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Diaspora

Definición:

Diaspora is a distributed social network, which falls within the concept of fediverse, a network of independent social media platforms that communicate with each other through open protocols. Born as an open source initiative, Diaspora is based on the idea of a decentralized internet in which users have complete control over their information and privacy.

History and development

The Diaspora project was born in 2010, when four students from New York University decided to create an alternative to the existing centralized social networks. Since its earliest days, Diaspora has been a platform focused on privacy, decentralization, and transparency.

Over the years, Diaspora has undergone several stages of evolution:

  • 2010: Launch of a crowdfunding campaign that raised $200,000 in just three weeks. The money was used for the initial development of Diaspora.
  • 2011: The Diaspora source code is published as an open source project. This allowed developers around the world to contribute to the improvement of the platform.
  • 2012: Diaspora becomes a self-managed community. The original team of developers announced that they would stop running the project and that it would henceforth be managed by the community.
  • 2013: Version 0.0.3.0 of Diaspora is released, which includes several improvements and new features, such as integration with other social media platforms.
  • 2016: Diaspora reaches 600,000 registered users, which shows the growing interest in alternatives to centralized social networks.
  • 2020: Diaspora continues to grow and evolve thanks to the work of volunteer developers. Increases integration with other fediverso platforms.

Every step in Diaspora's history has been marked by an ongoing commitment to user privacy, decentralization and transparency. The platform has grown and evolved thanks to the contribution of a global community of developers and users.

Operation

Diaspora is organized into ' pods', which are independent servers that connect to each other to form the network. Each user chooses a 'pod' to join, and from there they can interact with any other user on the network, regardless of which 'pod' they belong to.

Posts on Diaspora can be shared publicly or privately, depending on the preferences of each user. This gives users great control over their information and how it is shared. In addition, Diaspora does not use algorithms to filter or classify content, unlike many centralized social networks.

Advantages and benefits

The main advantages of Diaspora include:

  • Respect for privacy: Diaspora does not collect data from its users for advertising purposes. Users have full control over their information.
  • Decentralization: Being based on independent pods, the network is resistant to censorship and single-point failures.
  • Open source: Anyone can contribute to the development of Diaspora, allowing its constant evolution and improvement.

Criticisms and challenges

Despite its advantages, Diaspora also faces criticism and challenges. Chief among these is that their decentralized nature can make it difficult to moderate content, which could lead to the spread of false or harmful information. In addition, while Diaspora respects user privacy, this may be less effective if individual pods are not adequately protected against cyberattacks.

Another common criticism is that the Diaspora network can be more difficult to navigate for less technical users, compared to more conventional, centralized social networks. The need to choose and join a pod can be confusing for new users.

Diaspora Instances

An instance in Diaspora is another name for a 'pod', which is a standalone server that is part of the Diaspora network. Each instance has its own database and users, but all instances can communicate with each other to share posts and messages. This is what allows Diaspora to be a decentralized network.

The choice of instance to join depends on the user. There are instances of all sizes, from those with only a few users to instances with tens of thousands of users. Each instance may have its own rules and policies, although they must all adhere to certain fundamental principles to be part of the Diaspora network.

It is important to note that once an instance has been chosen, it is not possible to switch instances without creating a new account. However, because of the way Diaspora is designed, users can continue to interact with people from any other instance, regardless of which one they have joined.

Some instances of Diaspora are:

  • diasp.org: This is one of the most popular instances of Diaspora. It offers a good number of users and is considered reliable and stable.
  • joindiaspora.com: It is the original instance created by the founders of Diaspora. It has been very stable over the years.
  • pod.geraspora.de: A medium-sized instance with a good balance between number of users and performance.

Each instance has its own features and benefits, and users can research and select the one that best suits their needs.

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