More questions than answers: another post about the Social Web Foundation and the fediverses

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Part 4 of I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS Army, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

"The Social Web Foundation’s mission is a growing, healthy, financially viable and multi-polar Fediverse”

– SWF mission

"My personal view is that if SWF can evolve in a way that addresses its initial problems, it could wind up being a very good thing for the fediverses....

Then again, there are are quite a few ifs here, and a lot of open questions SWF needs to address, so it might not work out that way."

– me, in The Social Web Foundation and the elephant in the federated room (the previous post in this series)

In the previous post, I (somewhat cautiously) welcomed the new, corporate-funded Social Web Foundation (SWF) to the fediverses. Unsurprisingly, not everybody sees it that way. The bulk of that post discussed the differences of opinion in the ActivityPub Fediverse about if and how SWF should engage with their launch partner Meta, but that's far from the only issue. Critics also bring up a lot of good other points about SWF's mission, initial projects and program, advisors, and partners ...

Still, my view is that SWF could potentially have a very positive impact for the fediverses as a whole (not just the corporate fediverse, and not just Meta) if they

• prioritize equity and safety
• act transparently enough and introduce enough oversight to build trust that they're not jusr serving their corporate masters
• align with positive values of the ActivityPub Fediverse like consent and a pro-LGBTQIA2S+ focus (and make an effort to counter less-positive values like racism, sexism, and Islamophobia)
• broaden their scope to include deepening connections and leveraging synergies between fediverses such as Bluesky and the ATmosphere
• focus on trust and safety in ways that don't reinforce Meta's strategy

Then again, it's possible that SWF won't evolve. That would be good for Meta, but not so good for anybody else. Oh well. Even in that case, I think SWF will catalyze valuable changes in the fediverses ... but it would certainly be a missed opportunity. So it's worth thinking about how to increase the chances of a better positive outcomes.

And evolution is certainly needed. For example:

• SWF's initial projects don't include anything focused on safety.
• Despite the positive quotes in SWF's launch post from partners Eugen, Rob, Matthias, Mike, Jaz-Michael, Jon (not me, a different Jon), Bart, John, and Matt (and posts their from advisors Ben, Johannes, Chris, and another Chris that SWF co-founder Evan linked to in his Launch link round-up), there hasn't been much discussion of equity issues.
• Many people clearly don't trust SWF. How will SWF change those dynanics?

The good news is that there are straightforward things SWF could do make progress on these and other issues from the launch. I'm sure others have ideas as well! In her newsletter, SWF Executive Directory Mallory Knodel talked about doing a listening tour. It'll be interesting to see who she talks to, what she learns, how much power the funders give her to influence the organization's structure and priorities, and what changes as a result.

To set the stage for the listening tour, this post is eventually going to be a deeper dive into a few of the key questions SWF needs to address, and some thoughts about how they can make progress if the answers are "yes". I say "eventually" because there's enough to talk about here that I'm going to serialize this as multiple posts – and update this post as well.

That said, SWF's launch also sparks a lot of questions for others in the fediverses ... so that's where I'll start. Like the title says, there are more questions than answers at this point. But these are questions worth thinking about, not just in terms of reactions to SWF, but also more generally!

Contents:

• Questions, questions, questions
• Will SWF prioritize equity and diversity?
• Will SWF prioritize safety and consent?
• Will SWF be more transparent and try to earn trust?

Note: There are many fediverses discusses the terminology I'm using here – but there's no need to wallow in the details unless you're into it. A fediverse is a decentralized social network. Different people mean different things by "the Fediverse" (and Definitions of "the Fediverse" goes into a lot more detail for your wallowing pleasure). Since 2018 or so most people have used "the Fediverse" as a synonym for the ActivityPub-centric Fediverse ... although that may be changing: the tech press increasingly considers Bluesky part of "the Fediverse".

Questions, questions, questions

Before we get to SWF's perspective, I very much agreed with a about the key takeaway from the intense discussion on SocialHub. So let's and this post with some thoughts on that front.

One thing that I'm seeing a lot of ActivityPub developers concerned about SWF already doing is voting with their feet, or at least exploring it, and looking at other protocols and multi-protocol solutions. Like I said above, I see that as a good thing. The SWICG standards group is making progress, but ActivityPub has a lot of long-standing issues – and there's the threat of Meta embracing and extending.

