The Nexus of Privacy

The fedi discourse on Bluesky's verification is very frustrating Don't et me wrong, there's a lot to critique with Bluesky's approach of combining their own platform-level verification with initially annointing a handful of third-party verifiers:

• community-oriented verification, along the lines that @rudyfraser.com suggests, would be much more power-distributive and equitable

• as @ngerakines.me notes, Bluesky's approach is missing something critical: consent

• as @DataDrivenMD points out, the current framework functionally disenfranchises community organizers who lack social networks with access to mainstream media and other institutions that are designed to exclude marginalized people

• just like on Twitter, he people initially verified are overwhelmingly cis, white, and male;

• the three initial external verifiers include the anti-trans NYTimes and one of their subsidiaries

• Bluesky hasn't said anything about their process for making decisions about who's "notable" enough for them to verify and how they decide somebody's "authentic".

To be fair, I am seeing a bit of discussion of some of these issues here. But I'm not seeing anything about consent, or community moderation, or equity. Instead, the vast majority of what I'm seeing is people saying hat the approach of external verifiers (run by entities other than Bluesky) and the Bluesky app attaching privileged semantics to the annointed ones isn't "decentraized."

Is that really the important thing here?

#bluesky #verification #fediverse

On FediForum (and not just FediForum)

https://privacy.thenexus.today/not-just-fediforum/

A deep dive into @FediForum's last-minute cancellation and the potential opportunity going forward for a collective learning experience, catalyst for change, and perhaps an inflection point -- for FediForum and the broader ecosystem.

#FediForum #fediverse

if not now, when? Mutual aid and organizing in the fediverses and the ATmosphere

https://privacy.thenexus.today/if-not-now-when/

Mutual aid. Organizing. Sharing, contextualizing, and making meaning of news and health information to counter propaganda and information overload. The use cases for alternative social networks – not controlled by techbro white supremacist CEO's working with their cronies in authoritarian governments – practically write themselves in today's world. And with so many talented social scientists, designers, systems thinkers, and developers directly impacted by DOGE, MAGA, et al, there are a lot of people with the right skills for these new networks to make rapid progress.

The good news is there's a lot of promising work happening in the decentralized social media ecosystems known as the fediverses ("federated universes") and the ATmosphere (a fediverse built on Bluesky's AT protocol), including DAIR-tube, Blacksky, the #FreeFediverse, and more.

Still, as promising as these efforts are, there's still a long ways to go.

#organizing #fediverse #atmosphere #bluesky #blacksky

With today's news that Meta is getting rid of fact checkers and changing its policies to allow more hate speech directed at trans and queer people, seems like a good time to resurface these detailed instructions on how to block Threads.

https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/

If you want even more protection, your best bet is to move to an instance that's blocking threads -- see https://fedipact.veganism.social to check the status of your instance. And I agree with @kissane's recommendation in the excellent Untangling Threads

"I think the nearest thing to reasonably sturdy protection for people on fedi who have good reason to worry about the risk surface Threads federation opens up is probably to either…

• block Threads and post followers-only or or local-only, for fedi services that support it, or
• operate from a server that federates only with servers that also refuse to federate with Threads—which is a system already controversial within the fediverse because allowlists are less technically open than denylists."

#FediPact #meta #threads

I'm disabling Bridgy Fed on this account (at least for now) -- if you're at risk of harassment, consider doing the same

Harassment has increased significantly on Bluesky over the last week (which tends to be what happens when a site's moderators find an excuse not to take actionn against a coordinated anti-trans harassment campaign, but that's another story). Bluesky blocklists provide some protection, but unfortunately there's no way for fedi accounts to subscribe to Bluesky blocklists or labelers. So there's basially no protection for bridged accounts.

I haven't yet hard any reports of harassment getting directed at bridged accounts ... but then again if somebody on Bluesky who hasn't opted in to Bridgy fed is spewing hate speech in bridged posts replies, we wouldn't necessarily know about it. So, better safe than sorry.

If you're currently bridging to Bluesky consider doing the same! You can disable Bridgy Fed by blocking @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy -- here's the FAQ https://fed.brid.gy/docs#opt-out

Here's the bug I just filed in the Bridgy Fed Github. https://github.com/snarfed/bridgy-fed/issues/1632

Bridgy Fed's development is very resource constrained right now; as far as I know it's still just @snarfed.org working on it part-time, and they've had their hands full just keeping up with the increased load. So, not sure how quickly they''ll be able to respond.

