 EFF: "FBI Seizure of Mastodon Server is a Wakeup Call to Fediverse Users and Hosts to Protect their Users" Now that's a subject that hasn't been discussed much at all. Unlike commercial social platforms, most fediverse servers are operated by volunteers on shoestring budgets. They don't have the legal resources (or simply reputation for them) to stand up much for their users I would think. Found via a post to the Fediverse press coverage group https://lemmy.world/c/fediverse_press  So this new #arc browser by https://thebrowser.company . Some good ideas, like pinned tabs. (Will soon be copied I would think.) Some concerning: lots of data apparently gets sent to Google, unless you turn if off/ Some features I would miss from Firefox, particularly containers. I have walled off some companies (like Meta) and use them to easily access multiple accounts at others (like Mastodon.social) But the biggest question is: what's their business model? They have venture investment.
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@J12t unless users are paying them money, their business model is selling users by the pound. @J12t Arc actually have something called Spaces, which is the main reason I’ve been using Arc as my primary browser. But that’s because I had missed Firefox’s containers. Seems to be exactly what I need – and makes it possible for me to switch back. “South Florida ocean tops 100 degrees F” (that’s almost 38 degrees C) Anybody still think that #climate thing can’t be so bad? Remember this year is going to be a cold year compared to most years in the future. https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2023/07/25/florida-record-warm-ocean-climate/
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 @J12t Cripes this should be a 6 alarm fire all-hands-on-deck. Ouch. The Washington Post has this piece: “Twitter rival #Mastodon rife with child-#abuse material, study finds”. The author does not understand the implications of a decentralized network at all (“mastodon did not respond”) but imho that’s on us, not on them: we have not done the work to communicate it. The #fediverse needs a #PR team that can react quickly on press like this.
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  @J12t one thing is educate more Fediverse developers about PhotoDNA and screening for CSAM. I was product manager at WMF on our work to hook up MediaWiki to PhotoDNA. I'm familiar with the platform and understand its importance. I'd like to invite @alex and/or colleagues to come to our next #SocialCG meeting to discuss the paper and talk about solutions. @dmitri could we push this to the top of the agenda? I'll take a task of soliciting participation from dev teams on the fediverse. What percentage of accounts in the #fediverse do you think are "fake"? How would we tell?  It could be done. Myself, @accesstoken , and some others created a system like that for Twitter more than a decade ago. Hey @LemmyDev, I'd really love to tag my Lemmy posts. For the fediverse press coverage group https://lemmy.world/c/fediverse_press , it would be really nice to be able to add tags for which apps and other social networks are mentioned in those articles, and then have stats like "in the past week, articles that mentioned ActivityPub also mentioned Twitter every time, but Bluesky only 25% of the time" or such. The Kaiser Permanente website at this point I think is a total write-off. It is slow as molasses, has spaghetti navigation (like spaghetti code, just not as tasty) and clearly many parts of the site have no idea what other parts of the site are up to. Is there a medical condition as a result of which you are sick, because you were unable to tolerate and make sense out of unacceptable healthcare websites? Should I call my primary care physician? It is fun to watch #fediforum registrations come in. Join us in September? https://fediforum.org/ For those of you who don't know about California Redwoods and their symbiotic relationship with fire: the trunks are all that's left over of the world's largest trees (Redwoods) after a wildfire, like here in Big Basin 3 years ago. All the branches burnt off, but the trunks were protected by thick bark so they remain standing and alive. Now they are regrowing branches everywhere! (Looks like cypress trees! But will turn in to a Redwood again in due course.) Since I first set foot on that California beach 30 years ago this December, the sea level apparently has risen by almost 10cm. At a faster rate in the most recent decade, of course. “… [she] was both brilliant and smart — which in his opinion was a bad combination, as it made her … prone to seeing three sides to every black-or-white issue”. One of the things I enjoy a lot about @cstross’s writing are his little side jabs of out-of-plotline social commentary. This is from “Invisible Sun”. OH: I'm not yet zucchini'd out. After discussing what's in the yard and what's for dinner. Today’s art. A collaboration between human, machine, the temperature and unforeseen circumstances. So I had bought some Swiss Chard seeds on a whim when walking by the seed packets in the store. Planted them in my https://project-springtime.org/ system. Forgot about them. Today I finally decided to investigate what those plants were that are all big now. Swiss Chard! One quick recipe look up later, the first batch of leaves went right into the pan with some garlic and olive oil, and we had delicious veggies on the side for lunch. Would never have happened when buying veggies in the store. social.coop, the Mastodon instance that I'm mostly on, is a coop, so users like me get to vote. An important vote just closed, about whether to federate with Meta's Threads or not. I don't quite agree with the outcome, but it is something I can live with as a compromise, and I VASTLY PREFER this messy, argumentative, and lengthy (yes!) process of member democracy over any unilateral action by any instance administrator or overlord, even if they are quite benevolent. Others should emulate. Learned a new #Linux thing: convmv and as a side effect, that there are different "normalization forms" in unicode. @J12t Looks like it's convmv in Fedora. Encoding detection is a dark art! Meanwhile, all hail TR15. Frozen Margarita on some rocks. The result of larger ice cubes in the new ice cube tray meeting the blender which has decided to merely juggle some of them. |
Gregory's Server
Meant to post the actual link: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/fbi-seizure-mastodon-server-wakeup-call-fediverse-users-and-hosts-protect-their
@J12t
Most Important for admins and to clearly communicate ALL their servers policies and procedures - ideally upon joining and in ongoing manner - “office hours”
And for users to be pointed to them and understand them.