Facebook has spent the last two years under fire, most recently for the revelations that Cambridge Analytica attempted to use 50 million Facebook profiles to psychologically manipulate Americans. But there’s also fake news, its potentially invasive facial recognition features, and targeted ads that seem to know where you are at every waking moment. It’s left some asking if it’s possible to build a better Facebook.
The answer is “Yes, it is.” It’s even, arguably, easy. But there are a few drawbacks.
What we’re specifically describing here is a distributed social network. Probably the most visible of these is the Twitter alternative Mastodon and the Facebook alternative Diaspora, but the basic principle is the same. You start a private server, which can be anything from an old desktop capable of running the software to a virtual server you rent from a provider, install the social network you want to use, and start handing out names and passwords. You can connect, or not, with other servers as you choose. It requires some technical know-how but with a little bit of work you can probably get this up and running in a weekend.
This is technology that’s been around for decades and is used to run everything from video games to workspaces. If you run Slack at work, you use this setup. And it can feel, in many instances, much like a standard social media interface. In theory, at least, if you’re part of a Diaspora “pod,” their nickname for a server, then you can be found and friended by anybody who’s a member of another pod.
That said, there are a few practical trade-offs to starting a network that doesn’t own centralized servers. First, there aren’t any apps. You can just use your mobile browser, of course, but people like apps, and that may be something of a hard sell. Secondly, because it’s distributed, and has to be run on somebody’s server, that makes you reliant on that server. So if there’s a big argument between family, or a lightning strike, the server will be down unless a backup is set to go, or unless you can set up a virtual server. Third, well, somebody has to pay for this and it’s better to hash that out now rather than later. Fourth, your network is only as secure as the software and server. And finally, the more people you want on your server, the more powerful it has to be and the more processing power it needs to run. Meaning that somebody will have to make decisions about who stays and who goes if things get really ugly.
Still, if you hate Facebook, and only use it to interact with a small subset of people, it’s worth asking them if they want to just jump ship and go to a private social media island. Hopefully a place far off the digital map, where there’s no Candy Crush.