Most of you don't know who I am. And you have every reason to just disregard everything that I say.
However during the past 15 years, my life has been surreal.
This is what happened:
2008-15: Helped build Hootsuite as employee #8
2015-17: Ran a social media agency -- shut it down because I discovered that I hated modern social media
2018-21: Worked with a variety of start-ups, some which were attempting decentralized social media
2021: Sold all my Hootsuite shares, planned to retire (Contd.)
However during the past 15 years, my life has been surreal.
This is what happened:
2008-15: Helped build Hootsuite as employee #8
2015-17: Ran a social media agency -- shut it down because I discovered that I hated modern social media
2018-21: Worked with a variety of start-ups, some which were attempting decentralized social media
2021: Sold all my Hootsuite shares, planned to retire (Contd.)
Chris Trottier
•So I called my friend @reiver, and he had a project for me to work on.
Now @reiver has been coding for something like 25 years, and has an interest in open protocols. So I told him about ActivityPub.
After looking at the dystopian landscape that's social, we started talking to others, and decided, "Let's build something!"
Chris Trottier
•"The Internet sucks. Nobody's happy with it. Let's build something else."
Regardless of whatever's going on with Big Social, this stuff needs to be worked on. Specifically:
1. Online identity
2. Syndication
3. Trust
4. Network traffic
This is just a sample of our many gripes with the Internet.
Chris Trottier
•* Some want a return to the "small Internet"
* Some want to move away from the web browser's as the Internet's default software
* Some want to rip everything up and start all over again
The sentiment is that something drastic needs to be done -- or else a truly independent Internet is over.
Chris Trottier
•The common sentiment was, "Let's build for a space that Big Social hasn't considered yet, get there first."
So that's what many developers have done.
Chris Trottier
•But for most of the time, my thought has been, "The Fediverse is a band-aid solution, a way to smoothly get people from A -> B."
This is why my priorities weren't the Fediverse until March 2022.
That's when something happened that got me so upset, I declared, "I'm all in on the Fediverse!"
Chris Trottier
•Suddenly, I heard gunshots. This was followed by a stamped. There was mass panic.
As this event happened, I was live-tweeting about it, letting everyone know what was going on from inside the airport.
I was an eye witness. I was sharing actual news as it was happening.
But Twitter trolls came after me, calling me a conspiracy theorist and a crank.
Chris Trottier
•It wasn't me, it was the trolls.
When you tried to look at a live feed on Twitter, it was the trolls who popped up at the content discovery.
That's when I realized it: Twitter's algorithm was supposedly made to determine relevancy -- and instead it's privileging the most irrelevant trolls on the feed.
For me, this was the straw that broke the camel's back.
Chris Trottier
•They banned my Star Trek fan account for reasons unknown
They banned my art account for reasons unknown
They banned my business account -- even though not a single tweet had been sent there for 5 years -- for reasons unknown
Every attempt to figure out reasons for the bans ended up being tantamount to, "We're banning your accounts because -- f*ck you!"
Twitter was in my crosshairs already.
Chris Trottier
•For what reason? I don't know. But I respect they might not like me.
But what I actually can't stand is when I try to provide news for an actual newsworthy event, and trolls get privileged above me.
Why do trolls get to dogpile and gaslight on actual news as its happening, while Twitter has effectively de-platformed me for unknown reasons?
Chris Trottier
•At the time, we had already been building an app. But this time, my sense of moral outrage at Big Social's failings made me feel that building a Fediverse app was important *now*.
So now getting this thing working has been a *huge* priority -- our little contribution to killing Big Social.
Chris Trottier
•I've been banging on this drum every single damn day.
Always the same thing: Big Social must be destroyed, and we collectively must build something better.
Chris Trottier
•So why did the Cancun airport incident effect me so much?
Because it's different when you think an unknown gunman is going to kill you and your family -- you're telling the whole world -- and trolls come after you.
That's when I realized the true stakes of Big Social.
Chris Trottier
•I feel terrible for what I contributed.
Like others, I thought, "Hey, maybe we can fix this whole thing with more diverse hires and getting the input of experts in diverse professions."
But this thing is unfixable. And the problem lies at the crossroads of technology and sociology:
How data is organized, social organization follows.
Chris Trottier
•They control the communications infrastructure, the features, the relevancy algorithms, and the publishing.
They own your virtual self because they own your personal data.
As I said: how data is organized, social organization follows.
This is the fundamental flaw of Big Social.
Chris Trottier
•This Frankenstein has most of your atributes: a face, romantic history, shopping preferences, etc..
Everything that Big Social can find out, catalogue, and define as "you" is actively being built every single day. They follow you. They know your wants and desires.
But just like Frankenstein's monster, this version of you lacks soul.
Chris Trottier
•In essence, this is what Big Social's "identity verification" is: so-called consent for them to say that they, Big Social, get to define who you are.
They build this Frankenstein by watching the *real* you, surveilling you. It's why the likes of Facebook try to discover everything about you, even the amount of dirt on your smartphone camera.
As a human being, this offends me.
Chris Trottier
•A few skeptical folk said, "Those are big words -- just hype."
On the contrary. The Fediverse is our best chance to completely destroy the Big Social paradigm.
This is why you all need to *learn* about the Fediverse. Not just Mastodon. Not just specific instances of Mastodon.
Rather, learn about the entire Fediverse system. I know it seems big and abstract. But it's ideas that change the world.
Adam Ierymenko
•Reido
•Adam Ierymenko
•