5 ms·

I had a quick look at mastodon a while ago and saw a few more problems with the model, but I wasn't aware instances could block each other. Maybe some day there

I had a quick look at mastodon a while ago and saw a few more problems with the model, but I wasn't aware instances could block each other. Maybe some day there will be an even more decentralized alternative (Looking at you, indieweb) where it is up to the user whom they block. I'm also not a huge fan of how mastodon is an implementation, more than a protocol.

ldjb 6y ago
So long as instances are serving content from other instances (pretty much required for a social network), there will be demand to be able to block other instances. Of course, people could just host their own instance, which is possible with Mastodon, and is indeed what a lot of people already do. Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol, and there are other implementations that use this protocol (Pleroma, for example).
zdkl 6y ago
Have you looked into ActivityStreams? It might be the protocol you're looking for! https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/
- cjslep 6y ago
  ActivityStreams is a data format, not a protocol. ActivityPub is the protocol that Mastodon, Pleroma, etc use which shares ActivityStreams data.
vertex-four 6y ago
I, as a user, am still going to demand that I can join a community where of likeminded people and moderation so I don't have to deal with the overwhelming spam of the internet myself. That's the bit that a number of decentralisation projects don't get - I don't want to have messages by anyone on the whole internet forced into my view (because have you seen how much that sucks?). I want moderation if the day-to-day use of the tool involves coming across a largely random group of people - otherwise it's just a platform for harassment and spamming people with child porn, a la Matrix - and I don't want to perform that moderation 100% by myself.
- jack1243star 6y ago
  Then what is the point of federation? You just described a centralized forum/microblogging server.
  - simias 6y ago
    The point is flexibility and no lock-in. If you buy into the Twitter platform and eventually you're not happy with the way it goes, moving away has a huge cost. If a federated architecture peers can come and go relatively easily. See email for instance: if you're unhappy with your current provider you can move to a different one or even roll out a new server and you can still interact with the other users.
    - jack1243star 6y ago
      Simply interacting, yes, but email and messaging cannot replace Twitter. What makes Mastodon viable is the identity, multicast and backlog of toots(tweets?), which does not transfer as easily between instances.
  - vertex-four 6y ago
    I can pick and choose who my community and moderation team is - that's why I am on the fediverse and not Twitter. I am strongly opposed to having extreme right-wing views (along the lines of "you should be dead for who you are") forced into my conversations? I can pick an instance/moderation team which proactively blocks other instances which refuse to moderate their users according to such basic social norms. Fact of the matter is that I don't really want to talk to most people on the internet, and I don't want to see what they have to say about me every time I want to see what my friends are up to. I want to talk to my friends, maybe have our wider communities able to chime in, and occasionally discover new people through that. It's not my job to convince random assholes on the internet that I deserve to exist, and it's not useful in any way to see their messages. Blocking extremist free speech instances which promote harassment as a normal part of their operation is... a feature, not a bug.
    - 6y ago
numpad0 6y ago
That was a feature added later, mostly to address instance operators' fear for police intervention for enabling access to Japanese content(they say loli but even Japanese in 30s to 40s are legit mistaken even in court as underage, so not much to do with age, IMO more of specific makeup style or lack thereof)
- jack1243star 6y ago
  There's also pawoo.net, which was operated by Pixiv (switched hands). Pawoo is the go-to instance for (lolicon) artists banned from Twitter, and despite being the largest Mastodon instance is blocked by almost all instances. The fear came from some European laws forbidding under-aged illustrations (typing this makes me die inside), so instances serving pictures from Pawoo may get into trouble. https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/2657448 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/2657448
  - numpad0 6y ago
    I kind of don't like how "lolicon" is being used -- because pedophilistic orientation don't seem to correlate all that well to how likely people is banned from Twitter. There's a real pedo guy on it, who I've seen public about how arts don't substitute stuffs, who posts his... arts a bit jagged, and doing it for years, then on the other hands there are artists getting banned nth times this year posting an abstracted person with clean and continuous lines. My theory is there's a set of curve parameters that evaluate to "legality" in a sigmoid response that has less to do with ages or even if it's depicting a human or an animal or not, like a picture of desert hills looks pornographic sometimes or how sumo wrestlers charging evoke no sexual emotion. That human curve scoring yet to be discovered is, to me, looks like how legality is determined worldwide on and off internet, so calling those drawings as loli or people doing those curves as lolicon is inaccurate in my opinion.

