Christina WarrenSo the new Instagram text thing is reported to have ActivityPub support and instead of being happy at all the new labor that could potentially be coming to the standard, Mastodon people are now actively encouraging instances to not federate with any of that stuff. K.
Look, instance admins can block whatever they want for any reason they want. It hurts your users but do you. And I'm not trying to argue that Facebook isn't a fucked up company. But actively working to discourage extremely skilled participants (and love them for hate them, FB engineers are VERY good) from contributing or associating with your open source protocol or community is just peak stupidity for people who claim in the same breath to want to remake and reset the social web.
Charlie Fish@film_girl My biggest problem with this is a lot of admins are de-federating servers without providing evidence of a legitimate rule that the server violated. Every admin should define consistent rules for their server, and enforce those rules (and only those rules).
The lack of transparency and lack of following their own stated rules, is the disappointing part.
Additionally: de-federation should only be used if a server repeatedly violates your rules. Warnings should be issued prior to de-federation.
It's sad how mastodon.social got de-federated due to a spam event, that the admins were extremely on top of, and handled incredibly quickly.
yukoff@fishcharlie @film_girl We've seen this for multiple Ukrainian instances with no clear explanation. If I recall correctly, for most of them formal reason was “email abuse” or something like that
ZEN :upa: (@[email protected])
mordor.... social....
Jonasnuts@fishcharlie Ah! The lack of transparency, mostly with smaller servers, is what annoys me the most, here. And the fact that, when confronted, they don’t acknowledge that and they keep shouting “this is a safe place”, and “my house, my rules and if I wake up in a bad mood, deal with it and you’re free to change servers”. What little tyrants they are. (Complaining about space Karen, along the way :-) @film_girl
Ricardo Lafuente@jonasnuts @fishcharlie @film_girl
As an admin of an instance to whom you've already addressed this critique, there's a few things to say. Your caricature of what admins believe doesn't help any clear debate, so let's clear up a couple of points.
As a former corporate telco middle manager, you surely respect that a product owner's vision is what drives a project -- not the yells of people who are not using, and clearly will never use, your platform. I can't imagine your former employer suspending an ongoing code sprint because someone is complaining about typos in the ToS.
I'm constantly surprised to see high expectations towards volunteer initiatives, contrasted with a different, more permissive position towards companies. Things become a lot simpler if, instead of framing instance admins as rulers or governments, one frames them as an executive team (CEO, CTO, etc) and an instance's users as its shareholders.
As for the clear expectation that admins of instances that you're not a part of should somehow reflect your idea of what the fediverse ought to become, constant provocation seems like a futile effort. One can set up an instance for 5€/mo, it's really a matter of putting your money where your mouth is -- I would be interested to see what kind of rules and terms you have in mind to address your concerns.
Rui SeabraSay person A has instance A, and person B is in instance M. Person B mostly enjoys person A, even if sometimes A shares less accepted stuff.
Admin of M blocks A, and person A is blocked for person B too.
Without warning, or recourse.
Person A suddenly dropped out of the universe.
Only solution is an unmanageable 1-to-1 user/instance.
Companies are way worse, but Stalin isn't good because there was Hitler.
This feels very troubling to me.
@rlafuente lindinho….. eu não te sigo. Se enfiaste a carapuça, o problema é teu. Não tenho por hábito trocar mensagens com gente que diz mal de mim por DM. Fuck off. (Sorry Charlie - this is bot about you). @fishcharlie @film_girl
Ricardo LafuenteHehe, considerando que já mandaste provocações qb com os pontos que estás agora a repetir, estou bem à vontade para me incluir no grupo a que te referes. Por isso é rasco responderes que não estás disposta a trocar mensagens com quem reage aos teus galhardetes.
Curiosa essa tua súbita sensibilidade ao "dizer mal"; mesmo que eu me dedicasse a dizer mal de ti em DMs, qual é o teu problema com esse eventual cenário? Vi-te aqui a clamar ruidosamente pela liberdade de expressão, mas onde está ela na altura das pessoas falarem livremente do que quiserem, no recato que entenderem?
