thenexusofprivacy

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[–] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 month ago (2 children)

https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt is a good overview (not by me!) of issues that the November 2022 wave ran into. What's frustrating is that so many of these are very similar to the issues the April 2017 wave ran into!

Release 4.3 did some work on the recommended accounts, that's good, but the problems start even before that. What instance to sign up to? Most people have better experiences on smaller instances that match either their interests or their geography ... but how to find them? mastodon.social is (for most people) kind of meh -- certainly not the worst, but it's not all that well-moderated, and it's big enough that the local feed isn't useful for finding interesting people or stuff -- and that's now the default. Also it took over a year to get 4.3 out; I get it, they're a small team, some stuff turned out to be a lot harder than expected, and they had to deal with a bunch of security patches in the interim ... still, that means progress is frustratingly slow.

[–] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 1 month ago (5 children)

Bluesky certainly provides another option ... when Apartheid Clyde led to Twitter getting shut down in Brazil, there was a small bump in Mastodon's numbers, but a much bigger influx to Bluesky. Then again Bluesky's addressed a lot of problems people coming to Mastodon in 2022 had, and Mastodon hasn't, so if everybody had come to Mastodon instead the pattern would likely have repeated itself and most of them wouldn't have stuck around.

Agreed that there's a difference between funding and other kinds of engagement -- and a difference between initial funding to get them off the ground. Right now it's not exactly clear what funding Meta's contributed and what the longer-term plans are. One of the other polls in the thread was about transparency, and (at least so far) 90% of the respondents are saying that SWF should be transparent about the funding it's getting from Meta. And, another poll zeroes in on funding and has different options for initial and up-front, and whether or not there are any strings attached.

The Bridgy Fed dev didn't get browbeaten into anything, he thinks the opt-in approach is better (and I agree). And he's also said the backlash was probably deserved.

Also SmokeSignal events https://smokesignal.events/

I saw a talk by the peole working on FrontPage last week, they use the Bluesky Relay, filter it down to only see the posts they're interested it, and have their own AppView. It doesn't yet have the same kind of intereoperability with Bluesky that Lemmy does with (say) Mastodon; FrontPage posts are only visible to FrontPage. But, there are discussions on how to get beyond that.

Thanks, glad you appreciate it!

Yeah. Funny how that works!

[–] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Thanks much for the detailed response ... I didn't realize the purpose of this community. Somebody had suggested I post the draft here, which I did, and now I realize that their suggestion was a snarky trap that I fell for 🤣. Oh well, joke's on them (as well as me), I got good feedback on the draft here.

Agreed that there are structural problems with AP; I wrote about this in And it's about the protocol, too. But even though software improvements can help, the underlying problem's cultural.

I intentionally didn't phrase it in terms of allyship (in fact I'm pretty sure the word "ally" doesn't even appear in the article) ... still, I don't think white folks (me included) can stop being white, nor should we -- we are who we are, and that's okay. I do think we (again including me) can make more of an effort to deal with our default attitudes and behaviors, and try to use our privilege for good.

Thanks for pointing that out! But, I got enough pushback on the wording of point 2 that I changed it to just "Think before you post"

[–] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

There's a bit more on Mastodon then Lemmy - https://docs.joinmastodon.org/user/moving/#migration has the details. But not being able to move posts is a big limitation. And even the functionality that's implemented has some unpleasant surprises -- see https://erinkissane.com/notes-from-a-mastodon-migration

[–] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone -2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You asked me to help you find the examples and I said no and suggested a technique that might work. It's an answer, it's just one you didn't like. When you told me that you weren't able to apply the technique successfully, I said

Oh well. It sounds like you’ve got some work to do. The revised version of the article has some antiracism resources, so stay tuned.

[–] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone -3 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Yes, I answered your question, you just didn't like my answer.

If you can’t find them, then (like many people) that’s a sign you’re used to an environment where anti-Blackness is normalized. So, imagine a Black person reading this thread who’s been targeted by racism on the fediverse. What comments would they think are dismissive of Black people?

It doesn't make any assumptions about your ethnicity. If you are in fact a Black person who's been targeted by racism on the fediverse but isn't seeing it in that thread, it's still a useful suggestion to step outside yourself and try to reading it as somebody else would,

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7992691

There are some straightforward opportunities for short-term safety improvements, but this is only the start of what's needed to change the dynamic more completely.

This is a draft, so feedback welcome!

