{"id":36130,"date":"2019-10-31T22:09:46","date_gmt":"2019-10-31T19:09:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/blog\/raspredelyonnye-sotsialnye-seti\/"},"modified":"2019-10-31T22:09:46","modified_gmt":"2019-10-31T19:09:46","slug":"raspredelyonnye-sotsialnye-seti","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/prohoster.info\/en\/blog\/administrirovanie\/raspredelyonnye-sotsialnye-seti","title":{"rendered":"Distributed social networks","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"

I don't have a Facebook account and I don't use Twitter. Despite this, I read news every day about the forced removal of posts and account suspensions on popular social media. <\/p>\n

Do social networks consciously take responsibility for my posts? Will this behavior change in the future? Can a social network give us our content back, and what changes would be needed in social media for this? How might potential changes affect the IT market?
\n<\/a><\/noindex><\/p>\n

Different goals of social networks and forums<\/h2>\n

\nSocial networks emerged as an evolution of forums, which were created to attract and retain people on the company\u2019s website that owned the forum. A person had to remember the name of this company and its website, and return to it again. Therefore, forums employed moderators: this was content that was associated with their company and had to remain clean.<\/p>\n

Social networks no longer keep subscribers engaged as they are already widely known. They thrive on highly targeted, personalized advertising.
\nFor a social network, it is important to identify the interests of the account and show it the most relevant ads accordingly. The task of keeping a person on the site, as was the case with forums, is no longer relevant; people will return to Facebook anyway, as they stay there because of the unique set of services that the largest social network provides.<\/p>\n

I consider this coexistence quite mutually beneficial.<\/p>\n

Responsibility and ownership<\/h2>\n

\n\u2026 but for some reason, like ancient forums, all social networks still take responsibility for the texts that are on them.<\/p>\n

Manufacturers of weapons are not responsible for murders. Car manufacturers are not responsible for drivers. Even parents eventually stop being responsible for their children, and a landlord only bears responsibility in the most extreme cases and very indirectly for the actions of a tenant. Yet, for some reason, a social network is responsible for content. Why?<\/p>\n

In all cases of sale, ownership transitions, which also implies taking on responsibility; similarly, the birth of a child means taking responsibility for them for the next eighteen years. There is supposed to be market self-regulation everywhere, yet Facebook treats its subscribers like small children and just cannot let them go. Perhaps they are waiting until the very first accounts turn twenty-one?<\/p>\n

Exclusive rights of the social network to the content<\/h2>\n

\nWell, why does the social network need exclusive rights to my content? It either leaves it as is or blocks it. The social network doesn\u2019t edit my articles. What\u2019s the point of owning my content? I can transfer part of the rights for publication, but ownership\u2014why? The owner is responsible. And that\u2019s an incredible cost to monitor such an uncountable number of publications. The question is whether they are compelled to do this or if they want to?
\nI cannot explain why ownership is necessary. But if it is not needed, why do they hold onto it? Give your social networks back to the people.<\/p>\n

Multiple websites as cells of a social network<\/h2>\n

\nImagine that instead of one social network, there are many different websites, each representing one or several social network accounts. One large social network has split into many cells interconnected with each other. The ownership problem is resolved: the owner of each website is responsible for its content and has all the functionalities of the social network right on their own website. The social network handles the technical aspects, can display its ads, and only provides the engine.<\/p>\n

Self-regulation in content moderation<\/h2>\n

\nThe social network no longer needs any moderating functions at all. Let government agencies and public organizations handle this if they see fit. And they will emerge.<\/p>\n

I can see it clearly now: The World Court granted the lawsuit of the public organization 'Independent Society of Facebook Moderators for Love of the Motherland' against the owners of certain internet resources, individuals such and such, and ruled to revoke the registration of domain names such and such. Optionally, with the payment of a fine to activists of sexual minorities and the confiscation of cache from search engines in favor of law enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n

This is how it should be, and sooner or later, it will be that way. You cannot register a domain without a passport. The mess is on your domain \u2014 you are responsible. It is a completely market-driven, self-regulating, reliable structure.<\/p>\n

The reason for implementing new technologies<\/h2>\n

\nOkay, but all this seems to be about some future technologies? Everyone has thought about how to merge social networks and what a breakthrough that would be. It never took off because no one needs it. Who needs to blur control over a vast advertising audience?<\/p>\n

I am talking about something else, how to remove the army of hired moderators from at least one social network, stop making social networks justify the content not created by them, stop paying fines, litigating, suffering reputational losses, and ultimately experiencing a decrease in capitalization? After all, rejecting ownership of content promises profit, and as soon as money is involved, especially big money, everyone starts to move.<\/p>\n

The principle of a distributed social network<\/h2>\n

\nBut how to implement this? How to unite heterogeneous sites into a single system? One where both job searches work, and messages arrive immediately, and ads are shown?..<\/p>\n

Very simply. I will even say more, it has already been implemented. More than ten years ago.<\/p>\n

Everyone knows the site Mamba. It is the largest dating network. But few know that you can create your own Mamba completely for free. To do this, you need to perform two simple actions: register on Mamba as a partner and set up the NS records of your domain to an IP address<\/a> Mamba.<\/p>\n