Esse amuo chateadinho, quando te fiz perguntas em boa-fé, diz tudo: é ok fazeres subtoots tirando ao outro a possibilidade de saber o que está a ser dito sobre ele em público, mas ficas ofendidinha e atacada por suspeitar que algo está a ser dito sobre ti em privado. Right :-)
Se tiveres algo a dizer-me ou nomes a chamar-me, menciona-me com a @ e discutimos. Subtoots são uma coisa notavelmente cobarde de se fazer. E depois amuas e não respondes? E no final mandas-me foder? Vá lá, Jonecas.
@jonasnuts Sabes, continuo à nora com a tua indignação com supostas DMs. Importas-te de me mostrar qual a DM que justifica que não me respondas?
Sempre tiveste tanta verve a debater os pormenores do fediverso, por isso custa-me a crer que a tua ideia é fazer-me ghosting e deixar sem resposta.
É que eu estou bastante convencido que andas atravessada comigo por causa de algo que escrevi, mas não era nenhuma DM, era outra coisa ;-)
Esclareces-me, pf?
Stuart Langridge@film_girl you are, obviously, correct in this. And those defederating in a kneejerk big-company-bad reaction are taking the wrong track. But... in my experience, the problem is rarely the skill of the engineers at these companies, because they're very, very smart. It's the invisible layer of decision-makers above them who make those engineers use their skills for the wrong things, while avoiding any public accountability themselves. Look at MS in the 2000s. Smart engineers... bad community rel.
Aaron@film_girl I can sympathize with wanting to take any big company embracing an open standard with a huge grain of salt, having seen plenty of instances, of "embrace, extend, extinguish.”
But I'd rather start from a point of a new service that's interoperable from the start and trying to compete and fight off shenanigans when we get there, than see a totally non-interoperable closed service that Facebook can afford to pump a ton of money into adding new users to.
@harpaa01 Skeptical and grain of salt are one thing. Actively calling for instances to boycott/defederate/block/ostracize any attempts to interoperate, let along contribute, are another.
Every single good and long-lasting open standard we have is partially if not substantially funded by for-profit companies. EEE is a boogeyman that has been much less successful for the companies that do it than most people believe and that has also led to better software for everyone
flere-imsaho 🇺🇦@film_girl we've seen them embracing, extending and extinguishing other federated protocols, and frankly, why should we expect they won't do that again?
@film_girl (in an extremely skilled way)
@mawhrin of course we have and in many instances, EEE has led to better products so I think all of this is overly dramatic and stupid just for the sake of it. The entire discourse is about something that hasn't launched and that might not even be successful or have a lot of investment from the parent company. But yeah, let's just battle down the hatches and attack it from the get go to ensure no company ever does invest in the protocol.
pmoe@film_girl @mawhrin Your stance is great, in principle. But like others have said, the mess they’ve caused in order to just make more and more profits, do you *honestly* think they wouldn’t try to do it again?
@pmoeser @mawhrin No, I'm sure they will use any and all things at their disposal to make money. I still don't see why that means it is a good idea to discourage them from using an interoperable open standard. I'm not saying let them lead the project or even be major contributors, but like, calling for all instances to insta-ban seems like a pretty good way of ensuring that users get pissed off with the whole idea behind decentralization pretty quickly.
@pmoeser @mawhrin Or, to be more pointed, because I do believe that the future of social networks is decentralization. I also believe it will be largely dominated by systems that appear to be centralized. There are competing protocols right now and if the incumbent right now (AP) refuses to even acknowledge attempts by big players to even use them, I think that's a pretty clear indicator to everyone else that they should probably use one of the other open standards.
in many instances, EEE has led to better products
well, i don't care about better products, i'm not here to sell anyone's data or advertise anything.
i do care about high-quality communication tools that put the security and privacy of the user first; none of the companies now feigning interest in activitypub have good record here.
Thom Holwerda@film_girl Facebook: *enables Trump, Rohingya genocide, etc.*
Mastodon admins: "Some of us would like to not associate with this company."
US tech media: "Won't someone think of the poor Facebook engineers!"
I fucking hate this timeline.
@thomholwerda so don't federate them if you want -- fine! But then don't bitch and moan that no one uses your protocol or services.
