Dr. Jorge CaballeroFolks dunking on #fedified insist that the "real" way to verify oneself on the fediverse is to buy your own domain name. So, I hereby announce that insulin is free! For details, just visit EIiLiIly.com
It should go without saying that if [#]fedified is triggering, then blocking the tag is better than following it
Note: I removed the link from my profile so as to avoid actual confusion.
If you really want to see if the site exists, you can still visit https://eiiliily.com
Accept purpose.@DataDrivenMD I think it's more that you're trying to port a status hierarchy from one environment to another. The attraction of the fediverse is that to some extent it puts everyone back on a level playing field for a while.
Michael Downey 
@laprice I think you're right, and I can see how some see the verification as a status symbol, but it's not. The events of last week at Twitter offer ample proof of the functional need for actual verification.
Moreover, we've got anti-vaxers and election deniers in nearly every G7 country to disprove the notion that community verification is infallible.
Faith in government institutions is the best (widely accepted) option we have. pre-Nov. 5th Twitter Verification is a proxy for government ID.
@DataDrivenMD Right, I think you're encountering a bit of context collapse though. Twitter verification was a bit murky and opaque and left people unverified who should have been verified under the standards you are describing. I think @danhon has it right in that self-certification ( by orgs running their own instances ) is the way to go.
CDC wants the SG to have an official account? Fire up an instance and have at it.
@laprice @danhon I *generally* agree with this approach, but I can't emphasize this enough— it's very likely that we'll end up with a 2-tiered fediverse. The money and growth will go to the version that adopts community norms & frameworks that enable capitalist pursuits— reputation management and brand integrity are cornerstones.
This will happen regardless of what you, I, or anybody else wants. It's how the world works— a painful lesson I learned while advocating for COVID safety measures.
Steve In Ashland@DataDrivenMD @laprice @danhon the advantage the Fediverse has is that instances and individuals can opt out of participating in the corporate parts of the system. Not really an option on the social media networks that sprang from the head of Plutus.
@steveinashland @laprice @danhon That's a fair and valid point. I hear this, and I wish this were the level of discourse I were having with the fedified naysayers
@DataDrivenMD @danhon
You're definitely right about an at scale fediverse being more commercially oriented. There's going to be some weird interaction between public activitypub servers and regulatory regimes. And unfortunately a few people who set up instances are probably going to get caught up in some fairly dire legal situations before the norms evolve.
You're definitely right about an at scale fediverse being more commercially oriented. There's going to be some weird interaction between public activitypub servers and regulatory regimes. And unfortunately a few people who set up instances are probably going to get caught up in some fairly dire legal situations before the norms evolve.
Bob Jonkman@DataDrivenMD I would say we've had a two-tier internet for a while now. People #SelfHosting and paying for online things, vs. people using the corporate surveillance sites and being the online things that corporations pay for.
The independent #Fediverse isn't new, but it's been completely overshadowed by the big corporations for decades, to the point where many people don't even know it's possible to have your own website.
Dan Hon@laprice @DataDrivenMD yep, you trust cdc.gov? Then trust an account that is at cdc.gov. My proposal for news institutions and others is here: https://newsletter.danhon.com/archive/s13e17-a-proposal-for-news-organization-mastodon/
@danhon @laprice Lots of interesting points in that essay. The part about being a lot of work is the big one. It seems trivial instantiate a VM and orchestrate a few containers for those that know what those things even mean (I do). Speaking from experience with the CDC's tech prowess (or lack thereof), the technical barrier to entry is non-trivial.
ArneBab@laprice or they could just link to their website from their account and provide the link back that causes the link to be shown in green. As everyone with a website can. @DataDrivenMD @danhon