A BLUEPRINT FOR FUTURE INTERNET PLATFORMS

Today or Tonight's article is an extension or segue of two of my articles about alternate internet-platforms. In THAT article on a similar topic we discussed about taking certain steps, so that a creator does not lose their audience. Well NOW it is time to kick it up a notch and talk about building the ACTUAL PLATFORMS THEMSELVES. Especially, the newer platforms that will serve as an alternative to the mainstream big-tech ones [Which are probably being designed right now as we speak or will be designed].
The topic here is going to be on some design considerations to take note of when developing a new platform, ESPECIALLY with the lessons learnt from all the "hardships and ordeals" from the past.

    But before we can discuss THAT; We NEED to have a short chat about the issues we are facing when it comes to internet-platforms and content-creation [At least the issues I find to be important enough ;-)] ↴↴

  1. ENSHITTIFICATION

    2. The 1st issue in my opinion that I want to call attention to is none other than ENSHITTIFICATION. Yes, this could DEFINITELY be explained in more excruciating detail with a standalone-article. But for now let us make do with a short rundown. This believe it or not affects the design orthe potential evolution [Technically DEVOLUTION if we are to be precise] of platforms into a totalitarian hellscape.

    ENSHITTIFICATION is like the slow knife that quietly slips/passes through the body-armour and inflicts the most life-threatening injuries. A platform may start-off as pro free-speech and have anti-censorship capabilities; like the platform being DECENTRALIZED or being LIBRE or Open-Source. But day-after-day, the platform owners can slowly RE-CENTRALIZE by silently introducing proprietary features and shift to centralized internet-infrasructures like CDNs [CDN = Content-Delivery-Networks; which are usually centralized like CLOUDFLARE or Amazon-Web-Services/AWS] which turn open-platforms into "walled-gardens".
    Or in other cases just putting restrictions on the users like not allowing you to access their APIs [API = Application-Programming-Interface] and not allowing BitTorrenting or even slowly breaking the functioning/functionality of 3rd-Party clents-applications [Here; CLIENTS/Client-Applications simply mean the apps that YOU USE to interact with the website or some other system], forcing you to use their "official applications" OR even adding more invasive means of data-collection and or adding more arbitrary rules or changes in the algorithm itself as the year passes, SILENTLY without your knowledge.

    The situation or phenomenon is like a frog being slowly boiled alive; with US being the FROGS. some good indicators can include; the usage of permissive licences like the MIT-licence combined with the lacklustre or reduced effort put into the commitment towards DECENTRALIZATION or being PRIVACY-RESPECTING or towards CONTENT-FREEDOM and or most importantly the reduced attempts at assuring the community that the platform will remain LIBRE or OPEN-SOURCE and the main platform-maintainers slowing down the updating of the source-codes and etc...
    Now these are not the ONLY criterias but nevertheless you NEED TO BE ALERT and spot the warning signs.

  2. MONETIZATION

    3. The 2nd issue is of course MONETIZATION [in other words the ability to earn a living with your content]. Now let us be honest here; We ALL make content with the hope that our content will generate income and we will be able to make aliving off our "content-creator careers".
    Some people would say that being a content-creator is "not a real job"; well people, let me remind anyone reading this article here is that at the end of the day content-creators pay taxes along with running companies and even participate in parliaments [As in some content-creators are ACTUAL politicians]. Yes, it might not be a "real job" in the sense that it is not a formal or mainstream job. But to a lot of people; especially young people, it is a GENUINE SOURCE of income and in some cases it is their SOLE SOURCE OF INCOME. So it is very accurate when people say that "DEMONETIZATION IS CENSORSHIP" as it disable and discourage people from speaking what can be truthful.

    There were many people, me including that theorized that the youtube-adpocalypse was deliberate and done in order to enable the rampant stealing; YES, STEALING via demonetizations from the hard-working creaors along with enforcing rules that are arbitrarily enforced [Usually in favour of bigger-creators, you know who are they ;-)] and also those "rules" seem to actually PUNISH smaller content-creators or creators that seem to speak out against the status-quo or AGAINST the interests of the publishers or advertisers.

