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Recommended reading by Twitter CEO: From platform to protocol, re-realizing the promise made in the early days of the Internet

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A New Approach to Free Speech in the Twenty-First Century: Structuring Protocols

Original title: "Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech"

Original author: Mike Masnick, founder and blogger of the well-known content website Techdirt

Original translation : 0x33, Rhythm BlockBeats

This article is about 15,000 words long and takes 30 minutes to read.

Foreword

The author of this article is Mike Masnick Founder and CEO of Floor64 and founder of Techdirt. Techdirt Web site founded by Mike Masnick in 1997, Techdirt focuses on intellectual property, patents, information privacy, and copyright reform.

At Techdirt in January 2005, founder Mike Masnick coined the term "The Streisand Effect" ( Rhythm note: The Streisand effect refers to trying to prevent the public from understanding certain content, or to suppress specific online information, but the result is counterproductive, and instead makes the event known to more people, using a Chinese idiom to explain it is trying to cover up). In 2015, Techdirt received positive recognition for its bold move to allow readers to remove online ads.

This article was published by Mike Masnick on the KnightColumbia website on August 21, 2019, and was recently tweeted by CEO Jack Dorsey Forward the recommendation. In this article, Mike Masnick expounded his view of "protocols rather than platforms" from multiple dimensions. By giving examples of centralized platforms such as Facebook and Reddit, Mike Masnick believes that the public currently lacks the controllability and ownership of their own data and creative content, and when browsing on various centralized platforms, users are unable to read on the readable content. There are no options. Mike Masnick proposed a variety of protocols to solve the problems of the current centralized giant platform, and to bring people back to the early promise of the network through the protocol: to create a place where like-minded people can discuss various topics around the world, and anyone can discover Useful information on a variety of different topics without fear of contamination.

Rhythm BlockBeats has published similar content before, recommended reading:《The world hates the current social media 》< /p>

The following is the Chinese version of Mike Masnick's article, translated by Rhythm BlockBeats, Enjoy~

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Changing the economic and digital infrastructure of the Internet to promote free speech

For about a decade now, it has been widely believed that the Internet and social media are a way to enable people to say more and improve the marketplace of ideas. But opinions have shifted dramatically over the past few years, and few seem happy now, with some seeing the platforms as cesspools of vilification, bigotry and hatred. Meanwhile, others feel the platforms have become overly aggressive in policing language and are systematically suppressing or censoring certain viewpoints. And that's not to say that the internet and social media often involve privacy concerns and the issues with which these platforms are (or may not be using) all the data they collect.

This situation has created some kind of crisis both inside and outside these companies. While the companies have long billed themselves as defenders of free speech, they have struggled with their newfound status as online arbiters of truth and goodness. Meanwhile, politicians from both major parties are hammering the companies, albeit for entirely different reasons. Some have been complaining about how the platforms could potentially allow foreign interference in elections.

Others complained about how they were being used to spread disinformation and propaganda. Some have accused the platforms of being too powerful, and of course there have been references to inappropriate accounts and content that should be removed. What is clear is that there are no easy solutions to these challenges and that most of the challenges that are typically presented often do not address the reality of the problem.

While some advocate stricter regulation of online content, companies such as Facebook, YouTube and Twitter have been Explore hiring thousands of people to manage and participate in platform content posting review teams. On the other hand, companies are increasingly investing in increasingly sophisticated technological assistance, such as artificial intelligence, in an attempt to detect controversial content early in the process. Still others have suggested that moderation (at least for platforms of a certain size) should not be moderated at all in order for them to be considered part of the public world.

As this article will emphasize, most of these solutions are not impossible. Many of them will make the original problem worse, or have other equally harmful effects.

This article proposes a completely different approach - one that may seem counterintuitive, but may actually Offers a viable plan for freer speech while minimizing social pollution, such as the impact of hate speech and massive disinformation efforts. Plus, it could help users of these platforms regain control over their privacy. On top of that, it could even provide a whole new revenue stream for these platforms.

That's the approach: building protocols, not platforms.

To be clear, this is a way to bring us back to the past of the Internet. The early internet involved many different protocols—instructions and standards that anyone could use to build compatible interfaces. Email uses SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol). Chatting is done via IRC (Internet Relay Chat). Usenet is used as a distributed discussion system using NNTP (Network News Transfer Protocol). The World Wide Web (WWW) is its own protocol: Hypertext Transfer Protocol, or HTTP.

In the past few decades, however, the Internet has ceased to revolve around new Instead, it was built around a private, controlled platform. They can operate in a similar manner to earlier protocols, but they are controlled by a single entity. This can happen for a variety of reasons. Clearly, the single entity that controls the platform can profit from it. Also, having only one entity usually means that new features, upgrades, bug fixes, etc. can be rolled out faster, increasing the user base.