EDIT updated with the FAQ on how to opt-out, as well as the correct instructions.

#BridgyFed #bluesky #trans

It looks like Threads has taken their next incremental step in two-way federation: according to Mark F***ing Zuckerberg "now you'll be able to follow people from other fediverse servers who liked, followed or replied to federated profiles on Threads." As always in the fediverse, opinions differ:

• If you're concerned about harassment, stalking, and data harvesting threats from Threads ... the risks just increased substantially. This post is for you, with information about how to dcerease them.

• if on the other hand you're one of the many people here who see federaton with Threads as a good thing, then Zuckerberg's announcement is good news, and this post is for you to share with friends who are at risk.

So, if you don't want your posts going to Threads, now's a good time to move to an instance that blocks Threads.

If you're on an instnace that doesn't block Threads and don't want to move yet, you can still block the domain yourself. This doesn't provide as much protection as being on an instance that blocks Threads, but it's certainly better than nothing. How to block Threads on Mastodon - and a reminder that blocking on the fediverse only provides limited protections has instructions, with screenshots.

Still, if you're concerned about Threads, it really is much better to move to an instance that blocks them. Even this doesn't provide bulletproof protection, but it's stronger than individual domain blocking. Unfortunately, you can't move your posts (although you can create an archive), but you can usually keep of your followers.
@FediTips Transferring your Mastodon account to another server is a thorough guide. Erin Kissane's Notes From a Mastodon Migration and Cutie City's Migrating Servers are also very useful -- it's worth reading all of these before you move!

And if you're really concerned about the risks and want to have protection be as bulletproof as possible, I agree with Kissane's suggestions in Untangling Threads

"I think the nearest thing to reasonably sturdy protection for people on fedi who have good reason to worry about the risk surface Threads federation opens up is probably to either…

• block Threads and post followers-only or or local-only, for fedi services that support it, or
• operate from a server that federates only with servers that also refuse to federate with Threads—which is a system already controversial within the fediverse because allowlists are less technically open than denylists.

We're starting to see examples of that second approach now -- The Website League is one, an island network where none of the servers federate with Threads; see their December update for more. I expect we'll see more of these over time.

#threads #fedipact #fediverse

Decentralization and erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphere

https://privacy.thenexus.today/decentralization-and-erasure-blacksky-bluesky-and-the-atmosphere-2/

There's been a lot of discussion about whether or not Bluesky and the ATmosphere (the ecosystem using the AT protocol) are decentralized. Blacksky runs three feed generators, a moderation service, and a work-in-progress personal data store (PDS) as well as providing a starter pack. And the vision for Blacksky "extends beyond any single platform".

That sounds pretty decentralized to me!

But as far as I can tell, nobody else in the discussion is talking about Blacksky as an actually-existing example of decentralization. What's with that?

#bluesky #blacksky #decentralization

Here's The Website League's Devember update ... lots of progress! It also includes instructions for how to join the Website League.

https://buttondown.com/websiteleague/archive/website-league-update-for-december/

Recommendations for accessible fediverse software?

I'm working on a blog post for people thinking of joining the fediverse and want to include this information!

Here's what I think I know so far (although might be wrong) ... other suggestions welcome

Mastodon's web UI is pretty good from accessibility perspective, but has some issues.

Pinafore used to be the most accessible web UI but isn't maintained anymore. Semaphpore is a fork doesn't seem to have had any updates in the last year, so I'm not sure of its status. Enafore is another fork but it's described as "somewhat unstable".

I haven't seen anything about what Mastodon mobile apps are better or worse from an accessibility perspective.

For Lemmy, OurBlind says that moderators have and continue to work with the developers to improve accessibility; Thunder, a Lemmy app for iOS and Android, performs well; and Mlem developers are implementing native accessibiity.

#accessibility #a11y #fediverse

Here's an interesting "natural experiment": #FediForum attendees who want to be found on the fediverse are posting to #FediForumAttendee hashtag.

• what's the gender ratio?
• what percentage are white? Black? Indigienous?
• how many women of color?

Of course, this isn't completely representative -- it only got mentioned at the wrapups session, and some people don't want to be so visible. Still it's an intersting data point!

#fediverse