An evidence-based and critical analysis of the Fediverse decentralization promises
Resumo
This paper examines the potential of the Fediverse, a federated network of social media and content platforms, to counter the centralization and dominance of commercial platforms on the social Web. We gather evidence from the technology powering the Fediverse (especially the ActivityPub protocol), current statistical data regarding Fediverse user distribution over instances, and the status of two older, similar, decentralized technologies: e-mail and the Web. Our findings suggest that Fediverse will face significant challenges in fulfilling its decentralization promises, potentially hindering its ability to positively impact the social Web on a large scale.
Palavras-chave:
fediverse, descentralized social networks, activitypub, federated networks
Referências
Danielle Allen, Eli Frankel, Woojin Lim, Divya Siddarth, Joshua Simons, and E. Glen Weyl. 2023. ETHICS OF DECENTRALIZED SOCIAL TECHNOLOGIES: Lessons from Web3, the Fediverse, and Beyond. President and Fellows of Harvard College. [link]
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Sergio Andrés Castaño-Pulgarín, Natalia Suárez-Betancur, Luz Magnolia Tilano Vega, and Harvey Mauricio Herrera López. 2021. Internet, social media and online hate speech. Systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior 58 (2021), 101608. DOI: 10.1016/j.avb.2021.101608
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Christine Lemmer-Webber, Jessica Tallon, Erin Shepherd, Amy Guy, and Evan Prodromou. 2018. ActivityPub. (23 01 2018). [link] Acessado: 14-06-2024.
Enze Liu, Gautam Akiwate, Mattijs Jonker, Ariana Mirian, Stefan Savage, and Geoffrey M. Voelker. 2021. Who’s got your mail? characterizing mail service provider usage. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM Internet Measurement Conference (Virtual Event) (IMC ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 122–136. DOI: 10.1145/3487552.3487820
Nikhil Mahadeva. 2024. Everyone Everywhere All at Once: The Fediverse Problem. (15 01 2024). [link] Acessado: 22-06-2024.
Aymeric Mansoux and Roel Roscam Abbing. 2020. Seven theses on the Fediverse and the becoming of FLOSS. Transmediale Journal 4 (2020), 124–140. [link]
Ivan Mehta. 2024. Mark Zuckerberg says Threads has 150M monthly active users. (24 04 2024). [link] Acessado: 15-06-2024.
Matthias Pfefferle and Automattic. 2019. ActivityPub plugin. (17 06 2019). [link] Acessado: 15-06-2024.
David Pierce. 2024. The fediverse, explained. (7 2 2024). [link] Acessado: 06-06-2024.
Mia Quagliarello. 2024. Flipboard’s Federation Journey So Far. (30 05 2024). [link] Acessado: 15-06-2024.
Rolltime. 2022. ActivityPub Four Years Later: The Good, the Bad, and the Fedi. (22 07 2022). [link] Acessado: 14-06-2024.
Jieun Shin, Lian Jian, Kevin Driscoll, and François Bar. 2018. The diffusion of misinformation on social media: Temporal pattern, message, and source. Computers in Human Behavior 83 (2018), 278–287. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2018.02.008
SimilarWeb. 2024. Analyze Subdomains. (2024). [link] Acessado: 09-02-2024.
SimilarWeb. 2024. How We Measure the Digital World. (2024). [link] Acessado: 08-04-2024.
Thomas Streeter. 1987. The cable fable revisited: Discourse, policy, and the making of cable television. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 4, 2 (1987), 174–200. DOI: 10.1080/15295038709360124
Thomas Streeter. 2010. The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet. NYU Press. DOI: 10.18574/nyu/9780814741153.001.0001
Thomas Struett, Aram Sinnreich, Patricia Aufderheide, and Robert Gehl. 2023. Can This Platform Survive? Governance Challenges for the Fediverse. (10 10 2023). [link] Acessado: 16-06-2024.
Christopher Su and Simon Blackstein. 2024. Threads has entered the fediverse. (21 03 2024). [link] Acessado: 15-06-2024.
Nga Than. 2023. A Sociology of Gab: A Computational Analysis of a Far-Right Social network. Ph. D. Dissertation. City University of New York. [link]
Henrique S. Xavier. 2024. The Web unpacked: a quantitative analysis of global Web usage. arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.17095 (2024). [link]
Matteo Zignani, Sabrina Gaito, and Gian Paolo Rossi. 2018. Follow the “Mastodon”: Structure and Evolution of a Decentralized Online Social Network. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 12, 1 (Jun. 2018), 541–550. DOI: 10.1609/icwsm.v12i1.14988
Shoshana Zuboff. 2019. The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power (1 ed.). Public Affairs.
Alquimídia. 2024. Observatório do Fediverso. (21 04 2024). [link] Acessed on 2024-06-13.
Tim Berners-Lee. 1990. World Wide Web: Information management - a proposal. (1990). [link]
Bryan Cantrill. 2022. Homebrew social networking. (27 11 2022). [link] Acessado: 13-06-2024.