It is true that some platforms today are leveraging existing open protocols but building walls around them, Lock users into it, not just provide an interface. This actually highlights, for example, that Google's Gmail service is based on open email protocols like SMTP and IMAP, but has additional features built on top of it. Facebook uses the Signal protocol to handle end-to-end encryption for its Whatsapp and Facebook Messenger services. This actually underscores that it's not an either/or choice between platforms and protocols, but a spectrum.

The argument being made here is that we need to move more towards the world of open protocols rather than platforms.

Moving toward a world dominated by protocols rather than proprietary platforms will solve many of the problems that the internet currently faces today. Instead of relying on some big platform to monitor voice online. Solving the above problems through the agreement may lead to a large-scale competition, in which anyone can design their own interface, filter and other services, so that any work/design can be successful, while Don't have to face comprehensive and time-consuming scrutiny. The agreement will allow end users to determine their own tolerance for different types of "voices," but make it easier for most people to avoid the most problematic "voices" without completely silencing anyone or letting platforms decide for themselves who they allow to speak out.

In short, it will push power and decision-making to the extreme ends of the network, while the Instead of concentrating it in a group of very powerful companies. At the same time, this could lead to new, more innovative features and better end-user control over their own data. In the end, it could help usher in a whole host of new business models that aren't solely focused on monetizing user data.

Historically, the internet has moved more and more through decentralized protocols to a world of centralized platforms, Part of the reason is that protocols are difficult to monetize due to the incentives under the old internet. Therefore, it is difficult to update them in a timely manner and provide new features in a compelling manner.

Companies typically come in and "take over", creating a more centralized platform, adding their own capabilities (and merging own business model). They are able to dedicate more resources to these platforms (and business models), creating a virtuous circle for the platforms (and a certain amount of locked-in users). However, this approach also creates difficulties for the platform itself. As the need for control is raised, there is an increasing demand for accountability on the shoulders of platforms, including stricter regulation of the content hosted on those platforms. It also raises concerns about filter air bubbles and misalignment. Plus, it created a dominance of some Internet companies that made many people uncomfortable.

Going back to platform-based protocols can solve many of these problems. Other recent developments have shown that doing so could overcome many of the early pitfalls of protocol-based systems, making it possible to create the best possible narrative: useful Internet services, competition to drive innovation, controlled not only by large corporations, but also financially Sustainable, can provide end users with more control over their own data and privacy, and the chance of providing false and false information is greatly reduced.

The early problems of the protocol and why the platform can develop well

Although the early internet was dominated by a series of protocols rather than platforms, the limitations of these early protocols explain why platforms dominate.

There are many different platforms, and each platform has its own reasons, and they all have some reasons for their Succeeded for a while (or failed), but to help illustrate the issues discussed here, let's take the examples of Usenet and Reddit further here.

Conceptually, both Usenet and Reddit are very similar. Both involve a set of forums usually organized around a particular topic. On Usenet, these are called newsgroups. On Reddit, they are subreddits. Each newsgroup or subnews publisher tends to have a moderator who has the power to make different rules. Users can make new posts in each group, leading to thread replies from others in that group, forming an approximate discussion.

However, Usenet is an open protocol (technically the Network News Transfer Protocol, or NNTP), and anyone can There are a variety of different applications available for use. Reddit is a centralized platform completely controlled by a single company.

A special newsreader client application is initially required to access Usenet program (of which there are several), then needs access to a Usenet server. Many services were originally provided by Internet Service Providers (when I first got on the Internet in 1993, I used Usenet through the university's news server and the Usenet reader provided by the university). As the web grew in popularity, more and more organizations attempted to provide web front ends to Usenet. Early on, the field was dominated by the Deja news research service, which provided one of the first web interfaces to Usenet. Many additional features were added later, including (most usefully) a comprehensive search engine.

Even though Deja News tried a number of different business models, its search was eventually shut down. Google acquired the company in 2001. Includes its Usenet archives, which serve as a key part of Google Groups (which still offers the Google platform's proprietary email-style mailing lists, as well as web interfaces to many Usenet and its newsgroups).

Much of Usenet is complex and unclear (especially before web interfaces were widely available). An early joke on Usenet was that every September, the service would be flooded with a bunch of confused "newbies," college freshmen who had just gotten their accounts and knew nothing about the current practices and proper etiquette for using the service Know. September, then, tends to be the time when many old users frustratingly "correct" the behavior of these new entrants until they conform to the system's specifications.

In the same spirit, old-fashioned Usenet enthusiasts refer to the period after September 1993 as the "permanent Endless September" and "Eternal September". That was the moment the proprietary platform America Online (AOL) opened its doors to Usenet, resulting in an influx of not-so-tame users. Since there are many different Usenet servers, the content is not hosted centrally but spread across various servers. This has advantages and disadvantages, including that different servers can handle different content differently. Not every Usenet server has to host every group. But it also means there is no central authority to respond to disruptive or eccentric activity. However, some servers can choose to block certain newsgroups, and end users can use tools such as kill files to filter out various unwanted content based on criteria of their own choice.

