It is called “Secret Level” but to enter it you don’t have to jump into the right pipe or hit an imaginary wall, just go to the address livellosegreto.it and register. Secret Level is an instance of Mastodon, a decentralized open source social network, indeed, a social network, in which there is no advertising, there are no algorithms to decide what you should or should not see, there is no tracking of data, as the Manifesto explains.
The strategy
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Once inside it, you are faced with an interface that resembles Twitter, only 500 characters are available. The Home section shows the people we follow, the Local section shows all the posts of the instance in chronological order while the Federation also allows you to see other instances of Mastodon, or other servers that may have different rules and themes.
Mastodon is nothing new, since it was born in 2016 and for years there have been many communities, usually of developers, who use it to communicate, exchange ideas and manage their work.
Secret Level was born by the will of Fabio “Kenobit” Bortolotti, who translates video games for work, streams on Twitch, makes people dance using a Game Boy as a synthesizer and is one of the many symptoms of annoyance and repulsion that many people now feel towards Facebook. and social networks where only hate and marketing work. While the technical aspects were managed together with a group of volunteers by Edoardo Maria Elidoro.
“Everything on the Secret Level is like in the old forums, where everything was in chronological order and if you were disconnected for a few hours you would not have risked losing what was happening – explains Fabio – when you write something on the Secret Level you don’t have to be there to get yourself a thousand paranoia about timetables, issues, reach. In short, being there is not a job, it is not a competition, but more like entering a place where conversations take place that you can join, deciding to talk to those you know or looking around a bit. When you post on social networks you are usually a product, you are a showcase designer for that social network, I like to say that on the Secret Level we are not content creators but happy creatures “.
Interactions
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For now, the atmosphere inside the secret level is very quiet, either because of the novelty effect, or because of the imprint of respect and tolerance given right away. There are those who breathe a sigh of relief and say they are tired of the mechanics of modern social networks, those who let off steam, those who introduce themselves, those who inevitably post a photo of the cat or recommend a book. Fabio is also planning the publication of an internal magazine, called Warp, to tell a little about what happens in this small virtual village (a term that, I realize, comes straight from the pre-social internet). The ability to distinguish between the circle of friends and the general circle of the server, combined with the still manageable numbers, allow a more direct and perhaps even less aggressive contact.
Obviously, at the moment a small utopia, in which not knowing everyone and still using the good old nicknames it is easier to want to open up, because your aunt or your boss is not looking at you (perhaps). However, more than 1500 people have now entered the Secret Level, which are still impressive numbers for Bortolotti who certainly did not expect this result, but who for the moment also guarantee a very quiet moderation. For the moment, in fact, all people have joined who in some way already gravitate around the Twitch channel he manages and which was already based on respect and tolerance. The first comparison that comes to mind is that of the community of music lovers who in recent years has discovered and rediscovered vinyls to escape from the hit and run logic of Spotify and streaming music. Basically you are doing the same thing, posting on the internet, but you are doing it differently, slowly, with greater care for yourself and for others, aware that there is nothing that you are not missing and everything is there. awaits you.
“Secret Level wants to be an anarchist experiment, except that anarchy is not that situation in which everyone does what they like to the detriment of others, it is the exact opposite, it is a condition of total respect in which you first think about the good of the others and then to their own without strict regulation. For example, I am strongly anti-clerical but in here we have asked to avoid blasphemies and excessively vulgar language. Both to respect those who may be annoyed, and because the atmosphere is so positive that we would like to keep it that way, if we need to intervene we will do it with serenity because the ultimate goal here is not to make money, on the contrary, at most we spend it for keep servers running, but feel good; therefore, losing users who only lead to discord is fine by us ”.
internet and censorship
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In fact, on closer inspection, being aggressive or provocative in this context does not pay. If normally aggression and excess are useful in a context in which the algorithm rewards the reaction and discussion, even very heated, in a situation in which there is a simple chronological hierarchy and not a mechanism that leads to our attention the most shared or most discussed contents there is no advantage in exasperating the tones.
Mechanism that instead works very well in many other parts. “We don’t want the Secret Level participants to feel compelled to post following the rules imposed by the system, we don’t want them to have to do branding at all costs, they are not brands, they are people. Obviously it is nice to share what you do but if at a party in a club you only talk about what you are doing for work then there is someone going away, because we are also something else, we are not made only of narratives in which we must always appear. at the top to become products or for fear of judgment. Here, the principle is the same ”.
Hacker
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Certainly the Secret Level balance will be severely tested in the coming months, because inevitably certain mechanisms and old habits will emerge, understanding how they will be addressed will be an interesting experiment. Certainly, contributing to the Secret Level community is a romantic gesture, perhaps even useless in the face of a world that does not stop, but hides within itself the power of an important feeling that is not limited to simple nostalgia. There is a desire to recover the best part of the internet of twenty years ago, that of the forums, of the newsletters, of when the internet was not constant, also a political act, with which to try to snatch from the internet 2.0 and the capitalist sirens and cryptocurrency, multiverse and NFT scams, that is the web that claims to be “decentralized” but is just waiting to be centralized simply in new hands.
For now it is the equivalent of the peaceful village as opposed to the rage of the city. And in fact, now that I think about it on Facebook I only go there practically for work, as if it were an office, while the things I want to share are already a few days that I prefer to write on Secret Level. Will last? I don’t know, but in any case it’s nice that he was there.