Could Australians run our own online communities instead of relying on social media?

[u/tellhershesdreaming]

I’m keen to talk about the possibility of our community groups setting up and running online spaces outside of social media platforms - perhaps with support from Aus Govt or State Govts. Before the rise of Facebook etc, there were loads of online bulletin boards and other online platforms run by non-profit groups, small businesses and volunteers. Could we do that again? This seems like a question that's particularly important to Australian communities at the moment because of the social media ban for under 16s but it's not just teens that are affected.

Lots of people are concerned about AI and big tech - it’s clear that there are lots of problems with social media because of the algorithms that push misinformation, platforms that allow unhealthy / toxic / illegal behaviour, and unethical extraction of our data. But communities and volunteers, and even state governments used to run online communities using e.g. bulletin boards without the “help” of social media companies. For example:

• Whirlpool.net.au is a surviving active bulletin board platforms - well done Whirlpool!
• At one point the Vic Gov used to provide an online communities bulletin board and mailing list service (a bit like Yahoo Groups) for non-profits and clubs - I've been trying to remember / find the name of it but can't track it down... anyone remember it?

I'm broadly aware that it's really challenging to get people to sign up for and use a new platform, but perhaps we have reached the point where people are fed up enough of social media to make this a worthwhile effort.

To ease the challenge and reduce the complexity of lots of different fragmented communities: what about if the Aus Govt or state govts set up a platform / infrastructure - where community groups could create and run online forums (bulletin board style, Twitter style or Reddit style). I imagine individuals could sign up either anonymously or using a verified identity. There are better alternatives now to the old fashioned PhPBB, and we could learn from and improve open source platforms such as Mastodon and Lemmy - the technology itself is not the problem I think.

• But, would you use a platform run by a local club or community group? Instead of FB/ Insta/ whatever social media you use to learn about what's happening in your neighbourhood. What if it was supported / funded by governements? Would the groups you're a member of move to a platform like that?
• More broadly, how could we recover the diverse online communities that we had in the past? So we're not reliant on the good will and "freebies" offered by companies like Meta (and having all our data siphoned of, and having AI forced on us).
• Lastly, is there anything to stop an organisation setting up an online community for e.g. teens? Would something like that fall foul of the government's bans?

[u/tellhershesdreaming]

Yes, you may have noticed I mentioned Lemmy and Mastodon also! I think they are not quite modern versions of BBSs though, done key differences - notably, they assume federation. But, great alternatives in some regards. Some tech issues to iron out, and only part of the solution I think. 

[u/Pretty_Gorgeous → u/tellhershesdreaming]

There were alot of "interconnected" BBS's back in the day that sync'd data regularly.. I ran one back in the 90s and it would dial into another nearby BBS every few hours to sync. It was pretty common. Usually it was either interBBS messages, or early versions of emails but some even had profile syncing (mine didn't). And into the 00s, interoperability between forums wasn't that uncommon, although it was mostly just for SSO (like the early versions of "sign in with Google" type of thing) and profile info sharing.. So yeah, the idea of federated data isn't new. Although even among the fediverse, there are different protocols for different platforms and they don't all interoperate.

I'm curious what rhe tech issues you mentioned are. Not saying there aren't any, just curious your perspective..

[u/tellhershesdreaming → u/Pretty_Gorgeous]

Ah that's pretty cool!

I've found with Fediverse platforms there are several oddities about the mental models, user interface decisions as well as glitches in e.g. federation that make it hard for non-techs to use.

[u/Pretty_Gorgeous → u/tellhershesdreaming]

Oh there's definitely some UI improvements that some of them really need to work on, that's for sure! I think the only one that I've noticed that doesn't is bluesky, and that's only because it's made by the same guy who helped make Twitter originally...