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).
Woozle Hypertwin@schock The idea that we're going to need some of governance to manage the fediverse* is something about which I've been standing in the corner and frantically waving my arms around about since 2017 or so ;-)
I have written a lot of conceptual design stuff, but not a whole lot of code yet. I'm definitely interested in being part of this discussion, in any case.
* ...and really, it goes way beyond that... [resists temptation to jump on hobby-horse and ride off into the sunset lecturing]
cc: @dredmorbius
Jon (now at neuromatch.social)