Katharina Nocun: A New Kid on the Block

32C3 preroll music

Herald: I’m happy to introduce
Katharina Nocun. She is a…

applause

She’s a privacy activist and

she worked for the Federation of
German consumer organisations;

and also for the German working
group on Data Retention.

She was on the board of
the German Pirate Party

and nowadays she’s working for Campact

as a campaigner for digital rights.

Campact is an online petition
platform here in Germany.

But also she’s an economist.

And she did some research
on why it is so difficult

for decentralized social networks

to compete with Facebook.
So it’s the perfect talk

for the mission statement of this
Congress – Katharina Nocun!

applause

Katharina Nocun: Yeah, thank you very
much for this awesome introduction.

And first of all I need to excuse
myself: I catched a cold, so

just imagine that I’m shouting at
you all the time. Because I can’t.

Yeah, why did I do some research on
the topic of Facebook and Diaspora?

You know I really hate
Facebook. During my time

at the Federal consumer
organization of Germany

we sued Facebook a lot.
We also sued Google a lot.

And when I studied economics
friends of me asked me:

“Yeah, let’s found a Facebook Group
and there we can exchange exams and…

that’s so cool, that’s so awesome”
and I said: “Yeah, well, no,

I don’t have a Facebook
account and I don’t want to”.

applause

And then I asked…
I mean it worked out fine,

we opened a group on weriseup.net,

so we exchanged our exams
there. But still I asked myself

why can’t I convince more people to
join Diaspora or other networks.

And that’s why I did
this research project.

So let’s talk about gated
communities and the internet.

The internet is based at large
parts on free protocols,

so everything is okay, isn’t it?

Okay, everything is okay?

mumble and laughter from audience

Yeah, in the beginning of the internet
there were many many nodes

and they were connected to one
another as equals. And today

the internet is a giant web
which is interconnected

with more and more aspects
of all-eyes (?). But what started

as a playground for nerds and
scientists is not only today

a powerful economic driving force
but changes a lot of aspects of

how economics work, how politics
work and how public debates work.

But it also changed in
a way I really dislike.

The main topic of this Congress
is ‘Gated Communities’

and I think it’s a very
important issue to address

that above this open layer of the
Internet, above this open protocol

gated, closed islands of
gated communities emerged

and we see clear that those
are trends for concentration

in the hands of just
a few platform owners.

So what can we do about it? I think
social networks are an important benchmark

for these trends and, as an economist,
I have a clear word for what is happening

right now on many areas on the web:

it’s market failure. Because
there is no real competition

possible with Facebook. There
is no real competition possible

with other large platforms.
And that’s why this talk

will try to explain why we should
care that Facebook has become

the de facto social network provider
for large parts of the world

and how this came about.
And, most importantly,

what lessons we can draw from
certain dynamics on the market,

for market entry options for
decentralized social networks.

So, first of all, why should we care?

Some numbers:
if Facebook was a state,

it would have more inhabitants than
Europe, China or the Americas.

And every fifth human being on this planet

logs in on Facebook
at least once per month.

That’s an incredible number.
And the reason for the success

of social networks as an
idea is because it connects

to a very basic human need for us.
Because we are social creatures.

So, I think, addressing this human need,

that we are social, that we want to
exchange, to share with one another,

is an incredible, cool, powerful idea. And

social networks most importantly
add context to content.

It makes a difference if a friend of mine
shares an article about Star Wars,

how stupid the new Star Wars movie
is than some journalist just writes

an article about it. And social
networks are so important for us

because the web is filled with
information about everything.

And social networks allow us to filter
this information through social ties.

And it’s not only the place where
we can spread birthday messages,

“Happy Birthday, I thought about you
because Facebook reminded me

I should do so”.
But Facebook is also the place

where we can found groups, where we
can not only exchange maybe exams

for economics classes, but where we
can call for action and organize protest.

And, back then, when I studied in Hamburg,

there was a point where
I registered on Facebook

under a fake name.
I was called ‘Maria Musterfrau’.

And this Maria Musterfrau
founded different events

on Facebook, for demonstration
against the ACTA treaty.

ACTA, it was a treaty…

it had a lot to do with copyrights, and

also in some areas with privacy
issues. And we called for action

on the web, and 15,000 people came
to our demonstration in Hamburg.

So basically I think social networks
are a very, very powerful idea

to enhance democracy, freedom of speech.

But, unfortunately, I don’t think
that the structure of Facebook

as the de facto social network
provider of the world

is the best way to provide
this idea to the people.

So we heard a lot on TV,
on the newspapers,

about the Facebook revolution; how
the Facebook revolution would

empower democracy etc.,
and freedom of speech.