Sergio Andrés Castaño-Pulgarín, Natalia Suárez-Betancur, Luz Magnolia Tilano Vega, and Harvey Mauricio Herrera López. 2021. Internet, social media and online hate speech. Systematic review. Aggression and Violent Behavior 58 (2021), 101608. DOI: 10.1016/j.avb.2021.101608
CERN. 1993. Software release of WWW into public domain. (1993). [link]
Bruce Davie. 2023. With Mastodon, decentralization strikes back. (01 01 2023). [link] Acessado: 13-06-2024.
Carlos Fenollosa. 2022. After self-hosting my email for twenty-three years I have thrown in the towel. The oligopoly has won. (04 09 2022). [link] Acessado: 16-06-2024.
Jonathan Haidt. 2024. The Anxious Generation: How the Great Rewiring of Childhood Is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness. Penguin Press. [link]
Christine Lemmer-Webber, Jessica Tallon, Erin Shepherd, Amy Guy, and Evan Prodromou. 2018. ActivityPub. (23 01 2018). [link] Acessado: 14-06-2024.
Enze Liu, Gautam Akiwate, Mattijs Jonker, Ariana Mirian, Stefan Savage, and Geoffrey M. Voelker. 2021. Who’s got your mail? characterizing mail service provider usage. In Proceedings of the 21st ACM Internet Measurement Conference (Virtual Event) (IMC ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 122–136. DOI: 10.1145/3487552.3487820
Nikhil Mahadeva. 2024. Everyone Everywhere All at Once: The Fediverse Problem. (15 01 2024). [link] Acessado: 22-06-2024.
Aymeric Mansoux and Roel Roscam Abbing. 2020. Seven theses on the Fediverse and the becoming of FLOSS. Transmediale Journal 4 (2020), 124–140. [link]
Ivan Mehta. 2024. Mark Zuckerberg says Threads has 150M monthly active users. (24 04 2024). [link] Acessado: 15-06-2024.
Matthias Pfefferle and Automattic. 2019. ActivityPub plugin. (17 06 2019). [link] Acessado: 15-06-2024.
David Pierce. 2024. The fediverse, explained. (7 2 2024). [link] Acessado: 06-06-2024.
Mia Quagliarello. 2024. Flipboard’s Federation Journey So Far. (30 05 2024). [link] Acessado: 15-06-2024.
Rolltime. 2022. ActivityPub Four Years Later: The Good, the Bad, and the Fedi. (22 07 2022). [link] Acessado: 14-06-2024.
Jieun Shin, Lian Jian, Kevin Driscoll, and François Bar. 2018. The diffusion of misinformation on social media: Temporal pattern, message, and source. Computers in Human Behavior 83 (2018), 278–287. DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2018.02.008
SimilarWeb. 2024. Analyze Subdomains. (2024). [link] Acessado: 09-02-2024.
SimilarWeb. 2024. How We Measure the Digital World. (2024). [link] Acessado: 08-04-2024.
Thomas Streeter. 1987. The cable fable revisited: Discourse, policy, and the making of cable television. Critical Studies in Mass Communication 4, 2 (1987), 174–200. DOI: 10.1080/15295038709360124
Thomas Streeter. 2010. The Net Effect: Romanticism, Capitalism, and the Internet. NYU Press. DOI: 10.18574/nyu/9780814741153.001.0001
Thomas Struett, Aram Sinnreich, Patricia Aufderheide, and Robert Gehl. 2023. Can This Platform Survive? Governance Challenges for the Fediverse. (10 10 2023). [link] Acessado: 16-06-2024.
Christopher Su and Simon Blackstein. 2024. Threads has entered the fediverse. (21 03 2024). [link] Acessado: 15-06-2024.
Nga Than. 2023. A Sociology of Gab: A Computational Analysis of a Far-Right Social network. Ph. D. Dissertation. City University of New York. [link]
Henrique S. Xavier. 2024. The Web unpacked: a quantitative analysis of global Web usage. arXiv preprint arXiv:2404.17095 (2024). [link]
Matteo Zignani, Sabrina Gaito, and Gian Paolo Rossi. 2018. Follow the “Mastodon”: Structure and Evolution of a Decentralized Online Social Network. Proceedings of the International AAAI Conference on Web and Social Media 12, 1 (Jun. 2018), 541–550. DOI: 10.1609/icwsm.v12i1.14988
Shoshana Zuboff. 2019. The age of surveillance capitalism: the fight for a human future at the new frontier of power (1 ed.). Public Affairs.
Publicado
14/10/2024
Como Citar
XAVIER, Henrique S..
An evidence-based and critical analysis of the Fediverse decentralization promises. In: BRAZILIAN SYMPOSIUM ON MULTIMEDIA AND THE WEB (WEBMEDIA), 30. , 2024, Juiz de Fora/MG.
Anais [...].
Porto Alegre: Sociedade Brasileira de Computação,
2024
.
p. 360-364.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.5753/webmedia.2024.241663.
