On the internet nobody knows you’re a dog.
It seems after years of trollbots and content farms, with generative algorithms we are more rapidly moving past the point where the basic assumption on the web still can be that an (anonymous) author is human until it becomes clear it’s otherwise. Improving our crap detection skills from now on means a different default:
On the internet nobody believes you’re human.
until proven otherwise.
Came across this post by Ruben Verborgh from last December, “Paradigm Shifts for the Decentralised Web“.
I find it helpful because of how it puts different aspects of wanting to decentralise the web into words. Ruben Verborgh mentions 3 simultaneous shifts:
1) End-users own their data, which is the one mostly highlighted in light of things like the Cambridge Analytica / Facebook scandal.
2) Apps become views, when they are disconnected from the data, as they are no longer the single way to see that data
3) Interfaces become queries, when data is spread out over many sources.
Those last two specifically help me think of decentralisation in different ways. Do read the whole thing.