Mastodawn

Friendly reminder: last year I built FediMod FIRES, a protocol and reference server implementation for sharing moderation data.

I haven't yet been able to get anyone to adopt it or even signal intent to adopt. But regularly I see people complaining about the lack of data sharing when it comes to moderation, especially for combating spam, scams, and harassment. The tool is there, please use it!

Whilst I'm not actively working on FediMod FIRES this quarter, I did apply in November for a grant to continue that work, and last I heard a few weeks ago is that the grant made it to the next stage, so I may have some money again to fund development.

It's not 1.0.0 yet, because I decided it needed more work for me to be happy to call it that, but it is usable!

Installation is also super simple for data producers, literally two commands on debian or ubuntu boxes.

Learn more: https://fires.fedimod.org/manuals/reference-server/

#moderation #fediblock #administration

FIRES Reference Server | FediMod FIRES

Fediverse moderation Intelligence Replication Endpoint Server

FediMod FIRES

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trampinheavy Mar 28

@thisismissem
Is this essentially just blocklist sharing? Doesnt this introduce the potential for certain instances to censor users across multiple instances?

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Emelia 👸🏻

@trampinheavy that is a "risk" with all moderation data. Only use data providers you trust. If you don't have strong trust for their judgement, then you should be able to review manually, rather than apply automatically.

So yes, people can be blocked across multiple instances, entire instances can be blocked. That's nothing new, between existing CSV blocklists and the fediblock hashtag.

What this does differently is that it has both positive and negative signals: Accept this content, Filter this content, Reject/Drop this content.

It also encourages data providers to use labelling to add metadata to their blocks, so you can say "I trust IFTAS on CSAM but I don't want their recommendations on other topics.

And, most importantly: It supports retractions as a native part of the protocol: If someone or an instance is blocked, then they can become unblocked later; this is a lot harder to do with CSV files.