Gregory's Server|
14 comments
 @brembs @fnwbr I think we need to think about *how* one is using social media. On mastodon, everything including direct messages are available to the admin of the instance, there is no privacy. Which may mean one uses it differently to the way one might have used twitter, especially if the instance is owned by an employer. Fair enough. Technically, this is not all too different from Email. I always tell my daughter (13) that anything she would not be comfortable shouting on a town square, she should not be posting. 😇 @brembs @fnwbr personally I would only use university/employers mastodon instances for “broadcasting” science There is too much risk, in my opinion, associated with using it for any personal interaction. Of course, one of the good things about the Fediverse is the ability to have multiple accounts for different purposes. @brembs @fnwbr there are also important differences to university email servers in the way the service works. For one thing there’s the whole technical issue of *how* and *who* your employers instance federates with. It’s an open system, which email isn’t. Then there’s the whole issue of *how* your instance is moderated and how it deals with for example bullying within your uni and with external people. Ah, yes, interesting aspect I hadn't thought of. This may be very different between universities, depending on how much faculty would be involved in such decisions. I see interesting "Mastodon comittee" meetings coming up 😆 @brembs @fnwbr in essence the fediverse means taking on the admin responsibilities we once we happy for twitter to do (for example with respect of security and safety). A question researchers need to think about is whether the university is really capable of doing that. For me that’s several levels higher than for email. Hence one needs to think it through carefully, ideally with the labour union. It seems to me you have a point there. More reasons to have a "Mastodon committee". Tying in @leonido here who may enlighten us how his university is handling these issues?  @brembs @Sbectol @fnwbr @leonido if the instance is also open to use by undergraduate students, at least in UK a portion of them could well be minors (its not that uncommon for an intelligent pupil to move up a school year and thus complete their A-levels and go up to University at age 17) - which would also create further safeguarding requirements.. @vfrmedia there are lots of resources available about running a mastodon/fediverse instance. There’s not a lot I’ve seen specifically about the issues with a large (or fairly large) one run by a university. I've seen a few uni instances on Mastodon since 2017, mostly from Northern European countries; but many seem to be mostly only used by academics and/or as a PR/marketing vehicle for the University (not that its a bad thing, they often toot some interesting stuff) @vfrmedia for sure I’ve no issues with that either. I think the issues are more concentrated when researchers are encouraged to join and use the instance (so it becomes much wider than the uni marketing itself) |
@fnwbr @Sbectol
Was wondering the same thing? What should we pay attention to if we, e.g., use university email?