And, in fact, for generations,
media institutions such as

TV channels or newspapers were
the gatekeepers for public debates.

If you wanted to influence public debates

you needed to get past these
gatekeepers. And it is true

that the internet or social media allowed

to implement setting
a topic from bottom-up.

And that is a very powerful idea. But
this tale of the power of Facebook

as an enabler or catalyst
for freedom of speech,

I think it’s really a tale, it’s a
very simplified story. Because

the inconvenient truth
is that today, if you

want to influence public debates,
you have new gatekeepers.

And Facebook is one of the most
important gatekeepers of our time.

Take e.g. secret algorithms,
which filter information

that is revealed to us, not on the basis
which information we want to see,

but on assumed click-and-interaction
rates. Based on economic incentives,

because they want to make
money out of this interaction.

Facebook thereby creates virtual
filter bubbles around us.

It’s not only that we can filter
information through our social ties,

but Facebook sits in the middle,
as bottleneck for information

and control. Whether or not
this is really provided to us.

And, most importantly, Facebook
decides which content is allowed

on its network and which content is
banned. Take e.g. the case of nudity;

or the example of violence.

Facebook is much, much more liberal
to depict violence on its network

than nudity. E.g. when you
have a mother feeding a child,

Facebook is more likely [for you]
to be banned than someone

beating someone else up.
And if you ask Kurdish activists

on the topic of what they think about
freedom of speech on Facebook

they will tell you a pretty different
tale than we see on the media

when they talk about the
Facebook revolution.

Because during the last years there were
several cases where president Erdoğan,

the Turkish Prime Minister,
addressed Facebook,

because he wanted to have some
profiles of activists or parties banned.

And Facebook complied.

And talking about social network is
not only about freedom of speech.

One of the most important topics,
I think, is also the issue of privacy.

And for me, the decisive privacy
struggles are not whether or not

someone sees our selfies on Facebook.
Because I guess most people want

that other people see their selfies on
Facebook. For me the decisive struggles

are rather about our browser history that
Facebook collects through Like buttons.

It’s about connection information.
It’s about our Search queries and

the right to register under a fake name.
Because what I did back then,

when I organized demonstration in
Hamburg, that was clearly illegal.

You are not allowed to register under
a fake name. And what would have happened

if Facebook decided one day, or 2 days
before the demonstration was launched,

or maybe before that: “let’s delete
this account, let’s delete this event”.

We would have a problem.

And based on the information
on which profiles we click

our provider knows with whom we are in
love and whether or not we moved on

after a break-up. That are pretty
important information about us;

and we should never forget that
the information that is stored

in order to sell us cars, and
diamonds and fancy stuff

can also be used in order to target
activists. And in the wrong hands

this data on activists
is pretty dangerous.

So as we see there is a clear
conflict between shareholder value

and public interest. And I do not
have a problem with social network.

As I told you, I love the idea. But I do
have a problem when we put corporations

in a position to exploit this very
sensitive part of our lives.

But fortunately there is an alternative.

In 2010 four young students from the US

launched a crowdfunding project
on kickstarter. And they asked

for 10,000 US$ in order to change
their internships and summer jobs

for the opportunity to work full time
on a decentralized open source

alternative social network. And
the reaction was really stunning.

Because they asked for 10,000 $
and what they got in the end,

after 39 days, was 20 times
more than they asked for.

It was 200,000 $. And what
was the goal of Diaspora?

The founders wanted to give the users
first of all a better bargaining position

against the dominant
social network provider.

They wanted to give users
more control over their data

and they wanted to implement
a structure for social networks

that provides a better
control against censorship

and control of governments.

So what does it mean,
‘a decentralized social network’?

To talk about the issue of centralization
or decentralization is important because

a lot of the power structure between users
and the platform owners can be foreseen

somehow through the technical
infrastructure that is implemented. And

you can say that there are 3 basic
kinds of different network structures,

which be ‘centralized’,
‘decentralized’ and ‘distributed’.

In the centralized design which
is represented e.g. by Facebook

there is one network platform owner
in the middle like a spider in the web

collecting all the data. He’s the
bottleneck. You can’t go besides

this bottleneck in order to communicate
with other members of the platform.

In contrast to that a fully
distributed system would be like…

or is a peer-to-peer system where
every user is at the same time

a node of the network.
So, again, it’s a network of equals.

But unfortunately it’s a bit tricky to
provide a distributed social network

on large scale because as you can
imagine you would need encryption,

on a large scale because otherwise every
other member of the network would have

the potential to access your private
data. And there are some projects

researching on that. But in 2010
when Diaspora was founded

the idea was to start with
a decentralized structure.

