Distributed social network

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A distributed social network or federated social network is an Internet social networking service that is decentralized and distributed across distinct service providers (similar to email, but for social networks), such as the Fediverse or the IndieWeb. It consists of multiple social websites, where users of each site communicate with users of any of the involved sites. From a societal perspective, one may compare this concept to that of social media being a public utility.

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A social website participating in a distributed social network is interoperable with the other sites involved and is in federation with them. Communication among the social websites is technically conducted over social networking protocols. Software used for distributed social networking is generally portable so it is easily adopted on various website platforms. Distributed social networks contrast with social network aggregation services, which are used to manage accounts and activities across multiple discrete social networks.

A few social networking service providers have used the term more broadly to describe provider-specific services that are distributable across different websites, typically through added widgets or plug-ins. Through the add-ons, the social network functionality is implemented on users' websites.

Differences between distributed and federated networks

Both kind of networks are decentralized. However, distribution goes further than federation. A federated network has multiple centers, whereas a distributed network has no center at all. [1]

Comparison of software and protocols

Distributed social network projects generally develop software, protocols, or both. The software is generally free and open source, and the protocols are generally open and free.

Open standards such as OAuth authorization, OpenID authentication, OStatus federation, ActivityPub federation protocol, Nostr, XRD metadata discovery, the Portable Contacts protocol, the Wave Federation Protocol, the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) (aka Jabber), OpenSocial widget APIs, microformats like XFN and hCard, and Atom web feeds—increasingly referred to together as the Open Stack—are often cited as enabling technologies for distributed social networking. [2]

History

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), a U.S. legal defense organization and advocacy group for civil liberties on the Internet, endorses the distributed social network model as one "that can plausibly return control and choice to the hands of the Internet user" and allow persons living under restrictive regimes to "conduct activism on social networking sites while also having a choice of services and providers that may be better equipped to protect their security and anonymity". [3]

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C), the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web, launched a new Social Activity in July 2014 to develop standards for social web application interoperability. [4]

In 2013, the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA) released a candidate version of the Social Network Web enabler (SNeW) that was approved in 2016. Its specification is based mainly on OStatus and OpenSocial specifications and designed to meet GDPR recommendations. It is a tentative of the telco industry to establish a operated-led federation of social network services. [5]

See also

Related Research Articles

OMA SpecWorks, previously the Open Mobile Alliance (OMA), is a standards organization which develops open, international technical standards for the mobile phone industry. It is a nonprofit Non-governmental organization (NGO), not a formal government-sponsored standards organization as is the International Telecommunication Union (ITU): a forum for industry stakeholders to agree on common specifications for products and services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mobile web</span> Mobile browser-based World Wide Web services

The mobile web comprises mobile browser-based World Wide Web services accessed from handheld mobile devices, such as smartphones or feature phones, through a mobile or other wireless network.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network. A WAP browser is a web browser for mobile devices such as mobile phones that use the protocol. Introduced in 1999, WAP achieved some popularity in the early 2000s, but by the 2010s it had been largely superseded by more modern standards. Almost all modern handset internet browsers now fully support HTML, so they do not need to use WAP markup for web page compatibility, and therefore, most are no longer able to render and display pages written in WML, WAP's markup language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OpenSocial</span> Public specification aimed at social networking applications

OpenSocial is a public specification that defines a component hosting environment (container) and a set of common application programming interfaces (APIs) for web applications. Initially, it was designed for social network applications. It was developed by Google along with MySpace and several other social networks. Recently, it has been adopted as a general use runtime environment for allowing untrusted and partially trusted components from third parties to run in an existing web application. The OpenSocial Foundation moved to integrate or support numerous other Open Web technologies. This includes OAuth and OAuth 2.0, Activity Streams, and Portable Contacts, among others.

identi.ca Open source social networking and micro-blogging service

identi.ca was a free and open-source social networking and blogging service based on the pump.io software, using the Activity Streams protocol. Identi.ca stopped accepting new registrations in 2013, but continues to operate alongside several other pump.io-based hosts provided by E14N which continue to accept new registrations.

A software widget is a relatively simple and easy-to-use software application or component made for one or more different software platforms.

A federation is a group of computing or network providers agreeing upon standards of operation in a collective fashion.

