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">Wireless Application Protocol</span> Deprecated technical standard for accessing information over a mobile wireless network

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is a now obsolete technical standard for accessing information over a mobile cellular network. Introduced in 1999, WAP allowed at launch users with compatible mobile devices to browse content such as news, weather and sports scores provided by mobile network operators, specially designed for the limited capabilities of a mobile device. The Japanese i-mode system offered another major competing wireless data standard.

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

identi.ca is 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.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">GNU social</span> Microblogging social networking service

GNU social is a free and open-source microblogging social networking service that implements the OStatus and ActivityPub standards for interoperability between installations. While offering similar functionality to social networks such as Twitter, GNU social seeks to provide the ability for open and federated communication between different microblogging communities, known as 'instances'. Both enterprises and individuals can install and control their own instances and user data.

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.

OStatus is an open standard for decentralized social networking, allowing users on one service to send and receive status updates with users from another. The standard describes how a suite of various standards, including Atom, Activity Streams, WebSub, Salmon, and WebFinger, can be used together, which enables different microblogging server implementations to communicate 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.

pump.io Decentralized social network and protocol

pump.io is a software package containing a social networking service and communication protocol that can be used as a federated social network. Started by Evan Prodromou, it is a follow-up to his previous microblogging software StatusNet and its OStatus protocol. It is designed to be more lightweight and usable for general activity streams instead of the predecessor's focus on microblogging timelines, with its goal being to achieve "most of what people want from a social network".

<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">InterPlanetary File System</span> Content-addressable, peer-to-peer hypermedia distribution protocol

The InterPlanetary File System (IPFS) is a protocol, hypermedia and file sharing peer-to-peer network for storing and sharing data in a distributed file system. By using content addressing, IPFS uniquely identifies each file in a global namespace that connects IPFS hosts, creating a resilient system of file storage and sharing.

<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.

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

Mastodon is 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 platforms

The fediverse is a collection of social networking services that can communicate with each other using a common protocol. Users of different websites can send and receive status updates, multimedia files and other data across the network. The term fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".

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

ActivityPub is a protocol and open standard for decentralized social networking. It provides a client-to-server API for creating and modifying content, as well as a federated server-to-server (S2S) protocol for delivering notifications and content to other servers. ActivityPub has become the main standard used in the fediverse, a popular network used for social networking that consists of software such as Mastodon, Pixelfed and PeerTube.

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

Pleroma is a free and open-source microblogging social networking service. Unlike popular microblogging services such as Twitter or Weibo, Pleroma can be self-hosted and operated by anyone with a server and a web domain, a combination commonly referred to as an instance. Instance administrators can manage their own code of conduct, terms of service, and content moderation policies, allowing users to have more control over the content they view as well as their experience. It was named after the religious concept of pleroma, or the totality of divine powers.

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

Pixelfed is a free and open-source image sharing social network service. The platform uses a decentralized architecture which is roughly comparable to e-mail providers, meaning user data is not stored on one central server. It uses the ActivityPub protocol, allowing users to interact with other social networks within the protocol, such as Mastodon, PeerTube, and Friendica. Pixelfed and other platforms utilizing this protocol are considered to be part of the Fediverse.

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

Bluesky is a decentralized microblogging social platform. The platform was created by Bluesky Social, a public benefit corporation based in the United States, as a proof of concept for the AT Protocol, a communication protocol for decentralized social networks. Jay Graber serves as the company's CEO and XMPP creator Jeremie Miller sits on its board of directors.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Christine Lemmer-Webber</span> Software engineer and co-editor of ActivityPub

Christine Lemmer-Webber is a software engineer, best known for her lead authorship and co-editorship of ActivityPub. She is currently the Executive Director at Spritely Institute.

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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