互联网与文化knightcolumbia.org
协议而非平台：一种技术性的言论自由路径（2019）
Protocols, Not Platforms: A Technological Approach to Free Speech (2019)
2019 — 2022，它一次次回到首页
黑点是上首页（≥ 50 分）的那次投稿，空心点是没冲上去的投稿，点越大分数越高。
导读
这是 Mike Masnick 2019 年发表的著名文章《协议，而非平台》：主张用开放协议替代中心化社交平台来解决言论自由问题——回到早期互联网的思路，让任何人都能基于协议构建兼容的界面，把内容审核交给协议层和边缘，而非少数巨头单方面决定。文章多次登上 HN 首页，成为讨论去中心化社交网络的经典参考。
为什么经久不衰：它提出的技术性框架至今仍是 Mastodon、ActivityPub、Bluesky 等去中心化社交浪潮的核心论点，每次平台内容治理争议爆发都会被重新引用。
HN 评论精选
协议不是瓶颈，运维成本和人性才是——人们不愿自建服务器，所以去中心化难以落地。
讨论协议、倡导协议是个热门话题，但从未真正取得进展。真正的问题是资金，以及让人们去做他们不愿做的事。如果 HN 上满是去中心化的拥护者，为什么我们都在这里，而不是去跑 USENET 节点？我们大多会配 git、会架 web 服务器，为什么还都用 GitHub 而不是自建 Gitlab？因为“自由开放协议”从来不是真正的问题——我们只是不想自己运维这些服务。
jasode查看英文原文
>a workable plan that enables more free speech, [...] That approach: build protocols, not platforms. To be clear, this is an approach that would bring us back to the way the internet used to be. The early internet involved many different protocols—instructions and standards that anyone could then use to build a compatible interface. As I've commented before[1][2], discussing protocols and advocating for them is a popular topic but it does not make progress. The real issue is funding and trying to make humans do what they don't want to do. If HN is overrepresented by vanguards of decentralization and free speech, why are a lot of us here on HN instead of running USENET nodes and posting to a newsgroup such as "comp.programming.hackernews" to avoid being moderated by dang? If most of HN knows how to set up git and stand up a web server, why do most of use Github instead of running Gitlab on a home pc/laptop/RaspberryPi or rent a Digital Ocean vps? It's because "free & open protocols" weren't really the issue! A lot of us don't want to run a USENET node or manage our own git server to share code. [1] the so-called "open" internet of free protocols: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20231960 [2] free & royalty free protocol like Signal still doesn't solve the "who pays for running the server" problem: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20232499
呼吁平台加强内容管控是应激反应，只会让搞砸系统的巨头获得更大权力。
十到十五年前，人们看到 web 1.0 上许多优质社区和有价值的讨论，说“我们要保护言论自由”；今天人们看着 Twitter/Facebook/YouTube/Reddit 这些管理不善的污水坑，就宣称需要中心化的言论管控。这可以理解，但是高度应激和非理性的。言论管控由大科技公司自行裁量执行，主张更多管控，等于把更多权力交给当初搞砸这套系统的公司。
colllectorof查看英文原文
"After a decade or so of the general sentiment being in favor of the internet and social media as a way to enable more speech and improve the marketplace of ideas, in the last few years the view has shifted dramatically—now it seems that almost no one is happy." 10 or 15 years ago people looked at web 1.0, saw many good communities and valuable conversations and said "we need to protect free speech". Today people looks at Twitter/Facebook/YouTube/Reddit, see mismanaged cesspools and declare that we need centralized speech control. This is understandable, but highly reactionary and irrational. Speech control is facilitated by big tech at their own discretion. Advocating for more of it means you're advocating for giving more power to the companies who fucked up the system in the first place.
即使有了开放协议，市场竞争仍会催生垄断客户端并走向不兼容，XMPP 就是前车之鉴。
“协议而非平台”的争论很天真：假设有人做出社交网络协议并成为事实标准，市场会涌向做出最好客户端的公司，普通用户不会去搜协议（就像没人搜 IMAP，只搜 Gmail），最流行的客户端会逐渐形成准垄断并与其他客户端不兼容——这已经在 XMPP 上发生过了。至于邮件，它其实是寡头格局，个人自建服务器很难保证送达，算不上成功案例。
patrickaljord查看英文原文
The "Protocols, Not Platforms" debate is naive and misses the point. Here is why: - Let's say someone builds a social network protocol (including messaging, photo sharing etc). - Let's be generous and say this protocol becomes so successful it turns into a de facto standards. - The market will rush to build the best client for the protocol. Facebook, Google, maybe an outsider will come up with the best client that has all the features and added goodies (magic emojis, special video effects, something new etc). - People wanting to get on the networks will never google the protocol just like people who want to get an email client do not google "imap". They just google the most popular client such as gmail. - Overtime, the most popular client will get a quasi-monopoly and will become incompatible with the rest of clients, no one will notice except for us nerds on HN. - This already happened with xmpp (facebook messenger, google hangouts and others used to be on xmpp). Now you might say, "but how about email"? Well, first of all, email is an oligopoly and it's practically impossible for individuals to set up their own servers and expect their emails to get delivered all of the time. So I wouldn't call email such a great success story. Another thing is that email is work oriented and so it makes sense to keep compatibility between businesses. Email also arrived very early and had time to spread slowly at the beginning of the internet among various small to big players, which explains why no company could take over it. For all these reasons, I do not believe in a magical protocol that would save us from big tech. The protocol in itself would not be enough. A non-profit would need to be in charge of the most popular client such as Mozilla with Firefox, but even then this did not turned out as expected although Chromium is open source so yay.
质疑协议方案的可行性：Usenet 当年同样混乱，且平台没有动机放弃用户数据带来的收入。
我反复读了文章，仍不明白协议如何解决作者开头描述的问题。首先，Usenet 某些版块（alt.* 说的就是你）和 Reddit 一样是垃圾场，其余版块则高度自我审核。其次，社交媒体的真正产品是用户本身；转向协议后，平台几乎没有机会捕获这些“产品”的隐私数据——平台为什么会放弃这条收入流？
WaitWaitWha查看英文原文
I read, and re-read the article and I am yet to understand how a protocol will help what the author describes in the first few paragraphs. (BTW very nicely walked around that hot bowl of mess!) First, Usenet was just as much of a dumpster fire as Reddit et al. in some branches (alt. I am looking at you). The rest (comp. soc. sci. etc) were heavily self moderated. Second, I am not sure the author is clear on what is the primary product of social media, as I see it. We, the users are the product. By moving to a protocol, there is little to no opportunity to capture private information about the product. (Not complexity, too big, or filter bubble.) Why would a platform give up such income stream? Am I misunderstanding what the author means by protocol here?
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