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I really need to remind you folks that you are transferring your trust to these local server administrators. They might mishandle your data. They might be even

I really need to remind you folks that you are transferring your trust to these local server administrators. They might mishandle your data. They might be even less prepared to deal with moderation than big social media. They might end up having to close their services due to lack of time or money. It’s all fun but please keep this in mind. Perhaps host your own instance?

HollowEyes 4y ago
I am partially surprised that the reading portal is the same as the authoring one. It would feel better if we had one great feed reader, and an authoring pumping station. The blurred lines makes it more difficult to comprehend as much. Who moderates offshore content?
- irusensei 4y ago
  > Who moderates offshore content Whoever is in the pilot seat and that’s beautiful. Although if things start to get a bit too edgy we might see entire servers blacklisted from store apps. Also server-wide block done by administrators. If I’m not mistaken the largest mastodon instance is Pawoo.net and that’s basically a japanese board for posting controversial hentai artwork. Pawoo.net is blacklisted from most popular Mastodon servers.
  - amadeuspagel 4y ago
    I'd be surprised to learn that it's blacklisted from any feed readers. That illustrates the usefulness of separating reader app and hosting.
    - irusensei 4y ago
      Pretty sure it happened to Gab nodes. In this case justified (and probably with a bit of push from Apple and Google) but the precedent exists. Slightly related Google blocked Element a few years ago because something posted on a federated instance. I think they strong handed matrix.org to implement moderation on the default servers.
  - proactivesvcs 4y ago
    > Although if things start to get a bit too edgy we might see entire servers blacklisted from store apps I believe - although have not verified lately - that Tusky will not connect to some specific instances that host degenerate people. I use Fedilab instead.
    - irusensei 4y ago
      Gab comes to mind, before they forked the code to become their own thing. The Tusky case was notable because the app rickrolled users trying to log in to Gab.
ImaCake 4y ago
It seems a bit dubious to trust twitter with my data anyway? Mastodon at least is not trying to shove politics and celebrities down my throat.
- irusensei 4y ago
  Two wrongs do not make a right. Enjoy Mastodon but be conscious of your federated benevolent dictator if you are not running your own instance.
  - ImaCake 4y ago
    No, but OP was arguing that lack of trust was reason not to use Mastodon. But if both Twitter and Mastodon both have the same trust issues then their argument is moot.
- kmlx 4y ago
  well, at least twitter is a well established, extremely visible corp. for a mastodon instance the list of questions is long and start with: who’s your hosting provider.
  - guerrilla 4y ago
    > well, at least twitter is a well established, extremely visible corp Oh yeah, that worked out great with the planet-destroying overlords that are the oil companies. No, this is a terrible heuristic.
newaccount2021 4y ago
[dead]
CM30 4y ago
So, like when using most websites? If you use Hacker News you're trusting Dang and the other folks running this place. If you use Facebook or Twitter, you're trusting Zuck, Elon and the folks working at Meta or Twitter. If you use independently run forums and community sites, you're trusting the people running those places. Self hosting your own instance is great when possible (and I definitely think it should be possible for almost all services, at least in an ideal world), but you won't be able to do much in life without trusting at least someone along the way.
- irusensei 4y ago
  Let’s say you are a journalist or wathever today profession that depends on reaching people. After the twitter fallout you went to this new journalist centric instance and managed to recover a good following. Months later and you had a bad intercalating with the server admin which ended up not being a level headed person as you previously thought. He deletes your account… not even a chance to use the migration tools to redirect profile.
  - mariusor 4y ago
    Some of these hypotheticals are a becoming a little ridiculous. There's very little recourse if twitter bans you, or youtube bans you and you're not capable of raising a stink on HN, or what not. It's hardly any different when you're using a mastodon instance.
    - irusensei 4y ago
      Twitter won’t ban you for personal reasons. Can you vouch the same for a server admin?
      - mariusor 4y ago
        Tell that to Kathy Griffin and Jeph Jaques. And even before that, I doubt that people getting banned were considering it as "not personal".
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Apparently there is some work being done to give the non-admins even more power/control over their own content, which currently needs GPG shenanigans. I learned this from this talk: A New HOPE (2022): ActivityPub Four Years Later: The Good, the Bad, and the Fedi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnciCz83t70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnciCz83t70 Which notably is a recent talk (July) but was given before the recent influx.
- irusensei 4y ago
  Great. I don’t want to sound lazy but can you give me a time stamp to the relevant part? Thanks in advance.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    https://youtu.be/vnciCz83t70?t=878 https://youtu.be/vnciCz83t70?t=878
    - irusensei 4y ago
      That sounds great for verification. It would be great if users could automatically follow that pubkey across other nodes in case the pubkey owner decides or is forced to migrate.
kornhole 4y ago
Because big data is valuable and little data is generally not, admins of small instances have little incentive to dig into the DB. Because humans are moderating the small instances, they can do a better job than AI moderators, albeit with more work. Moving from one Mastodon instance to another taking follows and followers is quite easy. Admins usually announce plans to close with enough time for people to make the move.
pornel 4y ago
Totally, but I have even less trust in Twitter now. Everyone who could say "no, that is unethical" has been fired or left the company. The company is deep in debt, desperate for revenue, and Musk's largest investor is a prince from a country that beheads its enemies. Assume all your Twitter data has already been sold with absolutely no limits.

