Sasha Costanza-ChockSome quick notes on how we might build some of the essential infrastructure and governance processes that will be needed if #Mastodon is really going to be sustainable and viable as a mass-adoption social network (1/n):
a) We need to scale content moderation. A LOT. Corporate social network sites (SNS) do this by using armies of poorly paid, outsourced contractors. The #Fediverse should do it better. Perhaps by organizing a worker-owned content moderation cooperative?
a2) Smaller instances can self-moderate / use volunteer labor / whatever. But large instances will need to be able to scale, so a content mod coop (or a federated network of multiple such coops) that can be hired/contracted by larger instances would be amazing.
a3) Another option is for larger instances to hire more mods directly. Hopefully, some of the larger instances can themselves be organized as cooperaqtives. Probably some combination of in-house moderation & contracts w/coops would work well.
b) funding mechanisms. It is going to take money to scale. For hosting, development, ongoing improvements, #a11y, localization, UX improvements, security, and perhaps most of all, to pay content moderators just wages.
b2) currently, most of the money is in the form of small recurring donations to the german nonprofit that is the largest instance. every instance running its own patreon is part of the puzzle, but it probably can't be the whole thing.
b3) probably there will be a mix, with large donations from individuals, private foundations, and perhaps increasingly some state actors (for example, municipalities, libraries, state agencies, etc) providing contracts. There will also be some companies that want to donate (and contribute coding time, etc).
b4) All that money flowing in, mostly to the largest instances, ideally should be governed at least in part through participatory budgeting mechanisms. Alternately (or in addition), there should be formalized governance mechanisms (elections for the board of the mastodon non-profit? liquid democracy? sortition? stakeholder board members?) to truly democratize resource allocation.
c) Now that the 'don is taking off, from DIY small community to wider adoption, intentional bad actors are in the mix at scale. We will need to take this seriously, and invest HEAVILY in various approaches to minimizing harm, constantly working to block and limit bad actors, defederate the worst instances, and ... create our wildest dreams in terms of care, follow-up, and support for community members after troll attacks!
c2) we control the fediverse, not the market, the state, or the billionaires, not surveillance capitalism, not ad markets, so why would we limit our dreams of how to create community safety to content moderation alone? Let's dream bigger. We can create (and resource) new tools, implement shared banlists, provide resources for rapid response teams and after-attack processing support, and so much more!
(pause for now as I'm heading to a budget meeting, hope to return soon with more).
Brennan Stehling@schock I’d like to have a third party moderation services which can be contracted by any social media platform with tools to review content and take action to enforce community rules. Actions could be reversed with an appeal process. And I believe actions taken by humans could be used to train ML models to scale moderation. I’d also like to be able directly hire a “bot” which would handle moderation for me. It should also train an ML model. cc @cd24 @seb
Jocelyn Etienne@brennansv @schock @cd24 @seb Thinking even more globally than social media (or with a very broad definition of what they are), what could be awesome would be to have an independent, grassroot-led #identity certification of internet users. Presently, the big tech are in effect those offering this service, through google accounts e.g.
Idea is a service that would be non-government, not-for-profit and that could link together the different activities of a single person.
Idea is a service that would be non-government, not-for-profit and that could link together the different activities of a single person.
@jocelyn_etienne Apple is working with a few US states on a standard for a digital ID. If you go into a bar it would just confirm you’re over the age limit and if you get pulled over in traffic it only gives the police what is required. I’d like to leverage this standard. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2021/09/apple-announces-first-states-to-adopt-drivers-licenses-and-state-ids-in-wallet/
@brennansv Funny how things feel different either side of the Atlantic. In France - and I guess in the UK and all of Europe - people will rather allow the police to access their details but not private companies.
That said, it's also an issue here that a specific government body accesses only what's relevant to them.
That said, it's also an issue here that a specific government body accesses only what's relevant to them.
@jocelyn_etienne I believe one of the advantages of the digital ID is it will provide the necessary details for the situation. For a traffic stop your photo, name and proof of insurance could all be provided.
I expect once the standard starts to catch on it will spread quickly like Apple Pay has for years. I now use it nearly everywhere.
I expect once the standard starts to catch on it will spread quickly like Apple Pay has for years. I now use it nearly everywhere.
