26 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
26 lines
1.6 KiB
Markdown
# platform independence
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one should expect any platform which achieves prominence to eventually be abused
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to the degree the power dynamics inherent to its design allow. e.g., no
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centralised platform, however well-meaning, can guarantee in perpetuity the
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protection of it's users' data and their social connections from one form of
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exploitation or another. such exploitation generally takes the form of
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psychological manipulation, transmuting the social capital of the privately
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owned "public square" into other forms of capital and, in some cases, destroying
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the communities who were responsible for the creation of that social capital in
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the first place. increasingly this exploitation is done without the platform
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owner's knowledge or consent; the simple fact that a lot of unencrypted data has
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been gathered together in one place makes the users of the platform vulnerable.
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(this problem is worsened by a lack of tooling targeting reputation and the
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deduplication of formal arguments, but that is a topic for a much later day.)
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the problem with every platform built using the traditional methods of web
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development is that the traditional methods necessarily create an information
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asymmetry that favors the platform providers and those able to compromise
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such platforms. put another way, using such platforms could be seen as opting
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in to a form of mass surveillance.
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in this author's opinion, one cannot be said to be platform independent unless
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one's ability to migrate one's identity and data and keep private communications
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private is _not_ dependent on the goodwill or competence of a platform provider.
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