Europe

Look, we can only use an open source social network if a deranged billionaire built it. /s

that sounds optomistic, but I hope you're right.

No wonder, just look who the author is:

Sebastian Vogelsang is Developer of Flashes, a photo- and video-sharing app built on the AT Protocol.

AT is the blue sky protocol.

Friendica?

Have you tried mastodon? Pleroma? Misskey? Akkoma? None of them have pointlessly complicated nonsense like "NFC" or whatever but all of them let you share things with a small group of friends and have control over who can see whatever you post. There are people using fedi like that. You may find it difficult to find them, for obvious reasons. But if you and your friends want to start doing it there's nothing stopping you.

https://movim.eu/ works well for that and can also be used as a WhatsApp replacement (xmpp based). Obviously also made in the EU.

People i haven’t met should not be able to see anything I post, even if we share friends. I’d make it so you’d have to connect with NFC or something before they could see your stuff.

Sounds like you want an E2E encrypted group chat rather than social media.

What you mean by "connect with NFC"? Like meet in person to connect?

Fuck the "average Joe"... i was there when the internet as a whole turned to shit because it was flooded with "average Joes", hell... i even visited the smoldering ruins of the Usenet after the dreadful hordes of "average Joes" have finished plundering it. The Fediverse doesn't need to grow too large, let it stay a bit under the radar... its better this way.

Look at the Fediverse, which is nice, but about as complex for an average Joe as a fusion reactor.

I know that this is repeated over and over, but I really do not see it. Go to join-mastodon.org. Pick a server, it really doesn't matter that much for starters. Start tooting. You'll notice that usernames work like mailadresses, so you can have jon@server1.com and jon@server2.com, but you know how that works from your Mailadress.

Go join-lemmy.org. Pick a server, maybe the one local to you? Start posting. You'll notice that there might be several communities with similar names, but you know that from Reddit where there are also similar communities or from your local town where there might also be two soccer clubs or so.

Go to Instagram.com. Register. Get instantly blocked for suspicious activity unless you provide more data. WTF are "reels"? WTF is "Threads"? Those words do not mean anything! What is a "story"? Wasn't there something that you could post pictures?

The fediverse might have its complexities, but lets be honest: If you can read, you can manage. And if you can't read, you shouldn't be on a text-based social media like Mastodon or Lemmy.

I honestly believe the Fediverse is a good place, exactly because it's slightly less accessible than mainstream stuff. It keeps the absolute scum of the earth out. The internet turned to shit once everyone all of a sudden could access it. It was a fun place to be when you actually had to know your way around a computer. Now the internet essentially is an app on the fucking phone and even the dumbest mouth breather can access it.

FOSS can have a single design philosophy. It just needs enough funding and structure. Just look at the Eclipse Foundation (Java).

If we would have a Fediverse Foundation (perhaps with EU backing) that distributes funds to different Fediverse related organisations and has a board for standardisation we could have a very different outcome.

Remember that we used to have social media's in specific countries, but at least the one I know (Hyves) got bought out by the Americans iirc (or the Chinese)

Back in the late 1990s internet providers gave you an email address and some web space to host your own page.

Sounds interesting!

Yes please, setting up your own web page is a nightmare these days that at least seems insanely daunting.

I mean, I don't like Mastodon much, but I never used Twitter so probably I just don't get it.

Lemmy seems fine to me. I honestly don't need improvements. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

man I sure wonder what we're on right now

Why not? We are currently seeing versions of Facebook or Instagram that are totally warped from what they were back in the day. Where you look at addicting stuff created by professional influencers and ads.

But remember how the glory days of Facebook were: You and your friends and their friends were there and everybody posted things from their lives. So you could see that your friend Peter was on vacation in Spain. That your cousin got a new puppy. What someone from your old school was doing. People used it for dating and to connect with each others. That guy in your class was also into mountainbiking? Perfect to connect. Local clubs could post about their concerts and you would see it. And you might even see that the guy from work was in a band playing there. It was a great thing, which is now totally ruined by algorithmic feeds, ads, MAGA cultural wars, middle east wars and everything else.

Dial-up BBS's or GTFO

With baguettes and french kisses!

Here’s an unpopular opinion: This won’t happen because the policymakers don’t want it to happen.

Which is irrelevant since they cannot ban someone to build one. If you build a social media there is nothing the policy maker can do to stop you. Granted, you need to follow a series of rules, but that's it. And they cannot tighten the rule too much, since they apply to everyone.

It’s fundamentally opposed to what they want. And I’m not spinning some conspiracy tale here. Listen…

You are right but for the wrong reason. Currently (and sometimes foolishly) EU don't want to have one big social media like Facebook because in their view it hurts the competition and ultimately it damage the users.

To a copyright person, this would mean functioning DRM. It means complete control over what happens to their content, regardless of where and how it is stored. They have the law on their side and the policymakers. Mind that the media is part of the copyright industry and they have outsize influence over public opinion. As far as they are concerned, the problem with Big Tech is that they are not paid enough for their rights.

I would consider that the perfect solution.
I mean, media companies get absolute control over their content by default (given the protocol) ? Cool that means that also the user get absolute control over his content by default given the protocol. So, maybe we would not be able anymore to pirate a movie but on the other hand a new OpenAi would not be able to freely train their model on our contents and make money with it. (and as benefit, this would set the long discussion about how many money media companies loses to piracy)

The ideal European internet is one that has DRM built-in from the bottom so that everyone can exercise their legal rights under copyright law, the GDPR, the data act, and possibly others.

I don't see this as a bad thing. I decide what to publish on a social media and I would like to be able to stop someone from stealing it.

I think you confuse "published" with "public domain"

A freewheeling federated network is legally problematic. Even insofar that it is legal, it is fundamentally opposed to what policymakers and much of the public want. Free speech is an American value and emphatically not European.

No, it is not legally problematic, unless you consider legally problematic to not be able to steal something I published and deal as yours.

What could be legally problematic is to track the **responsability **of something published (that could be illegal somewhere) because you should unhinging the mindset that the platform must do something, which is accepted everywere else, instead of holding the **author **responsible for what **he **publish.