RosalesApr 2, 2023
Chris Trottier

In Malaysia, I got valuable feedback about the Fediverse.

Namely, two things about Malaysians:

1. Unless you're a gamer, no one owns a desktop or laptop. However, it is common to own more than one Android smartphone.

2. P2P social networking is not feasible, and people don't trust locally-hosted servers. This is because people fear their own governments more than they fear foreign-owned corporations. It's not uncommon for people to get arrested for what's on their phones.

Apr 2, 2023 at 3:35amWeb
Show threadElizabeth Tai | 戴秀铃 🇲🇾Apr 2, 2023
@atomicpoet Yup 2 was on my mind when I thought about having my own instance
Show threadJust another rakyat 🇲🇾Apr 2, 2023
@atomicpoet I think most white-collared workers do have a laptop that they either bought themselves or are work-assigned. It’s true that desktops are mostly owned by gamers though.
Show threadDendan Setia (Nins)Apr 2, 2023

@atomicpoet
This is an oldish example, but for example this happened to a local news portal: https://m.malaysiakini.com/news/318706

And newer than that, and happened to an individual: https://worldofbuzz.com/msian-gets-arrested-and-twitter-confiscated-by-mcmc-for-criticising-najib-and-umno/

ETA: and this one during the pandemic and happened to a public figure: https://www.thevibes.com/articles/news/26224/satirist-fahmi-rezas-twitter-account-to-be-seized-over-this-is-dengki-ke-playlists

(Just in case anyone is interested about citations)

Police, MCMC raid Malaysiakini, seize computer

A team of some 10 officers raided the news portal’s office this evening.

Malaysiakini
Show threadJust another rakyat 🇲🇾Apr 2, 2023
@cendawanita @atomicpoet You know what, to understand the challenges Malaysians face with our law enforcement, there’s no better person to talk to than Fahmi Reza. He got arrested so frequently & has his phone confiscated so often that I’m sure he has elaborate strategies/best practices in place when it comes to protecting data lol
Show threadJust another rakyat 🇲🇾Apr 2, 2023

@atomicpoet
Anyway, if you’re interested in knowing more about Fahmi Reza, his handle is @kuasasiswa on all major social media platforms (though not on the Fediverse, as far as I know).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fahmi_Reza?wprov=sfti1

@cendawanita

Fahmi Reza - Wikipedia

Show threadJust another rakyat 🇲🇾Apr 2, 2023

@atomicpoet
Here’s one of his cartoons depicting his intimate relationship & frequent dates with the police:

@cendawanita

Show threadCarl HeathApr 2, 2023
@atomicpoet for the Fediverse to expand and be useful into such environments, I think there might be a case for civic actors, NGOs and others to step up their game. Perhaps providing both hosting service as well as various instances for these kind of needs. One key will be to find other financial models than add revenue. Perhaps also frontend apps that makes more sense in that context as well.
Show thread@reiver ⊼ (Charles) Apr 2, 2023

@carl @atomicpoet

That may not be sufficient.

The technology may need to be added-to support their use-case.

Interestingly, people have been considering use-cases like theirs for decades now. So, what to add isn't necessarily a mystery. Although a convention for the exact implementation would need to be decided.

Show threadEric VitielloApr 2, 2023
@atomicpoet is the two phones thing because one is the one you give to the cops?
Show threadmsgbiApr 2, 2023
@atomicpoet threat model @charles_ex @aloa5 @stefanieschulte
Show threadStarkApr 2, 2023

@atomicpoet

Isn't electricity and power outages also a problem in #Malaysia? Making #selfhosting diffiult?

They can still use #Mastodon. They just need to find an instance.

Show threadJust another rakyat 🇲🇾Apr 2, 2023
@Stark9837 Power outages are not frequent here, at least not in the cities.
@atomicpoet
Show threadDendan Setia (Nins)Apr 3, 2023
@Stark9837
That's absolutely low in terms of infra issues. Especially in urban areas. Check our downtimes if you like, we don't have brownouts or blackouts or load shedding issues like in some other countries. ours is absolutely on the legal and with it, economic side.
@atomicpoet @rakyat
Show threadDendan Setia (Nins)Apr 3, 2023
@Stark9837
And with tht emphasized, that does mean the instance needs to be ready to provide some kind of legal cover to the Malaysian account (and this applies to any other country with similar issues)
@atomicpoet @rakyat
Show threadStarkApr 3, 2023

@cendawanita

Thank you for the correction and information!

@atomicpoet @rakyat

Show threadubiApr 2, 2023

@atomicpoet When I think about the fediverse, I don't think Mastodon is the killer app for mass adoption on the Malaysian context. The most popular social media is tiktok, followed by Facebook and Instagram.

The twitter format isn't exactly popular here and most are passive users that don't use it for discussions. From my personal experience most use it because it's easy to get news updates fast and to follow viral topics. Mastodon doesn't fit the use case by design.