Tim BrayJan 17

ICE on Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/icegov.bsky.social

Verified.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (@icegov.bsky.social)

Protects America through criminal investigations and by enforcing immigration law to preserve national security and public safety. ➡️Visit us at ICE.gov ➡️Join our team at join.ICE.gov Privacy policy: ICE.gov/privacy

Bluesky Social
Show threadTim Bray
What would happen if ICE wanted to join the Fediverse? Most instances probably wouldn’t host that account, but some would. The account would be broadly blocked at both individual and instance levels, and some instances would probably defederate the hosting instance. Some folks would migrate between instances based on these choices. All this, I think, would be a good outcome?
Jan 17 at 2:24amWeb
Show threadBen OvermyerJan 17

@timbray One of the cool things about the Fediverse is that anyone can use it.

Regardless of my feelings about ICE specifically, I wholeheartedly endorse the idea of people or groups of people congregating in federated communities.

Show threadMartin Vermeer FCDJan 17
@skysong @timbray Trump is already there on pravda.social, and didn't even bother to try and federate.
Show threadJoe ❌👑Jan 17
@timbray Yes, that's how it would work out, and it's a reasonable outcome. The Bsky bridge is another issue, but instances could choose to block a particular account without blocking the bridge as a whole.
Show threadNathan LorenzJan 17
@timbray My biggest hope during the whole early X fiasco would have been that federal and state governments would have set up government fediverse servers to disseminate information and alerts. I was saddened when the tide moved back towards walled gardens and partially open systems like Bluesky. I think it could have been a fun experiment in creative tools for public information dissemination and consumption.
Show threadNathan LorenzJan 17
@timbray But also, to your point, making it easy for people to either access or block such information, would also be a plus.
Show threadrobJan 17

@nathan @timbray

As a longer-term resident of the Fediverse, I can tell you that these hopes and dreams about governments are often spoken about but not often realized. The reasons are simple: the Fediverse is too complicated for most people, it’s too expensive for most people (the funding model is broken), and the state of the mobile software is dire.

Show threadrobJan 17

@nathan @timbray

The Dutch government had a pilot program for Mastodon in 2024, but I don’t know the current status.

https://www.digitaleoverheid.nl/nieuws/1-jarig-mastodon-overheid-blikt-terug-en-vooruit/

1-jarig Mastodon Overheid blikt terug en vooruit - Digitale Overheid

Mastodon is een publiek alternatief voor commerciële online sociale media platforms. In een pilot kan de overheid het platform ontdekken. Wat zijn de eerste lessen?

Digitale Overheid
Show threadrobJan 17
@nathan @timbray
I think the biggest hurdle is multiple, named domains. People really struggle with that. And then there’s the process for following people not on your server. I can still remember trying to follow the first person on another server. I had to do a search to complete the task.
Show threadrobJan 17
@nathan @timbray
I have been running my own instance for a little under a year. In order to make a small instance work, you really need a relay to bring fresh content to your server. But the relays recently ate all my space, so I had to turn them off or face ever larger hosting bills.
Show threadrobJan 17

@nathan @timbray
The state of Fediverse mobile software is dire. The free apps are horrible (on almost every platform I have tried). Ivory is pretty good on iPhone. But people don’t want to pay for software.

The web app is really good. But most people don’t know how to create a mobile shortcut/PWA on their phone. I personally use Phanpy.social and find it’s the best for me. But I challenge you to explain how that works to a “normal” person.

Show threadrobJan 17
@nathan @timbray
If we take this back to the most recent episode of Hard Fork, this is a problem similar to teens on phones. People don’t want to use a new social network where there aren’t any users (as far as that person is concerned.) Unless everyone does it, no one will do it.
Show threadrobJan 17

@nathan @timbray
The last thing I’ll say is about expense. First of all, there’s the moderation problem, which needs to be solved at a level higher than one server. Turns out, algorithms are good at certain things at times. Moderation is time consuming and painful.

And the server costs are not trivial if there’s lots of engagement. I don’t think Mastodon is tuned to only save local posts. It saves everything, which means costs never go down.

Show threadrobJan 17
@nathan @timbray
If you’re on the Fediverse long enough, you’ll see people and instances begging for money. It’s hard to tell what’s real and what isn’t. And, as I’ve said before, the funding model is broken. I wish Mastodon has some sort of payment process baked in.
Show threadrobJan 17

@nathan @timbray
I think the actual strategy should be as follows: small, private organizations (such as churches and schools and clubs).

Someone has to make a case why the Fediverse would be better than some other software - like a WhatsApp group.

