{"id":29469,"date":"2025-07-07T13:47:51","date_gmt":"2025-07-07T17:47:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/?p=29469"},"modified":"2025-07-14T13:50:01","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T17:50:01","slug":"free-and-decentralized-networks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tedic.org\/en\/free-and-decentralized-networks\/","title":{"rendered":"Free and Decentralized Networks"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What are social media platforms if not a “place” to chat and share with the people you find important? They could be close friends, intimate acquaintances, people you\u2019ve met, or even “famous” individuals. It depends on the type of profile you want\u2014or are able\u2014to build. You can choose to have a public or private profile, and in terms of sharing, you can show more or less of your everyday life or personal projects. In any case, always remember: what\u2019s made public tends to stay there “forever” <\/span>1<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this context, it\u2019s interesting to explore how \u201ccommercial\u201d or \u201ccorporate\u201d social networks actually work. They operate under centralized control systems, based on algorithms created and governed by hierarchical structures. These structures are usually made up of a handful of wealthy white men living in the Global North: think Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg in the cases of X, Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp (which is somewhat of a hybrid between messaging app and social network). TikTok is a bit different since it\u2019s a Chinese corporation, but in terms of control, it\u2019s still centralized.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What does this mean? That what you see on your feed (or timeline) is not simply what your 300 friends or 2,000 followers want to show you or what you share with them. Instead, it\u2019s a prioritized, filtered, and sorted list organized by algorithms based on your profile, the political and economic situation of your society, and the interests of these corporations. These platforms also determine whether your content complies with the \u201cterms and conditions\u201d imposed by the same companies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This situation can be visualized like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

At the center of the diagram would be Zuckerberg (or Musk, Bezos, etc.) and their control algorithms. The nodes are people who, in order to communicate, must go through that control node. So, if the network owners don\u2019t want you to share a woman\u2019s nipple\u2014but are fine with a man\u2019s\u2014you won\u2019t be able to. If they think your content is antisemitic because you shout \u201cFree Palestine!,\u201d they might delete your post or suspend your account. Or if you want to promote your business but don\u2019t pay for ads, very few people will see it. It’s not because they\u2019re evil masterminds\u2014it\u2019s because they’re profit-driven and prioritize whatever yields the most revenue. If supporting LGBTQ+ groups was profitable yesterday, then they covered everything in rainbows\u2014but if today that support threatens their business, they\u2019ll delete any reference to the movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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“They promised us connection,<\/p>\n\n\n\n

but gave us addiction, surveillance, and manipulation”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u2014 Elena Rossini<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n


So, some questions we could ask ourselves: Why on earth do we use platforms controlled by these capitalist moguls who only want to increase profits? How does this impact freedom of expression? When censorship occurs, what\u2019s the due process to compensate victims? What happens to innovation and knowledge diversity? What happens in conflict situations\u2014how do these corporations and their algorithms act? How do they influence the political landscape of societies?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we don\u2019t intend to answer all those questions. Instead, we want to pull the first thread of a tangled web you can explore on your own\u2014different ways of inhabiting the internet. There are social networks that aim to break the concentration of power and escape capitalist exchange logics. In terms of software and algorithms, these networks are built upon the political and philosophical foundation of the Free Software movement, which promotes the design and publication of programs that empower users and break monopolies of power <\/span>2<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Decentralizing Power<\/h2>\n\n\n\n


Going back to the question of power, it\u2019s worth revisiting this diagram showing three possible types of networks: centralized (as discussed above), decentralized, and distributed <\/span>3<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In this article, we introduce a set of free networks that operate in a decentralized manner using a communication protocol called ActivityPub <\/span>4<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s say it\u2019s a kind of \u201clanguage\u201d these networks use to talk to one another. The set of networks using this protocol is known as the Fediverse. In short: the Fediverse is a collection of decentralized networks that use free software and communicate via a shared protocol. Some of these networks include Mastodon, PeerTube, Pixelfed, and others <\/span>5<\/sup><\/a><\/span>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s interesting about any of these networks is that they\u2019re decentralized. Take Mastodon, for example: there\u2019s no single address or owner. Instead, there are many \u201cinstances\u201d of the network. Each instance is governed by a group or organization that sets its own \u201crules.\u201d Here are three examples: <\/p>\n\n\n\n