Deborah Pickett20h ago

I’ve got Evan Prodromou blocked so I didn’t see https://tags.pub when it was announced. If you missed it too: it’s a service that listens on relays for hashtags, and boosts posts containing them, to followers following any given hashtag. To give hashtags much more reachability despite the horizon of federation.

I proposed something like this in the context of natural disaster response. Users could come to a consensus on what hashtag to use for, say, # HurricaneFoobar, and posts containing the hashtag could spread far and wide. But because I care about safety, I suggested that it needed selective outbound relaying, so that only posts containing a list of opted-in hashtags were sent to the relay. I see that managing what gets sent to relays is out of scope for tags.pub.

I also don’t see any mention on the github issue list about tags.pub being able to defederate known bad actors, so I guess there’s nothing stopping your posts from reaching poast and friends, due to ActivityPub’s nontransitive defederation behaviour.

User-to-user and user-to-instance blocks will similarly get laundered, so if you let tags.pub boost your posts you may find unwelcome people reading your posts.

So, this is a cool idea, it could be helpful, but it’s not ready yet IMO.

tags.pub

Show threadMike [SEC=OFFICIAL]

@futzle yet another "add a tag to your profile to control it" which automatically puts it in the bin as far as I'm concerned.

If you think your service needs something this, maybe work on some general profile extension method to allow user preference flagging for new/unknown application permissions first.

But no, I guess that's not cool and fun.

Jun 28 at 2:33amWeb
Show threadMisinformation-Superhighwayman19h ago

@mike @futzle I've seen some discussion in the last 24 hours. And, I have to admit I don't fully understand the protocols or rules for how these services work. But, I think I follow the gist of it.

On the surface it looks like a nice idea, but we should listen to experts who are saying there are some show-stopper problems. The big ones I see:
- It's open to abuse. As it stands, it appears to offer ways for bad actors to work-around protections for privacy/security.
- Opt-in by default is nonsense. Expecting users to add a bunch of opt-out hashtags to their profile is unworkable. Most regular users won't know what it means, won't be able to keep up to date, won't hear in time to react pre-emptively, and won't tolerate the additional overhead.
- Making this op-in by default on a server level only moves responsibility and workload onto instance admins. It makes the process even more opaque to users, and does little to ameliorate the underlying problems.
- This all assumes troublesome services respect these tags. Increasingly, we're seeing people cross boundaries and pay no regard to consent, for example, configuring their scrapers to ignore robots.txt. It's a difficult social problem, and there's no easy technical fix like "Simply add a hashtag to your profile".

Show threadDeborah Pickett16h ago
@DamienWise @mike Yeah I donk know if “opt-in” or “opt-out” are even the right lens to look through. I do know that the software hasn’t considered how it can be used by bad actors, or it has and decided they were not important to delay release.
Show threadEvan Prodromou19h ago

@mike @futzle it's very cool and fun. The cleanest way to opt out is just to block the server. We also respect #NoBots because so many people have it on their profiles. We added #NoTagsPub so if people for some reason wanted other bots but not ours, they could fine tune it.

I think it's a good idea to add a "relayable" flag to accounts; I'll add a FEP for it and we'll implement it.

Show threadMike [SEC=OFFICIAL]19h ago
@evan fuck off, dipshit.
Show threadJames Cridland19h ago
@mike @evan Hey, Mike - I’ve enjoyed following your posts, but that response was unneeded and unnecessary.
Show threadstibbons19h ago
@james @mike @evan False. It was very needed, very necessary, and a very appropriate response to a dipshit who thinks exposing strangers to harm is cool and fun. It's something one really needs to fuck off about.
Show threadJames Cridland18h ago
@stibbons @mike @evan If Evan understood the issue - and if the issue was clearly communicated - then possibly. But Mike has decided that he’ll block me for calling out his bad behaviour, so I guess we’ll never know.
Show threadBionicle Bunny19h ago
@evan @mike @futzle not the new website boy of the moment replying to a thread specifically wherein people name him being blocked but not to threads with users genuinely offering input openly.

weeee
Show threadEvan Prodromou18h ago
@technocrow @futzle @[email protected] which threads?
Show threadBionicle Bunny18h ago
@evan @futzle why should I be navigating you through your own thread responses?

for example, the response I literally gave you? yknow, the one with over 30 engagements at time of writing? the one wherein I provided insight onto the safety concerns and the ways in which other decisions could help make users safe?

it is very telling that you choose to interact with the post wherein its possible to play the victim instead of having dialogue. classic cis-white guy behaviour.

https://blahaj.zone/notes/ao0jxgd6h2kc043z

RE: https://blahaj.zone/notes/ao0jxgd6h2kc043z
Show threadDeborah Preuss, pcc8h ago

@evan "cool and fun" are not the adjectives I'd use for @tagspub .

I'd say: "has potential" and "feels UNSAFE". I have added #noTagspub to my profile.

👉 I wonder how many of our cosocial.ca members realise their every hashtag is being published to all of Fedi (incl. badly moderated instances)? How many know they need #nobots or #noTagspub in order to prevent this?

I didn't see any communication to members about our having been automatically opted-in, but maybe I missed it?

/cc @futzle @mike

Show threadEvan Prodromou5h ago
@deborahh @tagspub @futzle @[email protected] you missed it. We had a discussion topic on members.cosocial.ca for a few months.