And the most important feature
of such a decentralized structure

is that you don’t have
one server where every…

like every interaction is going through
but you have different servers.

And because it’s open source everyone
is free to set up their own server;

or you as a user can maybe
chose “I trust person X,

and she’s running a Diaspora pod,
and I join”; or I don’t trust anyone

and I set up my own pod.

And talking about freedom of
speech or government pressure:

One interesting feature is that
it’s much, much more difficult

to censor or to control data
flows from government level

in a decentralized or distributed
system because if there is a server

under pressure you just
can move to another server.

This slide shows what’s
the state of Diaspora

right now. We have now… well we live
in the year 2015. Some years passed

since this idea was announced. And

here you see the Top 10 active Diaspora
servers. Or they’re also called pods.

And first of all we see
that in the last years

there was a development or a trend
that more and more servers

are located in Germany. The biggest
server once… or the most active server

once was joindiaspora.com
which was the first server

that called for like
registration for anyone.

And today most servers are in Germany.

And looking at the number
of registered users

you see that the Top 10
Diaspora pods together

have roundabout half a Million users.

So anyone who’s telling you
“Diaspora is dead!”, you can tell:

“Diaspora is not dead!”.
It’s pretty alive. And

there are roundabout between
20.000 and 30.000 people

who log in to the Diaspora
network, or connected networks

at least once per month. And
this number is rather increasing…

…over the last years. So we see
that Diaspora has a relatively small

but stable user base. But in
the end when we look at the…

what was announced we see
that it’s clearly failed its goal

to overcome Facebook or to overthrow
Facebook as the de facto social network

of the world. So we need to ask ourselves:

“Why didn’t this happen?”

And in IT it’s said that ‘Code is
Law’. And in economics it’s said

that the market structures
are telling you a lot

about which outcome is most likely
to come out of a situation on the market.

That means that market structure are
a powerful tool that can provide

some explanations why we live in
such a decade of gated communities

and why decentralized alternatives
struggle so hard to overcome Facebook

and others. And talking about

market structures or
features of certain markets:

the most important feature on
the market for social networks

is of course the ‘network effect’.
So: what’s the network effect?

Imagine you get a very tempting
offer for a mobile contract.

And it offers really everything you
were craving for: different features,

a new mobile for free, and
very very low, competitive prize.

But there’s just one twist with
this offer: the operator tells you:

“Well, you can accept this offer, but the
problem is you can only communicate

with other members of our network.
Everyone else will be banned

from calling you or being called.”

Would you accept such an offer?
Would you join a gated community?

I don’t think so. I wouldn’t.
And this example

shows really what the
network effect is all about.

The ‘global network
effect’ means simply that

the more users join a network the
more connections are available

and therefor the more attractive it
becomes for other people to join.

The more people join
– more people join etc.

And therefor it’s a structure that really
empowers the growth of monopolies

or big platforms. And

through this Bandwagon effect
with positive feedback loops

you can clearly see that
monopolies are enforced.

But talking about social networks: the
global effect is really not so important,

I think. Because when I think about social
networks or communication platforms

I really don’t care about the market
share in China, or in Brazil,

or in the US. I care about the
market share among my friends,

I care about on which platform I can reach
my family, or my business contacts.

And that’s true for a lot of people.
I mean, most people communicate intensely

always with a very small subset of people.
And that is how the ‘local network effect’

works. If everyone here in this room…
or if everyone I’m friends with

– rather to say – would switch to an
alternative platform I would follow.

Always. Because I want
to reach these people.

And interestingly the success
of Facebook was not so much

about the global network effect.
This effect came later.

First of all it was about
the local network effect.

Because when Facebook emerged they
had a certain strategy for growth.

And first of all Facebook was
in the first month or year

only available for Harvard students.

You even needed a valid Harvard
University address in order to register.

Everyone else was banned from the network.

So imagine the situation: you are new
at the university and most likely

you moved to Harvard.
You don’t know anyone there.

But you make new friends and all these
new friends are on this platform.

So you know you will meet
people you want to meet there.

So you join. And only after having reached

a critical mass in Harvard
Facebook expanded

to other Ivy League colleges.
These are very prestigious colleges

in the US and you can be really lucky if
you are accepted at one of these colleges.

And again, you needed a valid
university address in order to register.

And everyone else was banned.

And only after they reached a critical
mass there they expanded.

And allowed any university
student to log in.

Then they expanded again.
And allowed any school…

or any member of a school to join.
Then they chose several institutions,

which were also allowed to join. And
only after they reached a critical mass

in every of these communities they
opened for the general public.

And that is how social networks
– or also different kinds of networks

which are based on communication –
how they grow.