Another major disadvantage of the original Usenet was that it was not particularly adaptable or flexible, especially in large-scale changes aspect. Since this is a decentralized protocol, there is a process involving consensus that requires broad agreement of all parties before any changes can be made to the protocol. Even minor changes often require a lot of work, and even then, it's not always universally accepted.

And if you create a new newsgroup, it will be a rather complicated process. For some hierarchies, there is an approval process, but other "alternative" categories are much easier to set up (although there is no guarantee that all Usenet servers will support the committee). In contrast, setting up a new subreddit is easy. Reddit's product and engineering teams can make any changes they want, but the user base has little say in how changes happen.

Probably the biggest problem with legacy systems is the lack of an obvious business model. As the death of Deja News demonstrates, running a Usenet server has never been particularly profitable. Over time, the number of "professional" Usenet servers that require a fee to use has grown, but these trends tend to be much later and smaller than Internet platforms like Reddit, which are generally considered to be focused on transactional violations. content.

Current problems of big platforms

Over the past two decades, the rise of internet platforms (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, etc.) has more or less replaced the protocol-based systems used previously. With these platforms, there is only one (usually for-profit) company running the service for the end user. These services are usually funded first by venture capital and then by advertising (often highly targeted).

These platforms are built on the Internet and tend to be browser or a growing number of mobile device applications. The benefits of building a service as a platform are obvious: the owner has ultimate control over the platform and is therefore better positioned to monetize it through some form of advertising (or other ancillary services). However, it does incentivize these platforms to capture more and more data from their users in order to better target them.

This has caused legitimate concern and repression from users and regulators concerned about Platforms do not function fairly or properly "protect" the end-user data they collect.

The second problem facing today's largest platforms is that as they grow larger, the Increasingly important in everyday life, the operators of these platforms are increasingly concerned about the content they are able to publish and the responsibilities they have. The operator may moderate or block this content.

These platforms are under increasing pressure from users and politicians to be more proactive about Content is monitored. In some cases, the (US) has passed laws that more explicitly require platforms to remove certain content and gradually weaken earlier exemptions (e.g. Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act in the US, or the EU The E-Commerce Directive) Many platforms love their modest options.

Thus, not only are platforms forced to become more proactive, but they are also forced to Testify before various legislative bodies, hire thousands of employees as potential content moderators, and invest heavily in moderation technology. However, even with these regulatory requirements and investments in human and technology, it remains unclear whether any platform will actually do a good job of simplifying content at scale.

Part of the problem is that any platform moderation decision is going to make someone uncomfortable. Obviously, those whose content is moderated are often not happy with it, as are others who wish to view or share it. At the same time, in many cases, discomfort in decision-making can also be unpleasant. There is currently much criticism of these platforms' moderation choices, including accusations (certainly unsubstantiated) that political bias is driving those content moderation choices. As platforms come under pressure to take on more responsibility, every choice they make regarding content moderation shackles them. Remove controversial content - anger the people who created or supported it; avoid removing controversial content, and anger what is found to be controversial.

This puts the platform in a win-win position. They can keep throwing more and more money at the problem and keep having a dialogue with the public and politicians, but it's not clear how to get enough people "satisfied" for it to end. When it comes to finding someone who fails to remove something on a given day, it's hard to find out that they're unhappy with platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube—and when they do, it can be instantly dismissed. Those who are dissatisfied with the platform are replaced.

This setup is frustrating for everyone involved and is unlikely to improve anytime soon.

"Savior" Agreement Appears

In this article, I propose that we return to a protocol world where platforms do not dominate the Internet. We have reason to believe that moving to a protocol system can solve many of the problems associated with platforms today, and it can do so while minimizing problems inherent to protocols decades ago.

Although there is no silver bullet, the protocol system can better protect user privacy and free speech while minimizing The impact of online abusive behavior, and create more aligned novel and compelling business models with user benefits.

The key to making this work is that while we see specific protocols for various types of platforms today, But then there will be many competing protocols implementing that protocol. Competition will come from these implementations. Reduced switching costs from one implementation to another will reduce lock-in, and the ability for anyone to create their own interface and access all content and users on the underlying protocol greatly limits barriers to entry to competition . You don't need to build a whole new Facebook if you already have access to everyone using the "social networking protocol" and just have to give it a different interface.

To some extent, examples of this have been seen in the email space. Built on open standards like SMTP, POP3, and IMAP, there are many different implementations of email. Email systems that were popular in the 1980s and 1990s relied on a client-server setup, where the service provider (whether it was a business Internet service provider, a university, or an employer) briefly hosted email on a server until it was downloaded to e-mail server. A user's own computer via some client software such as Microsoft Outlook, Eudora or Thunderbird. Alternatively, users can access the email through a text interface such as Pine or Elm.

