A newsletter about #privacy, #technology, #policy, #strategy, and #justice.
Currently at @nexusofprivacy, but looking for a new home and so checking out infosec.exchange
@MrJameGumb yeah I thought @Diplomjodler3 nailed it with “monetize my ass”. Then again people have been trying to commercialize the fediverse even before the term got invented – StatusNet got initial venture funding back in 2009 or so back when it was still the identifverse. So it’s a long-standing tension in fedi as a whole.
Mostly though I’m just entertained that people think that it’s self-promotion on my part 😂
@LiterallyLMAO I don’t think so. But why do you think this is self-promotion? I’ve got nothing to do with the project, and it’s news about the fediverse so it’s on-topic for this community.
Instances in the free fediverses should consider “transitive defederation” from instances that federate with Meta
https://privacy.thenexus.today/consider-transitively-defederatiion/
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.
So 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.
https://privacy.thenexus.today/consider-transitively-defederatiion/
The free fediverses should work together with people and instances in Meta’s fediverses and on Bluesky whose goals and values align with the free fediverse
https://privacy.thenexus.today/work-together-with-metas-fediverses-and-bluesky/
Part 6 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.
https://privacy.thenexus.today/work-together-with-metas-fediverses-and-bluesky/
The free fediverses should make it easier to move between (and create) instances
Part 5 of Strategies for the Free Fediverse
https://privacy.thenexus.today/make-it-easier-to-move-to-instances-in-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.
The free fediverses should support concentric federations of instances
Part 4 of Strategies for the Free Fediverses
Here’s how @zkat 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 discussed in part 3, and helps address scalability of consent-based federation discussed in Part 2.
The free fediverses should emphasize networked communities
https://privacy.thenexus.today/the-free-fediverses-should-emphasize-networked-communities/
Here’s how @lrhodes describes the Networked Communities view:
“instances are valuable for the relations and interactions they facilitate locally AND for their ability to connect you to other parts of the network.”
By contrast, @evanprodromou notes that “Big Fedi” advocates typically see instances as typically see the instance as “mostly a dumb pipe.” But The Networked Communities view aligns much better with the free fediverses’ values – as does the “Social Archipelago” view @noracodes sketches in The Fediverse is Already Dead. Not only that, it’s good strategy!
The free fediverses should focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety
https://privacy.thenexus.today/free-fediverses-and-consent/
(Part 2 of “Strategies for the free fediverses”)
@drwho Not necessarily. In the short term, the huge split in the Republican party means that the NDAA’s already not a slam-dunk, so throwing gasoline on the fire with FISA activism could potentially have an impact. It also adds to pressure on Speaker Johnson, who’s under a lot of fire from Republicans for how badly he’s handled this mess.
And even if they do the short-term reauth (which I agree is more likely than not), it’s still very much an open question as to what happens next – it could be anything from GSRA or PLEWSA (with significant reforms) to a straightforward longer-term reauth with minimal reforms as a “compromise” to the odious FFRA (which *broadens* the scope). So pressure now is also a preparation for the next battle.
@daveley Great question. A rew reasons:
- mastodon.social’s so big that the Local and Federated timelines aren’t very useful.
- smaller instances (even if they’re not special-interest focused) are more likely to have a good community.
- many other instances have “silenced” mastodon.social (because of its long history of moderation issues – or just because of the volume), so people on other instances are less likely to connect with you.
All that being said, I wasn’t trying to say that mastodon.social was terrible - it’s the advice that’s horrible. It’s just that for most people it’s not the best place to start.
@sibrosan The server rules on your server explicitly prohibit transphobia.
So why do you see enforcing the rules by not federating with another server that’s got a long history of transphobia as “bias”?
@sibrosan Like I say, opinions differ.
Why do you think so many trans and queer people – who are very likely to be directly impacted by transgressions of the rules – come to a different conclusion and advocate preemptively blocking?
See the “We’re here, we’re queer” section of https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/#were-here-were-queer for more on that perspective.
@sibrosan Or, if an instance that’s about to launch has a long history of discrimination, hate, violance, abuse, and contributions to genocide, you can announce your intention to defederate from them even before they launch.
Like I said in the post, opinions differ!
@Chimaera We can’t stop Meta from doing what they want with the millions of Insta accounts, and we can’t stop instances who want to work with Meta from working with Meta. We can however have a Meta-free region of the fediverse, and it’s very likely to be better in a lot of ways than the Meta-friendly region.
Thanks @darnell , glad you like the analysis! I also think it’s an opportunity as well as a threat, and I agree that right now it looks like most large instances won’t block, and most of all I agree that we’ll have to wait and see what happens!
@fancysandwiches when Darnell and I discussed this before he pointed to some things they’ve said that certainly might imply that – although also might not (which is back to the wait and see). It’s certainly true that somebody like Oprah would have an IT department capable of running it and would see the advantages of being able to do that. But we don’t really know,
all they’ve said is “decentralized”.
“Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ!” ⬆️
has links to perspectives from @vantablack @Seirdy @fancysandwiches @alice @viennawriter @oblomov @mcp @fosstodon @darnell @PoliticaConC @tchambers @deadsuperhero @ianbetteridge @dangillmor @smallpatatas @gcrkrause and more … like I say, opinions differ, but no matter where you are on it, I appreciate the time everybody’s put into articulating their positions.
Thanks also @cendawanita @jo @edendestroyer @ophiocephalic @oliphant @admin1 and @damon for the feedback and discussions!
BTW in the last section when I’m discussing Mastodon’s moderation issues, one of the things I mention is the lack of an ability to control who can reply to tweets … so apologies in advance if this generates a bunch of notifications! I left the acknowedgments out of the main post to try to limit the damage, we’ll see how well it works.
https://infosec.exchange/@thenexusofprivacy/110594384248698967
@ozoned cool, thanks very much! It’s now at the start of the “don’t tell people it’s easy” section – https://privacy.thenexus.today/kbin-lemmy-fediverse-learnings-from-mastodon/#its-not-easy
I was very impressed with the threat modeling
@[email protected] did to kick the LOLA project off. More of this please! Really good work.
@[email protected] @[email protected]