Martijn
Ralf RottmannI read this elsewhere: If trusted news outlets would start offering #Mastodon instances to their staff, that would bring some sort of verification and visibility. Think social.nytimes.com, social.heise.de etc. I'd love to read more from trusted journalists on the #fediverse and this could greatly help. (Again, not my idea but couldn't find the original author.) Boosts for visibility would be great. Reminder: Favorites don't help as on this other platform.
Frau Nora 🦋@ralf That is an interesting thought. But you have a lot of freelance workers in media. Working for more then one editorial. How to deal with that? Who should be visible and verified in that case? Presenters? News Anchors? Lead journalists?
@fraunora I think mastodons excellent multi-user and migration features actually support this scenario pretty well.
@ralf I wouldn't want five mastodon accounts to communicate and always think about which editorial might be involved.
@fraunora Yeah. Understandable. But would you mind having an account at one instance you trust and (partially) work for?
@ralf No, I wouldn't mind. But the editorial might. Because you always seem to speak in their name. And that can be problematic for the organisation. We have seen that with Omagate. And it might lead to the company/editorial making rules for how to use social media in their name. And as a freelance journalist I don't like that thought at all.
Gerbrand van Dieyen
Natanael ⚠️
Phil Rees@Natanael_L @gerbrand @fraunora @ralf For me as a reader the two account approach has value. It makes it clear when someone is speaking journalistically rather than simply expressing personal opinions like the rest of us. That often gets blurred. The separation would, I think, enhance reputations.
@phrees @Natanael_L @gerbrand @ralf I understand that wish. But the problem is not, which handle is used. The problem is at the core of journalism. For a long period of time journalism was about sending rather then receiving. It was a one way business. With social media journalists have to become communicators as well, who not only send a message but rather receive direct feedback and have to deal with it. That needs education in communication imho.
Stephen Judge 🇮🇪🇪🇺@fraunora @ralf Good points, I wonder if a dedicated #Journalists instance might be the answer. Independent of a specific media outlet, but a dedicated space for people that can prove their journalistic credentials. I'm thinking along the lines of like how https://eupolicy.social/about exists for EU policy professionals.
@fraunora @ralf And poof! your wish is granted
https://journa.host/about
"An experimental server to help onboard journalists to Mastodon"
Stefan Karstens
Richard Gadsden
...hukka.@fraunora - In real life the journalist would send an encrypted mail or message to an editor. ...the personal account would be for other uses.
The freelance journalist could have an account at each news outlet, but be limited from posting publicly there.
@ralf - The local feed of a news instance would simply be a list of news well worth bookmarking.
@ralf alternatively, media sources could issue Verified Credentials, which Mastodon could integrate:
https://verifiablecredentials.dev/
https://verifiablecredentials.dev/
RandomDude@martijnarts @ralf looks interesting. VC seems to be more flexible for the use case described by @fraunora and it could by nicely presented as a bluish check and might be worth $8 per month.
Maybe it would also be a suitable use case for #WebOfTrust
Maybe it would also be a suitable use case for #WebOfTrust
@randomdude @ralf @fraunora I think it's an important step in a web of trust usecase. I've been considering building some very simple OSS backend for issuing these for common "blue check" usecases, along with some Web Components (or similar) to display them.
@martijnarts @ralf @fraunora curious about it. And I would also be interested, what @Lilith thinks about this topic...
@randomdude @martijnarts @ralf @fraunora @Lilith keyoxide exists already and could be extended to support various usecases.
We definitely need a way for an entity to express official delegation of roles and similar stuff.
@Natanael_L @martijnarts @ralf @fraunora @Lilith didn’t find the time to check out #keyoxide yet, but will do.
@Natanael_L @martijnarts @ralf @fraunora I checked the feature of verified links, that is also used with #keyoxide. Fine for this use case, although the number of verifiable links per account seems limited to four. The other way around one media page could list many accounts. Keyoxide claims to enable verification, that different accounts belong to the same person - not what fraunora wants. If we want to boil it down to $8 check, this could be done by defining trustworthy urls on an instance.
Evelyn fra denne andre øya@evelyn @ralf not sure how this is much different from the existing domain name ownership verification that Mastodon already does.
There are plenty good reasons to have verified claims integrated into the platform. Verified Credentials allows federating (decentralizing) the verification. Seems perfect for Mastodon?
There are plenty good reasons to have verified claims integrated into the platform. Verified Credentials allows federating (decentralizing) the verification. Seems perfect for Mastodon?
@martijnarts @ralf What purpose does this verification actually serve? The example outlined here seems hardly that useful for ordinary people, but massively useful for organisations. I would prefer not to see the fediverse being commercialised, this has ruined enough places online.
@evelyn @ralf the website is the best description I've found of VC, but is commercial. VC could be used for any type of claim (not just ID cards and stuff). For example, a whistleblower support org could give out VCs to whistleblowers that says "Whistleblower Help Foundation verifies that the person that owns @[email protected] has worked at the DOD as an Analyst" or whatever. Using the VC format Mastodon could then display that nicely and help users understand whether or not to trust this claim.
@martijnarts @ralf mastodon.social has notoriously inadequate moderation, I'm not sure why anyone should trust any assertion it makes, and I'm also not sure what mechanism you're proposing for that assertion, since federation is based on a specified standard, and not the whims of twitter users.
@martijnarts @ralf Fediverse works on activitypub, how would web of trust verification federate over it?
@evelyn my best idea is to separately federate it using some enhanced version of PGP keyservers.
(Separating this out makes sense because not every verifying org should also need to be a social network.)