In the late 1990s, web-based e-mail began to take off, starting with Rocketmail (which was eventually acquired by Yahoo and became Yahoo Mail) and Hotmail (acquired by Microsoft, which became Outlook.com a few years later). Google launched its own product, Gmail, in 2004, which kicked off a new wave of innovation by offering more storage space for email and a much faster user interface.

However, because of these open standards, there is a lot of flexibility. Users can use non-Gmail email addresses in the Gmail interface. Or, he or she can use the Gmail account with an entirely different client, such as Microsoft Outlook or Apple Mail. Best of all, new interfaces can be created on top of Gmail itself, for example using Chrome extensions.

This setup has many advantages for the end user. Even as platforms like Gmail become more popular in the market, the cost of switching is much lower. If a user doesn't like how Gmail handles certain features or is concerned about Google's privacy practices, it's much easier to switch to another platform, and the user won't lose access to all his or her old contacts, or to other The ability to send emails to people (even those contacts who are still Gmail users).

Please note that this flexibility is strongly motivated by Google to ensure that Gmail treats its users well. Google is unlikely to take actions that could lead to a rapid exodus. This is different from completely proprietary platforms such as Facebook or Twitter, where leaving means you no longer communicate with the people there in the same way, and you no longer have easy access to their content and communications. With a system like Gmail, it's easy to export contacts or even traditional email, and just use another service to start over without losing the ability to stay in touch with anyone.

Moreover, it opens up the playing field more. Even though Gmail is a particularly popular e-mail service, other Gmails can build important e-mail services (such as Outlook.com or Yahoo Mail), or create successful startup e-mail services for different markets and specific domains (such as Zohomail or Protonmail).

It also opens up other services that can be built on top of the existing email ecosystem without having to worry about relying on shut them out on a single platform. For example, Twitter and Facebook tend to switch product directions and cut off third-party applications, but in the email space, there is a thriving market of services and companies such as Boomerang, SaneBox, and MixMax that each offer a additional services. Different email platforms.

The end result is that in order to make the quality of service better between and within email services, people have More competition, and there is a strong incentive for the major providers to keep their users in the best interest, who can choose to leave because the lock-in rate is much lower.

Protect free speech but limit the impact of abuse

Probably the most contentious part of the discussion about content moderation is how to deal with "abuse". Almost everyone is aware that this behavior exists online, and that it is destructive, but there is no consensus on what actually includes it. Behavior involving people can fall into many different categories, from harassment, to hate speech, to threats, to solicitation, to obscenity, to spam, and more. But none of these categories has a comprehensive definition, and looks like a lot to the beholder. For example, a recipient may view a person's attempts to express an opinion strongly as harassment. Neither party may be "wrong" per se, but leaving it up to each platform to adjudicate these things is an impossible task, especially when processing hundreds of millions of content per day.

Currently, platforms are the ultimate centralized institutions for dealing with these issues. Many work around the problem with increasingly complex internal "laws" whose "ruling" is often invisible to end users), and then hand it off to large numbers of employees (often outsourced at lower wages) with little time for thousands of Tens of thousands of content to judge.

In such a system, Type I ("false positive") and Type II ("false negative") Mistakes are not only common, they are common. They are unavoidable. What most people thought should be taken down has remained, and what many thought should have been kept has been removed. Multiple content review employees may view content in completely different ways, and it is nearly impossible for content reviewers to consider context (partly because they may not be able to use or see much of it, and partly because it would take time to fully Investigating every situation makes cost estimating effectively impossible). Likewise, no technical solution can properly take context or intent into account—computers can't recognize things like sarcasm or hyperbole, even at a level that any human reader can understand.

However, a protocol-based system moves many decisions from the center to the ends of the network. Anyone will be able to create their own set of rules instead of relying on a single centralized platform with all the internal biases and incentives that come with what they don't want to see and what they do want to see. Since most people don't want to manually control all of their own preferences and levels, this could easily fall to any number of third parties, whether it's competing platforms, public interest organizations, or local communities. These third parties can create any interface, any rules they want.

For example, those interested in civil liberties issues might subscribe to Moderation Filters, or even ACLU or EFF Additional services published. Someone dabbling in politics may choose a filter from their designated party (although this obviously raises concerns about increased "filter bubbles", we have reason to believe that the impact of such things will be limited).

A brand new third party can completely focus on providing a better experience. This requires reviewing filters not just around content, but the entire user experience. Imagine a competing Twitter interface that would be pre-configured (and constantly updated) to lighten trollish accounts and better promote more thoughtful, thought-provoking stories, rather than the traditional clickbait . Alternatively, the interface could provide a better layout for conversations or for news reading.