@brennansv I share your views on the usefulness of having a digital ID that provides just the right info to the person entitled. Where I am much more cautious is about who manages my ID data: I don't want Apple or Google to do that for me.
Same for payments, I'm not using apple pay or similar services, and for small purchases (and I do most of my everyday purchases at tiny shops and market place stalls) I use cash rather than card. My bank doesn't have to handle all my life.
Same for payments, I'm not using apple pay or similar services, and for small purchases (and I do most of my everyday purchases at tiny shops and market place stalls) I use cash rather than card. My bank doesn't have to handle all my life.
John Beatty@jocelyn_etienne @brennansv One idea I had the other day on funding a moderation co-op. I suspect there might be stiff resistance to this idea, but here goes: For large instances with moderation challenges, how about a system where new, unvetted, unaffiliated users have to post a bond guaranteeing good behavior? Say, $5 or something. If this user violates rules, bond is collected, funding moderation. A bonded User A could invite User B, and User B is covered under User A's bond. This can chain.
@jocelyn_etienne @brennansv One nice thing about this system is that instances can individually opt-in to this scheme and it could literally start with one instance.
@jocelyn_etienne @brennansv A no-money version of this system is possible as well (but it doesn't help solve the problem of funding moderation). An instance could become invite-only. If I invite a bad actor, it has repercussions on me (perhaps offender gets a 10-day suspension, and I get a fraction of that). I'm guessing these ideas have been floated somewhere; I'm a latecomer to this conversation.
@jocelyn_etienne @brennansv One case where identity, credentials, conflicts of interest, etc. really matters is moderating on matters of fact. A primary goal with my experimental OpenCheck system is to enable a diverse set of experts weigh in on matters of fact, at scale, in a bottoms-up, global, non-authoritarian manner. Then somehow connect that with mis/dis-information spreading across a system. Hard problem!
@beatty @jocelyn_etienne Good thoughts. I believe there is value which could used instead of actual cash money. Wikipedia has used an interesting model where new accounts just cannot edit for a few days. It has prevented most abuse from "drive by" edits. Where I think there is value is in any account a user has had a while where they have built up a history and connections. I'd like to score accounts similar to how Stackoverflow does with community credits.
@brennansv @beatty I think the powers should be well separated, just as you separate judiciary/executive in democracy:
- moderators should be able to know e.g. whether a new account belongs to a physical person, how many and which other accounts they have on other instances, and whether they were banned somewhere for some amount of time. For some topical instances, some other details could be legitimate to know, eg place of residence.
1/n
- on the other hand, moderators (and other internet-based services) don't have to know about personal details that would be convenient to identify the person for sure, such as see a proof of name and of address, eg passport or utility bill. This is where the idea of a federated network of #identity providers comes: similar to opencheck.is, they are trusted with information one won't share directly with the service. You use orcid connection, but it could be a passport check.
@jocelyn_etienne @beatty I'd like accounts to be bound to a real identity while still having the option to make it an alias or just an organization or brand account. The real identity would be something that is linked to the account but not shown publicly. I'd use it to prevent suspended accounts from just creating more abusive accounts. And I personally would like to limit interactions to accounts with linked identities.
@brennansv @beatty Exactly! Privacy combined with identity.
If there are multiple federated identity provider, one always has the possibility to give up the identity that was verified with one and start over with another provider. This is like starting a new life under a new name: that gives one a right to error, but comes with a big cost since all one's internet life does start over from zero. I think this is rather balanced between right to be forgotten vs accountability.
@jocelyn_etienne @beatty One aspect for a server admin would be the ability to report what a user has posted to law enforcement along with their linked identity so they can take action for any threats which were made. Users should understand there are still real world consequences for their actions. Make it easy for investigators to identify users.
Thinking again of the car rental as example:
Car rental company needs to know that you have a driving licence and that they can tell the police who was driving the car *in case* there's something wrong. So id provider can certify to them the *existence* of a valid driving licence and *if the police needs to know* who was driving and *has a warrant* for that, car rental company refers them to the id provider can release to them your name and address.
Same for moderators.
@jocelyn_etienne @beatty Yes, simply is the driver's license valid and not expired. Have any incidents caused the license to be revoked? Does the person carry current liability insurance? I’d want an official and trusted system for this use case while the trusted identity could also be used for social media.