The Nexus Of Privacy looks at the connections between technology, policy, strategy, and justice.
A daunting choice -- but not irrevocable!
It would be great to have some kind of portal or tool to help people find and evaluate potential instances ... alas, that doesn't exist yet. Still, there are some useful instance catalogs and directories, and ways to get more information about instances you might be interested in. It just takes a little work to find it.
Feedback welcome as always!
Accessibility resources for Mastodon and compatible software (DRAFT)
The official Mastodon web user interface and mobile apps aren't great from an accessibility perspective. Fortunately there are some better alternatives – and many of them also work with Mastodon-compatible software like Glitch, Hometown, GoToSocial, Akkoma, and Friendica.
This is a draft, and I'm sure I missed a lot. Feedback welcome!
This bill can't pass without Democratic support ... but last week, over 50 Democrats voted for it! It didn't quite pass, but now they're trying again ... so please, if you're in the US, please call your Congresspeople!
Here's EFF's action alert. https://act.eff.org/action/tell-congress-not-to-weaponize-the-treasury-department-against-nonprofits
The Color of Surveillance: Surveillance / Resistance - Monday November 18
Livestreamed as well as in-person, and co-hosted by the Georgetown Center for Privacy and Technology and @DAIR@dair-community.social
> "Our theme, “Surveillance / Resistance,” is broader and more ambiguous than the themes for previous years, and this is purposeful. What does resistance mean when surveillance isn’t just something that occurs in the environments where we live and work and play and think and create and struggle, but is actually the material with which so many of those environments are built? In a context of broad institutional corrosion and capture, in the face of proliferating global catastrophe, this is a question that remains open and difficult."
The previous workshops I've been to have been outstanding, and this one looks like it'll be great too!
Yeah, a lot depends on where you live. Check out these lines. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wmMobN4AVw And they're far from the worst! I just did a search on "four hour voting lines" and it happened in Chicago, New Jersey, UC Irvine, Northeast Ohio ...and that's just the first page of search results.
One reason people might be annoyed by this is because it sounds like you don't realize how many people had to wait in four-hour long lines.
Anyhow, turnout wasn't abysmal, it looks like be down a bit from 2020's record numbers.
Do you think the Director of CISA -- who Biden appointed (and has done a great job) and Trump will almost certainly fire -- lives under a rock and wants Trump to take office? Because here's what she said:
https://www.cisa.gov/news-events/news/statement-cisa-director-easterly-security-2024-elections
Yes there several english-speaking instances running Misskey or a fork. Here's the list for Sharkey - https://fedidb.org/software/sharkey
Misskey's a vibrant colorful very interactive experience
Bluesky's a very good Twitter alternative, at least for now, although it's owned by a VC-funded startup so we'll see how long that lasts
Mastodon (and even moreso forks like Glitch and Hometown) are good if you want a small-to-medium size community along with the ability to be part of broader conversations. It can be a decent Twitter alternative for some people (especially white techies) but Bluesky's a lot more usable, easy to get started on, and diverse.
What's the evidence you find "literally incontrovertible"?
The comparison is apt though:
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In 2020, almost all non-partisan voting rights organizations and election experts (as well as most Republicans, despite losing) were saying that there was in fact no evidence of widespread election fraud. So conservatives claiming election fraud were seen as conspiracy theorists who were spreading disinfo (either intentionally or because they really thought there was evidence).
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In 2024, almost all non-partisan voting rights organizations and election experts (as well as most Democrats, despite losing) are saying that there was in fact no evidence of widespread election fraud. So ...
Sure, if it's somebody you know or trust who's saying this, then it's not disinformation; agreed about helping them contact election officials and/or other authorities, and if you think it's useful to amplify it, then I'm not trying to talk you out of it.
If it's not somebody you know or trust, then amplifying it is quite possibly helping out a disinformation campaign.
And in any case, amplifying individual claims is very different from the unsupported claims about "millions of missing votes", and that's what I am trying to talk people out of.