And this strategy is successful
because people who joined early

on Facebook knew that they would
find meaningful connections there,

not anyone. As I told you: you don’t
care about the market share in China.

You care about the market share
maybe on the CCC congress, or maybe

at your local hackerspace, or maybe at
your school or university, or at work,

or at your sucker clob… soccer club.
laughs

laughter, relenting applause

Well, and...
laughs again

Facebook was not the only network
that understood how important

these local network effects
are in order to grow.

You often find invite-only structures,
searchable friends-of-friends lists,

or invite applications, or…
These fancy upload functions

for your address book… yeah, it’s
all about the local network effect,

it’s all about local growth.

But unfortunately it’s not only the
global and the local network effect

that benefits Facebook. It’s also
the indirect network effect,

or also called
‘cross sided network effect’.

And one example, what does
it mean, ‘indirect network effect’,

one network effect again?
Facebook opens its platform

for app developers. Any app
developer is free to join Facebook

– of course you have some restrictions –
but you don’t need to pay money

in order to place your app on Facebook.
And why does Facebook act in such a way?

Because the more apps you have,
the more interaction you have

the more people are likely to join.
And the more people join

the more apps you have. Then
more people will join. So you have

a likelihood that more apps
can contribute to growth.

And maybe you don’t care about apps.

I know pretty much people
from my time at university

that were so addicted to Farmville.

Or CandyCrush, or whatever.
But this Farmville thing really

ruled at university when
you looked at the laptops.

Another interesting cross
sided network effect is

e.g. an example where you tried…

when you succeed to
attract more advertisers,

and these more advertisers pay you
more money, you use this money

in order to provide better
services to your users and

maybe more users join because of this.
This attracts more advertisers etc.

So this is another effect that

leads to an increase in growth
– for the largest platform!

Or for large platforms. And on top
of that you still of course have

economies of scale, like in
many different other markets.

Economies of scale basically
means the marginal costs

for every additional user just decreases.

And of course this doesn’t
make competition any easier.

And at this point it is to understand
– talking about Facebook

as a gated community –
how it came about that

it is in fact today a gated
community. Because

it wouldn’t if Facebook would
provide e.g. open standards

and the ability to interconnect
between different networks.

Imagine a situation where
you just could join Diaspora

and you still could contact all
your contacts from Facebook.

How much more people would then
switch from Facebook to Diaspora?

I think this number would
be pretty high. And…

maybe some of you may think
this is like a total[ly] naive dream

of open standards in social networks.
But I guess everyone of you

has an email address. And do you care

which provider your
communication partner chooses?

I mean you don’t need to care
because it’s an open protocol.

As long as this person
uses the email technology

you can communicate with [it].

And the issues of whether or
not a communication platform

shuts down and uses proprietary standards,

and maybe implements
incompatibility on purpose

is because that standards have the power

to change the reference
point for the network effect.

As I told you with the example of email:

the relevant number concerning the
local and the global network effect

with email is not the number who’s on
Gmail or the number of people who use GMX

or T-Online, whatever there is.
But the relevant number is really

who uses this technology.

And that is why there
are very high incentives:

once you became a big player
because of the global network effect,

the local network effect,
the indirect network effect,

just to close your gates and
shut your competitors out.

And it won’t get better.
In fact it will get worse.

E.g. we see a lot of companies
that in the beginning provide pretty

open standards, or invite application
writers to write mobile applications,

such as Twitter, but at some
point they always close down.

Once Facebook chat was
compatible with Jabber.

And the Google chat was compatible
with Jabber, with XMPP, too.

But at some point they just
decided to close down.

And if you compete with a gated community

this means also something else.
It means that a new feature

won’t help you that much.
When you try to get users

to switch. Because maybe e.g. there will…

imagine a new social network with
a fancy feature and everyone says:

“Oh, I like this feature but at the
same point at the same time

a lot of people will say: “Yeah, I like
this feature but still it’s more important

to communicate with all of my
friends.” This gives you time.

Of course people are more likely to
switch but you have time to adapt

as a monopolist, as a big platform
in order to copy these features.

Or maybe to buy the whole company
like Facebook does frequently.

And it becomes more likely
– with the possibility just to close up

your community and make
a gated community out of it –

that the first mover on the market
will take it all. The first company,

or the first platform that
manages to get a critical mass

and shuts down is most likely to become
the de facto [standard] platform provider

for all of the users.

But unfortunately these are
not all the economic effects

that make it less likely that
people leave Facebook.

There are still the ‘switching cause’
and the ‘lock-in’ effect.

Imagine you want to leave
from Facebook, you have

all your photos there, you have all your
contacts there, you have interaction data.

