Another good find by Neil Mather for me to read a few times more. A first reaction I have is that in my mind p2p networks weren’t primarily about evading surveillance, evading copyright, or maintaining anonymity, but one of netwerk-resilience and not having someone with power over the ‘off-switch’ for the entire network. These days surveillance and anonymity are more important, and should gain more attention in the design stage.
I find it slightly odd that the dark web and e.g. TOR aren’t mentioned in any meaningful way in the article.
Another element I find odd is how the author talks about extremists using federated tools “Can or should a federated network accept ideologies that are antithetical to its organic politics? Regardless of the answer, it is alarming that the community and its protocol leadership could both be motivated by a distrust of centralised social media, and be blindsided by a situation that was inevitable given the common ground found between ideologies that had been forced from popular platforms one way or another.”
It ignores that with going the federated route extremists loose two things they enjoyed on centralised platforms: amplification and being linked to the mainstream. In a federated setting I with my personal instance, and any other instance decides themselves whom to federate with or not. There’s nothing for ‘a federated network to accept’, each instance does their own acceptance. There’s no algorithmic rage-engine to amplify the extreme. There’s no standpoint for ‘the federated network’ to take, just nodes doing their own thing. Power at the edges.
Also I think that some of the vulnerabilities and attack surfaces listed (Napster, Pirate Bay) build on the single aspect in that context that still had a centralised nature. That still held some power in a center.
Otherwise good read, with good points made that I want to revisit and think through more.