5 ms·

Introducing Librem Social

51 points by kgwxd 7y ago

burntoutcase 7y ago
Fair warning to anybody thinking of using Librem Social: it's a Mastodon instance whose management seems willing to tolerate speech that most of the rest of the Fediverse finds objectionable. Don't expect that you'll be able to interact with users of other Mastodon instances, as their admins may refuse to federate with Librem Social.
- ocdtrekkie 7y ago
  The "main" mastodon.social instance isn't choosing to ban them at this time: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/102180995301556021 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/102180995301556021 Also, from the article: "If you are being harassed, or witness online harassment, block and flag the offending user and a moderator will take action. We do not tolerate harassment. This is an area of well-established rights, Librem Social is built on and with the expert policies of ACLU, FSF, and EFF, while avoiding the pitfalls of ham-fisted censorship we all dislike from Big Tech." And the link to their Code of Conduct is here: https://librem.one/conduct/ https://librem.one/conduct/ Some elements of the Mastodon community are a bit... extreme in their views on moderation, but it doesn't seem like Purism is going outside the standard faire here.
  - knolax 7y ago
    >The "main" mastodon.social instance mastodon.social isn't even the largest mastodon instance[0]. Even aside from that The majority of active accounts are hosted on small or personal instances, especially for English speaking accounts. >extreme in their views on moderation IIRC instance admins had an issue with the purism instance not actively going against hate-speech. I'd hardly call that extremist. [0]From https://instances.social/list https://instances.social/list Instance Users DOWN pawoo.net 549417 DOWN mastodon.social 321500 DOWN mstdn.jp 191718 UP switter.at 118232
    - lone_haxx0r 7y ago
      It isn't extreme, statistically speaking, but at least it isn't what I would want in a social network. If I wanted a heavily censored network I would just use Twitter.
  - drngdds 7y ago
    >it doesn't seem like Purism is going outside the standard faire here. This isn't true. Most online communities at least ban outright bigotry and the Librem CoC does not. Banning harassment isn't the same thing.
- dna_polymerase 7y ago
  I'm glad we left Twitter with all their unknown rules about community behavior and free speech and joined the digital equivalent of Nazi Germany with virtual Gauleiters telling us what to do and what to say.
  - drngdds 7y ago
    I agree, there's literally nothing more Nazi-like then not wanting to interact with neo-Nazis
    - dna_polymerase 7y ago
      Right, and Twitter used to force them on everyone. Escaping to another reality doesn't solve problems.
- Proven 7y ago
  > Warning: it's a Mastodon instance whose management seems willing to tolerate speech that most of the rest of the Fediverse finds objectionable. All right, so there is at least one good reason to use it over other instances. I sounds like Gab and LS could be federated, so these communities could become very large.
- panarky 7y ago
  > If you see something illegal, please report it to the relevant authorities, as they are best equipped to handle illegal content. Fantastic, more negative externalizes. It's like advertising a free hazmat dump, then disclaiming any responsibility for the inevitable cleanup. Just freeride on taxpayer-funded "authorities". This isn't free speech, it's just disgusting and reprehensible.
farisjarrah 7y ago
I remain hopeful that projects like this are a way for commercial interests to funnel money and development to the upstream open source project owners. Purism talks a big game about being a social purpose company. Lets see if they can follow through with their self-imposed commitments. Thus far, it does seem like some the greater mobile gtk toolchain has benefited as result of these efforts on the librem phone, but that's a pretty small niche right there. It doesn't seem like they are integrating with the upstream projects as much for these social/communication services as much as they are with their mobile stuff.
- kgwxd 7y ago
  I think the reason they're not integrating upstream on the social stuff as much is because they've removed more than added. They do less, on purpose. I like that their Mastodon instance doesn't have the firehose. It seems to help keep peoples posts more diverse and personal and avoids people feeling like they have to pick a side and comment on whatever is #trending today. If they gave the option to turn on the firehose, it would loose that feel because many of the users would fall into the same trap. Even if they still post interesting stuff, their overall feed could be lower quality.
grizzles 7y ago
Are these apps open source? I'm curious to see if they changed mastodon in any meaningful way.
- egypturnash 7y ago
  From what I hear they took out all the moderation tools. edit: ah, here's the commit which does it. https://source.puri.sm/liberty/smilodon/commit/9cae431902a2c0ce6438c6722a3a901e279c78fc https://source.puri.sm/liberty/smilodon/commit/9cae431902a2c... "- Return error from reports REST API - Remove links to report in web UI - Reject reports from ActivityPub" (which is to say, if you're using it, the 'report' functionality is gone, and if someone on a remote instance hits the 'report' button on a toot from Purism and says 'send this report to my admin and Purism's admin' then Purism will just error out instead of accepting the error.) I really dunno what possessed Eugen to think that was a good idea. Apparently this commit has been reverted but I've still defederated my instance from Purism because who the hell knows when they'll think this sounds like a good plan again?
  - jancsika 7y ago
    I don't understand why you'd have to dig through another instance's git history and make a judgment call based on a reverted implementation detail. Doesn't Mastodon have tools to notify the admin or even temporarily defederate based on X number of user reports from a given instance?
    - egypturnash 7y ago
      "Purism's instance removed all moderation tools" is the reason I have an opinion on them at all. I only realized they reverted that when linking to the commit where they broke it for my previous comment. I might change my mind on defederating them if the users of my instance weigh in, but forty years of growing up along with the Internet has given me a rather jaundiced view of the ability of people whose primary concerns are softwarefreedom* to make sensible moderation decisions. Especially when they've started from a position of "we can completely opt out of moderating our social software, it'll be great, I'm sure everyone will behave like adults" and had to be argued out of that.
newnewpdro 7y ago
I heard this is a sort of hail-mary for the company's existence, that they need recurring revenue and need it badly. Their products haven't been selling well and if you look at the last few puri.sm updates posted on HN they didn't even attract 10 comments if any at all. The last macbook update thread was past 1000 comments when I read it. If the HN crowd isn't interested in a privacy-oriented FSF-friendly computing devices, who is?
- Gys 7y ago
  Maybe because the Mac platform (or Windows and Android) are platforms that have proven a developer can make money there.
- kgwxd 7y ago
  I think people here are interested in the Librem 5. Laptops are already easy enough to make your own with just a few compromises, and I don't think many people would choose PureOS over other Linux distros. But the phone space has 3 choices iOS, Google Android and open Android (e.g. LineageOS). The open Android options are forced to run on fairly locked down hardware made by companies that have no interest in open sourcing anything and don't want any hardware buttons, no matter how useful they might be. There's a desperate need for a mobile device made for general purpose computing.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
gcb0 7y ago
I loved purism. Got their laptops. But the OS and most software (and i am sure this social network too) is a fly-by-night operation. At best! The laptops too, in a way. They are nice but for the price should have been nicer (e.g. no USB C charging or monitor out, etc, for a machine more expensive than a maxed out mac or HP). Everything they do just scream "we slapped those things together. Now pay us". Now they are riding the waves of the librem5 hype... and i am sure they will deliver just because the competition on mobile phones is abysmal.

