App Freedom

<h2 class="r-fit-text" style="position: relative; top: -9rem; text-shadow: 1px 1px 10px white;">App Freedom</h2>
<h2 class="r-fit-text" style="text-shadow: 1px 1px 10px white;">A direct approach to a human-friendly internet</h2>

hawke.org/sandro

appfreedom.org/2023/dwebcamp

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## The internet is great

* Fun global culture
* Wikipedia, Crash Course, GitHub
* Disaster relief
* Exposing corruption
* Remote collaboration
* Economic growth

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## The internet is bad

* unfair bans
* empowering people doing harm
* surveillance
* corrupt algorithmic bias (tuned for outrage)
* dark patterns (unwanted features)
* unwanted ui changes
* unwanted policy changes

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## The underlying problem

* Each app has its own community
* Each app has its own database
* Each app has its own policies
* Each app has its own police
* <b>Each app is a kingdom (with walls)</b>

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<h2 class="r-fit-text">Social Computing = Vendor Lock-In</h2>

Considering moving away from Twitter?
* Lose your feed
* Lose your followers
* Lose your posting history
* Lose your conversations
* Lose your algorithmic training
* <b>Lose your community</b>

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<h2 class="r-fit-text">App Freedom</h2>

* Switch apps like switching salad dressings
* Try five new Twitter clones in a day
* Always the same users, tweets, replies, retweets, likes
* Different UI
* Different algo
* Different restrictions, features

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<h2 class="xr-fit-text">Not Just Twitter</h2>

If it bugs you, and you haven't switched.

* Reddit
* YouTube
* eBay
* Uber
* RunKeeper
* Tinder

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<h2 class="xr-fit-text">App Freedom</h2>

## <span class="r-fit-text">Users move seamlessly between competing apps</span>

* Data under control of the user, not the app
* Relationships are part of the data
* Competing apps interoperate
* Communities cooperate for safety
* Competitive markets for apps, hosting

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<table>
  <tr>
    <th>problem
    <th>how it gets (mostly) solved
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>unfair bans
    <td>users pick their host
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>empowering harm
    <td>tools for community defense
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>surveillance
    <td>users pick host, diff incentives
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>corrupt algo
    <td>users pick their algos
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>dark patterns
    <td>users pick their apps
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>unwanted ui changes
    <td>users pick their apps
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>unwanted policy changes
    <td>users pick their apps & hosts
  </tr>
</table>

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## <span class="r-fit-text">AppFreedom.org</span>

## <span class="r-fit-text"><u>Let users move seamlessly between competing apps</u></span>

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## <span>Part 2</span>

</div>

## <span class="r-fit-text">A Technical Solution</span>

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## <span>Four key technologies</span>

Iterating on the problem

1. Data stored under user control
2. Data translators (instead of standards)
3. Network of credibility assessments<br />(key to community defense)
4. User data sandbox

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## 1. Data stored under user control

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## (diagram from 2012)

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## (diagram from 2012)

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## Blog-style decentralization

* Every data-write is to the user's web space
* Data reads/queries are across many users
* With host-to-host authn / authz

We're developing SiteQuery protocol

Other options available

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## <span>2. Data translators<br/>(instead of standards)</span>

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## App schemas

* Every app stores its data using some schema
* To work together apps need compatible schemas
* Maybe market leader defines it (and controls market)
* Maybe open standards org (slow and expensive)
* Often apps just don't work together

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## Translation shims

* Each app uses whatever schema it wants
* When published, apps must include their schema
* When a user moves between apps, the system looks for trusted translators ("shims")
    * From schema-of-writing
    * To schema-of-reading
    * Runs in a special sandbox

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## Ecosystem

* Trust network to find shims
* Private incentive to switch apps
* Commerical incentives to buld shims
* Possibly suited to LLM authoring
* In time, de facto standards may emerge
* But rapid innovation still welcome!

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## <span style="position:relative; right: 12rem;">3.<br/>Collaborative<br />credibility<br/> assessment</span>

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## Credibility assessment

* People enter some sources they trust (high cred)
* Maybe some they distrust (low cred)
* Optionally give reasons
* Optionally link to evidence
* Forms a recursive credibility network (trust graph)

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---

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* Your ratings let your apps know who to trust
* Argues to your community who they should trust
* Creates ecosystem with bias toward integrity
* Awaiting real user testing and experience

## Might be the scalable and safe answer to online trust and safety

(Thanks to credweb.org participants, funders)

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## Also proves identity

* Build up your "crowd" out of testimony links
* Strong against impersonation
* Strong against bots

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## Does this increase division?

* Major concern, needs validation, <em>but</em>
* Disinformation increases division
* Makes it more clear you're in a bubble
* Nudges people to operate more rationally
* Brings evidence into the process
* Less driven by outrage-engagement

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## 4. User data sandbox

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* It's risky to give apps full read/write access to your data
* The trust graph helps - "only install if you trust..."
* Sandboxing is better
* Apps can read/query anything you can see
* Process and display to your screen
* They <u>propose</u> undoable updates to your data
* Surprisingly nice coding environment
* Performance seems good enough for many apps (so far)

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## <span>Four technologies (summary)</span>

1. Data lives in user's webspace
2. Data conversion shims for interop
3. Credibility network for trust and safety
4. User data sandbox allows untrusted apps

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## <span>Next steps</span>

* We're working on demo apps of whole stack
* Join mailing list / resource list
    * https://appfreedom.org
* Talk to me
    * Why this won't work
    * Good partnerships
* You can <u>push for app freedom</u>

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## <span class="r-fit-text">AppFreedom.org</span>

## <span class="r-fit-text"><u>Let users move seamlessly between apps</u></span>

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## Photo credits

<div style="display: flex; justify-content: space-evenly; font-size: 50%">
<div><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/birds-in-flight-geese-bird-animal-5366034/"><img src="images/birds-in-flight-5366034.jpg" height=100></a><br/>Adrian Campfield</div>
<div><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/mountains-landscape-nature-4415401/"><img src="images/mountains-4415401.jpg" height=100></a><br/>Nicholas Demetriades</div>
<div><a href="https://pixabay.com/photos/bridge-river-prague-czechia-city-3481276/"><img src="images/bridge-3481276.jpg" height=100></a><br/> Jan Blanicky</div>
<div><a href="https://flickr.com/photos/vpickering/43240505662/in/photolist-28T1TRG-2k6zVTw-BbE1Gr-fN97Yb-L3mNpC-2nV1CEW-2j446RD-VKDUHc-2k7JVPo-2j9FGLP-2iDM456-2niWzVV-7RUE8q-xZEBNF-hNhxjk-2kSmtWL-2ngiHJF-BDG9pd-25w7xV6-2gu7WV8-fHccWk-2nqYdhK-2nr47Dz-oYiEei-fMRybD-oMmfc-6HJRaM-2nqR7xd-2nanfcZ-e38peF-2nr6ZJk-2k6AaDB-nU7zCd-24pH7g9-iApw9z-88vUAq-8DGv9a-rskf7h-zssEE8-2nRjYj4-2nnYQfc-244Td1u-21UQf6d-2naR4Hh-wM3WEG-NgJuZy-2h7AL79-8V3bvS-2mNF6HM-V6DuXr"><img src="images/human-tower-capitol.jpg" height=100></a><br/> Victoria Pickering</div>
<div><a href="https://www.pxfuel.com/en/free-photo-eyokz"><img src="images/sandbox.jpg" height=100></a><br/>Unknown PxFuel</div>
</div>

Photos are linked to source page