Decentralized identity and decentralized social networks | Read the Tea Leaves
►https://nolanlawson.com/2018/01/02/decentralized-identity-and-decentralized-social-networks
It’s unreasonable to expect people to speak in the same voice in every social setting offline, so it’s equally unreasonable to ask them to do it online.
In the world of centralized social networks, users have responded to “real name policies” and “please use one account” by fracturing themselves into different proprietary silos. On decentralized social networks, we can continue fracturing ourselves based on instances, but these disparate identities are allowed to comingle a bit, thanks to the magic of federation.
I don’t expect everyone to use the same techniques I use, such as having a joke account and a serious account. For some people, that’s just too much of an investment in social media, and it’s too hard to juggle more than one account. But I think it’s a partial solution to the problem of context collapse, and although it’s a bit of extra effort, it can pay dividends in the form of fewer misunderstandings, fewer ambiguities, and less confusion for your readers.
