From digital monarchies to decentralized republics: Social media protocols are political

Yesterday, I got to present at a fascinating gathering hosted by Nos, where we explored the current state and future potential of social media platforms.

My presentation (slides) focused on the exploitation of current platforms by autocrats and the promising solutions offered by decentralized protocols.

The conversations made me wonder: what if we viewed social media platforms as digital bodies politic, with their underlying structures representing different forms of governance?

The attached image illustrates this concept, portraying a spectrum from "The Absolute Monarchy" of traditional platforms to "The Decentralized Republic" of emerging protocols. It's a simplified model, but it offers a possible framework for understanding the evolving landscape of social media.

Traditional platforms, represented by giants like Facebook and TikTok, operate much like absolute monarchies. They wield centralized power, often with opaque moderation policies and limited user autonomy.

In contrast, the Fediverse introduces a model akin to federated city-states, offering users more freedom to migrate between interconnected instances for the technically-literate few.

Further along the spectrum, we see the emergence of protocols like AT Protocol (powering Bluesky) and Nostr. These represent more advanced forms of digital republics, promising increased user sovereignty, data ownership, and decentralized governance.

A lot more work needs to be done, but the opportunities are there.