@martijnarts @evelyn keyoxide exists and uses signed assertions
OpenDNA⚙️@evelyn @ralf @martijnarts The risk of impersonation is higher for journalists, both professionally and to the public.
If someone impersonates me, they could excite some fringe conspiracy theorists. If someone impersonates Ronan Farrow, they could cause a political or economic crisis.
Ironically, it's easier for me to verify than it is Ronan.
tsvety@martijnarts gosh I hope ~~mastodon~~ everything never integrates this.
Dan Hon@ralf It might have been me. I wrote up the proposal here: https://newsletter.danhon.com/archive/s13e17-a-proposal-for-news-organization-mastodon/
Jeremy Kahn
root42@ralf They could even monetize access if necessary. Think newspaper subscription. Maybe with some free content on a special instance. In the end someone has to pay for the content...
anubis2814@ralf Coops should all have instances
Matt Stenson@ralf Might it make more sense for writers to have a mechanism to verify sites that they've authored articles on? Since often authors write for more than one news sources.
★ Amy Star ★@ralf @cadey I would rather this platform not chase "legitimacy" by courting right-wing mainstream media known for publishing anti-trans screeds and conspiracy theories (NYTimes). we should instead be satirizing and lampooning them until they feel deeply uncomfortable with the mere concept of the Fediverse to protect our user base.
✾, chief troublemaker@AmyZenunim @ralf @cadey “legitimacy” is just catering to a deeply capitalist setup at this point anyway. Why should we _want_ to interact with people in their capacity as associates to things that have justified incalculable harm? Just because the institution that pays their wages want to claim prestige and monetize a spot where the people who were harmed have built new culture? Mildly revolting, imo.
Mr. Encyclopedia@AmyZenunim @ralf @cadey I suppose the beauty of that is instances or users are free to block media instances, just like how far-right hate instances are blocked currently. I highly doubt weirder.earth would tolerate being federated to the NYT or CNN instance.
RevK 
@ralf I did wonder about us (A&A) doing a staff only instance. Simple to admin as only staff allowed on it, but by virtue of being on the official domain it effectively verifies them as staff.
Robert Riemann 🇪🇺@ralf That's obviously something good to do for people who use their account in their professional capacity. Check out @EDPS_supervisor @EC_DIGIT_director_general @EDPS_director ...
(I acknowledge – not the most active accounts. In the end, most communication is done by the corporate accounts @EDPS or @EC_DIGIT .)
Vicki Ziegler@ralf What is the correct use of Favourites (which this Canadian appreciates is spelled with "our" in my interface)? On any social media platform, whether it feeds into an algorithm or not, I've always used it as "I like/find interesting what you just said/shared here." I do use boost/retweet/repost, etc. to further distribute posts that I think others would also like or benefit from ...
rastinza@bookgaga @ralf That is the only use there is: favourites have no utility for the social itself.
The person you favourites gets a notification about it.
It's pretty much like saying: I like what you said but I have nothing to add and still wanted you to know about it.
If you really like a post you should boost it to let others know about it.
Liking a post is mainly for when someone has been kind to you but what he wrote isn't so important that you want to share it with other people.
In general, you shouldn't like posts too much but rather reply to them.
@rastinza Since you personally don't like favourites, I'm just acknowledging your comments - thanks! ;)
Taylor@bookgaga @ralf, this is a great question. And as someone living in Texas, the interface here also uses the “ou” spelling, which I also appreciate. I’m going to assume the context and functionality of favourites and boosts are similar enough to the birdsite, but would love to read an article about any variance in nuance.
aadil@ralf the downside of this is that journalists would have to link their fedi presence directly to their workplace. Also, freelance journalists who write for multiple publications would not be able to take advantage of this.
「VRISKAHAUSEN」@ralf twitter go home
Mark Igra@ralf Yes, and they wouldn't even have to be "mastodon" - it would be easy for them to build tools that are integrated with their existing systems.
One question: How important is the ability for anyone to be able to *reply* to those news posts directly. I think that it's an important part of twitter, but also what turns it into a shouting match with bad actors. At least there's no "quote tweet" here.
David Brückner@ralf Totally agree, the German government already has it's official server for government accounts - seems much better than if it's all in Elon's hands
Pete@ralf I think a jounalist-focused instance is sorely needed, but I can't imagine any major news outlet wanting to host it and deal with all the content moderation rubbish. They learned their lesson with newspaper article comment threads years ago.
I'd prefer to see one or more instances that individual journalists used, dedicated to principles of independence and journalistic integrity. Direct reporting from journalists was a big draw to twttr for many people.
Tim Chambers
tsc67Would be nice to see and I would definitely pay/support journalists who did this
Delajor🍞@ralf Mastadon, so far seems great. My worry is that its a little complex for the general masses.
Suswati Basu (巴苏) 
@ralf as a journalist for national news, I would love this! We're desperate to stop misinformation.
jeSuisatire neindochohh ᘛ⁐̤ᕐᐷ
Tuomas Tammisto@ralf And not just news outlets, but public institutions too. Especially, say, unis, which could automagically verify their staff/researchers. And no, totally not my idea.
And as @Stoori noted, it would be reasonable for publixöc institutions to have their own instances, instead of using volunteer-run infra.
Josh Ourisman@ralf this is a cool idea. I also had the (clearly not going to happen) thought that Twitter could basically become a paid Mastodon instance, that is mostly just a verification service at that point. The rest of us could still follow @twitter.com users in the #Fediverse. Gets rid of load from non-paying users, but screws them on ad revenue, which probably makes it a non-starter.