51 points by kgwxd 7y ago

Fair warning to anybody thinking of using Librem Social: it's a Mastodon instance whose management seems willing to tolerate speech that most of the rest of the Fediverse finds objectionable. Don't expect that you'll be able to interact with users of other Mastodon instances, as their admins may refuse to federate with Librem Social.

ocdtrekkie 7y ago
The "main" mastodon.social instance isn't choosing to ban them at this time: https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/102180995301556021 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/102180995301556021 Also, from the article: "If you are being harassed, or witness online harassment, block and flag the offending user and a moderator will take action. We do not tolerate harassment. This is an area of well-established rights, Librem Social is built on and with the expert policies of ACLU, FSF, and EFF, while avoiding the pitfalls of ham-fisted censorship we all dislike from Big Tech." And the link to their Code of Conduct is here: https://librem.one/conduct/ https://librem.one/conduct/ Some elements of the Mastodon community are a bit... extreme in their views on moderation, but it doesn't seem like Purism is going outside the standard faire here.
- knolax 7y ago
  >The "main" mastodon.social instance mastodon.social isn't even the largest mastodon instance[0]. Even aside from that The majority of active accounts are hosted on small or personal instances, especially for English speaking accounts. >extreme in their views on moderation IIRC instance admins had an issue with the purism instance not actively going against hate-speech. I'd hardly call that extremist. [0]From https://instances.social/list https://instances.social/list Instance Users DOWN pawoo.net 549417 DOWN mastodon.social 321500 DOWN mstdn.jp 191718 UP switter.at 118232
  - lone_haxx0r 7y ago
    It isn't extreme, statistically speaking, but at least it isn't what I would want in a social network. If I wanted a heavily censored network I would just use Twitter.
- drngdds 7y ago
  >it doesn't seem like Purism is going outside the standard faire here. This isn't true. Most online communities at least ban outright bigotry and the Librem CoC does not. Banning harassment isn't the same thing.
dna_polymerase 7y ago
I'm glad we left Twitter with all their unknown rules about community behavior and free speech and joined the digital equivalent of Nazi Germany with virtual Gauleiters telling us what to do and what to say.
- drngdds 7y ago
  I agree, there's literally nothing more Nazi-like then not wanting to interact with neo-Nazis
  - dna_polymerase 7y ago
    Right, and Twitter used to force them on everyone. Escaping to another reality doesn't solve problems.
Proven 7y ago
> Warning: it's a Mastodon instance whose management seems willing to tolerate speech that most of the rest of the Fediverse finds objectionable. All right, so there is at least one good reason to use it over other instances. I sounds like Gab and LS could be federated, so these communities could become very large.
panarky 7y ago
> If you see something illegal, please report it to the relevant authorities, as they are best equipped to handle illegal content. Fantastic, more negative externalizes. It's like advertising a free hazmat dump, then disclaiming any responsibility for the inevitable cleanup. Just freeride on taxpayer-funded "authorities". This isn't free speech, it's just disgusting and reprehensible.