HollowEyes 4y ago

I am partially surprised that the reading portal is the same as the authoring one. It would feel better if we had one great feed reader, and an authoring pumping station. The blurred lines makes it more difficult to comprehend as much. Who moderates offshore content?

irusensei 4y ago
> Who moderates offshore content Whoever is in the pilot seat and that’s beautiful. Although if things start to get a bit too edgy we might see entire servers blacklisted from store apps. Also server-wide block done by administrators. If I’m not mistaken the largest mastodon instance is Pawoo.net and that’s basically a japanese board for posting controversial hentai artwork. Pawoo.net is blacklisted from most popular Mastodon servers.
- amadeuspagel 4y ago
  I'd be surprised to learn that it's blacklisted from any feed readers. That illustrates the usefulness of separating reader app and hosting.
  - irusensei 4y ago
    Pretty sure it happened to Gab nodes. In this case justified (and probably with a bit of push from Apple and Google) but the precedent exists. Slightly related Google blocked Element a few years ago because something posted on a federated instance. I think they strong handed matrix.org to implement moderation on the default servers.
- proactivesvcs 4y ago
  > Although if things start to get a bit too edgy we might see entire servers blacklisted from store apps I believe - although have not verified lately - that Tusky will not connect to some specific instances that host degenerate people. I use Fedilab instead.
  - irusensei 4y ago
    Gab comes to mind, before they forked the code to become their own thing. The Tusky case was notable because the app rickrolled users trying to log in to Gab.

ImaCake 4y ago

It seems a bit dubious to trust twitter with my data anyway? Mastodon at least is not trying to shove politics and celebrities down my throat.

irusensei 4y ago
Two wrongs do not make a right. Enjoy Mastodon but be conscious of your federated benevolent dictator if you are not running your own instance.
- ImaCake 4y ago
  No, but OP was arguing that lack of trust was reason not to use Mastodon. But if both Twitter and Mastodon both have the same trust issues then their argument is moot.
kmlx 4y ago
well, at least twitter is a well established, extremely visible corp. for a mastodon instance the list of questions is long and start with: who’s your hosting provider.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  > well, at least twitter is a well established, extremely visible corp Oh yeah, that worked out great with the planet-destroying overlords that are the oil companies. No, this is a terrible heuristic.

newaccount2021 4y ago

[dead]

CM30 4y ago

So, like when using most websites? If you use Hacker News you're trusting Dang and the other folks running this place. If you use Facebook or Twitter, you're trusting Zuck, Elon and the folks working at Meta or Twitter. If you use independently run forums and community sites, you're trusting the people running those places. Self hosting your own instance is great when possible (and I definitely think it should be possible for almost all services, at least in an ideal world), but you won't be able to do much in life without trusting at least someone along the way.

irusensei 4y ago
Let’s say you are a journalist or wathever today profession that depends on reaching people. After the twitter fallout you went to this new journalist centric instance and managed to recover a good following. Months later and you had a bad intercalating with the server admin which ended up not being a level headed person as you previously thought. He deletes your account… not even a chance to use the migration tools to redirect profile.
- mariusor 4y ago
  Some of these hypotheticals are a becoming a little ridiculous. There's very little recourse if twitter bans you, or youtube bans you and you're not capable of raising a stink on HN, or what not. It's hardly any different when you're using a mastodon instance.
  - irusensei 4y ago
    Twitter won’t ban you for personal reasons. Can you vouch the same for a server admin?
    - mariusor 4y ago
      Tell that to Kathy Griffin and Jeph Jaques. And even before that, I doubt that people getting banned were considering it as "not personal".

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Apparently there is some work being done to give the non-admins even more power/control over their own content, which currently needs GPG shenanigans. I learned this from this talk: A New HOPE (2022): ActivityPub Four Years Later: The Good, the Bad, and the Fedi https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnciCz83t70 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnciCz83t70 Which notably is a recent talk (July) but was given before the recent influx.

irusensei 4y ago
Great. I don’t want to sound lazy but can you give me a time stamp to the relevant part? Thanks in advance.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  https://youtu.be/vnciCz83t70?t=878 https://youtu.be/vnciCz83t70?t=878
  - irusensei 4y ago
    That sounds great for verification. It would be great if users could automatically follow that pubkey across other nodes in case the pubkey owner decides or is forced to migrate.

kornhole 4y ago

Because big data is valuable and little data is generally not, admins of small instances have little incentive to dig into the DB. Because humans are moderating the small instances, they can do a better job than AI moderators, albeit with more work. Moving from one Mastodon instance to another taking follows and followers is quite easy. Admins usually announce plans to close with enough time for people to make the move.

pornel 4y ago

Totally, but I have even less trust in Twitter now. Everyone who could say "no, that is unethical" has been fired or left the company. The company is deep in debt, desperate for revenue, and Musk's largest investor is a prince from a country that beheads its enemies. Assume all your Twitter data has already been sold with absolutely no limits.