@film_girl I think the point that a lot of - especially Americans, for some reason - don't seem to get is that a lot of people would rather have a smaller social network but with fewer horrible people than a bigger social network but with way more horrible people.
We let the corporations try social media, and they all fucked up. Every single one of them. Why are so many of you so desperate to keep repeating the same mistakes?
@thomholwerda I think that is completely and totally fine. But then don't call it an open standard, one, if you're going to gatekeep and pitch fits over anyone who uses it (and this goes for all OSS btw, it's open or it isn’t, things. Things like the ethical source movement are not open and I wish they'd at least lean into that), and two, if you want it small, don't complain when it is small.
@thomholwerda I have zero problem with any administrator or user choosing who they want to federate with or not. I have zero problem with anyone wanting to have smaller, more controlled, more moderated social networks. But I do have a problem with preaching the virtues of openness (but then controlling who can use something and how) and bitching that the rest of the world won't come over to your worldview, when you're deliberately trying to keep people out.
@thomholwerda And yes, Americans absolutely tend to be more about growth and laissez-faire and small “l” libertarianism. It's part of our young country's culture and is embedded in many of us, even if we have our own issues with capitalism an the republic. The same way the strong social safety net of their culture has led many Europeans to being very pro-government regulation, even if they their own issues with bureaucracy and cronyism.
Jorge Caballero, MD
censored for “transphobia”@film_girl
There are multiple virtues in play here. Consider that I boycott #Microsoft for 50+ reasons. Let’s say MS wants to do something good & they make changes so 5 of the reasons I boycott them go away. Well I’m still boycotting MS for 45+ other reasons. FB, #Cloudflare, MS, #Amazon, Twitter, etc, are socially detrimental & abuse the data they get their hands on to the full extent possible.
@koherecoWatchdog @thomholwerda and that’s perfectly fine, imho. Your money, your time, your attention. My friend Kashmir tried to do those boycotts and it is sadly impossible for most of us no matter what we want to do, but that’s a position that I find reasonable. What I don’t find reasonable is complaining that no one will come to your party but then denying entry to every guest who shows up. Esp. if you threw a tantrum last week when learning someone else was having a party on the same day
@film_girl @koherecoWatchdog Again, I have yet to see people complain that Mastodon is too small - except for media personalities who fled Twitter. Your premise here seems flawed.
@thomholwerda @koherecoWatchdog I don’t think that’s a fair framing of a lot of users (and to be clear, I’m not talking about former-blue checks and media personalities like myself, I’m talking about regular users) complaints about Mastodon. It isn’t about size as in user number, it’s about the diversity of types of people on the platform and finding people. For a certain type of user, myself included, there’s a ton of people here for us. But that isn’t universal at all.
@thomholwerda @koherecoWatchdog Look, I have ~15,000 followers here. That’s 1/7 of what I have on Twitter but I have more engagement here and I def don’t feel like this is too small for me. Arguably, the smallness works in my favor b/c big fish in a small pond. But I’m a nerd and an early adopter. But Black Twitter isn’t here. Memes aren’t here. Sports talk isn’t here. Now, maybe that doesn’t matter to you, and that’s fine, but it’s a problem for a lot of normie users.
@film_girl @koherecoWatchdog Yeah I don't miss the vapid sides of Twitter (black Twitter was *not* vapid, though, and is the major exception here), and I'm sure having Mastodon look more like a Facebook meme feed would draw in more people. It seems the majority of Mastodon simply does not want that to happen, though.
That being said, there are counterparts here. EuroVision blew up. Local European issues blow up. It's not the SuperBowl or whatever, but welcome to an EU social network, I guess.
@film_girl @koherecoWatchdog Yeah, the lack of PoC is problematic.
Aside from racism, which of course exists on Mastodon as it does anywhere else, there is also the fact that Mastodon is European, and the number of black folks in Europe is only a fraction of that of the US (and 50% of black Europeans are French). This must have some sort of influence. I would love to be able to see if Mastodon represents EU population quite well, but not the US one.
@thomholwerda @koherecoWatchdog it probably does represent Europe more than the US or the global number, but that’s just a gut feeling since there is no way to check that by design.You say Mastodon is European, but it’s Mastodon GmbH that is European, the software is supposed to be global, right? If the fire team wants to project that it is a Euro-driven project and that that is the world view that shapes it, that’s fine. But they should probably make that really clear.
