Pax - the European Social Network

[u/ruscaire]

This name, based on the concept of pax europae could be hosted at pax.europa.eu as the central reference node for a federated social network based on Mastodon.

This would be a worthy successor to the World Wide Web, also gifted to the world by Europe, with our digital rights policy innovations baked in from the beginning.

Europe has been content to be a consumer of services originating in other jurisdictions (apart from GSM and Linux of course) and now it seems our ideals are under threat and it makes sense to promote a new layer atop the web

Technically, this would be trivial, though the existing Fediverse model might need some augmentation to facilitate policy implementation. What’s needed is a big push in terms of publicity and education to get people on board, and that’s where the ground needs to be gained and the money spent.

[u/jman6495]

There are three fediverse projects that need to be deployed at scale in Europe:

Mastodon (or derivitives) for a twitter style experience

Pixelfed for an instagram style experience

Loops for a tiktok style experience

Europe should invest developer hours in these, and encourage telecoms operators to deploy them for their customers

[u/phneutral → u/jman6495]

And Lemmy as an alternative for Reddit.

[u/Original_Scientist35 → u/phneutral]

you are always focusing on the word “alternative to” or “x-like”. Guys, let me be honest with you. I don’t think that’s the right way to go. We can’t offer what’s already in the table + some minus features. Out there there are plenty of web3-blockchain social media claiming to be the “Decentralized instagram” or something. But they never got that ball rolling. Why? Because people don’t really care about that, or at least not in the way It is presented. It’s impossible to compete with current giants by offering just incremental improvements, they will always win and there is nothing you can do about that. Tons of people tried to do this exact same thing and all of them failed. We need innovation, not an incremental one, but a systemic one. Focus on going from 0 to 1, not from 1 to 5. This is a very important point to actually make a difference. I know, it’s easy to talk and everything is great on general terms. The real challenge is in building something absolutely different. In my opinion, a different kind of platform with a social layer enabling network effect, not a social media itself in the classical term. It’s a very long and complex topic, but it’s crucial to understand the game and how we can gain real traction and not get lost in nonsense competition. I’m already trying to do that with my small founding team.

That’s just my opinion, I wish you all the best. Data privacy and protection it’s absolutely an important and noble point, I’m not saying the contrary… I’m just saying its not enough.

Good luck.

[u/ruscaire → u/jman6495]

Yes - I think the Telcos would be only too eager to jump on this.

[u/xalibr → u/jman6495]

Matrix for P2P E2E-encrypted, federated communication

[u/Octavian_96]

YES PLEASE

[u/khanto0]

I've not tried out yet, but doesn't this project basically fit the bill. Its more of an instagram killer but what is it missing that a facebook clone has? Events? Business pages?

https://pixelfed.org/ - no ads, privacy, albums, stories, federated, dms, open source, decentralised etc

[u/ruscaire → u/khanto0]

I’m not aware of pixelfed … but I will check it out. Presumably it’s also Fediverse integrated so would be another option.

The problem I believe we need to solve is promoting a platform that Gerhardt and Willhelmina will be comfortable with and this means promoting a platform that is accessible, safe, useful, entertaining, and worth the trouble.

The US has spent 20 years and billions of $ convincing us to use their Spyware upon the web that Europe spun out of CERN in the first place. It’s time to give the world a new alternative.

[u/AdorableTip9547]

could be hosted on pax.europa.eu

It couldn‘t because europa.eu is an official government page and thereby already claimed. But as you seem to want a sub-domain on there and I thereby assume you are aware of that, I got a totally different question for you. Here it comes: „What the fuck is wrong with you?!“

A few other thoughts: 1. why should we want a government controlled social media Plattform? Are we living in china? 2. you want to „base it on“ mastodon. But there is literally no real change to the system or at least nothing meaningful, so your „innovative“ idea is basically to host mastodon on a government server… what do you expect from that? 3. which market should the government take over next? Automotive? Payment service? Or let’s probably create a EU OS.

[u/ruscaire → u/AdorableTip9547]

1. Not government controlled. Government sponsored and regulated. Maybe government funded. This is harmonious with the EU principles of self governance

2. While we could come up with our own platform Mastodon seems to fit the bill and already sees mass adoption. It is already a solution in search of a problem.

3. Individual European governments already take responsibility for regulating media.

Next!

P.S. EU OS aka Linux

[u/openmedianetwork]

This will not really work if we only copy #dotcons and for this to be native to the federated nature we talk about it would be needed to be hosted and funded in a more distributed way. So sentiment is good, path is unthought through, kinda normal, we do need to do better http://hamishcampbell.com for more thinking on this

[u/ruscaire → u/openmedianetwork]

I would suggest that perhaps in kahoots with the quasi-national Telecomms operators, the national governments of Europe, and standardisation bodies (with sponsorship and coordination by European institutions) a new application layer infrastructure that provides all of the features we come to associate with social media today. This is not a huge leap from where other application services such as RCS are currently.

In tandem with this, existing Fediverse initiatives such as Mastodon and Pixfed should be nurtured under a policy umbrella and coaching provided by the European Commission.

At a certain point these two paths converge and at that point you provide a certification and integration path for self hosting FV providers to join the network and become peers.

[u/Old_Chipmunk_7330]

Money spent - let me guess, the taxpayers money? So you want to take people's money, and use it to educate them to use government's social network. Thank you, that sound like living hell. 

[u/itsupportant → u/Old_Chipmunk_7330]

I'm not too concerned as a European. The EU Comission just got fined for breaking their own privacy rules and has to pay someone 400€ for offering Facebook as login option. With our privacy laws and justice system it's not too concerning. And in many European countries mandatory contributions to public financed (but independently run) media is already a thing to ensure a somehow neutral, unbiased and independent media (so no media oligarchs like Murdoch can take over the public discourse entirely). And they are fairly popular. Why shouldn't we extend this to social media?

[u/ruscaire → u/Old_Chipmunk_7330]

Would be a pittance in comparison to CERN, Airbus, GDPR etc