    So in order to be a viable platform, it is IMPORTANT to at least think about the MONETIZATION-SYSTEM that the next-generation platforms WILL or SHOULD implement. Especially the kind of system that can bypass the financial-censorship techniques/methods and enable you to donate to your favorite content-creators EVWN under a "demonetization-crisis" or in a scenario where popular Payment-Processors like Stripe, Mastercard, visa or Paypal boycott a platform or multiple platforms [Like the one caused by Collective-Shout].
    As for the ADVERTISEMENT-REVENUE SYSTEM; well it DOES need some RE-INVENTION or a complete facelift. Especially in how it is served to the public [As in advertisement that is relevant to the content] and how it can be done in a privacy-respecting way.

  3. COPYRIGHT-SYSTEM and COMMUNTIY-GUIDELINES-SYSTEM

    4. The 3rd issue [And probably the final FOR NOW] is the oh so notorious COPYRIGHT-SYSTEM. Oh boy now where do I begin with this nightmare [In this case I will base my opinions off of the worst offenders; Youtube, Twitch and even TikTok].
    Firstly, there is NO SYSTEM, as in the system is not systematic at all, there is no method to the madness eventhough it should. The rules are enforced haphazardly and it is VERY APPARENT that there is neither any consistency nor any transparency in how those arbitrary rules get enforced. To make things worse; there is ZERO REMEDIES against the abuse of the "CopyRight-System".
    Especially when you are defending yourselves from copyright-trolls or copyright-abusers. You practically have to dox yourself [Dox/Doxxing = Act of publicly realing sensitive and private information about an individual online usually with the combined intention to cause severe harm like swatting or lynching] while the accusers get to be anonymous. Now REMEMBER that the CopyRight is an ACTUAL LAW and like all other laws, it has to follow the "RULE OF LAW". According to the "Rule Of Law" or at least one of it's rules, the burden of proof ALWAYS LIES WITH THE ACCUSER and not the accused.

    We really NEED a revamped or re-invented version of the copyright-system. Let's say in order for a copyright-strike to be applied; the accusers NEED to be the ones to provide evidence, which the system can then automatically send to the accused. The copyright-system also needs to be made more lenient on creators, considering the fact that that copyright-abuse is very rampant these days and the fact that there are creators that are heavilly dependent on the income from the internet-platforms [Like let's say 7 strikes instead of 3]. Minor-infractions should be dealt from withing the automated administration-systems [With occasional guidance from human-admins when the algorithms fail], while major-infractions should require COMPULSORY attendance from a HUMAN-ADMINISTRATOR which can then proceed to a court-battle AND AFTER THE COURT VERDICT COMES OUT is when the assigned human-admin can dish out the appropriate remedies [In other words, let the responsibility should be placed on the creators to prove their cases].

    As for copyright-abusing, when done enough times should be dealt with HARSHLY by the platforms. For this The copyright-system can AND SHOULD work in-coordination with the COMMUNITY-GUIDELINES STRIKES; which means we will have to re-invent and empower the the COMMUNITY-ADMINISTRATION SYSTEM. Unlike the copyright-system, IT IS the community-guidelines-system THAT NEEDS to be strict, since these can include the grave misconduct that compromises the rights of creators, like false copyright-strikes or real-world crimes like doxxing or extortion via censorship-threats etc...
    But even so these said "harsh punishments" should not be given out willy-nilly; Which is why, for each community-guidline-strike to pack a punch and MEAN SOMETHING we need careful investigation which follows the "RULE OF LAW" yet again. In this case we are talking about the "accused being entitled to DUE-PROCESS". In order to do that we [As in the USERS and MODERATORS and ADMINISTRATORS] need access to some of the most advanced & flexible moderation & administration tools to give extensively-detailed moderation-reports. We can also build the system in a way where we can also give reversible-strikes to indicate that this is a 1st-time offence [Hence we are "giving them a 2nd-Chance"].
    As an example let's say we get to have 5 community-guidelines-strikes that can be colour-graded to indicate how severe our offences are, the colour-grading can indicate repeated-offences. Anyways for this elaborate arrangement we need to create a rather detailed algorithm.
    As a side note for the ease of moderation/administration we can provide the users, a unique alpha-numeric ID very similar to a "CryptoCurrency-Wallet Address" or a "PGP-Key Fingerprint" in order to verify those users in a privacy-respecting way. On another note; We also need the MONETIZATION-SYSTEM to work-in-tandem with the COMMUNITY-GUIDELINES-SYSTEM to also discourage meaningless clickbaity-content and promote the mindset of doing content-creation out of enjoyment and giving REAL VALUE to the audience. This also helps out smaller content-creators [Who in my personal experience are usually genuine] and keeps the platforms pretty sane and the community smart.

