Dan SinkerDec 17, 2022
Newsrooms should not spin up instances for their reporters partially because this is too new to dedicate strapped staff to, partially because layoffs mean reporters would lose their timelines bc you can't migrate posts, partially because newsrooms are *already* not great at social media policies, and mostly because the problem it ostensibly solves, verification, can be done by just sticking rel=me into author pages and letting reporters self-verify super easily wherever they set up shop here.
Show threadDan SinkerDec 17, 2022

Since this is getting some traction, I'll append with two additional thoughts:

I actually *do* think news orgs should spin up an instance for themselves, because [email protected] looks goofy, but reporters should set up where they want.

And "where they want" shouldn't probably all be on the same server bc that becomes a real tempting honeypot for defederation battles.

Show thread"Extinct" OncelerDec 17, 2022
@dansinker I think independent reporters, or reporters who might one day be independent, shouldn't use their "news org" as their host. Also, I do not think corporate instances should be allowed to federate. Or at least not until Mastodon protects itself and us from them.
Show threadDan SinkerDec 17, 2022
@aka_quant_noir there's no "allowing" to federate in this system. You spin up, you connect, you're in. But also I'm curious, what protections do you mean?
Show thread"Extinct" Onceler
@dansinker Well there are instances that don't connect to other instances for various reasons. I'm not sure how that works, but that's what I meant. As to protections, I mean both protections against data harvesting and tracking by corporate interests, like finding ways to insert pixels into threads like Facebook does, or ads like Google does, and protection against an instance overwhelming the others or poisoning the well with commercial content. I would like to be able to protect myself by having options to suppress links in my feed, or other non-ascii content, to have a separate feed for boosted content vs original content, for instance.
Dec 17, 2022 at 1:59pmWeb
Show threadDan SinkerDec 17, 2022
@aka_quant_noir I mean a lot of that isn't going to happen at the instance level anyway. If these were my core concerns, I'd be far more concerned about very good client software hoovering up users more than, say the Washington Post starting an instance.
Show thread"Extinct" OncelerDec 17, 2022
@dansinker Fair enough. I just don't want to suddenly find myself in another space unprotected against corporate domination, visible or invisible.