 

There are some straightforward opportunities for short-term safety improvements, but this is only the start of what's needed to change the dynamic more completely.

This is a draft, so feedback welcome!

 

A deep dive into the Data Protection Review Court by Alfred Ng and John Sakellariadis, including some great perspectives from Max Schrems of noyb.eu

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7477620

Transitive defederation -- defederating from instances that federate with Threads as well as defederating from Threads -- isn't likely to be an all-or-nothing thing in the free fediverses. Tradeoffs are different for different people and instances. This is one of the strengths of the fediverse, so however much transitive defederation there winds up being, I see it as overall as a positive thing -- although also messy and complicated.

The recommendation here is for instances to consider #TransitiveDefederation: discuss, and decide what to do. I've also got some thoughts on how to have the discussion -- and the strategic aspects.

(Part 7 of Strategies for the free fediverses )

 

Transitive defederation -- defederating from instances that federate with Threads as well as defederating from Threads -- isn't likely to be an all-or-nothing thing in the free fediverses. Tradeoffs are different for different people and instances. This is one of the strengths of the fediverse, so however much transitive defederation there winds up being, I see it as overall as a positive thing -- although also messy and complicated.

The recommendation here is for instances to consider #TransitiveDefederation: discuss, and decide what to do. I've also got some thoughts on how to have the discussion -- and the strategic aspects.

(Part 7 of Strategies for the free fediverses )

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7371919

There's likely to be a lot of moving between instances as people and instances sort themselves out into the free fediverses and Meta's fediverses -- and today, moving accounts on the fediverse today. There are lots of straightforward ways to improve it, many of which don't even require improvements to the software. And there are also opportunities to make creating, customizing, and connecting instances easier.

(Part 5 of Strategies for the Free Fediverses )

 

Many of the Meta advocates I've talked to share the free fediverses' long-term goal of building a sustainable alternative to surveillance capitalism -- and the same is true for people on Bluesky. So there are likely to be situations where some of the people and instances in Meta's fediverses and Bluesky wind up as situational allies to the free fediverses.

A few areas where collaboration could be very useful:

  • A key principle of organizing is meeting people where they are.

  • Moderation on decentralized networks is a shared challenge.

  • Bringing concepts similar to Bluesky's custom feeds to the fediverses, and more generally focusing on human-focused and liberatory (as opposed to oppressive) uses of algorithms in decentralized social networks designed from the margins.

  • Meta's fediverses, Bluesky, and the free fediverses are all vulnerable to disinformation.

(Part 6 of Strategies for the free fediverses )

 

There's likely to be a lot of moving between instances as people and instances sort themselves out into the free fediverses and Meta's fediverses -- and today, moving accounts on the fediverse today. There are lots of straightforward ways to improve it, many of which don't even require improvements to the software. And there are also opportunities to make creating, customizing, and connecting instances easier.

(Part 5 of Strategies for the Free Fediverses )

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7235896

Here's how Kat Marchá describes caracoles:

"you essentially ask to join concentric federations of instances ... with smaller caracoles able to vote to federate with entire other caracoles.

And @ophiocephalic's "fedifams" are a similar idea:

Communities could align into fedifams based on whatever conditions of identity, philosophy or interest are relevant to them. Instances allied into fedifams could share resources and mutually support each other in many way"

The idea's a natural match for community-focused, anti-surveillance capitalism free fediverses, fits in well with the Networked Communities model and helps address scalability of consent-based federation.

 

Here's how Kat Marchá describes caracoles:

"you essentially ask to join concentric federations of instances ... with smaller caracoles able to vote to federate with entire other caracoles.

And @ophiocephalic's "fedifams" are a similar idea:

Communities could align into fedifams based on whatever conditions of identity, philosophy or interest are relevant to them. Instances allied into fedifams could share resources and mutually support each other in many way"

The idea's a natural match for community-focused, anti-surveillance capitalism free fediverses, fits in well with the Networked Communities model and helps address scalability of consent-based federation.

 

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7193618

The "free fediverses" are regions of the fediverse that reject Meta and surveillance capitalism. This post is part of a series looking at strategies to position the free fediverses as an alternative to Threads and "Meta's fediverses".

 

The "free fediverses" are regions of the fediverse that reject Meta and surveillance capitalism. This post is part of a series looking at strategies to position the free fediverses as an alternative to Threads and "Meta's fediverses".

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