Tom Coates (@tomcoates@me.dm)

Tom Coates

Tom CoatesEvery day that more horrors emerge out of the Trump administration remember Zuckerberg, Bezos, Musk, Pichai, Cook and all the other oligarchs who stood behind him and who donated to his party.

Tom CoatesHonestly it’s this Department of External Revenue thing that weirds me out the most. He thinks he’s going to get paid by foreign countries? Like… how? Tariffs are paid by importers in the US. Foreign governments are most likely to just respond in kind with similar tariffs.

Tom Coates

Tom CoatesIn the meantime, please try and remember at least when Trump declares he will save us all from Democrat overreach that banning TikTok was literally his idea <a href="https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no">https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-addressing-threat-posed-tiktok/</a>

Tom CoatesMonopolistic platforms are the problem. Open protocols and decentralized clients are the answer. Not an uncomplicated answer. Not necessarily an easy answer. But in this respect and many more the only serious answer.

Tom CoatesThe big lesson here is that centralization and very large platform power is the problem, as can be seen in the US right now with Elon’s takeover of Twitter, TikTok’s shutdown and Zuckerberg’s lurch to the right.

Tom CoatesAgain, though, these are arguments for decentralized social media products. If TikTok ran on the protocols that lie behind Mastodon or BlueSky, then a foreign-owned potentially problematic app could be shut down without everyone’s creativity and work disappearing. You could use another app.

Tom CoatesI feel like I can hold in my head two things concurrently (a) that a social media company that a hundred million Americans use that is heavily influenced by a hostile foreign government is a bad thing and (b) that I absolutely love TikTok and will hugely miss it.

Tom CoatesDavid Lynch was one of those creative people whose new work never got stale or felt old. It never felt like his work wasn’t relevant. What a loss. <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/david-lynch-blue-velvet-mulholland-drive-1236110711/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no">https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/david-lynch-blue-velvet-mulholland-drive-1236110711/</a>

Tom Coates

Tom CoatesIt’s a conversation about how we find a way for all human beings to be able to take part in a great public conversation, and take joy and create and organize and *feel safe while doing so*. In my opinion, everything else is just a means to an end and if we lose sight of that we are lost.

Tom CoatesHere’s what I want you to remember though. This is not a fundamentally a conversation about technology, or protocols, or clients, or business models, or regulation - although all of those things will have a huge part in how these ideas play out.

Tom CoatesThis vision of the world - where we’re not all jammed into one or other massive social network at the mercy of a billionaire who either cannot understand our lives or one who actively wants to destroy them but where we can all operate in one space, owned by no one or everyone, with people able to make meaningful choices about how much of it they want to be exposed to - is what I’m working for and believe in.

Tom CoatesAnd if we get that - if we get a range of interoperable providers of quality and scale offering different values and moderation strategies - then we’ve created a space where every day people get to choose if they want to be in a space full of Nazis or if they want to be in a space that celebrates the diversity of human beings in all their insane and beautiful difference. I know which one I’m going to choose:

Tom CoatesAnd that’s why we need diversity in providers. We need providers who will stand up for LGBTQA+ rights, and will stand up for women’s right not to experience daily sexism and harassment. We need providers who will help young people and ban block Nazis and white supremacists and Islamophobes and anti-Semites.

Tom CoatesA truly public space, not owned by any one company, will have awful people in it, just like the world around us has a lot of truly awful people in it right now. Some of them, in my opinion, are just about to take over the United States. I don’t like them. I don’t want to hear their opinions on me or the people I love. I don’t want to be attacked by them on a daily basis. But an open, free public space will include them too.

Tom CoatesBut the goal is open, free public spaces with a space for everyone, where you’re free to communicate with whoever you like and only the people you want.

Tom CoatesIt stops one player having absolute control over our public spaces. It stops one player’s rules becoming the only choice for billions of people. It stops people confusing one provider’s rules for the law. Is it perfect? No. There’s a ton of work to do to get to that point, to provide an experience that is good enough for people to use, while also providing all of the choice and freedom and safety that we need for our public spaces.

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