It's true that downballot Dems ran ahead of Harris in most states. Why do you think it's statistically unlikely? Polls ahead of the election showed downballot Dems were more popular than Harris. Republicans focused most of their negative campaigning on Harris. Biden's very unpopular and she didn't try to distance herself from him (I'm not saying that she should have, I'm just observing that she didn't). Sexists and racists were less likely to vote for Harris.
I talked about that in the article:
Don't get me wrong, multiple voter suppression techniques actually were used to keep people from voting – purging voters from rolls, felon disenfranchisement, 6-hour lines, texts with false information, voter intimidation, voter id laws, signature challenges, etc etc etc. But that's not what these conspiracy allegations are focusing on.
And I also discussed it in terms of the goals of people pushing these conspiracy theories:
focusing attention on an alleged fraud that didn't occur is a good way to divert attention from all voter suppression that really has occurred and has been steadily ramping up ever since Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted the Voing Rights Act – and got even worse this year after Republicans blocked legislation that could have provided voters and election officials with more protection.
Please don't amplify conspiracy theories!
The reality is that it always takes time for some states to count all the votes; when these rumors started ramping up, there were over ten million uncounted ballots in California alone. But, many people don't know that this is how things always work. So, with emotions high in the aftermath of the election, disinformation purveyors are taking advantage of the opportunity to get well-intentioned people to help amplify conspiracy theories.
If you see allegations of "millions of missing votes" or voting machine fraud, please don't amplify them! Instead:
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If it's somebody you know, send them a private message letting them know that they're unintentionally amplifying a false rumor.
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If it's not somebody you know, report it to the moderators as disinformation.
Rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about "millions of missing votes" and voting machine fraud
The reality is that it always takes time for some states to count all the votes; when these rumors started ramping up, there were over ten million uncounted ballots in California alone. But, many people don't know that this is how things always work. So, with emotions high in the aftermath of the election, disinformation purveyors are taking advantage of the opportunity to get well-intentioned people to help amplify conspiracy theories.
If you see allegations of "millions of missing votes" or voting machine fraud, please don't amplify them! Instead:
-
If it's somebody you know, send them a private message letting them know that they're unintentionally amplifying a false rumor.
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If it's not somebody you know, report it to the moderators as disinformation.
Post-election disinfo: weaponized inaccurate exit polls targeting marginalized communities
Well-crafted disinfo takes advantage of our emotions by getting us to amplify false and misleading messages. A specific example of post-election racialized disinfo that I'm seeing a lot of is weaponizing exit poll data to target Latinos, Black men, trans people, and other marginalized demographics.
A faux "Eternal September" turns into flatness
The next installment of Mastodon, two years later
Contents:
- It's not "just like email"
- Usability and gatekeeping weren't the only challenges newcomers faced
- The first complicated high-stakes decision is even before you sign up
- Why not help people choose an instance that's a good fit?
- But no
The version on the IFTAS blog is at https://about.iftas.org/2024/10/29/5-ways-to-fight-election-disinformation-on-bluesky-and-the-fediverse/
Grassroots election protection activism made the difference in 2020. It’s time to do it again. Fighting disinfo is one good way to help – on the Fediverse, on Bluesky, and on other social net…
- THINK before you engage or share
- SHARE accurate information about the election
- REPORT disinformation when you see it
- EDUCATE yourself — and your friends and family
- GET INVOLVED – and get your friends and family involved
The next installment of Mastodon, two years later
Contents:
- Mastodon 2017 and Glitch 2017
- A BDFL gets to do what he wants
- Flash forward seven years ...
- Seven years later, is Mastodon significantly closer to being a good Twitter alternative?
Thanks for the feedback! Yeah, I can see arguments both ways. When I did the first version of this back in 2020 I got feedback from a couple of experts who emphasized the importance of getting GOOD information out to balance out the disinfo (which even with good reporting still usually doesn't get taken down immediately) so encouraged this order ... at the time we were focused on FB and Twitter but I think it's probably still true here, since almsot all instances have part-time moderators so can't turn things around instantly. Hard to know though ...