The key is to ensure that the "rules" are not only shareable, but fully transparent and under the control of any end user. So I'd probably choose to use EFF's publicly available controls for Twitter, using the new nonprofit-provided interface, but tweak the settings if I like to say more about the EU. Or, if I want to use the web primarily to read news, I can use the interface provided by The New York Times. Or, if I want to chat with my friends, I can use an interface designed for better communication among small groups of friends.

In a world where we could have a million content moderation systems processing the same common set of content ( Each system takes a completely different approach) and see which works best. A centralized platform is no longer the single-source arbiter of what is and what is not. Instead, many, many different individuals and organizations will be able to tune the system to their own comfort levels and share it with others—and have competition happen at the implementation layer rather than the underlying social networking layer.

This will not completely prevent anyone from using the platform to speak, however, if the more popular interface and content moderation screening If the author chooses not to include them entirely voluntarily, the power and impact of his or her speech will be even more limited. This then suggests a more democratic approach that enables competition in the filter market. If people think that such an interface or filter provider is not doing a good job, they can switch to another interface or adjust the settings themselves.

So we have less centralized control, less reason to demand "censorship", less competition The more drastic and the broader the methods, the more control the end user has, while at the same time potentially minimizing the scope and impact of what many find abusive. Indeed, there are a variety of different filter choices that can alter any individual's sphere of influence in relation to how troublesome that individual's speech is to many.

As an example, regarding how the platform handles Alex Jones (the entertainer who runs InfoWars and regularly supports various conspiracies Theory) has aroused great controversy. Users put enormous pressure on the platform to cut him off, and when they finally did, they faced corresponding backlash from his supporters who claimed they simply chose to cut him because of their political bias against him. He was removed from the platform.

In a protocol-based system, those who have always believed that Jones is not an honest actor may have blocked him earlier , while other interface providers, filter providers, and individuals can decide to intervene based on any particularly egregious behavior. While his strongest supporters may never cut him off, his overall influence will be limited. So those who don't want to be bothered by his gibberish don't need to deal with it. It's still available to those who wish to see it.

There will be a much larger market for many different filters and interfaces (and a market for custom features). Conspiracy theorists and dragons will find more trouble on the "mainstream" filter, but will not be completely silenced by those who wish to hear them. In a protocol-centric world, it would no longer be possible for an extremist view to become the mainstream view, rather than today's centralized system where all voices are more or less equal (or completely prohibited).

Protect user data and privacy

A side benefit of this is that a protocol-based system will almost certainly increase our privacy as well. Under such a system, a social media-style system would not need to collect and host all data. Conversely, just as filtering decisions can be moved to the end, data storage can also be moved to the end. While this could evolve in many different ways, one fairly straightforward approach is for end users to simply build their own "data stores" through applications they control. Since we are unlikely to return to a world where most people store their data locally (especially since we increasingly operate from multiple devices, including computers, smartphones, and tablets), managed hosting still has Meaning this data is all stored in the cloud, but the data can remain completely under the control of the end user.

In this case you would probably use a dedicated data store company, which will host your data encrypted in the cloud, the data storage provider will not have access to it - but you yourself can selectively enable access for whatever purpose is required at any given moment. This data can also serve as your unique identity. Then, if you want to use a Twitter-like protocol, you can simply open access to your database to use the Twitter-like protocol to access the necessary content.

You will be able to set what you are allowed (and not allowed) to access and also see when and how your data is accessed and how the data is processed. This means that if someone abuses that access, you will be able to cut it off at any time. In some cases, the system can be designed so that even if the service is accessing your data, the end user will still be able to use their own data to use various social media tools, but the data will be completely transferred to the end user hands, rather than locking data in opaque silos without access and control. Intermediaries are encouraged to exhibit best practices to avoid being cut off from access. End users gain a better understanding of how their data is actually being used, and can sign up for additional services, and even securely pass data from one entity to another (or multiple other entities), enabling powerful new capabilities.

While there may be concerns that under such a system various intermediaries would still concentrate on sucking up all the data, due to For some key reasons, this is not necessarily the case. First, with the ability to use the same protocol and switch to a different interface/filter provider, any provider that gets too "greedy" for your data runs the risk of turning people away. Second, by separating the data store from the interface provider, end users have greater transparency. The idea is that you will store the data in a data storage/cloud service in an encrypted format so that the hosting party cannot access the data.

Interface providers are required to request access, and may develop tools and services that allow you to (1) determine to allow Which data platforms access and for how long, although interface/filter operators may abuse their privileges to collect and retain your data, there are also potential technical means around this, including designing protocols so that it can only access Your relevant data is pulled from your data store in real time. If it doesn't, and is accessing your own data store, it may trigger a warning that your data is being held as you intended.

Ultimately, as explained below when discussing business models, there will be greater incentives for interface providers To respect the privacy wishes of end users, as their money is likely to be directly driven by usage rather than monetization of data. Disrupting your user base may cause them to flee, to the detriment of the interface provider's own financial interests.