Surely, you remember how back in the heyday of dating sites, there were dozens of them, but all of them were somewhat suspiciously similar to each other. Well, all these sites are based on two or three databases with such partners. The idea is that you promote your dating site with your own funds, the shared database of profiles grows, which is beneficial for the integrator, and you earn quite a bit of money when paid features are purchased from your site. I think the commission was at least 30% from each purchase \u2014 a very good percentage. <\/p>\n

Technical implementation of cells in a multi-domain social network<\/h2>\n

\nWe got sidetracked, but we saw that the described scheme is not only feasible but has long been in operation. A person registers a domain under their real name. They point this domain to a social network (of course, special one-click services will emerge for this). Anyone who visits this domain sees a regular page on Facebook or VKontakte. But now all articles written on this site are clearly authored by a physical person or the company that owns the domain, which is responsible for the content.<\/p>\n

Self-regulating moderation on social networks and the development of related service markets<\/h2>\n

\nAn unwanted comment has appeared on the site? We delete it ourselves. The article is displayed on several account sites, and the comment is marked as unwanted by several owners based on certain criteria? It gets deleted automatically. No time to monitor your site? ZAO \"Postochist\" and other organizations offer content moderation services for social network account sites. These organizations provide legal services to advise on the legitimacy of content placement on account sites. There are several free projects for automatic moderators on GitHub, but elite services are provided by firms that use only highly qualified moderators with both philological and legal higher education(!).<\/p>\n

Development of new areas of activity and the economic effect of a simple solution<\/h2>\n

\nFake accounts will die out on their own: maintaining such accounts will become too costly. The content will be significantly better, the size of social networks will decrease dramatically, but you will be confident that every person there is accountable for their words. And a few other important points.<\/p>\n

New areas of activity will emerge, creating many new jobs in the IT sector. The practice of blocking websites through the court will legitimize this process and stimulate the development of the judicial system. The market will demand cheap automated moderators, which will drive advancements in artificial intelligence in text comprehension. Yes, this is developing now as well, but with the launch of account-based websites, it will become widespread, affecting everyone. And this, in turn, will influence the quality of search... and much, much more in life.<\/p>\n

The domain name market will rise significantly, and there will be a widespread transition to IPv6. Who will calculate the economic impact of such a simple solution?<\/p>\n

Private technical issues of a multi-domain social network<\/h2>\n

\nLet's go a little further and address some private questions. It's fine if a person is logged into their site, but if they access another account-based site, that's a different domain, and they won't be logged in there? Cross-domain requests have long ceased to be taboo. Google tracks you even on different computers, you notice that you see the same ads both at home and at work?<\/p>\n

When a person owns a website, they can do whatever they want with it. But in the case of account-based websites, they have no impact on the site's design and cannot personalize it. Conversely, if the website is given to the owner for hosting and allowed to connect a social network as a module, who will guarantee that they won't block ad display?<\/p>\n

Templates for account-based websites of the distributed social network<\/h2>\n

\nI've long wanted to use the Contact site as a content manager for a regular site, but I don't like that nothing can be changed in the external appearance. I miss a GitHub-like site.<\/p>\n

Account-based sites will provide site layouts that will be loaded through control panel<\/a> an account. In Contact, in its very infancy, a semblance of this function already exists.<\/p>\n

Website templates will have designated spaces for advertising. If such spaces are not marked in the uploaded template, the template will not be accepted for publication. Of course, it will be possible to upload different templates for different pages, and add static pages. Or perhaps, it might be unnecessary; maybe the main site can be placed on a second-level domain, while the account site is on a subdomain. There will likely be some variation of both. For instance, a large account site could only be hosted on a second-level domain.<\/p>\n

The emergence of account-based websites will nearly eliminate the market for content management systems. And I wouldn\u2019t say that\u2019s a bad thing.<\/p>\n

Implementer<\/h2>\n

\nClearly, to implement the described scenario, one needs to be at least a Contact. It\u2019s not about launching a new network but slightly modifying the behavior of existing ones. Technically, the changes are minor. All that\u2019s needed are willpower and finances. Who will take this on?..<\/p>\n

Government regulation<\/h2>\n

\nOver time, social networks themselves will provide domain names to choose from, and regular accounts will fade into the past. After that, it will no longer be possible to register an account without a passport. Since this offers strong regulatory potential, governmental agencies will latch onto this idea, and thereafter, the process will become irreversible.<\/p>\n

The black market and the rise of general responsibility and security<\/h2>\n

\nOf course, this will give rise to a corresponding black market sector. The sale of illegal mobile numbers will be supplemented by the offering of fake account websites. But this will also have a positive effect: as individuals become aware of their responsibility for content, they will start to think more about the security of their data, which will ultimately raise the level of safety online.<\/p>\n

Further cyclical development<\/h2>\n

\nNaturally, one can predict an increase in anonymous communication methods. Will a new alternative Facebook emerge? Unlikely, as no company would want to take on such responsibility. Social networks will split into sectors, controlled solely by their internal community.<\/p>\n

However, this will not lead to decline. Firstly, there will emerge freely distributed social network engines that will set a new standard in their construction. Secondly, technological advancements will lead to the emergence and spread of a fundamentally new communication environment, based on new protocols, and it might even not be quite the internet anymore. Or not the internet at all.<\/p>\n

Terminology<\/h2>\n

\nDuring the writing of this article, the following neologisms were born:<\/p>\n