farisjarrah 7y ago

I remain hopeful that projects like this are a way for commercial interests to funnel money and development to the upstream open source project owners. Purism talks a big game about being a social purpose company. Lets see if they can follow through with their self-imposed commitments. Thus far, it does seem like some the greater mobile gtk toolchain has benefited as result of these efforts on the librem phone, but that's a pretty small niche right there. It doesn't seem like they are integrating with the upstream projects as much for these social/communication services as much as they are with their mobile stuff.

kgwxd 7y ago
I think the reason they're not integrating upstream on the social stuff as much is because they've removed more than added. They do less, on purpose. I like that their Mastodon instance doesn't have the firehose. It seems to help keep peoples posts more diverse and personal and avoids people feeling like they have to pick a side and comment on whatever is #trending today. If they gave the option to turn on the firehose, it would loose that feel because many of the users would fall into the same trap. Even if they still post interesting stuff, their overall feed could be lower quality.

grizzles 7y ago

Are these apps open source? I'm curious to see if they changed mastodon in any meaningful way.

egypturnash 7y ago
From what I hear they took out all the moderation tools. edit: ah, here's the commit which does it. https://source.puri.sm/liberty/smilodon/commit/9cae431902a2c0ce6438c6722a3a901e279c78fc https://source.puri.sm/liberty/smilodon/commit/9cae431902a2c... "- Return error from reports REST API - Remove links to report in web UI - Reject reports from ActivityPub" (which is to say, if you're using it, the 'report' functionality is gone, and if someone on a remote instance hits the 'report' button on a toot from Purism and says 'send this report to my admin and Purism's admin' then Purism will just error out instead of accepting the error.) I really dunno what possessed Eugen to think that was a good idea. Apparently this commit has been reverted but I've still defederated my instance from Purism because who the hell knows when they'll think this sounds like a good plan again?
- jancsika 7y ago
  I don't understand why you'd have to dig through another instance's git history and make a judgment call based on a reverted implementation detail. Doesn't Mastodon have tools to notify the admin or even temporarily defederate based on X number of user reports from a given instance?
  - egypturnash 7y ago
    "Purism's instance removed all moderation tools" is the reason I have an opinion on them at all. I only realized they reverted that when linking to the commit where they broke it for my previous comment. I might change my mind on defederating them if the users of my instance weigh in, but forty years of growing up along with the Internet has given me a rather jaundiced view of the ability of people whose primary concerns are softwarefreedom* to make sensible moderation decisions. Especially when they've started from a position of "we can completely opt out of moderating our social software, it'll be great, I'm sure everyone will behave like adults" and had to be argued out of that.

newnewpdro 7y ago

I heard this is a sort of hail-mary for the company's existence, that they need recurring revenue and need it badly. Their products haven't been selling well and if you look at the last few puri.sm updates posted on HN they didn't even attract 10 comments if any at all. The last macbook update thread was past 1000 comments when I read it. If the HN crowd isn't interested in a privacy-oriented FSF-friendly computing devices, who is?

Gys 7y ago
Maybe because the Mac platform (or Windows and Android) are platforms that have proven a developer can make money there.
kgwxd 7y ago
I think people here are interested in the Librem 5. Laptops are already easy enough to make your own with just a few compromises, and I don't think many people would choose PureOS over other Linux distros. But the phone space has 3 choices iOS, Google Android and open Android (e.g. LineageOS). The open Android options are forced to run on fairly locked down hardware made by companies that have no interest in open sourcing anything and don't want any hardware buttons, no matter how useful they might be. There's a desperate need for a mobile device made for general purpose computing.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

gcb0 7y ago

I loved purism. Got their laptops. But the OS and most software (and i am sure this social network too) is a fly-by-night operation. At best! The laptops too, in a way. They are nice but for the price should have been nicer (e.g. no USB C charging or monitor out, etc, for a machine more expensive than a maxed out mac or HP). Everything they do just scream "we slapped those things together. Now pay us". Now they are riding the waves of the librem5 hype... and i am sure they will deliver just because the competition on mobile phones is abysmal.