Show threadrobJan 17
@nathan @timbray
This conversation started with a question about ICE, which is something I think about a lot as a resident of Minneapolis. This is a perfect opportunity to organize a virtual community - even if temporary - to report on activity around the city. I suspect that there are private chat groups that perform this exact function so I haven’t seen anything. But back to my earlier points, I don’t see it happening any time soon.
Show threadNathan LorenzJan 17
@twiblr @timbray I know this argument and I somewhat sympathize with it, but I'm not sure I entirely buy it since we are quite accustomed to exchanging email addresses all the time. However, I think your point about search and discovery holds a lot of weight. I think a rigid culture to completely buy-in on all discovery (even though you have no control really over data you publish to publicly accessible servers) made the discovery of accounts a real nightmare and kept people away.
Show threadNathan LorenzJan 17
@twiblr @timbray I think some compromise on allowing opt-out servers to consolidate account information for search and provide account validation/verification could have gone a long way to have made it a bigger success than it has turned out to be.
Show threadCraig LeeJan 17
@nathan @timbray because IT departments at those levels are run by career outsourcers and not people who built things other than the classic xkcd cartoon made of those outsourced products.
Show threadDaniel LyonsJan 17
@nathan @timbray governments don’t like decentralization. It’s harder to censor and control
Show threadTodd KnarrJan 17
@timbray Odds on they'd run their own instance on the theory that nobody can kick them off it if they control it.
Show threadHank BPJan 17

@tknarr @timbray I thought I saw somewhere that an echo chamber of nazi Mastadon instances exists out on the internet living in their own bubble.

Could have been a fever dream from my sleep though.

Show threadMark WhybirdJan 17
@tknarr @timbray ~Pravda~ *Truth Social* is essentially at a technical level a Mastodon instance with federation turned off. If they ever did turn it on, I would very much hope that my instance and about every other instance I interact with would block it.
Show threadTim BrayJan 17
@whybird @tknarr So are Gab and Parler I believe. Also some places in Japan that are full of Lolicon, which is illegal most other places.
Show threadDiligence JonesJan 17

@timbray

I would absolutely expect my instance to block ICE if they were on the fedi.

Show threadRobot Diver 🌊🌬️🍃🌿🌸🌱🌱🌱Jan 17

@timbray

Fedi leaves accountability to its community, so there is, quite often, some accountability. With bluesky this feels like they just dumped a predator into a goldfish tank.

Show threadEvan ProdromouJan 17
@timbray cosocial.ca would probably not let them join!
Show threadBruce ElrickJan 17
@evan @timbray Nope!
Show threadM. GrégoireJan 17
@virtuous_sloth @evan @timbray No, ICE doesn’t belong as member of #CoSocialCa. I'm not sure whether we'd defederate from an instance hosting ICE though...
Show threadTim BrayJan 17
@evan wait for the RCMP to ask in…
Show threadRobert George 𓇳𓃀𓁹𓏏𓇥𓆓𓀀Jan 17
@timbray generally us government accounts aren’t well received. I recall a few years ago cisa (ironically also a division of dhs) created a fedi account and it was a big controversy. The results were as you predicted, blocking, defederations, migrations…
Show threadECHAEAJan 17
@timbray
Journalists would still need to follow this kind of account. I hope there are still some instances that allow that (because not all journalists are tech-savvy enough to have their own instance).
Show threadJanne MorenJan 17
@Teratogenese @timbray
That's a good argument that news organizations should run their own instances for their journalists.
Show threadHeliographJan 17
@jannem I have not even looked up this conversation but totally agree with you @Teratogenese @timbray
Show threadRob PumphreyJan 17
@jannem @Teratogenese @timbray
I guess governments should also run their own instances for similar reasons.
Show threadMastodon MigrationJan 17

@timbray

Well said Tim

Show threadTero HänninenJan 17
@timbray as always, you find an instance that has suitable moderation policy. You block/set your filters according to your own preference. The fedi has plenty of far far worse things than ICE already.
Show threadСмерть ОкупантамJan 17
@timbray i'd block all instances who do NOT block the hosting instance
Show threadJonas 🇩🇰 🇬🇱Jan 17
@timbray But who will find out if they made an account in a different name?
Show threadSwiftJan 17

@timbray I think the danger to the fediverse would be if they joined one of the problematically large instances. If that instance did allow their accounts, blocking that instance would cause a lot of broken connections and seriously degrade the fediverse.

Obviously people could move, but anytime you put a hurdle like this, many won't jump. Many won't realise, they'll just think it's fine quiet.

Large instances are a big threat. There also what makes joining easy...

Show threadBen ToddJan 17

@timbray

The problem with that idea is ICE agents can't read.

Show threadAslak RaanesJan 17
@timbray Governments and it's institutions should run their own instances.
Show threadKoochulainnJan 17
@aslakr Agree 100%.
Its ridiculous to tie state communications to platforms that operate at the whim of billionaires. Particularly billionaires whose goal is to undermine the state. And running their own instance on Fedi would be the least billionaire-reliant option.
Whether its a good thing for people to have access to ICE (for eg) would be up to individual admins or server users. @timbray
Show threadSamJan 17
@timbray most people will defederate from them, it’s the beauty of the Fediverse no one has to interact with you if they don’t want to.
Show threadPeter BrownJan 17
@timbray well it would show the resilience of the federated system but it would also create a permanent schism and effectively create two fediverses with no contact one with another.
If the instances which tolerated ice were to be only a tiny percentage of the total the effect of it would be negligible and the result would be of a ring fence round nazi sympathisers, but if they represented say 15% or 20% percent of users, I don’t think it would be good.