And maybe you can move some of your
photos; but it’s incredibly annoying

when you don’t have data portability
in place. And there are some data

which are really lost.
You can’t take them with you.

And that is why switching is so hard.
And the longer you are member

of such are platform which doesn’t
allow you just to take your stuff

when you move out the more
you become locked in.

And the problem about the situation
is: once the operator knows

that you won’t be very likely
someone who just switches

he will care less. He will care
less when you complain about

the new ‘Terms of Services’, he will
care less when you complain about

privacy issues, or the advertising
policy or whatever. He will just

don’t give a shit.

And the problem is: once you have
a gated community, of course

[you] want to monetize it.
And the less likely users can make

a credible threat to leave in case
they don’t like the business model

or the way how their data or
they themselves are treated

the more you can just take out of this
network. Because people will start

to tolerate things they would never
tolerate under other conditions.

In the case of email I would just switch
my email provider. In the case of Facebook

most people won’t
switch the social network.

In the business model of Facebook we are
not the consumers. That’s very important

to keep in mind. We are the product
being sold. And advertisers pay

for the really really scarce
resource on the internet:

It’s access to the users!
It’s our attention.

And this here is some data
on how much worth…

or how much revenue is generated per user.

And you see that when
you’re from the US or Canada

your data per year is worth ca. 8 Dollars.

So you pay such an amount
of money for getting a service

that costs the provider approx. some
pennies, because of economies of scale.

So that’s why gated communities
are everywhere. It’s a gold mine.

And the problem is, talking about
platforms such as Facebook…

We are not talking anymore
about just social networks.

Because it’s a platform.

And platforms that have the network
effects and ‘lock-in’ on their side

try often to transfer their
dominant market position

from one market to another market.
And one common strategy is bundling.

Bundling appears when you
only can get a certain service

as a bundle of services, and you
can’t just get a single service

without the whole bundle. Some
examples concerning Facebook:

Why do you need Jabber when you
have a Facebook chat that can’t even

communicate with Jabber. Or do you really
need Skype when you have Google Hangouts

on your Google+ account?
Or e.g. would you still

upload videos on Youtube or Vimeo
when you want to spread them

via Facebook, and you know that Facebook
systematically downgrades every video

that isn’t uploaded on their servers?

And this strategy has devastating results.

It’s causing that the
gates, or the borders

of a gated community are constantly
expanding. That means larger

and larger parts of the internet are
becoming parts of some gated community.

And Facebook and others even
have managed to kill net neutrality

in various countries in order
to expand their borders

to the level of internet access.

The fight about net neutrality is nothing
else; the fight about net neutrality

is about gated communities that
try to expand their borders

to a level where they don’t
belong. And they had no powers

until now. And it is sad to see

but for many people, like for
many people I met on university,

back then when I studied here,
Facebook is the Internet!

Because Facebook provides
everything they basically need.

Everything but freedom,
and privacy, and choice.

I admit this was a pretty
depressing overview

over market structures.
So let’s see what do we do

with this knowledge and what
has it to do with Diaspora,

the alternative social
network? First of all

let me say one thing:
I know it is a convenient dream

that one day the next
big social network, or

the next big free software project
will come and rescue us all from

the dominance of platform owners.

But competing with such
giant platforms like Google,

Facebook or Apple, or Microsoft:

it’s not very likely that this
will happen overnight.

And I love heroes… I love
super heroes, I love comics, but

unfortunately this is not
realistic in such a situation.

We need to work hard
in order to accomplish that.

And a cool feature will not change this.
Because the history showed that

every time Diaspora tried
to implement a new feature

in order to compete with Facebook we had

the situation that other
social networks instantly

copied this feature.
E.g. how many of you…

I don’t know how many of you
are on Facebook… but…

but you know today you can differentiate
on Facebook between friends,

close friends, business contacts etc.

This is a relatively new feature.
And first, interestingly,

Diaspora implemented
such a differentiation

of contact levels,
and called it ‘aspects’.

And then Google+ came and announced:

“Yeah, we have something
better, we have ‘circles’!”

And it was basically the same principle.
And then Facebook of course copied it.

So we need to face this inconvenient
truth: Facebook and others will

always have a bigger staff, more
money, and a larger user base.

And they will use it against us.
So if you’re dreaming that

maybe there will come
a new feature, or a new tool;

and all the teens are like:
“Hell yeah, I want to use this!

Fuck Facebook, my parents are
on Facebook!” laughter

This happened before. Do you know
Instagram? Do you know Whatsapp?

Do you know who bought it?
Facebook!

So we need to really think,
in order to win this fight.

Or at least to keep struggling.
What are killer features?

What are the killer features of open
source decentralized social networks?