ldjb 6y ago

So long as instances are serving content from other instances (pretty much required for a social network), there will be demand to be able to block other instances. Of course, people could just host their own instance, which is possible with Mastodon, and is indeed what a lot of people already do. Mastodon uses the ActivityPub protocol, and there are other implementations that use this protocol (Pleroma, for example).

zdkl 6y ago

Have you looked into ActivityStreams? It might be the protocol you're looking for! https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/ https://www.w3.org/TR/activitystreams-core/

cjslep 6y ago
ActivityStreams is a data format, not a protocol. ActivityPub is the protocol that Mastodon, Pleroma, etc use which shares ActivityStreams data.

vertex-four 6y ago

I, as a user, am still going to demand that I can join a community where of likeminded people and moderation so I don't have to deal with the overwhelming spam of the internet myself. That's the bit that a number of decentralisation projects don't get - I don't want to have messages by anyone on the whole internet forced into my view (because have you seen how much that sucks?). I want moderation if the day-to-day use of the tool involves coming across a largely random group of people - otherwise it's just a platform for harassment and spamming people with child porn, a la Matrix - and I don't want to perform that moderation 100% by myself.

jack1243star 6y ago
Then what is the point of federation? You just described a centralized forum/microblogging server.
- simias 6y ago
  The point is flexibility and no lock-in. If you buy into the Twitter platform and eventually you're not happy with the way it goes, moving away has a huge cost. If a federated architecture peers can come and go relatively easily. See email for instance: if you're unhappy with your current provider you can move to a different one or even roll out a new server and you can still interact with the other users.
  - jack1243star 6y ago
    Simply interacting, yes, but email and messaging cannot replace Twitter. What makes Mastodon viable is the identity, multicast and backlog of toots(tweets?), which does not transfer as easily between instances.
- vertex-four 6y ago
  I can pick and choose who my community and moderation team is - that's why I am on the fediverse and not Twitter. I am strongly opposed to having extreme right-wing views (along the lines of "you should be dead for who you are") forced into my conversations? I can pick an instance/moderation team which proactively blocks other instances which refuse to moderate their users according to such basic social norms. Fact of the matter is that I don't really want to talk to most people on the internet, and I don't want to see what they have to say about me every time I want to see what my friends are up to. I want to talk to my friends, maybe have our wider communities able to chime in, and occasionally discover new people through that. It's not my job to convince random assholes on the internet that I deserve to exist, and it's not useful in any way to see their messages. Blocking extremist free speech instances which promote harassment as a normal part of their operation is... a feature, not a bug.
  - 6y ago

numpad0 6y ago

That was a feature added later, mostly to address instance operators' fear for police intervention for enabling access to Japanese content(they say loli but even Japanese in 30s to 40s are legit mistaken even in court as underage, so not much to do with age, IMO more of specific makeup style or lack thereof)

jack1243star 6y ago
There's also pawoo.net, which was operated by Pixiv (switched hands). Pawoo is the go-to instance for (lolicon) artists banned from Twitter, and despite being the largest Mastodon instance is blocked by almost all instances. The fear came from some European laws forbidding under-aged illustrations (typing this makes me die inside), so instances serving pictures from Pawoo may get into trouble. https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/2657448 https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/2657448
- numpad0 6y ago
  I kind of don't like how "lolicon" is being used -- because pedophilistic orientation don't seem to correlate all that well to how likely people is banned from Twitter. There's a real pedo guy on it, who I've seen public about how arts don't substitute stuffs, who posts his... arts a bit jagged, and doing it for years, then on the other hands there are artists getting banned nth times this year posting an abstracted person with clean and continuous lines. My theory is there's a set of curve parameters that evaluate to "legality" in a sigmoid response that has less to do with ages or even if it's depicting a human or an animal or not, like a picture of desert hills looks pornographic sometimes or how sumo wrestlers charging evoke no sexual emotion. That human curve scoring yet to be discovered is, to me, looks like how legality is determined worldwide on and off internet, so calling those drawings as loli or people doing those curves as lolicon is inaccurate in my opinion.