control over their own data, which is exactly what the Fediverse is about. And this is precisely why I say that, even if an instance doesn’t generate enough engagement (see what happened with the official Swiss instance, which was shut down on 30 September), this communication channel should still be maintained.
    So I think we are on the same wavelength…

    • @givesomefucksEnglish
      1•1 month ago

      no one is saying we should go back to websites, but rather to open social platforms where users can have control over their own data, which is exactly

      What websites are…

      We are 100% not on the same wavelength, and I don’t think the effort to get you to understand is worth the payoff.

        • abff08f4813c
          1•1 month ago

          I think the two of you were definitely not on the same wavelength - in particular you understand the benefit of the fediverse, which seems to escape the other commenter.

          It’s worth explicitly spelling it out though, so I will do so here - static old time websites like old school forums can’t communicate with each other. In fact things like Facebook and Twitter are single websites, just gigantic ones.

          Now the other commenter is saying that with old time websites that we ourselves own, we control 100% of the data, and that’s true. That’s not new to the fediverse.

          But, here’s the problem. If I start a forum about hammers, and you join, then I control your data since it’s my forum. Or, if you start the forum instead and I join, then you control my data.

          For us to both be in control, we have to start separate forums. But then the two forums are islands without bridges, so we can’t communicate with each other. Taken to the extreme case, we end up with a website per user and no engagement (it’s just individuals talking to themselves in isolation).

          What the fediverse changes is this - the two forums can communicate and share data. So we both start an instance (new school forum) and federate.

          There’s an additional benefit. Users who don’t want to run their own websites, or instances, still benefit over having greater control of their data. Real life example - kbin.social went down some months ago, but I was able to pull back a large amount of my content anyways since fedia.io had a copy.

          In summary, old time websites (non-federated edition) are still centralized. The website owner controls the data. With federation, individual users are better empowered to control their data without having to be website/instance owners.