I just told you: open source,
decentralized, non-corporate,

privacy-aware,…
Facebook will not copy that!

laughter and applause

applause

So, you know, I got really curious
– because I knew that my colleagues

from university are not on Diaspora –
so I really got curious:

who is on Diaspora? Who
are these 20..30.000 users

who log in per month?
And this is an analysis

of the most used hashtags on
Geraspora. Geraspora is right now

the most active Diaspora pod.

What kind of community do
you think is on Diaspora?

Top hashtags such as:
Linux, Gnu, Hackernews, ja?

From my point of view this is very
awesome, and I think: “Yeah, this is

a community I would like to join!”.

So in fact, when we remember
what is important

for social networks in order to grow?
It’s the local network effect.

And in fact we already managed
to attract a very, very specific group.

And this group is not very
likely to switch. Because:

do you think your local hackerspace would
maybe switch from Diaspora to Facebook,

because Facebook is so awesome?
I don’t think so.

And there will be also some new features –

I can proudly announce because
some of the developers

just told me I should do –
laughs

which can even make the
network more attractive

for groups like hackerspaces or whatever.
singular dull laughter from audience

There will be... laughs in reaction
there will be

chat extensions soon which
is compatible with XMPP,

or based on XMPP so that you can
add all your Jabber contacts in there.

And for me it’s pretty convenient because
I use Jabber over time-at-work.

So guess what will be open
all the time at work!

Diaspora… ooh, here is sitting
someone from my work!

laughter

Because it’s so super efficient. And…
laughter

other features are planned as well!

applause

There are other features planned
as well. There shall be

a group feature soon which is
not very easy to implement

because in a decentralized
network it’s a bit tricky.

But they’re planning to do it.
And they’re also thinking about

adding ‘events’ which is pretty
awesome e.g. when you want

to coordinate in your local
hackerspace, in your group, and

you have on your chat an idea for an
event – bang! – you can set it up

on Diaspora. So is this
a gated community for hackers?

I don’t think so because it’s open,
it uses open protocols,

and I am sure, or I know
there are a lot of other groups

we can address with such
a network in order to join.

Because this is how
social networks expand.

Group by group – by group. So what
other groups could like these features?

What groups could e.g.
dislike corporate power?

What kind of activists could
dislike NSA backdoors?

Or what kind of public institution
or even companies

could feel a bit uncomfortable
to put all their data

on an US server? And there are
some companies or institutions

who really are craving for
a social solution on servers

they can host by themselves.
So I think it’s a winning strategy

to address this group, also to ask:
“What kind of features do you want?”

and this is what the Diaspora
community did. They asked their users:

“What do you want?” and they said:
“Jabber, we want Jabber!”.

So they implemented Jabber.
And this is how we really can grow.

Step by step through local
network effect. And

there have been interesting cooperations
with the Diaspora networks,

or other networks that have
a decentralized nature already,

e.g. the most active German Diaspora pod

Geraspora is right now funded in
some part by a German newspaper,

the Donaukurier. And the Donaukurier
interestingly… sudden laughter

the Donaukurier one day
asked… they had this idea:

“Yeah we want maybe to experiment
a bit with decentralized alternatives;

we like this idea… but they didn’t
want to set up a server on their own.

So they decided to give regular funding.
And they are still giving regular funding.

Or there are requests of
different groups or even…

there was a request from youth workers
which were interested to use

such a network for communication
with their clients.

Because obviously you don’t want
any data concerning youth work

hosted on Facebook.
And these requests, they are happening,

and I think this is very
promising to work on this basic

in order to expand group by group.

And we should not forget: there are
certain windows of opportunity

which might convince more people

that Diaspora is really an awesome idea

and the killer features
are really worth trying it.

There have been such
windows of opportunity, e.g.

there was a time… or there
was a constant time of the…

Mr. Erdoğan who is banning various
social media platforms in Turkey.

And every time he does the Geraspora pod

sees an increased traffic
from Turkish subnets.

And another interesting effect is that

every time Facebook announces
changes in the Terms of Service,

again there is a peak. And

these windows of opportunity
– unfortunately I have to say this –

they will be more frequent in the future.

Unfortunately it happened before and it
will happen again. And once you will have

a big leak of data from Facebook. And

this can happen anytime; maybe
more people will be convinced

to try a decentralized alternative.

And it is also important, as
these examples showed,

e.g. from Turkey, that we need
these alternatives right now.

There are right now people who need such
an alternative, not only hackerspaces.

And therefor I’m very, very happy
that we are trying to provide

such an alternative right now.

But competing with a large platform,
as Facebook is right now,

we need also to see that this is
a task we never can manage alone.

