NPT Issue #6: A Constellation of Conversations - Why We Need ActivityPub Protocol


Hello to My Readers 👋🏽

I know it's been a long wait but I want to thank you all once again for your patience. I can tell you the delay for this issue was due to the complexity and size of the topics I intend to address in the next few issues. I want to do them justice so it requires deeper research than usual.

Recap of Previous Issue ⬅️📰

In the previous issue of NPT, I gave my take on GenAI chatbots. It was a more practical issue of NPT but I hope it helped because it helped me reflect on GenAI chatbots and I use them for and what they are good at so far in my opinion.

Foreword 🗞️

In this issue of NPT, I will be talking about the ActivityPub Protocol created by the Web3 consortium. It's a protocol and open standard for decentralized social networking. Hence, the aptly named title of this issue of NPT 😁. Why should social networks be connected and interlinked? Find out below as I conduct a sort of cost-benefit analysis comparing some pros and cons as well as dropping some insights.

A Constellation of Conversations


From what I can see, we need ActivityPub protocol for a number of reasons. However, to summarize these reasons more generally, which I will detail shortly, we need ActivityPub Protocol because the web is changing and this protocol gives us a way to shape that change collaboratively, instead of corporately. We are placing trust in the user instead of in the organization to know what's best for the user. We are trusting people to know what's best for themselves and thus in turn what's best for the greater good.

Reasons We Need ActivityPub Protocol

Pros
  • To decentralize control in an increasingly centralized web.
  • Empathy via Digital Twin Personality Reflection: To understand ourselves and each other better and show more empathy through digital twin personality reflection.
  • ActivityPub as an open protocol supporting trustworthy AI integration.
  • To ease the transition into Web3.
  • To empower users with data sovereignty.
  • To build resilient co-operative infrastructure in the era of misinformation, disinformation, cyberbullying, online stalking
Cons
  • Explaining New Technologies: Explaining new technologies which are unfamiliar to the public in order to build trust and unlock technology adoption, e.g., fediverse, federated models.
  • Technology Adoption Challenges: Technology adoption challenges with social networking companies as buy-in must be obtained from them in order to benefit from network effects and enable the open standard to be as effective as it can be.

Pros

To Decentralize Control in an Increasingly Centralized Web

The modern web is dominated by a few social networking platforms like X, Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and so on. These platforms own user data, control algorithms and visibility, as well as, monetize attention with little user agency.

ActivityPub enables a federated model that allows independent platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky, to interoperate while maintaining autonomy. This ensures more diversity in digital spaces, less risk of vendor lock-in or censorship, as well as greater user ownership of identity and data. 

Contrasting the current setup of a limited number of companies dominating the majority of social networks on the internet, with the up and coming more open and transparent movement of social networks like Mastodon and Bluesky, under the umbrella of decentralizing control, we see that there is an ongoing battle for users' data. For users to come out on top, they need to be more aware of the ways their data is being used and they also need to care enough to make the switch. Easier said than done knowing human behaviour habits bias humans to remaining with their initial choice. However, having said that, with AI advancements overwhelming the public and technology adoption lagging behind technology advancement, people may be pushed to the limit of exploring other options out of burnout and frustration with AI's invasive nature with the way it is currently being employed to consumers. It is also interesting to note that quite a few switches in the social media space are driven by out-groups, being, acceptance of one group driven by rejection of another. It is an interesting question to wonder what drives that rejection amongst consumers. Though it is a question worthy of further exploration, it is a topic for another issue.

Empathy via Digital Twin Personality Reflection

As different social networking platforms continue to boil down to the same set of features and essentially become the same applications, they begin to reflect who we are as opposed to how we use each unique platform. This is due to us exhibiting the same habits on each platform agnostic of brand since the feature sets are identical. It also means we are able to see our multifaceted personalities through multifaceted light of social networking platforms. Each social networking platform is a single ray in th ultimate coalescence of what the ActivityPub protocol would make a unified distributed beam of light or a constellation of conversations 😏if you will. This beam of light or these conversations would become a digital multifaceted reflection of our personalities which could enable us to do some cool things with it like share that with someone so they could understand us better, and vice versa. Connecting these social networking platforms together with a common protocol like ActivityPub would only make this more apparent and help us to understand ourselves better and be more self-actualized through reflection, build more authentic relationships with each other and be more empathetic overall, making for very interesting times ahead.

Open Protocol Supporting Trustworthy AI Integration

AI is increasingly shaping our information landscape. However, central control of data pipelines risks algorithmic manipulation, poor transparency and concentration of AI power. All of which would be happening at goliath level scale with minimal latency giving people no time to react and leaving them defenceless in the face of such attacks.