Oh FINALLY; let us get to the MAIN-EVENT. You can think of this as a manifesto for how a platform should be if we are to build a more robust and censorship-resistant and viable internet-platform [I am half-tempted to call this the "Internet 4.0 Manifesto"]. The following are the MAJOR-CRITERIAS or EXPECTATIONS. These are MANDATORY standards or qualities and there presence are NON-NEGOTIABLE [As in these qualities HAVE to be included] ↴↴↴

LIBRE/F.O.S.S (With TRANSPARENCY)


Internet-Platforms are CRITCAL PIECES OF TECHNOLOGY and infrastructure as it allows, empowers or enables people from all walks of life to speak their minds on a digital equivalent of a soapbox-stand. Hence it is a public-avenue or square where you are free to express and have other people examine and criticize your expressions of opinions OPENLY. Similary, the internet-platforms THEMSELVES NEED to be OPEN AS WELL or more precisely they NEED TO BE "Free-Software", "Libre" or "Free & Open-Source".
This enables the platforms to be somewhat immune to enshittification via being auditable by the public which in-turn allows people to study how the platform was made, so that the platform can be improved further.

And this is not limited to the code that makes the platform. This can include the ALGORITHMS that power the platforms too. The critical lesson to be learnt here is TRANSPARENCY, here I cannot stress this enough that OPEN-SOURCE ALGORITHMS are also a "MUST HAVE". We the public are ENTITLED to learn and KNOW how the content gets served and managed. This along with other transparency features like "MOD-LOGS" [Lemmy has that feature] or getting unrestricted access to public-statistics like "subscriber gain/loss", "Ad-Revenue-stats" or what offences the user has commited like "false copyright-strikes" etc... Some of them can be optional of course [We can probably discuss which ones can be obscured for privacy reasons and which ones need to stay public, REMINDER this is a rough idea after all]. The transparency would also help in creating documentations as well.

The Internet-Platforms being Libre/FOSS would make it practically unkillable, provided as long as a few people REMEMBER that the project actually exists; Of course it would be very wise if the designers stick to strongly-CopyLeft licences like AGPL or GPL.

DE-CENTRALIZATION (With INTER-OPERABILITY)


Another important way for an internet-platform to survive enshittification or corruption and state-level censorship, it HAS to be DECENTRALIZED or even DISTRIBUTED, if possible [Like FreeNet or BitTorrent or IPFS. REMINDER; DeCentralized-Networks & Distributed-Networks may seem similar but are actually different]. Whether it is done via Federated-Protocols like ActivityPub or Diaspora or via some exotic technologies like BlockChain or it could even be a combination.
Each and every client-applications [Here yet again; CLIENTS/Client-Applications simply mean the apps that YOU USE to interact with the website or some other system] can be configured to act as a NODE or SEED in the decentralized/distributed networks or even enable the individual users operate dedicated "swarms, pods or clusters" of those nodes using the capabilities that are built-into the applications.
Another thing that I would like to add is that all those decentralized protocols/APIs/technologies NEED to be simple enough [Via both the technology/protocol itself OR it's documentations] that people can easily study and hence understand it, if they are to make their own 3rd-Party applications to interact with the decentralized-networks.