We can’t compete with such a network
without allies at our side

which have also super
powers like we have. And

one of the most interesting
developments of the last year is that

Diaspora is in fact not alone
any more. Diaspora is part

of the so called ‘Federation’.
And the Federation consists of

different decentralized social networks
such as Diaspora, friendica or Redmatrix.

And they are interconnected,
they speak the same protocol.

So it doesn’t matter whether my friends
are on friendica, on Redmatrix

or on Diaspora. I can
communicate with them.

And therefor by pooling their
users together they change

the reference point of the network
effect. And if you are considering

to launch a new social network on your own

you’re free to do. And if you join the
Federation you already have a user base.

And this is a very, very
exciting and powerful idea.

Because the networks inside
the Federation are quite different.

Diaspora e.g. has a very
clean, easy design for users.

And some people really like that.

The other networks have
other strengths. E.g. friendica

is really an interconnection
machine. One of the guys who’s

working on the development team,
he’s really looking for any loop hole

he can get into other networks in
order to establish an interconnection

even if the operator doesn’t want to.
And that’s awesome.

And e.g. friendica already
speaks email protocol

and Jabber.
And Redmatrix on the other hand:

it is a fork, Redmatric and friendica

share large parts of the same code.

But Redmatrix has a very,
very strong emphasis

on privacy. And they’re
experimenting with apps,

and OpenID and different features

which the other networks
don’t provide. So I think

such a federation or such a bundling
of your powers, such a looking for allies

is a very powerful thing to do,
not only for you as a network.

But also for your users.
As a user I can vote by feet just –

if I don’t like Diaspora then I just
join friendica. But I still have

all my contacts from my local
hackerspace and that’s awesome.

And in the long run when
we look at how this works:

this is really a small version of
how the concept of social networks

could look like if we just had open
protocols. And that’s also very important,

also for the political struggle,
for open protocols to provide

that such a thing works.

But competing with large
platforms like Facebook

you’re not only competing
with a social network,

you’re competing with an alternative
eco system. So we need really to think

how to build an eco system
on our own. And

every time there is a new
idea or a new feature

Facebook would like to
implement they just copy it,

or they buy it. And the big strength

of the Free Software movement is
that we don’t nee monetary incentives

to work together. Because
we share similar goals.

So instead of trying to provide
all the features by yourself

the really winning strategy
is just to stay open.

Just to talk to other projects in order
to find maybe shared protocols,

or maybe find ways how you can
integrate your work into another work,

and how you can benefit from one another.

One example: When I bought
this crappy Android phone

there was a pre-installed
Google+ app on it.

It’s disgusting, I know, but…
laughter

applause
I really…

But I really like the idea of…
maybe one day

I will be able to buy
a free operating system

without any connections to Google.
And I would really love

to have my Diaspora or friendica, whatever
app, pre-installed. Or maybe an app

to connect anything inside the Federation.

So we need also to bundle. I mean
Facebook does it, we also need to do it.

And some first steps are made.
E.g. there are some projects

for home-made clouds where you just
can buy your plug-and-play device

and you would be able to get it
soon with pre-installed version

of a Diaspora pod. So it won’t
be the hackers any more

who have their own pod
but maybe the left activists

who’s protesting
against neo-liberal politics.

And that’s cool.
And there’s another example

that cooperation really can work.

When you take e.g. Firefox.
Firefox is the most used browser,

at least in Germany.
And Firefox has a feature:

you can have included share
buttons inside Firefox.

And you can not only choose
between Facebook and Twitter,

and others, but you can also
choose to use Diaspora.

And this kind of cooperation is
something we clearly need more

in order to overcome gated
communities such as Facebook.

So you know I’m an economist.

So I was trained to believe
in the idea of free markets

and fair competition etc.
It’s a bit like studying Dark Magic.

But in fact really I believe that
competition is at least in some areas

something that makes sense. But
at some points you need to see

when a market just fails
so hard that it doesn’t deliver

the best possible solution. And I don’t
think it’s the best possible solution

if you can’t really choose. If there’s no
competition. And there is no competition

with Facebook. So the reason
why Diaspora and the others

struggle so hard is not because their
idea isn’t great, or their technology

is not the better one, maybe.
But it is the openness of the web

that is threatened systematically when
monopolies use the network effect

in order to create more and more gated
communities and expand the borders

of these gated communities
more and more. And

the inconvenient truth is also…
I mean I presented some ideas

how we can overcome this.
But it will remain hard

as long as the structures
are like they are right now.

And I read one very interesting article

where the journalist asked the inventor
of the protocol for email attachments:

“What would happen if this idea of email

was invented today?” and he replied:

“In this environment, if somebody
invented email, whoever managed

to get critical mass first would become
the world’s de facto email provider”.