Promoting greater innovation

By their very nature, the protocol system is likely to bring more innovation in this area, in part by allowing anyone to create an interface for accessing this content. This level of competition will almost certainly lead to various attempts at innovation that will improve various aspects of the service. Competing services may offer better filters, a better interface, better or different functionality, and so on.

Currently, we only have inter-platform competition, which we expect to happen to some extent, but Actually quite limited. Clearly, the market is okay with a few giants, so while Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, and a few others may be competing here and there for user attention, they have little incentive to improve their own services.

Imagine if anyone could suggest a new interface, new functionality or better management, then specific Competition within a protocol (formerly a platform) can quickly become fierce. Various ideas may be tried and thrown away, but real-world labs may show in the short term how these services innovate and deliver more value faster. Currently, many platforms provide APIs that allow third parties to develop new interfaces, but these APIs are controlled by the central platform - and they can change them at any time. It's true that Twitter has changed support for the API and third-party developers several times, but under the protocol system, the API will be open with the expectation that anyone can build on top of it, and there won't be a central company Cut off developers.

Most importantly, it may create entirely new areas of innovation, including in ancillary services such as Parties focused on providing better content moderation tools or the competing databases discussed earlier that are only used to host access to encrypted data without accessing it or performing any specific actions on it. These services may compete on speed and uptime, not additional features.

For example, in a world of open protocols and private data storage, thriving businesses may Forms evolve to interface between your data store and various services, automating certain tasks and providing added value. A simple version might be an agent that focuses on scanning various protocols and services for relevant news on a particular topic or company, then sends you an alert if it finds anything.

Create a new business model

One of the main reasons for the fading away of early internet protocols compared to centralized platforms is business model issues. Having your own platform (if it catches on) has become a model that can bring a lot to the company. However, establishing and maintaining protocols has long been a challenge. Most of the work is usually done by volunteers, and over time the protocol has been known to suffer from a lack of maintenance and slow optimization. For example, in 2014 it was discovered that OpenSSL, a key security protocol that a large portion of the Internet relies on, had a major security flaw known as Heartbleed. Around this time, there was an almost complete lack of OpenSSL support. There is only a group of volunteers and a dedicated staff working on OpenSSL. There are many such stories.

As stated earlier, Deja News cannot build much business with Usenet, so will It was sold to Google. Email has never been as profitable as a deal, it's usually included for free with your ISP account. A few early companies tried to build a web platform around e-mail, but large corporations quickly purchased two important products (Rocketmail from Yahoo, Hotmail from Microsoft) to merge into a larger product. Eventually Google launched Gmail and did a lot to pull email into its own platform, but it was rarely seen as a huge driver of revenue.

Nevertheless, the success of Google and Microsoft with Gmail and Outlook, respectively, shows that large companies can A very successful service is built on top of it. If Google does screw up Gmail or do questionable things with this service, it shouldn't be hard for people to move to other email systems and retain access for everyone they communicate with.

We have already discussed the competition between various interface and filter implementations to provide better service, But business models can also have competition. Experiments involving two types of business models may be conducted involving data storage services (which may require paid access and storage (and security)), as services like Dropbox and Amazon Web Services do today . It is also possible to form various business models around implementations and filters. There may also be subscription offerings for premium services or features, or other payment methods.

Despite the presence of (very reasonable) data surveillance setups for the current advertising market on today’s social media platforms concerns, but there is reason to believe that less data-intensive advertising models could thrive in the world described here. Going back to the previous argument, since the end user owns the data and the level of privacy, it would not be feasible or useful to collect all the data more aggressively. Instead, the user's control over their data and level of privacy may inspire developers or companies to develop several different types of advertising models.

First, there may be an advertising model based on more limited data and more focused on match intent or pure brand advertising . To get a glimpse of this possibility, take a look back at Google's original advertising model, which relied less on knowing everything about you than on understanding the context of an internet search at a given moment. Or, we can go back to the more traditional world of brand advertising, where popular advertisers search for appropriate communities. For example, a car company will consider who owns an interest in cars by announcing within a micro-community on the platform.

Alternatively, given the amount of control the end user has over the data, a A reverse auction type business model where end users themselves provide their own data in exchange for access or transactions from certain advertisers. The point is that the end user (not the platform) will be in control.

Use tokens for incentives

Perhaps most intriguing, there are some potential new opportunities through which agreements could actually be more sustainable. With the development of cryptocurrencies and tokens over the past few years, it has theoretically become possible to build protocols that use cryptocurrencies or tokens with added value, items that increase in value as usage increases.

A simple way to look at it is that a token-based cryptocurrency is equivalent to an equity stake in a company, but its value is not the same as The financial value of the company is irrelevant and will not be tied to the financial success of the company. These forms of currency have their own value, and they are pegged to the protocols they support. As more and more people use the protocol, the value of the currency or token itself increases. In many cases, the use of a currency or token may be necessary to run the protocol itself - so as the protocol becomes more widely used, the demand for the currency/token increases while the supply remains the same or grows as previously designed And the expansion plan.