Now we cannot forget about the importance of INTER-OPERABILITY in a decentralized/distributed networks. This is an added benefit of the previous MAJOR-CRITERIA, which is Libre/F.O.S.S; As time goes on we can all assume that developers will create or use different technologies that enable decentralization/distribution, so it is vital that all of these technologies are F.O.S.S and they can INTER-OPERATE with each other [Very similar to how different email services can send emails to other email services or like the "BRIDGING" Feature in matrix-protocol]. This makes all the connected platforms stronger when it comes to resisting censorship and especially helps in the "discoverability of content", even if later the platforms disconnect from each other due to "complicated reasons" and in special cases enable users to MIGRATE from one platform to the another in case of emergencies.

SELF-HOSTABLE


I would like to consider this as the "magic-bullet" in our war against enshittification or censorship in internet-platforms. An internet-platform that can be SELF-HOSTED is ultimately unkillable and nearly impossible to censor or coral into submission by "evil entities".
Having a space that you have full-control over if or when you get deplatformed for some reason is a very reassuring feeling. Especially in a sea of misinformation, disinformation and the collective silencing of people who speak for a good cause on your behalf. This along with the previous 2 MAJOR-CRITERIAS/QUALITIES, will function as a force-multiplier/buff.

Imagine carrying a "YouTube-Like Platform" that has a built-in economy system along with the relevant algorithms needed to manage the administration of the platform AND it's users; Combined with the capability of being de-centralized AND is inter-operable with other self-hostable platforms for discoverability and your platform can be extended with Add-Ons due to it being Libre/F.O.S.S, which you can DEPLOY at any time you like just in case !!
Sounds amazing doesn't it ? Well it does to me, of course a SELF-HOSTABLE platform can also benefit greatly when it is also LIGHT-WEIGHT.

MODULARITY


Now this is more of a technical criteria/quality but it is pretty convenient to have neverthless. Basically every piece of the features/functionality is extensively containerized at a source-code level or maybe you will like the Wikipedia's version, which is "the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use". I have enough coding experience to actually say that containerizing the code into let's say, funtions make it easy to to maintain and upgrade internet-platforms. ESPECIALLY, when the source-code of a platform have very little or no documentation. In other words make your codebase MODULAR.

This also prevents enshittification, as any platform susceptible to it can have the "enshittified-parts of the source-code" be removed with surgical-precision without worrying about the changes breaking the functionality of the platforms. This alo helps in the extensibilty of the platforms themselves by making it easier to add new functions or even add-ons. Because I think I need to remind you that a lot of privacy-invasive corporations practically weave their spyware into the codebases in such a way that if you attempt to remove them, they practically break every critical functionality, making it harder to reverse-engineer their software into a more privacy-respecting tech. YES, I am pretty sure that the messy codebase they have is on purpose I tell you.

Anyways this is essentially a "Micro-Kernel like approach" to designing internet-platforms where there is a CORE-AREA, which HAS TO WORK and a COMPARTMENTALIZED PERIPHERAL-AREA, where you can add or remove the extensions to the software safely without compromising the whole thing. This method of containerizing code also apparently makes the system more secure as far as I have heard.

PRIVACY-RESPECTING (With SECURITY)


We have seen content-creators get doxxed or profiled or even outright "cancelled" in real life for their controversial opinions, especially when their accounts get hacked or personal information gets leaked via a data-breaches [Which will be made worse by the ID-Verification laws forcing you to upload your real faces], it is very important to make sure the platforms have good SECURITY; whose steps can range from COMPARTMENTALIZING different databases to making 2-Factor-Authentication a MANDATORY requirement [ESPECIALLY the variety that requires some kind of "Authenticator-App with TOTP & HOTP" like "Aegis" or "KeySmith"] or making sure that all the NON-ESSENTIAL DATA are only accessed by the permission of the users themselves [Or we can keep all the extra data LOCAL-ONLY on the user's device]. SECURITY of your platforms can definitely benefit from our previous MAJOR-CRITERIA/QUALITY; which is MODULARITY.
Now we should remember that while security is essential, the PRIVACY of the users should be prioritized even more and securing your internet-platforms should NEVER come at the cost of user's PRIVACY. After all the evil-doers won't be able to gain any useful data even when they INNEVITABLY breach the security of the platforms, so in way PRIVACY is a SECURITY-feature in it's own right.