ActivityPub offers an open protocol for sharing structured activity data (follows, posts, likes), creating a public, inspectable social graph and content stream.
  • This makes AI systems easier to audit and regulate.
  • Allows AI agents to participate in social networks as peers, not just manipulators.
  • Enables interoperable, agent-friendly environments where humans and machine actors can co-ordinate openly.
While the contrast between social networks with and without ActivityPub for transparency to build trust and make AI integration and interfacing seamless is striking, it also makes clear how useful ActivityPub could be for expanding the Open-Source AI movement. Especially with the latest MCP Protocol made available by Anthropic. Imagine open-source agents collaborating seamlessly on the web via MCP and connecting with social networks which are underpinned by the ActivityPub protocol. It would be an interconnected Indra's net of clarity and beautiful open intricacy, at least in theory. It would make researchers, academics, sociologists and economists very happy with all the data readily available and richly and densely connected. Governing bodies like the UN can audit and regulate thoroughly straight from the source. Security can be ramped as everybody can see everyone else. I don't mean to sound too idealistic but the best aspects of this protocol ought to be taken into consideration for setting global communication standards and we should be able to compensate for the weaknesses of the protocol where it would be overwhelmingly unsafe for the user or compromise the structure of resiliency of the social networks.

To Ease the Transition into Web3

Humanity is due the next evolutionary step in world wide web interaction. Decentralization is the key word for Web3 and you can see how ActivityPub protocol can be a catalyst and a driver to facilitate and accelerate the transition. We deserve to have a more dynamic web that makes access to information even better, more interactable, richer, fuller and which offers us more control about what we want to make available. In addition to that, we deserve better user-interfaces and user-experiences. We have made do with webpages for long enough and now the next innovation of the web can come to the fore. I am not sue what software form fatcor it will come in but I am hoping it is a new paradigm entirely making way for a paradigm shift in the way we search for, discover, interact with, share and visualize information on the web. I feel the next innovation ought to change the reality of the user's experience with the world wide web as we are overdue that change and the technology to make it happen is already upon us.

Web3 Amazon Explanation: https://aws.amazon.com/what-is/web3/
Web3 Foundation Official: https://web3.foundation/

To Empower Users with Data Sovereignty

As AI learns from user generated content, people are becoming more aware of their data rights. This is key especially as we continue to try to distinguish between AI-generated and human-generated content. With ActivityPub, you own your content, you can move between services without losing followers or history, you have more say in how your content is distributed or used. This kind of digital sovereignty is critical as AI and automation scale up content generation and surveillance. Countering these rising trends by putting control back into the hands of the user is of utmost importance.

To Build Resilient and Co-operative Infrastructure

In the era of misinformation, disinformation, cyberbullying, online stalking, polarization, social network platform collapse (Twitter Changes, Reddit AI Protests), geopolitical fragmentation (internet splintering by region coupled with government sanctioned blackouts) and their ilk, we need a more resilient and co-operative infrastructure across the planet now more than ever. The internet and world wide web still serves as massive vehicles for change, whether positive or negative. 

Protocols like ActivityPub let us create shared communication infrastructure that can survive outside the control of any one government, corporation or ideology. It lays the groundwork for open-source social co-ordination, peer-to-peer collaboration at internet scale, resilient knowledge networks - crucial in a world where truth and trust are fragile.

Cons

Explaining New Technologies

Having to explain how these new technologies work due to poor design and user experience and user interface is an issue that pervades the fediverse and federated models. It is something stifled many users who wanted to make the switch from Twitter/X to Bluesky and Mastodon. They were confused by how to sign up for these platforms. One of the most basic functions of a social networking platform was acting as a barrier to user acquisition during an opportune moment. Although this is an easily addressable issue, I feel it's an unnecessary one. These open-source social networks can take a leaf out of the corporate handbook when it comes to keeping things simple for the user.

Technology Adoption Challenges

Convincing major social networking platforms to use this open protocol is not going to be easy. Luckily, Meta is leading the way with open-source and adopting the ActivityPub protocol. They are embracing open-source protocols and open-source solutions as well as contributing to the community. Gaining buy-in from these companies may just be achieved when it makes business sense for them to do so or when they have no other option after users realize they want more control over their data. This is definitely a point that requires and deserves further exploration.

Summary

We need ActivityPub because it represents a foundational layer for a freer, fairer, and more interoperable internet—crucial as AI grows in power, big tech consolidates control, and society rethinks its relationship to data, identity, and autonomy.

In short, the web is changing. ActivityPub gives us a way to shape that change—collaboratively, not corporately.

Note

As I have just done a dead giveaway, I've used ChatGPT to help me research the topic of this issue of NPT. I was able to prompt it in a way that gave me unique non-trivial insights. I intend to continue inputting my own special sauce in my writing until new technology emerges that requires me to revise my decisions. However, I will always be transparent about my use of AI and why I feel it is beneficial to the writing I've used it in. Please see below for the dialogue between me and ChatGPT that led to some of the points I've discussed in this issue of NPT.

Afterword 🗞️

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Thank you for reading as always and I will greet you again next time 😁🙌🏽.

Yours truly 🫵,

William