Imagine such a world!
I mean it’s disgusting!

But right now we have such a situation
in the area of social network.

Here we are! Facebook has become the
world’s de facto social network provider

in large parts of the world. Every
fifth human being on this planet

logs in on Facebook
at least once per month.

And it has this position not because
it’s better than others but only

because of market dynamics
and because it was lucky.

There is no real competition,
and this is market failure. And

when Tim Berners-Lee invented
the internet protocol that freed us

from the gated communities
of Compuserve and others

he gave it just away. He
didn’t say: “Yeah, I want to…

I have this business model, it’s super
cool, it’s based on targeted advertisement

and I will build a gated community
around my internet”.

He gave it away for free.
And because people like him

gave protocols or new ideas
away for free and opened it

we had this incredible development,
where we had so much innovation,

so much creativity through these
open structures. But this is not

how market regulation should work.
I mean market regulation should not

rely upon that someone who
has the next cool, big idea

that can change the world for better
would just be a cool person.

So, finally…
applause

Some people argue when we
talk about social networks

and the dominance of Facebook
that this is only a trend.

It would go away one day all the
teens switch to another network.

Facebook will be gone.

And I remember hearing similar things
about the internet as such. laughter

“It’s only a trend. It will
go away.” But I don't think so.

And I also don’t think so
about social networks

because social networks are
a very, very powerful idea.

They are super awesome. And
maybe Facebook declines one day

because all the teens realize that
their parents are on Facebook as well.

But what will be next?
If the next big thing

is also a gated community
nothing has changed.

So in order to change things we
not only need to provide alternatives

such as the Federation:
Diaspora, friendica, etc.

We need to support them, because

maybe you are looking for
friends: where should you go?

laughs Maybe you find
interesting people on Diaspora.

And they really deserve our support.
As users, as donators,

as developers or as allies.
And you should never forget

that programming free software
and building alternative eco systems

to what we see outside in
this gated community world (?)

is also a political act.
It’s not only writing software.

It’s writing an alternative code for
how we want the world to be!

And there is an alternative
to patent wars.

There is an alternative to gated
communities and business models

that only are based on
exploiting our privacy.

And such projects represent
the visions of a better world

and that’s why I would
like to support them.

But we also need to address,
in order to win this fight,

that these alternatives
don’t face fair competition.

This is market failure on a large scale.

And that is why we need to fight for
open standards; and in order to change

the market structures that will create
gated communities over and over again

we need to force Facebook… we need
to force them and not just kindly ask:

“Mr. Zuckerberg, would you
please be so kind to consider

to tear down this wall?”.
This will not work!

We need to talk about political solutions.
And we need to address this

as a need for market regulation in order
that the better solution can win.

Thank you.
applause

Herald: Yeah, tear down this wall.
Ronald Reagan at its best,

at least Mr. Zuckeberg
is watching the stream or

Oettinger is watching the steam.
You know what to do!

So come we now to the
Questions and Answers.

Microphones on the left,
on the right, and also:

are there any questions from the internet?

Signal Angel: Yes, I have
2 questions from the internet.

Herald: Okay, we will start with the
internet because I’m sure you are here

after the talk that people can ask you.
So, okay, dear internet!

Question: What is the relation of
Diaspora and GNU-social or Pump.io

Are there plans to merge the protocols?

Katharina: I think for this
question you would really need

to ask the developers.
But I can ask this room:

hey, Diaspora developers: are you here?
points into audience

Yeah, there! Do you want
to say something about this?

Herald: Please just when
you’ll go to the microphone,

otherwise it’s not
hear in this steam.

Katharina: Yeah, a worm
applaus to Dennis Schubert

applause

Dennis: So no, there are no
actual plans to merge protocols

but there are discussions
on defining a new protocol.

That supports all social
networks together. So, yeah.

Herald: Is there another question on…
applause

Is there another question
from the internet?

Question: Yes: is there a way to import
from Facebook to Diaspora?

Katharina: To import data…
Yeah this is a interesting thing

e.g. … yeah, I had this
in my presentation,

but because of out-of-time
reasons I deleted it.

There is fortunately this
new EU Privacy Law,

the Privacy Regulation,
which will also force platforms

such as Facebook to provide
like a data dump of your data

– you can take with you. But I’m
still a bit not very convinced

how this will work out, whether or not
ALL the data is included.

It would be very convenient
if you just had one like…

one data dump and you could
just download it and upload it.

But we need to wait and
see how this will develop.

Herald: Okay, I’m sorry to hear but at
least we are out of time now.

All [remaining] questions
afterwards with Katharina.

Give her another warm applaus!
For the federous (?) talk!

postroll music

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