This motivates more people to support and use the protocol to increase the value of the associated currency. Attempts are currently being made to establish a protocol where the organization in charge of the protocol retains a certain percentage of tokens while distributing the rest of the currency. In theory a "good" ad might be seen as valuable to the end user, but in most cases the end user feels the platform is creating value for themselves and when the platform collects large amounts of data for targeting When advertising, there is often a bias.

Similarly various implementers of interfaces, filters or proxies may benefit from the token's value growth . Different models may result, but various implementations can be allocated a specific share of tokens, and as they contribute to increased usage of the network, their own tokens will also increase in value. In fact, token distribution could be tied to the number of users within a particular interface to create a consistent incentive (although there is some mechanism to avoid gaming fake users). Or, as noted above, token usage may be a necessary part of the actual architecture of a running system, in the same way that Bitcoin tokens are a key part of the functionality of its open blockchain ledger.

In many ways this setup better serves the interests of users of the service versus protocol developers and interface designers be consistent. In a platform-based system, the incentive is to charge the user directly (putting the interests of the platform and the user at odds) or to collect more data to advertise to them. In theory, a "good" ad might be seen as valuable to the end user, but in most cases, the end user feels the platform's interest, and when the platform collects large amounts of data for use in targeting ads, the user tends to Deviations will occur. give them.

However, under a tokenized system, the key driver is to gain more usage to increase the value of the token . Obviously, this could create other incentive challenges - there are already concerns about platforms taking up too much time, and any service will face challenges when it gets too big - but again the protocol encourages competition to deliver a better user interface , better functionality and better moderation to minimize challenges. In fact, interfaces may compete by offering a more limited experience, and elevate themselves by their ability to limit information overload.

Nevertheless, the ability to align the incentives of the network itself with economic interests has created unique opportunity.

Problems that the agreement may not solve

There are many advantages of the agreement and the problems that can help the platform to solve. But that's not to say that protocol-based systems will eliminate all drawbacks. Much of what is suggested above is speculative - in fact, historically we have seen platforms displace protocols with limited ability to thrive.

The use and participation methods of the agreement are too complicated

It is entirely possible for any protocol-based system to be too complex and cumbersome to attract a large enough user base. Users don't want to fiddle with tons of settings or other apps to get things working. They just want to understand what the service is and be able to use it easily. Historically, platforms have been very good at focusing on the user experience aspect, especially when it comes to new user onboarding.

One would hope that if we were to experiment with a new protocol-based mechanism, it could and would from now on these Learn from the success of the platform and build on it. Similarly, intra-agreement competition at the service level may provide greater incentives to create a better user experience, and the value of the associated cryptocurrency is actually related to creating a better user experience, and the same applies. Indeed, providing the easiest and most user-friendly interface to access protocols is likely to be a key area of competition.

Finally, one of the reasons why the platform can win the historical victory is to let the Everything is controlled by one entity, which also results in a noticeable performance boost. In a world of protocols with separate datastores/interfaces, you're more dependent on multiple companies connecting together without delay. Internet giants like Google, Facebook, and Amazon have already perfectly implemented their own systems to work seamlessly together, and bringing multiple third parties into it will bring greater risks. However, there have been extensive technical improvements in this area (indeed, large platform companies have open-sourced some of their own technology to make this possible). On top of that, broadband speeds have increased and should continue to do so, which may minimize this possible technical hurdle.

The existing platform is too big to change easily

Another potential stumbling block is that existing platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, etc.) are already so large and entrenched that it is nearly impossible to replace them with a protocol-based approach. The only way to achieve this is the emergence of entirely new systems that rely on the protocol. That might work, but the platform itself could also consider the protocol.

Many people's answer to the idea that the platforms themselves could do this is to ask why they would, Because that inevitably means breaking away from the monopoly control they currently enjoy over system information and allowing the data to come back to them. end-user control and for competing services using the same protocol. However, there are some reasons to think that some platforms might actually be willing to accept this tradeoff.

First of all, as the pressure on these platforms increases, there is an increasing need for them to acknowledge what they are currently doing It doesn't work, and it's unlikely to ever work. The current mode of operation only creates more pressure to "solve" seemingly unsolvable problems. At some point, migrating to a protocol system may be a way for existing platforms to relieve themselves of the impossible burden of being the stewards of what everyone on the platform is doing.

Second, it’s going to get more and more expensive to continue what they’re doing. Facebook has recently pledged to hire 10,000 more reviewers. YouTube has also committed to hiring thousands of moderators, and hiring all of them will also add to the costs for these companies. Switching to a protocol-based system would move the auditing element to the end of the network or to a competing third party, which would save the larger platforms money.

