Jen SimmonsDec 16, 2022

Every news outlet should stand up a Mastondon instance for their reporters & staff.

It’ll be great to see [email protected] or whatever domain they want to use.

Built in verification. Every reporter for the Washington Post on a washpo domain. Every reporter for the New York Times on an NYTimes domain. Etc, etc.

Plus the “local” feed for each instance becomes a feed of all the posts from that institution mixed together — providing extra discovery.

Show threadJake Jarvis Dec 16, 2022
@jensimmons one thousand percent! and account migration easily solves the whole "what about if/when they get a different job?" predicament.
Show threadJake OuelletteDec 16, 2022
@jake @jensimmons I like this, though I am a little worried that (1) a company wouldn't allow your redirect if they fire you (2) what if they contract to multiple places and/or want to pitch their substack from their "official" account?
Show threadPusher Of Pixels (old account)Dec 16, 2022

@Jakeout @jake @jensimmons reputable places won't do that.

There are issues with a federated system that will be hiccups, compared with a seamless single silo, no argument there.

But it really is a pretty well thought out system I think. Built in flexibility on many fronts.

And as for accounts, people had multiple Twitter accounts, no different here

Show threadPamDec 16, 2022
@pixelpusher220 @Jakeout @jake @jensimmons hm, twitter was somewhat reputable and now, not. Perhaps normalize posting on multiple instances at once?
Show threadJake OuelletteDec 16, 2022
@chipchirp @pixelpusher220 it'd be nice if the user journey of mastodon had some built in affordances for this, follow an account whose identity is "administered" by another account, potentially off-instance. This would enable backups for if an instance went away, too
Show threadAntonio PiccolboniDec 16, 2022
@Jakeout @chipchirp @pixelpusher220 You may be interested in the new project Dorsey is pushing, bluesky. It seems to focus very much on account portability and permanence. Still on the drawing board though.
Show threadPusher Of Pixels (old account)Dec 16, 2022

@piccolbo @Jakeout @chipchirp

Another private silo isn't the correct answer.

Federated, distributed is the solution. Literally what email is, but for social media

Show threadPamDec 16, 2022
@pixelpusher220 @piccolbo @Jakeout Im sure this is already a whole Thing and Im late to rhe game but surely people can have a private instance like a blog where they can crosspost to for their own storage? Like you have a ✨personal✨ thing you post to, but sadly that increases the burden (cost/setup) on the average user, so its only worthwhile for journos maybe?
Show threadShriram KrishnamurthiDec 17, 2022
@chipchirp @pixelpusher220 @piccolbo @Jakeout I don't think it's quite that simple. When you set up a server, it appears you are also legally a social medium and have to deal with takedown notices, etc. There appears to be a whole legal side (in the US); someone who seemed to know suggested you create an LLC, etc. So it seems non-trivial.
Show threadPusher Of Pixels (old account)Dec 17, 2022

@shriramk @chipchirp @piccolbo @Jakeout

Indeed. It's like email was in the beginning, lots of small independent servers and a very less threatening legal landscape.

but it's also not like email in that, as you note, there is 'hosted' information subject to legal takedown notices, etc.

Non-trivial, but also, not at all insurmountable.

Show threadShriram Krishnamurthi
@pixelpusher220 @chipchirp @piccolbo @Jakeout Obviously surmountable with enough time, effort, money, and risk endurance, but the question here was about *individuals* running instances. A service for individuals can't be just push-button automation of software and serving, but has to also be of *legal and corporate support*. Don't see very many cloud providers getting into that.
Dec 17, 2022 at 1:30pmWeb
Show threadPusher Of Pixels (old account)Dec 17, 2022

@shriramk @chipchirp @piccolbo @Jakeout
Yep agreed, it's something to deal with. I suspect there will be consolidation into larger instance providers, like there was with email over time.

I really do feel like this is the same thing with very early email providers...but with the added complexity of shared/hosted info and the far more litigious environment of the modern era.

One additional factor is there isn't a central place to file those lawsuits either. It's 1000s of small disperse ones

Show threadPamDec 17, 2022
@pixelpusher220 @shriramk @piccolbo @Jakeout surely theres a legal mechanism to group certain lawsuits together for the purposes of preventing the legal system from getting spammed? Ugh, legal Twitter is lagging WAY behind hacker Twitter. Hell even most trader Twitter has moved on (to blogs and forums, the weirdos). That or I need to start following hashtags that are catnip to legal nerds and just follow. Here, I’ll try this bit of jargon to see if any bite: #Amicuscuriae
Show threadhipopenerDec 18, 2022
@chipchirp @piccolbo @shriramk @Jakeout @pixelpusher220 I bit