Mastodawn

Cameron MacLeod Jul 24, 2023

🧵 1/5 If you've seen a headline about Mastodon & child abuse material (yikes!), some comments:

1. Mastodon is just software, not a company or a place, so this is like saying 'lots of child abusers use MS Office'
2. These sites appear in many blocklists and the admins of many Mastodon servers block them, so that crap never travels to your neighbourhood.
3. This is primarily in Japan.
4. Still bad, moderation and blocking are important areas to build up.

Link to article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/07/24/twitter-rival-mastodon-rife-with-child-abuse-material-study-finds/

Twitter rival Mastodon rife with child-abuse material, study finds

The report raises safety questions about alternative social media sites.

The Washington Post

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Androcat Jul 26, 2023

@c_9 Somehow federation is a pointed out as a problem, yet if people want to do something obviously criminal, they're probably not wanting open federation anyway.

This is a tool for public microblogging, it's not suited for secret dealings.

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Androcat

I read the original source, and the problem is very real.

Federation is a problem because most instances will keep storing stuff from other instances, even when the originating instance has deleted it.

The fediverse lacks a proper immune system, able to detect and scrub this sort of materials.