The Great Social Media Decentralization

Renée DiResta, "Invisible Rulers" author, on why "user exodus to smaller platforms has become increasingly common... What ultimately splintered social media wasn’t a killer app or the Federal Trade Commission — it was content moderation. Partisan users clashed with “referees”; ... Principles like “freedom of speech, not freedom of reach” ... attempted to articulate a middle ground... nuanced efforts were reframed as unreasonable suppression by ideologues... so... users departed for alternatives... where the referees were lax (Truth Social), nearly nonexistent (Telegram) or self-appointed (Mastodon). Much of this fracturing occurred along political lines...it’s frequently ideological alignment that seduces users".

But underneath the surface the technology is evolving: decentralised, protocol-based social media. Is this "movement away from centralized trust and safety teams... ideal?... What happens when sprawling online communities ... fracture into smaller, politically homogenous self-governing communities? And what does this mean for social cohesion and consensus"?

DiResta then runs through the history:

• "platform governance policies were largely crafted by American lawyers with First Amendment pedigrees", and the platforms "hewed to the spirit of American law" while moderating the worst content for sound business reasons
• as set out above, moderation "became flashpoints for discontent... underscored the tensions between enforcing community standards and protecting free expression"
• "People stayed, even as their dissatisfaction simmered", chafing under the "timeless choice: exit versus voice". They opted for the latter and to "work the refs", as they were trapped "with few realistic alternatives" (cf eXit Strategy)
• "as disagreement became a partisan sport, platforms found themselves refereeing an escalating culture war"

TrumpenMusk

• and then Trump: "The referees ... had become the opposition. " This triggered alternatives for the far right: Parler, Gettr and Trump's own Truth Social, "borne​ of grievances surrounding the 2020 election and the January 6 riots". They remained small as "there were few libs around to own... few bystanders to recruit"
• and then Musk bought Twitter "and anointed himself as primary referee", inviting everyone back including neo-Nazis.
• cue left exodus to Mastodon and then Bluesky
• and then Threads, which "marketed itself as “sanely run,”... didn’t shield Threads from ref-working dynamics"
• "By November 2024, however, it was Bluesky’s growth that was accelerating... spurred not so much by features but by ideological dissatisfaction and the allure of a platform where governance seemed to align more closely with progressive norms But does it? "

New Governance, New Challenges

So, back to these new entrants' tech: "decentralized protocols ... enable user-controlled servers and devolve moderation (and in some cases, curation) to that community level... [this] restructures online governance itself... there are no refs to work".

Diresta then explains the commonalities and differences between ActivityPub and ATproto, both creating different forms of "digital federalism, where local governance aligns with specific community norms, yet remains loosely connected to a broader whole".