What else to do? Like I said, there are a lot more questions than answers at this point – although I'm certainly looking forward to hearing what people have to say. These aren't the only possible questions, of course, and other suggestions are welcome as well!

For people who think SWF is (mostly) a good thing

• How to help?
• How to get more and broader community involvement with SWF?
• What are the opportunities for short-term steps that could help allay concerns?
• What need to change?
• How to influence SWF?

For people who are concerned about SWF and/or Meta

• What changes could SWF make that could address concerns about its alignment with Meta and/or corporate interests more generally? What kind of feedback needs to be given and what kinds of pressure needs to be put on who to make that happen?
• How could SWF evolve in a way that benefit (and change the power dynamics of) the entire ecosystem – or is that even possible?
• How to counter an embrace-and-extend maneuver by Meta, whether or not SWF’s a part of it?
• Many see SWF’s attempted hijacking of the term “social web” as problematic. How to put out a counter narrative that gets traction in the fediverses and in the tech press? Alternatively, since Google, Facebook, and big tech companies have been trying to push the "open social web" since 2007, is their some other less-corporate terminology to use instead?
• What to do if SWF doesn’t evolve?

For developers thinking of different protocols and/or multiple-protocol solutions (whether it’s because you’re concerned about threats to ActivityPub or just see it as time to explore something new)

• How to work together to make progress and build momentum?
• What are some of the interesting protocols to look at today, and where are the gaps?
• What are the learnings from ActivityPub, both in terms of areas to improve and in terms of what's good about it?

For Bluesky and the ATmosphere

• If SWF succeeds, what opportunities does that open up for collaboration across the fediverses?
• If SWF fails to evolve, how can Bluesky and the ATmosphere capitalize?
• Bluesky's a much bigger player in the ATmosphere than Meta (or anybody else) is in the ActivityPub Fediverse. Is a multi-polar non-profit a useful technique for the ATmosphere as well? If so, what to learn from SWF's launch, both in terms of what's going well, and what could be better?
• AT has a lot of advantages over ActivityPub for all-public social networks, but doesn't yet include anything similar to ActivityPub's scoped visibiilty. With so many people concerned about ActivityPub's direction (and Meta's potential dominance of the ActivityPub Fediverse), does it make sense for ATmosphere developers (and maybe even Bluesky) to prioritize moving beyond its initial all-public focus?

For people organizing and developing for free fediverses (defined in opposition to surveillance capitalism) that prioritize justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion

• SWF highlights the willingness of many fediverse influencers and the ActivityPub power structure to embrace Meta. How to leverage this to reinforce oppositional efforts, and build parallel power bases?
• What opportunities does a multi-protocol approach open up?
• What (if any) engagement with multi-polar, Meta-friendly organizations like SWF makes sense in various situations – and how to build spaces and organizations that don't engage?
• What (if any) levels of engagement with fascists, racists, terfs, etc makes sense in various situations – and how to build and encourage more spaces that don't allow them?
• How to get from the fediverses' history of anti-Blackness, anti-Indigeneity, sexism (etc) – and the skewed demographics – to create a movement that's intersectionally diverse, inclusive, focused on equity and justice?
• Where and how to organize?

Questions for SWF

Safety

"SWF's mission talks about a "growing, healthy" Fediverse, but their initial plans don't seem to be paying much attention to the "healthy" part."

– 9 things the Social Web Foundation could do to prioritize safety (if they decide they want to)

• Will SWF prioritize safety?
• If so, will they do it in a way that helps everybody in the ActivityPub Fediverse?
• How much of SWF's budget will go to projects that help address current fediverse safety issues?
• Will SWF add trust and safety experts as advisors?
• How much will SWF focus on AI moderation – and will they do it in a way that avoids the racism, anti-LGBTQIA2S+ discrimination, Islamopobia and other problems with today's ineffective AI moderation tools?

To be continued!

Still to come:

• Will SWF prioritize equity and diversity?
• Will SWF be more transparent and try to earn trust?

As well as updating this post, I'll also publish those new installments separately. To see new posts as they're published, you can subscribe to the Nexus of Privacy newsletter, follow @nexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange (or on Bluesky, via Bridgy Fed), and/or join the Nexus of Privacy community on lemmy.blahaj.zone ... or just come back and visit this page in a few days!

Update log

October 24: add section on safety with link to 9 things the Social Web Foundation could do to prioritize safety (if they decide they want to)