@thomholwerda @koherecoWatchdog but I don’t think the Euro-centrism, if that is what it even is (I don’t think it is) what drives away then non-technical users and the PoC. What I think does that are when attempts to broaden the demographics to other cultures /languages are met with resistance. For people that don’t look like your or I, this can be a hostile place. And telling people they are holding it wrong or dismissing any critique doesn’t help win people over & reinforces the echo chamber
@film_girl @koherecoWatchdog Yeah 100%. I'm glad the devs listened to the criticism and are bringing e.g. quotes now, even if I personally don't like it. It's gonna take time though. European racism has different primary targets (ever wonder where all the Muslim Mastodon users are?) and it will take time for the experiences of black Americans to make their way into the code and the culture.
But yes I wish it went faster.
@film_girl @koherecoWatchdog No I just mean because it's European it's going to have a more European user base. I would love for Mastodon to draw in more Americans (I fucking love Americans, and we Europeans could learn a lot from American openness and friendliness), but it seems unreasonable to demand an open source social network to acquiesce to American sensibilities overnight.
@thomholwerda @koherecoWatchdog oh, for sure and to be clear, I’m not trying to say that it should. I just think that it isn’t so much an American presence that might be lacking (I see plenty of America on my feed) but a lacking of anything that isn’t white western world (that is largely English speaking).
@film_girl @koherecoWatchdog At least we can agree Mastodon is very, very gay. So many LGBTQ people here who feel very safe and happy to express themselves. This makes me think there isn't an aversion to diversity here, just a lack of understanding among Europeans of the kind of deep-rooted, more institutional racism black Americans face (as evidenced by white people calling for trigger warnings on stories about racism, which is just dumb).
But man is Mastodon gay. Warms my straight cis heart.
@thomholwerda @koherecoWatchdog yes, absolutely. That’s been the best part to me about both Mastodon and Bluesky. Extremely, extremely gay. And that’s fantastic. Because if you start out with those voices represented, that becomes part of the culture and attempts to criticize that or denigrate that isn’t going to work. Because all of us will fight back.
clutem 
@film_girl can’t we all just get along
Damon Kiesow@film_girl Eternal September lives up to its name.
Viss@film_girl you do remember cambridge analytica, right?
@Viss I mean, instances are free to do whatever they want! I'm just rolling my eyes at the same people that bitch that AP or Mastodon or fediverse don't have more adoption also immediately calling for trying to actively push out anyone who could possibly contribute and bring users.
@film_girl im supposing folks are willing to deal with lower DAU/MAU counts if the possibility of another cambridge analytica is prevented, since the people who did it last time are still there at meta, still doing their thing, and were never held accountable, despite being hauled into congressional and senate hearings multiple times.
@Viss And if those people want to make those trade-offs, that's fine. But then I don't ever want to hear them bitch about how no one pays attention to them or that the projects are so under-resourced and underfunded when they literally advocate against keeping skilled people out of their open source communities.
Collin Donnell@film_girl Cool cool cool cool.
Dan Hon@film_girl siiiiiiiiiiigh
Jeff C. 🇺🇦🇬🇱@film_girl Facebook poisons everything it touches, so I can’t really blame them.
Julian Lam@film_girl people will try to head off #EternalSeptember for as long as they can, and then wonder why #fediverse apps aren't becoming popular.
I think there's a surprised Pikachu meme somewhere in all of this.
Austin*@devnull @film_girl the inherent (internal) tension is palpable.
Brian Vastag@devnull @film_girl It's already happened with journalists. A bunch signed up for mastodon, tried it for a bit and noped out. My instance was set up by a respected science journalist, has 1,000 accounts and is almost dead. The people who want mastodon to stay niche are gonna get their wish.
Paul Haddad 
@film_girl Umm really? Instagram is implementing ActivityPub??? Never ever expected that…
@fishcharlie for their rumored/leaked short-form text product, yeah. I don't know if they'd ever support it from the main feed tbh, but for this text thing, that is the rumor.
maegul
Zav@film_girl yhea literally insane