Third, existing platforms may explore the use of protocols as areas where they are less competitive with other large Internet platforms effective competition. Google, for example, has tried and dropped multiple attempts at building a Facebook-style social network. However, if it continues to believe that there should be alternative social networks to Facebook, it may realize the appeal of offering a system based on an open protocol. In fact, recognizing that it is impossible to build your own proprietary solution will make offering an open protocol system an attractive option, if only to get out of Facebook's position.

Finally, if the token/encryption method is shown to support a successful protocol, then build these services as Protocols rather than centrally controlled platforms are even more valuable.

This will exacerbate the filter problem

It has been argued that this Methods can actually exacerbate some of the problems associated with abusive content online. The argument is that giving "villains" (whether dragons or horrific neo-Nazis) the ability to express themselves will be a problem. Going a step further, they would argue that by allowing competing services, you end up with speech quagmire areas of the internet that, at worst, will continue to aggregate unimpeded.

While I sympathize with the possibility, it seems impossible to avoid it by any stretch of the imagination. One argument against this complaint is that we already have those people harassing us on various social networks, and so far there has been no successful way to get rid of them. But the bigger point is that this may insulate them somewhat, as their content is less likely to find its way into the most widely used implementations and services of the protocol. That said, while they can be mean in their own dark corners, their ability to infect the rest of the internet and (importantly) find and recruit others will be severely limited.

To some extent, we have seen this. When forced to gather in their own corners of the internet after being driven out by the likes of Facebook and Twitter, alternative services designed for those users have not been particularly successful in scaling or growing over time. There will always be people with crazy ideas - but giving them their own little space to be crazy can better protect the wider Internet, rather than constantly kicking them out of other platforms.

How to deal with more objective question content

A key assumption on this is that a lot of the "offensive" content that is causing headaches here is in the broad "gray" range, not the "black and white" range. However, some content (usually content that violates various laws) is clearer and not in the middle ground. There are legitimate reasons to be concerned about how this setup allows communities to form around things like child pornography, revenge porn, or other criminal activity.

The reality, of course, is that such communities are already forming (often on the dark web), and today They are dealt with primarily through law enforcement (and sometimes investigative reporting). In this setup, the same is likely to be true. There's no reason to think that in a protocol-centric world, this problem will be radically different from what currently exists.

And, with an open protocol system, there will actually be more transparency, and some of them (eg Civil society groups that monitor hate groups or law enforcement agencies) are even able to build and deploy proxies that monitor these spaces and can trigger notifications for particularly nasty comments that require particularly direct scrutiny. Rather than employing a direct stalker, the person being stalked may employ a digital agent to scan the broader set of protocols to determine if anything indicates a problem, and then alert the police or other relevant contacts directly.

As mentioned above, there may be many ways to make a difference. Existing services may find that the burden of becoming a centralized platform becomes too expensive, so it may even be financially feasible to pursue an alternative model - a tokenization/cryptocurrency approach.

Alternatively, a new agreement can be created to enable this feature. There have been various levels of attempts. Services like IPFS and its associated product Filecoin have laid the groundwork and infrastructure for a distributed set of services based on its protocol and currency.

Inventor of the World Wide Web (Wide Web) itself Tim Berners-Lee (Tim Berners-Lee) Has been working on a system called Solid, now housed at his new company Inrupt, that will help enable a more distributed internet. Other projects such as Indieweb have brought people together to build many parts that may contribute to the future world of protocols rather than platforms.

In either case, if a deal is proposed and starts to attract attention, we'd like to see some The key thing: multiple implementations/services on the same protocol, so that users can choose which service to use instead of restricting them to only one. We may also start to see the rise of new businesses involving secure data storage/data storage, as users will no longer provide data to the platform for free and gain more control. As a result, other new services and opportunities may also emerge, especially as competition to provide users with a better set of services intensifies.

Conclusion

For the past half century, the web has oscillated between client and server: from mainframes and dumb terminals to powerful desktops, web applications and the cloud. Maybe we'll start to see a similar swing in this space as well. We have gone from a world dominated by protocols to a world where centralized platforms control all protocols. Let’s now return to a world where protocols dominate platforms, with potentially huge benefits for online free speech and innovation.

A move like this has the potential to bring us back to the early promise of the web: to create a global network of like-minded people A place where various topics are discussed everywhere, where anyone can discover useful information on a variety of different topics without contamination. At the same time, protocols can foster greater competition and innovation on the internet, but also give end users more control over their own data and prevent large corporations from owning too much data on any given user.

Turning to agreements is one approach to free speech in the 21st century. Rather than relying on "marketplaces of ideas" within a single platform (which could be hijacked by people with malicious intentions), the protocol could lead to competition in an idealized market to provide better services, thereby minimizing the influence of people with malicious intentions , turning to agreements that don’t simply cut off the ability and right of the “wicked” to speak.

This would represent a fundamental change, but one that we should seriously consider.