Distributed social network

A distributed social network is a social network on the Internet that operates in a decentralized manner and distributed across various providers. It consists of several websites on which users can communicate with other users who are also on such a page in the network. From a social point of view, this concept could be compared with that of “ social media as a public utility ”. In the meantime, different distributed social networks can communicate with each other thanks to openly standardized communication protocols used jointly and are thus federated . The ensemble of so interconnected distributed social networks is called Fediverse .

Functionality

Symbolic image :
In a distributed social network, individual nodes are also called “ pods ”, “ trees ” or “ nodes ”.

A social site that operates in a distributed social network is interoperable with other sites on the network and is also located in Federation with these. Communication between those same social sites is social network - protocols guaranteed. Software that supports distributed social networks is usually also portable. This makes it easy to adapt this software for a wide variety of website platforms . Social distributed networks are in contrast to social network aggregation services (English "Social network aggregation services" ), which are used to manage user accounts and their activities that are distributed over several independent social networks.

history

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) - an American organization of interest representatives for civil liberties on the Internet - advocates the model of distributed social networks and describes it as a variant "which most plausibly can put control and decisions back into the hands of Internet users", because this variant allows z. B. People living under a restrictive regime to “engage in activism on social networking sites while also maintaining the choice of service and provider, which in turn protects their own security and anonymity”.

The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) - the main international standardization organization for the World Wide Web - started a “social activity” in July 2014 to create standards for the interoperability of social web applications.

Name usage

A few social network service providers do not use the term in the actual sense, but more widely, to advertise their provider-specific services that can be distributed across different websites (usually by adding widgets or plug-ins ). These add-ons implemented the functionality of the social network in the user website.

Comparison of software and protocols

Distributed social network projects generally develop software , protocols, or both. The software is mostly open source and the protocols it uses also mostly follow open standards .

Software projects

Diaspora is a social Distributed network, which from the surface to Google+ remembers

Friendica is a social distributed network, but also a social network aggregation service

GNU Social is a free social distributed network, the surface of which is reminiscent of Twitter and which uses the StatusNet protocol originally used in pump.io.

Hubzilla is an open source modular web server-based operating system that combines technologies for publication, social media, data sharing, chat and more

Libertree is a social distributed network that tried to break new ground in 2014 with its interface and functions.

Mastodon is a social distributed network that is functionally similar to Twitter

Matrix allows end-to-end encrypted chat with a partner or in groups . The IP telephony and video telephony are also part of the functional scope

Movim is an XMPP based social distributed network

pump.io is a social Distributed network, which from the surface at Twitter recalls

Logs

Open standards such as OAuth - authorization , OpenID - authentication , oStatus -Föderation, XRD -Metadatenbefund, the Portable Contacts protocol , the Wave Federation protocol , XMPP (also known under the name of Jabber), OpenSocial - Widget - APIs , micro-formats such as XFN and hCard and Atom web feeds - often collectively referred to as Open Stack - are often cited as technologies that made distributed social networks possible in the first place.

more on the subject

Diploma Thesis from the University of Applied Sciences Dresden (HTW) about XMPP-based Federated Social Networks like buddycloud ( CC-BY )
Paper on FOAF in an Android environment by Tramp, S., Frischmuth, P., Arndt, N., Ermilov, T., and Auer, S. (2011). Weaving a distributed, semantic social network for mobile users. In Antoniou, G., editor, ESWC 2011, Part I, LNCS 6643, pages 200-214.

Web links

W3C Social Activity
- W3C Social Web Working Group
- W3C Social Interest Group
Federated Social Web Conference 2011
Comparison of protocol / software projects for distributed social networks
Video of Henry Story demonstrating FOAF in an Android environment

Individual evidence

↑ Richard Esguerra: An Introduction to the Federated Social Network . Electronic Frontier Foundation Deeplinks Blog. March 21, 2012.
^ W3C Launches Push for Social Web Application Interoperability . World Wide Web Consortium . July 21, 2014.
^ Movim . Retrieved November 10, 2015.
^ David Recordon: "Blowing Up" Social Networks by Going Open . October 9, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2009.

[1] Richard Esguerra: An Introduction to the Federated Social Network . Electronic Frontier Foundation Deeplinks Blog. March 21, 2012.

[2] W3C Launches Push for Social Web Application Interoperability . World Wide Web Consortium . July 21, 2014.

[3] Movim . Retrieved November 10, 2015.

[4] David Recordon: "Blowing Up" Social Networks by Going Open . October 9, 2008. Retrieved January 5, 2009.