Hello folks
I don’t think I’m the only one here who thinks the fediverse is a great technology that connects people all over the world via a robust decentralised network. This network encompasses the widest range of interest groups and the most diverse ways of interacting with each other. Whether forum, video or image platform, whether books or music network, everything is part of one big whole.
Despite this diversity of possibilities, I personally still miss some services that I would like to share with you.
- dating apps - A decentralised, open source dating platform on which you can join instances according to interest groups or sexual preferences.
- git hosting - A platform where you can host your git repos and collaborate on software projects across instances. (Forgejo is already working on it)
- networking and personal profilation platform - A LinkedIn-like platform with instances by industry, interest or region where you can network, present yourself or exchange know-how.
- crowdfunding and membership platform - A mixture of Patreon and Kickstarter where you can share your own content according to different support levels and crowdfund projects.
- event, group organisation and community participation - A platform on which you can join groups like on Meetup and organise meetings but also internal group interactions like on slack or launch and support civic initiatives like on Decidim.
What do you think of this? What services do you still miss on the Fediverse?
Decentralized dating apps is a good way to make women feel incredibly unsafe. Not only is the fedi a more techy nerd crowd, it also has massive moderation issues. It’s one bad thing to spam an instance with CP. It’s even worse when you can make a fake profile to stalk someone with zero accountability and potentially put them in physical danger, while also being unbannable. I’m sure a rapist/stalker/murderer would totally be stopped by defederating their instance, right? They’d just spam multiple accounts for their target.
Moderation is extremely important here, and so is attracting a crowd which makes or breaks it, which the fedi is 100% not going to ever do. How would the fedi and developers respond if there was even a single rape/murder as a result of their platform and weak moderation? The whole thing would probably collapse.
Meet up groups are similar but not as targeted. That wouldn’t be a bad idea though, since I guess someone leaving up a poster in town or something is kind of a form of that.
These are all valid points which I partially forgot about and I’d love to write a follow up post reagrding this exact issue.
I think that most of your concerns are addressable on a technical level. Others will rely on the instance’s community to guarantee an even safer experience. This will also benefit these instances as they can advertise with this trust level they recieve from the users.
There’s a secondary issue of the ability to delete data. The fediverse is, in a way, anti-privacy. All it takes is for one instance to defederate between when you post something and when you delete it for a copy of it to live on forever.
I mean sure it can be solved easy enough: centralize it, and work with the authorities for reportable cases. Fork over the data. Exactly all the stuff most people in the fediverse wouldn’t want, but there are serious upsides to having a central authority for such stuff.
More specifically, anything that requires legal intervention or arbitration might be better off being centralized. This is exactly why crypto isn’t really a valid model for money, our everyday usable of money needs a moderation and arbitration authority that is backed by actual legal enforcement. And dating apps need a way for people to report creepys and stalkers and in extreme cases, have the data be handed over to the police easily.
I don’t like the implication that a techy nerd crowd is more dangerous to women than men on average. If that’s what you mean to say, do you have evidence that it’s true?
Something I do think the fediverse really needs is a reputation system. I’m not sure exactly how it would work, but I can think of some properties it should have: