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Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon
- efitz 5y agoThe tech oligarchs are out of control. We need to classify them as common carriers now.
- amelius 5y agoHere's an idea. If everybody who dislikes Facebook removed their profile picture, then it would quickly become a dull place and people would flee the platform. Alternatively, instead of removing one's profile picture, one could replace it by the Mastodon logo to make a statement.
- DreamScatter 5y agoOr delete your account
- vmception 5y agoThis seems like an anticompetitive practice Even if its toward an open source federated network that has no head and can host marginalized content The implementation here seems to be an anticompetitive practice, which is sanctionable by governments in the US
- b0tzzzzzzman 5y agoOne can dream. That's still free.
- pope_meat 5y agoI'm looking forward to dreams as a service, with personalized ads sprinkled in. Only 9.99 a month!
- perihelions 5y agoRelated: https://dxe.pubpub.org/pub/dreamadvertising/release/1 https://dxe.pubpub.org/pub/dreamadvertising/release/1 ("Advertising in Dreams is Coming: Now What?")
- jonnycomputer 5y ago"practice" assumes a lot here.
- vmception 5y agookay, replace the word with “action”.
- sitzkrieg 5y agotry it again with pleroma and see what happens!
- chmod600 5y agoCensorship is always abused. Maybe this time or maybe not. But it's always abused. And yes, it's worse than misinformation.
- justbored123 5y agoBuddy Buddy WAKE UP, Facebook is not a public service, it's not there to serve a nobody like you, it's a private company that exist to make money. You can't use their service to trash them and promote their competition, that is not a reasonable business model for them. To finance you by giving you a free platform to promote their competition and trash them is not a good trade for them. DO YOU UNDERSTAND???
- inkblotuniverse 5y agoIf it serves the public, it's a public service. Utility companies were private companies until people decided they weren't.
- ribosometronome 5y agoWhat companies would not be public services under that definition?
- inkblotuniverse 5y agoOnes that aren't natural or in-practice monopolies
- bashinator 5y agoCensorship being “worse than misinformation” seems like whataboutism, given that FB has serious problems with both.
- HideousKojima 5y agoIt's not a whataboutism, it's pointing out that with one of the most popular proposed solutions to misinformation, censorship, the cure is worse than the disease.
- srcreigh 5y agoTry linking to pushbullet.com in FB messenger
- edoceo 5y agoI don't have either, could you just tell us what happens?
- srcreigh 5y agoIt doesn't send the message. "Could not send the message. Tap for details." When you tap, then tap Learn More, it just sends you to to this page https://m.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/1723537124537415 https://m.facebook.com/help/messenger-app/1723537124537415
- th0ma5 5y ago...
- tankenmate 5y agoThat's what he was doing?!??! (And yes, promotion is a big part of making a product)
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoIf the article is correct, that’s what they are doing and Facebook is using their market and financial dominance to stop it. How is “they’re a private company, make your own” still being used as an argument when situation is obviously beyond that? We have conclusive evidence from FAANG and Governments that they work together. You practically CAN’T make your own Facebook. Facebook will stop you one way or another. Google who has a dollar or two, tried and failed spectacularly. Do you know how much better an organic startup would need to be to rival Google’s Day1 investment in Plus?
- ipaddr 5y ago"You practically CAN’T make your own. Facebook will stop you one way or another. Google who has a dollar or two" Google+ was successful and Google shut it down for Google reasons. If they gave away Google+ instead I can't think of anyone who wouldn't gladly take it off of their hands. You can make your own facebook and facebook will not stop you. But people don't want another facebook, many are realizing they probably want off of facebook, replacing it with something similiar isn't helpful. What facebook offers (network effect) is the main value of the platform and replicating that is virtually impossible; nevermind in the same form as facebook. Having Google+'s code day one would mean little without the users.
- Imnimo 5y agoI doubt anyone at Facebook is freaking out about Mastodon and setting out to censor all mention of it. It's probably just a keyword or link that tends to co-appear with other, actually rule-breaking content, and some automated system has learned to block it. Still, it does seem like the sort of thing that could get Facebook in trouble with a regulator if you squint at it.
- theknocker 5y ago>I either have no idea how the world works or I want you to have no idea how the world works
- stncls 5y agoYes, Facebook's upper management is definitely not freaking out about Mastodon. However, from my own experience working at a large, somewhat ethically-challenged organisation (not fb), it would not surprise me in the least if they gently yet actively pushed down a competitor, provided it can be done discreetly.
- whimsicalism 5y agoDoubt it, not worth the liabillity risk.
- flatline 5y agoWhat liability? A few million dollar fine? Look at what Microsoft did to numerous competitors over decades: Borland, Mozilla, etc. FB squelching Mastodon is minor league.
- yaacov 5y agoYes, Microsoft has famously never had any major issues with antitrust
- DamnYuppie 5y ago
- pope_meat 5y agoI'm fighting Facebook by not participating. I implore the rest of you to do the same. As we leave, the folks remaining will have less reasons to stay. A trickle can turn in to a torrent. Don't worry about an alternative even, we'll find something new when we do, until then, a bit of a detox from the feed will do us good.
- Ekaros 5y agoHaven't used Facebook in years. Only reason I ever access it is to see some business info. As for some stupid reason they don't have proper internet presence with up to date information.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoI used Marketplace for a minute before becoming permanently banned beyond appeal for selling a computer and making a Bitcoin joke in the listing. So I’m done there.
- dustymcp 5y agoDid that a long time ago cant recommend it enough, you have a calendar to keep up with birthdays..
- tyingq 5y agoThis part is interesting... "We have fewer reviewers available right now because of the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak..." That smells fishy. Seems like a job that would be a really good fit for work-from-home. Wouldn't you then have more reviewers available? Or maybe the exposure to graphic content means they do this in the office?
- toomuchtodo 5y agoIt’s actually outsourced to Accenture.
- gpm 5y agoIt seems perfectly plausible that the reviewers they do have are busier right now, because more people are using and abusing facebook, so they have "fewer available".
- grishka 5y agoThere was a long article about how they have to do it in an office, and how you can't bring any electronics with you, and how you have to click a special button when you go to pee, and there's a daily limit on how much you can use it. edit: https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebook-content-moderator-interviews-trauma-working-conditions-arizona https://www.theverge.com/2019/2/25/18229714/cognizant-facebo... it was probably this one
- david_allison 5y agoI believe that using the line 'our lines are busy right now' cuts down on complaints. I assume this was A/B tested and found that it has the same effect. Until very recently, Google Play also had a similar notice without mentioning COVID when an app was in for review.
- lrem 5y agoFrankly: Google is only now-ish regaining the balance from the hiring slowdown COVID brought. It isn't far-fetched that some team went short-staffed until recently. And then, updating notices was not their top priority.
- Ekaros 5y agoRemember private platform and only governments can censor. Also first amendment. Free speech only applies to government not private companies. They can show you door if you try to use their platform to market your competing product...
- rvz 5y agoThis is not surprising as there is no such thing as 'free speech' on private platforms like Facebook. I thought that the author of this post knew this given the mass de-platforming going on throughout the years. This shows once again that it can happen to anyone. Facebook and the rest of them will never change.
- SV_BubbleTime 5y agoHow does that work when the government admits to directly working with that private company to ask for specific posts and people to be censored? Is that still not a violation of 1A?
- mikeytown2 5y agohttps://joinmastodon.org/ https://joinmastodon.org/ Might as well see what FB is scared about
- jonnycomputer 5y agoOr maybe, OP wanted a whole bunch of people here to post joinmastadon.org to their FB pages. I bet it worked too.
- silisili 5y agoSo, seems mastodon is fragmented or segmented into many independent networks. Do those interact with each other in any way? I'd hate to join one and miss truly interesting content on another...is it possible to distill multiple into one on the user end? Just asking, as I've never tried it before and the concept seems a little confusing.
- judge2020 5y agoYes, on mastodon you can follow @someone@anothermastodon.local even if you are on firstmastodon.local, and the server running your instance will phone out to anothermastodon.local to retrieve posts from the person you follow.
- silisili 5y agoThanks. But how would I find said user...is there a way to get erm, the top posts of the day from anothermastodon and firstmastodon together?
- schmorptron 5y agoThere is a timeline that randomly mixes in posts from users from other instances whom users from your instance follow
- silisili 5y ago
- ineedasername 5y agoInteresting how "because COVID" has become the thinly veiled excuse here. A similar manifestation of the "think of the children" trope that can be used to manipulate emotions and shut down dissent.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- dredmorbius 5y agoThis seems to be a wildly incongrous conclusion based on a clear indication that a global pandemic is impacting operational efficacy and staffing levels. Not that it's an excuse or justification for blanket censorship.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- breakingcups 5y agoIf there's one job that doesn't exactly depend on what location you're working from...
- matthewmacleod 5y ago…then it's not content moderation, which AFAIK companies like Facebook and Google require to take place on-site, in a controlled environment with no electronic devices, due to the potential data security issues involved.
- deltree7 5y agoIt is more nuanced. FB team can be overwhelmed with Covid related misinformation. A lot of content moderation is outsourced to countries like India where productivity, availability may have degraded due to covid that ravaged through the country. Many firms still have backlogs from Covid disruption. If you have worked at / started any half-decent sized company you'd have known
- jeroenhd 5y ago
- jonnycomputer 5y agoThis has happened to me lots of times, for innocuous posts. Like, for example, copying a screenshot of a graph from the CDC, along-side with a link pointing to the CDC website I obtained it from. Or copying a inflation graph from a blog, and then linking to that blog in the same comment or post. Not some conspiracy, just incompetence on FB's part. Of course some people would prefer to believe something nefarious.
- swayvil 5y agoI went to joinmastadon.org Please disable your ad blocker and reload the page. I disable adblock and reload. Please disable your ad blocker and reload the page. Yknow
- gargron 5y agoIt's joinmastOdon.org, not joinmastAdon.org. We don't own the misspelled domain. I wonder how many people fall prey to it though.
- swayvil 5y agothanks
- swayvil 5y agoUgh. I made the mistake of trying to join the art mastadon. Now I can't do anything until my invite gets processed.
- opan 5y agoA shocking amount of people in the comments are misspelling it despite it being written in the headline.
- swayvil 5y agoIt's some kind of brain thing.
- imchillyb 5y agoA social media platform refused to let you advertise a competing social media platform. Is this really news? Isn't this just business as usual in corporate America?
- trident5000 5y agoIf this is the case its actually anti-competitive and supposed to be against the law. Obviously there is a difference between braking the law and getting caught though.
- gverrilla 5y agosupposedly* breaking the law. /s
- justbored123 5y agoSo, the author is surprised that a private business doesn't let him use their free platform to promote their competition at the same time that they trash them... The level of delusion and entitlement of some people is simply to hard to understand for me.
- semitones 5y agoFacebook isn't just a "private business" or just a "free platform", they're a gigantic global entity that have integrated their product into the lives of billions of people. If it was a free service by a mom and pop shop with "use at your own risk" in the agreement, then yes, it would be entitlement. However, there exist people, for whom 90% of their communication happens via Facebook or social media. And it's not even by choice, kids are born into it being the status quo, and if 100% of your friends are using it while you're growing up, chances that you won't use it too are slim to none. Thus, the company needs to hold responsibility for providing open communication. Censoring posts about their competitors goes against that.
- plandis 5y agoGiven the number of articles from Facebook saying how they won’t censor speech (doing a basic Google search here) that all seems like false advertising. Note: I don’t use Facebook so perhaps I’m missing something.
- dredmorbius 5y agoI'm no fan at all of Facebook. Don't have it, never have. Think it should be destroyed utterly. You can find me on Mastodon.[0] That said: the company sees 2--3 billion MAU,[1] and sees on the order of 5 billion pieces of content submitted per day. The best I understand, their measure of exposure is not items but "prevelance, that is, the number of total presentations* of a particular content.[2] Long-standing empirical media evidence suggests that this follows a power curve, where the number of impressions is inverse to the number of items. So, say, 1 might see 1 million impressions, 10: 100k, 100: 10k, 1,000: 1k, etc. This means that a service can budget and staff for either the minimum prevalence threshold before manual review, or the total number of items granted more than some maximum unreviewed threshold. Machine-assisted filtering can help. In either case, though, mistakes will happen, and at 5 billion items/day, the number of misclassifications even at very high accuracy is large: - 1%: 50m/dy - 0.1%: 5m/dy - 0.01%: 500k/dy - 0.001%: 50k/dy ... which necessitates secondary review and additional costs, as well as, of course, malicious appeals by bad-faith actors. If the filtering system is fed by user reports (flags and the like), then malicious or simply disagreement-based flags may well trigger moderation. (Crowdsourcing has its own profound limits.) Another element is that, especially with AI-based filtering systems, what results is determination without explanation. We know that a specific item was rejected, but not why. And in all likelihood, FB and its engineers cannot determine the specific reason either. (I've encountered this situation more often from Google, again, as I don't use FB, but the underlying mechanics of AI-based decision systems are the same between such systems.) The upshot though is: - Moderation is necessary. - It's ultimately capricious and error-prone. There are initiatives and proposals for greater transparency and appeals. - Cause-determination is ... usually ... poorly founded. ________________________________ Notes: 0. https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius Also Diaspora (see below). 1. Monthly active users. https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/2021/Facebook-Reports-First-Quarter-2021-Results/default.aspx https://investor.fb.com/investor-news/press-release-details/... 2. See Guy Rosen, VP of Integrity for both content and prevalence references: https://nitter.kavin.rocks/guyro/status/1337493574246535168?s=20 https://nitter.kavin.rocks/guyro/status/1337493574246535168?... I've written more on the topic here: https://joindiaspora.com/posts/f3617c90793101396840002590d8e506 https://joindiaspora.com/posts/f3617c90793101396840002590d8e...
- utunga 5y agoI've been censored in the exact same way for linking a friend to relevant government legislation. I think it's a combination of the tone / wording coupled with something about my posting behavior (I took a break for a while then came back). I dunno but it was annoying as heck (though somewhat understandable) that there was no way to appeal.
- Igelau 5y agoI'd be willing to bet that the phrase "corporate-controlled network" is what set off the censor, and not Mastodon. That more often appears next to links to fake news sites. On the other hand, the opaque/nonexistent review and appeal process is sleazy and YouTubesque.
- natural219 5y agoThe fact that people buy into any of these excuses (Russian manipulation, Covid misinformation) as anything but an excuse to shut down competition and consolidate control is utterly beyond me. Read literally a single history book, people.
- tayo42 5y agoProbably just a bug, I work in different social media, but see these kinds of posts pop up about it when something happens by accident. The comment threads are filled with people throwing out unfounded accusations, "obvious" conspiracy theories. The mob is riled up. One of the most amusing things about actually working in one of these companies is just seeing how confidently wrong some internet commenters are about what is actually happening when an article or outage happens.
- Nevermark 5y agoWell maybe the big powerful corporation should be up front about what it moderates and what it doesn't, and changes in policy as it learns. Then abide by and reference that. That way people can understand why their post was removed without having to speculate. Maybe filtering changes should be rolled out slowly at first, with every customer complaint analyzed, to catch these bugs you speak of before they are widespread, frustrating and look obviously suspicious. Maybe the big powerful corporation should hire staff in proportion to their mistakes, instead of blaming a pandemic for its record profits, er ..., I mean lack of interest in finding ethical solutions to problems. Maybe if the company made good faith explanations of mistakes, and actually fixed them, instead of letting them fester, or continually playing hide and seek with information, speculation would not be necessity. Your attitude about your company's customers is equally disappointing.
- tayo42 5y agoYour making excuses for being confidently uninformed.
- Nevermark 5y agoI have not bothered to speculate why the took action in the case being discussed here. Not informing customers, then being amused that they are uninformed (and some invariably speculate), is not a solution to anything.
- 5y ago
- IronWolve 5y agoFacebook has a blacklist on competitors, facebook wants to control the narrative, there is a reason your feed isnt by timeline, its artificially controlled. Same thing happens on youtube, twitter, etc. I've been using addons and rss feeds to go back to time/date ordered feeds, so I don't miss things I want to follow. You can use RSS feeds to go around soft censorship, using apps like IFTTT, etc. Pockettube addon for youtube. etc.
- trident5000 5y agoThe naivety in here is astonishing. "The AI just messed up". Facebook's entire existence is 1) identifying the smallest details in information 2) buying up small competitors before they are an issue.
- IronWolve 5y agoExactly, don't accept "blame the algorithm" excuses. Facebook/Google/Twitter has entire departments working on tricking and controlling people with psychology. If they can bend you to their narrative, it's great for Advertising, voting, etc. The whole hacker/programmer community is/was freeing information, never trusting governments or mopolies. Culture sure has changed.
- squarefoot 5y agoSo they are at it again. In late 2015 Whatsapp, which was acquired by Facebook in 2014, was caught with the pants down intentionally crippling functionality when detecting links to Telegram. https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/09/whatsapp-is-blocking-telegram-links-in-the-android-app/ https://www.androidpolice.com/2016/09/09/whatsapp-is-blockin...
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- edorsey 5y agoThis exact thing happened to me last week. I was notified on Sept 4 at 6:40pm. Clicking on a link in my post to joinmastodon.com notifies you that the link goes against their community standards.
- strenholme 5y agoYep. Facebook censored me for linking to an entry about COVID-19 growth on my personal webpage — https://samiam.org/COVID-19 https://samiam.org/COVID-19 for the record — saying the post violated Facebook’s community standards, falsely claiming it was spam (no, I do not have a single ad over on my personal website). Also, interviewing for a job at Facebook has been one of the worst job interview experiences I have ever had.
- nayuki 5y agoTell me more about what happened at your Facebook interview
- strenholme 5y agoThey asked a lot of really senior-level questions about B-trees. Since I tend to use hashes instead of B-trees for my data structures, I was caught completely flat footed. To interview for Facebook, study B-trees like crazy (no, the recruiters did not warn me about this). Also, after the interview, the recruiters at Facebook I was in contact with completely ghosted me. Very rude.
- jdavis703 5y agoA recruiter explicitly told me to study trees and related algorithms and even offered an FB study guide. However this happened after I told them I didn’t do game show style interviews. YMMV.