The Open Collaboration Services (OCS) is an open and vendor-independent REST-based API for integration of web communities and web-based services into desktop and mobile applications. It allows the exchange of relevant data from a social network between the site and clients such as other websites and applications or widgets running locally on the user's machine or mobile device.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">OStatus</span> Open microblogging protocol

OStatus is an open standard for federated microblogging, allowing users on one website to send and receive status updates with users on another website. The standard describes how a suite of open protocols, including Atom, Activity Streams, WebSub, Salmon, and WebFinger, can be used together, which enables different microblogging server implementations to route status updates between their users back-and-forth, in near real-time.

WebID is a method for internet services and members to know who they are communicating with. The WebID specifications define a set of editor's drafts to prepare the process of standardization for identity, identification and authentication on HTTP-based networks. WebID-based protocols offer a new way to log into internet services. Instead of using a password, for example, the member refers to another web address which can vouch for it. WebID is not a specific service or product.

Distributed social network projects generally develop software, protocols, or both.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pump.io</span> General purpose activity streams engine

Pump.io was a general-purpose activity streams engine that can be used as a federated social networking protocol which "does most of what people really want from a social network". Started by Evan Prodromou, it is a follow-up to StatusNet; Identi.ca, which was the largest StatusNet service, switched to pump.io in June 2013.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Matrix (protocol)</span> Networking protocol for real-time communication and data synchronization

Matrix is an open standard and communication protocol for real-time communication. It aims to make real-time communication work seamlessly between different service providers, in the way that standard Simple Mail Transfer Protocol email currently does for store-and-forward email service, by allowing users with accounts at one communications service provider to communicate with users of a different service provider via online chat, voice over IP, and videotelephony. It therefore serves a similar purpose to protocols like XMPP, but is not based on any existing communication protocol.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PeerTube</span> Decentralised video hosting network

PeerTube is a free and open-source, decentralized, ActivityPub federated video platform powered by WebTorrent, that uses peer-to-peer technology to reduce load on individual servers when viewing videos.

SwellRT was a free and open-source backend-as-a-service and API focused to ease development of apps featuring real-time collaboration. It supported the building of mobile and web apps, and aims to facilitate interoperability and federation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mastodon (social network)</span> Self-hosted social network software

Mastodon is a free and open-source software for running self-hosted social networking services. It has microblogging features similar to Twitter, which are offered by a large number of independently run nodes, known as instances or servers, each with its own code of conduct, terms of service, privacy policy, privacy options, and content moderation policies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fediverse</span> Network of federated social media servers

The fediverse is an ensemble of social networks which can communicate with each other, while remaining independent platforms. Users on different social networks and websites can send and receive updates from others across the network.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ActivityPub</span> Decentralized social networking protocol

ActivityPub is an open, decentralized social networking protocol based on Pump.io's ActivityPump protocol. It provides a client/server API for creating, updating, and deleting content, as well as a federated server-to-server API for delivering notifications and content.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pixelfed</span> Open source photo-sharing platform newcomer

Pixelfed is a free and open-source image sharing social network service. It is decentralized, therefore user data is not stored on a central server, unlike other platforms. Pixelfed uses the ActivityPub protocol which allows users to interact with other social networks within the protocol, such as Mastodon, PeerTube, and Friendica. Using this protocol makes Pixelfed a part of the Fediverse. The network is made up of several independent sites that communicate with one another, which is roughly comparable to e-mail providers. The parties involved do not all have to be registered with the same provider, but can still communicate with each other. Thus, users are able to sign up on any server and follow others on the other instances.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bluesky (social network)</span> Social media network

Bluesky, also known as Bluesky Social, is a microblogging social platform and a public benefit corporation based in the United States. Jay Graber serves as the company's CEO, while Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey and XMPP creator Jeremie Miller sit on its board of directors.

References

  1. ↑ "Unlike Us | Beyond distributed and decentralized: what is a federated network?". networkcultures.org. Retrieved 2022-03-27.
  2. ↑ Recordon, David (2008-10-09). ""Blowing Up" Social Networks by Going Open". p. 27. Retrieved 5 January 2009.
  3. ↑ Richard Esguerra (March 21, 2012). "An Introduction to the Federated Social Network". Electronic Frontier Foundation Deeplinks Blog.
  4. ↑ "W3C Launches Push for Social Web Application Interoperability". World Wide Web Consortium. 21 July 2014.
  5. ↑ "OMA Social Network Web (SNeW) v1.0". Open Mobile Alliance. 13 August 2013.

Further reading

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