Plebbit is a selfhosted, opensource, nonprofit social media protocol, this project was created due to wanting to give control of communication and data back to the people.

Plebbit only hosts text. Images from google and other sites can be linked/embedded in posts. This fixes the issue of hosting any nefarious content.

it has no central server, database, HTTP endpoint or DNS - it is pure peer to peer. Unlike federated instances, which are regular websites that can get deplatformed at any time,

ENS domain are used to name communities.

Plebbit currently offers different UIs. Old reddit and new reddit, 4chan, and have a Blog. Plebbit intend to have an app, internet archive, wiki and twitter and Lemmy. Choice is important. The backend/communities are shared across clients.

The code is fully open source on

https://github.com/plebbit

  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    1·
    16 days ago

    Did they pay devs to build it for them?

    I’m working on a similar project, but I’m 100% bootstrapping it. I’m using Iroh (similar to IPFS, but hopefully faster), and there will just be the one UI until someone makes another. I haven’t done authentication yet, but I might end up using blockchain for that, idk, I need some form of trusted directory.

    I’m going to be looking through this, because it sounds very similar to what I’m working on, and I’d love to just join a project instead of doing all the leg work of getting traction myself. The things I’m particularly interested in are:

    • moderation - I plan to use something like a web of trust, but with transitive trust; you select people you trust, and whether you see something depends on how those users moderated
    • persistence when users go offline - I use a local first approach, so a post is cached locally if you either authored or viewed it, and peers will pull from you if you’re the closest source; caches would need to expire so we don’t blow up everyone’s storage
    • communities operate in a single namespace (so fix the main complexity w/ federation) - you create a community by posting to that namespace, and it gets mixed w/ other users who post to that same namespace

    I’m also interested in building an ActivityPub bridge, so this network can act like an “instance” of sorts and push/pull content from the rest of the Fediverse. This is mostly to seed content in the early days, and I’ll decide whether it’s worth it once everything else works.

    I don’t know if Plebbit does any or all of this, hence the interest. That said, someone spending actual money on it seems a bit… odd, since I don’t see how this could be monetized.

      • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        1·
        16 days ago

        Assuming you’re talking about authentication:

        • public key signatures - users sign every posts and broadcast their username/pub key combo
        • centralized (could be multiple) auth authority - openid, oauth, etc; posts signed by some unique key from that auth service

        I’m deciding if the first is sufficient or if I actually need some form of blockchain to prevent tampering.

        • sem@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
          0·
          15 days ago

          I thought Blockchain was how the protocol knew how to federate, e.g. where to find other users. (?) I don’t really remember how Blockchain works but iirc it is a way to verify trust, e.g. this person really is /u/sem because our shared document says they are.

          I know DNS is an alternative but it kind of sucks. Bluesky is inventing it’s open DiD thing for identity and it is centralized in practice but might be a good system. And I have no idea how it works.

          • jagged_circle@feddit.nlEnglish
            1·
            15 days ago

            Projects with blockchains work like BITtorrent to find peers. That’s why bitcoin was called BITcoin.

            Federation doesn’t require blockchain. Blockchain was created for a very unique solution to storage of digital cash transactions that’s not relevant in almost any other system’s storage.

    • Plebbitor@lemmy.worldOPEnglish
      03·
      16 days ago

      They pay the devs via bounties and meeting milestones.

      We tried iroh but it wasn’t fit for purpose. We have tackled the moderation exactly how you’ve described it. Allowing multiple people to control a community. We’re in the process of implementing it. Our version of this allows people to create multicommunities where it shows similar communities in one sub.

      Activity pub would be interesting but plebbit is so technologically different were not sure it would be technically possible. We forgo the concept of instances entirely allowing Plebbit to work closer to Reddit, where you just search a sub. Global admins don’t exist on Plebbit. Subs can still share ban lists if they wish but its optional

      Plebbit is always looking for new devs, join our telegram group @joinplebbit to discuss with the main dev about joining the project.