- danShumway 5y agoI think this is highly unlikely to be a targeted attempt to censor Mastodon. The simpler explanation (and the explanation with most historical evidence behind it) is just that Facebook's AI algorithms are kind of bad and nobody in the company understands how they work or what associations they build. However, the underlying idea that Facebook would block links to competitors is historically valid. As recently as 2016, Facebook blocked links to competing networks from Instagram (https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/3/11157124/instagram-blocks-snapchat-telegram-links https://www.theverge.com/2016/3/3/11157124/instagram-blocks-...), and leaked internal emails from Facebook have shown that the company has an extremely broad view of what does and doesn't count as a competitor (https://panatimes.com/facebook-bought-instagram-to-neutralize-a-competitor-emails-show https://panatimes.com/facebook-bought-instagram-to-neutraliz...). The company is extremely anti-competitive, it's not shy about this, and internal emails show that this anti-competitive attitude is entrenched very deeply and very consciously within upper management. I think taking down this post in specific is very unlikely to be deliberate because: A) Mastodon is likely not a large enough service to warrant it, and because B) The explanation based on Facebook's AI being weird, opaque, and generally untested is a much cleaner, simpler explanation that requires fewer jumps in logic. But it would be completely in character for Facebook to target a real competitor in this way. The reason it's unlikely to be deliberate is not because Facebook would never do something like this, and it's not because Facebook would be too frightened of regulators to do it so openly. Facebook has very openly done stuff like this in the past. It's just that there are other explanations that are more likely, and it's that if Facebook was going to start doing this, Mastodon probably wouldn't be among the first competitors they would target. I need a lot more evidence to show that this is deliberate before I jump off of the (extremely compelling) explanation that automated moderation is really buggy across the board and regularly does unexpected things. The article comes off as a little uncurious to me, I feel like the author is jumping too quickly to a specific conclusion without a lot of critical thought. But part of why Facebook has these problems with people jumping to conclusions about how it tracks and moderates is because Facebook has a very real history of being openly corrupt in these areas, and Facebook has a real history of being deceptive about their motivations behind decision-making processes. The reputation hasn't come out of nowhere.
- erehweb 5y ago
- seventytwo 5y agoSeems pretty lucrative right now to be crying censorship.
- fortran77 5y agoWhere did he post this? My guess it wasn't just to his "wall." If he posted it to a group (i.e., his college alumni group, or a sports fan forum, or a gamers group), no doubt several people tagged it as spam--which it may have been--and the algorithm kicked in. There's no Big Conspiracy at Facebook to keep Mastodon down.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ergocoder 5y agoFB can ban whoever they want as long as it is not a protected class. FB can ban you because you like to eat broccoli or for whatever any reason. Many people support this idea during trump's ban. So you will just need to suck it up.
- jdavis703 5y agoPolitical affiliation is a protected class where FB and TWTR are headquartered. Considering the overwhelming majority of Republicans remain on the platform, it seems the removal had nothing to do with class.
- rsj_hn 5y ago> "Political affiliation is a protected class where FB and TWTR " This is false. What is true is that in some limited cases and with a lot of caveats, you cannot be fired for your political affiliation in California, assuming that affiliation is expressed outside of work, etc. That's it. Please do not try to stretch that bit of weak labor law to protecting posts on TWTR because they are headquartered in CA.
- ribosometronome 5y agoWeird take. People's concern here is that this sort of behavior is anti-competitive, enforcing rules that applied to everyone re: inciting violence is pretty different. Seems odd to think that folk have to support a generic action rather than how that action is done. Like, there are people who like baseball but would probably be a bit upset if you randomly threw a ball at them at 90mph in the middle of the street despite them being really supportive of it in a different context.
- hdjjhhvvhga 5y agoThey block https://joinmastodon.org https://joinmastodon.org but not, say, https://mastodon.social https://mastodon.social - so probably it's not a part of a strategy.
- ezekiel68 5y agoEch. I understand the general point OP is making but I don't mind admitting I see things differently. I am free to enter Joe's Cafe and do 99.9% of normal things one might do in any similar setting. But if I enter Joe's cafe and solicit my friends there that if they don't like the way Joe runs his cafe they should be aware of Lenny's Cafe, I feel that Joe has every right to stop me from doing that. To pedants: Yes, I know the analogy isn't perfect. But please don't pretent it isn't relevant. This said, I remember when many MAGA friends announced they were leaving for Parler or MeWe or Gab and I never heard any of them claim their posts were removed (the ones who didn't leave right away).
- calibas 5y agoWouldn't be the first time they've done something like this: https://heavy.com/tech/2018/10/facebook-block-minds-com-unsecure/ https://heavy.com/tech/2018/10/facebook-block-minds-com-unse...
- CrazyCatDog 5y agoMastodon Ivory is illegal to sell—my money is on anti-poaching filters and dumb coincidence. FB I’m for hire! Plenty of experience spin-doctoring/downplaying incidences for PR.