In the era of "Internet-1.0/Web-1.0"; ALL we needed was a USERNAME, a PASSWORD and ocassionally an EMAIL-ADDRESS [For recovery or notification, if you ever required one]. Now these days in the era of "Internet-2.0/Web-2.0"; "Platforms" like Gmail, Twitter, Facebook or even Reddit and Twitter ask for all sorts of unecessary information like your REAL NAME, your DATE OF BIRTH, your GENDER or the YOUR CITY you live in, Why does those big-tech platforms need all that information and for what reasons ??
The only information a platform truly needs is USERNAME, PASSWORD and EMAIL [For recovery, notification and backups], we can also make it MANDATORY for the platforms to send all the data they have on the concerned user to THAT SAID USER, either on request or when the user decides to delete their accounts [Similar to the GDPA-law or any other proper data-protection laws]. As well as have a MANDATORY OPTION of REJECTING ALL COOKIES.
So we can have platforms collect the minimal amount of data to make an account [Those data should be something that can be changed on a whim like an Email address] and then provide the users with User-IDs similar to a Public-Key provided by the likes of PGP [Similar to Nostr and KeyBase]. The platforms can have a "PGP-like verification system" where you verify their cryptographically-generated FINGERPRINTS with a Public-Private-KeyPair; THIS CAN BE used in administering the platforms as well.
Another thing to keep in mind is that if the platform has a communication/messaging/microblogging feature, then "END-TO-END ENCRYPTION" is mandatory and in case of storing content the internet-platforms must have "ZERO-KNOWLEDGE ENCRYPTION" as well.

MONETIZATION (The ACTIVE-VARIETY)


This is a rather important conversation to be had if an internet-platform built ESPECIALLY for content-creation is to become a viable alternative/replacement for the mainstream platforms controlled by Big-Tech as well. The term "ACTIVE-MONETIZATION" simply means the users ACTIVELY sending money to their preferred content-creators either directly or indirectly via a payment-channel.

Internet-Platforms can and SHOULD SUPPORT multiple different methods of payments and at least ONE of them should allow a user to send money DIRECTLY to their favorite content-creator via utilizing BANK-ACCOUNT TRANSFERS.
While the other methods can utilize the multiple assortments of payment-processors AND I REALLY HOPE one of those payment-processors is GNU-Taler which is Libre/Free-Software/FOSS AND privacy-respecting and we can also have options for both "recurrent-payments" as well as "one-time-payments". The more options for the users, the better.
The internet-platforms can also adopt a cryptocurrency-based payment-system as well if necessary [If so then MONERO should at least be one of those cryptocurrencies] since cryptocurrency technology is practically Libre/FOSS [Technically it SHOULD BE FOSS, otherwise there is no point in using based on the principles the technology it was invented under] and essentially a TRUSTLESS financial-system, in other words; "participants can reach a consensus on a single truth without any one overarching authority and without needing to know or trust each other" AND it is a DE-CENTRALIZED or PEER-TO-PEER system.

Also going off the MODULAR-CRITERIA/QUALITY; The codebase that enables the internet-platforms to tap into a payment-processor system should also be WELL-CONTAINERIZED in order to make it easier to SWAP OUT or SWITCH TO a different payment-processor, when one of those payment-processors start to get the craving to boycott your internet-platform for some reason [Learning from recent events, like in case of Colective-Shout going after payment-processors which affected other platforms like steam or pixiv].
As always the MONETIZATION-SYSTEMS themselves HAVE to be Libre or FOSS as well and preferably use a STRONG COPYLEFT-LICENCE like AGPL or GPL.


Well that's it then. This was something I REALLY wanted to discuss with you all and honestly each of the issues or CRITERIAS require an article on their own right that will go into excruciating details and I don't think I gave these topics enough justice, only time will tell if I make more on this topic and I am hoping that more people discuss this topic. Platforms are a critical piece of tool in our lives after all and if we truly want a better internet then this topic is a NO-BRAINER