- kevincox 5y agoThis was the final straw that lead me to start moving away from Facebook Messenger. They were preventing me from sending seemingly random links in 1:1 chats. That was enough reason to start moving friends to a solution with E2EE. This example my have not been malicious, but it is a start reminder that you are allowing them to see, and control, your communication. That is something that I would prefer not to occur.
- pokey00 5y agoI'm just sort of discovering the fediverse "scene". I still have a lot of research to do, but decentralization is very appealing to me. I have some questions, and maybe the answers will help other people too: * What aspects are currently priority for improvements? * What are lower priority problems or features that could be started now and worked on at a slower pace? * Where is a good place for someone with programming, networking, and/or engineering skills to start getting involved with development? * What can someone with little-to-no programming/networking or related "technical" skills do to further the development and uptake of decentralized social media? * Are there any suggestions for good reading on this topic, both technical and non-technical? Websites, books, people/groups to follow?
- nightpool 5y agoHey, I'm a contributor to Mastodon and while I can only answer for myself, and not the project, here are my current thoughts: * What aspects are currently priority for improvements? I really want to see better authorization & authentication features across different instances. Right now, a really high priority feature for users is "Disable replies", but the way replies work, anyone can construct an activity that is set as "replying" to whatever posts they want to reply to, just by linking to those posts. Figuring out some way to "authorize" those replies (we have a few ideas, but need to work out a lot of the details) is important for us. Additionally, we've been thinking for a while about implementing more group-focused experiences, something kind of like old LiveJournal comms or the new Twitter Communities, and now that there are a few different projects looking into similar things, and we think it's an idea whose time has come. And of course, improving on-boarding and general user experience are always at the top of our priority list. * What are lower priority problems or features that could be started now and worked on at a slower pace? Interoperable clients. When the ActivityPub network was first envisioned, the idea was that servers would be completely generic, like email servers, and users could connect multiple different, opinionated "clients" to get different UI experiences of the same inbox. However, most of the current fediverse projects implement only the server-to-server federation experiences, and use more standard, domain-specific REST APIs for client communication. I think * Where is a good place for someone with programming, networking, and/or engineering skills to start getting involved with development? It depends on your inclination! My perspective is that you should always write code that you know you yourself are going to use, because that's the best way to ensure that you're going to stick to it long term. As a more practical suggestion, https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a-basic-activitypub-server/ https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/06/how-to-implement-a-bas... and https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/07/how-to-make-friends-and-verify-requests/ https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/07/how-to-make-friends-an... are still the two best tutorials out there on how to implement the basic ActivityPub protocol. * What can someone with little-to-no programming/networking or related "technical" skills do to further the development and uptake of decentralized social media? Use it! Invite your friends to use it. There are lots of non-programming technical skills that are always in demand for these types of projects—UX, design, product management, support, fundraising, comms—but besides those the biggest way you can support decentralized social media is simply by using it! The more people who are part of the community, the more vibrant, stable, and welcoming its going to be for new members. * Are there any suggestions for good reading on this topic, both technical and non-technical? Websites, books, people/groups to follow? There's a lot of good writing out there, but it's hard to recommend anything that I would regard as really authoritative and summing things up. I think we're kind of in a place where we need less people writing about possible futures, and more people building them. As a comparison, you can write all you want about possible startups people could make, but the thing that's really valuable is going to be going out there and trying them. Execution, as always, is 99% of the game.
- eterevsky 5y agoFacebook is not known to ban mentioning their actual competitors like Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, Telegram etc. so why would it single out this small social network? It seems more like it was a false positive of some moderation system that triggered because the post sounded too much like an advertisement.
- qw_rty 5y agochecking with https://blacklistalert.org/ https://blacklistalert.org/ there's a website which is blacklisting joinmastodon.org http://www.justspam.org/check-an-ip?ip=66.111.4.71 http://www.justspam.org/check-an-ip?ip=66.111.4.71
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]