And sorry I didn't respond earlier, I thought I had but never hit reply.
Note: this is also probably going to be published on the IFTAS blog, most likely tomorrow. But the election's coming up fast, so I wanted to make it available tonight! Once it's published there, I'll update the post with a link. 1. THINK before you engage or share 2. SHARE
This is also probably going to be published on the IFTAS blog, most likely tomorrow. But the election's coming up fast, so I wanted to make it available tonight! Once it's published there, I'll repost that here as the canonical version.
Yeah, it's somewhat useful but certainly not a great solution. It's great that they went the opt-in route, but there aren't any good existing frameworks for how to do it, so they had to roll their own. There's certainly room for improvement, it would be great if either Bluesky or the Social Web Foundation (or both) or somebody else invested in it, but hard to know if and when thta'll happen.
There isn't direct federation between Mastodon and Bluesky; instead, Bridgy Fed connects them - https://fed.brid.gy/docs#fediverse-get-started
Have a look here https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17718832/11190856
As Strypey acknowledges, there's a lot he didn't know about at the time and left out. Before Mastodon: GNU Social and other early fediverses includes a lot of that.
For what it's worth, the guy who mostly maintains the Wikipedia page agrees with you. And yet even so, at least for now, the Wikipedia page states "The majority of fediverse platforms ... create connections between servers using the ActivityPub protocol" -- which pretty clearly implies that not all fediverse platforms use the ActivityPub protocol.
Anyhow whether or not you agree to disagree ... we disagree. Time will tell how broad usage of the term evolves. In the original article I pointed to examples of TechCrunch and Mike Masnick using the term in the broader sense, but maybe those will turn out to be points off the curve. We shall see!
Yep. And also, like I said in https://privacy.thenexus.today/bluesky-atmosphere-fediverse/
For one thing, most of the people who came to Mastodon in late 2022 didn't have good experiences ... so didn't stay in the Fediverse.6 Flash forward to 2024, and Mastodon still hasn't addressed the reasons why.
Bluesky, by contrast, has put a lot of work into onboarding and usability – as well as giving people better tools protect themselves and others, and find and build communities ... So today, BTS ARMY and millions of Brazilians, and everybody else looking for a Twitter alternative are more likely to have a good experience on Bluesky than Mastodon.
Great point. And Jay won the power struggle with Jack, which almost nobody gives her credit for.
There really is a lot going on!
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17792698. I had posted here last week asking for suggestions, and incorporated some of them -- for example, the last section mentions the proof-of-concept Faircamp integration into Hubzilla.
> Including: > > * DAIR-tube, the PeerTube page of Dr. Timnit Gebru's Distributed AI ResearchCenter > * The Website League, an island network that's taking a very different approach > * GoToSocial v 0.17, continuing their focus on safety and privacy with interaction controls. > * Piefed and the Threadiverse > * Bonfire's new Mosaic service along with their work on Open Science Network and prosocial design > * Letterbook > * Bluesky and the ATmosphere's continued momentum > > The post has more info on all of these and more ... there really is a lot going on.
There really is a lot going on!
Including:
- DAIR-tube, the PeerTube page of Dr. Timnit Gebru's Distributed AI ResearchCenter
- The Website League, an island network that's taking a very different approach
- GoToSocial v 0.17, continuing their focus on safety and privacy with interaction controls.
- Piefed and the Threadiverse
- Bonfire's new Mosaic service along with their work on Open Science Network and prosocial design
- Letterbook
- Bluesky and the ATmosphere's continued momentum
The post has more info on all of these and more ... there really is a lot going on.
Here's the list:
- Commit to spending at least X% on safety
- Support diverse participation on the W3C standards group's Trust and Safety task force
- Focus on consent-based tools and infrastructure
- Work with people who are targets of harassment to develop tools for collaborative defense
- Support threat modeling work
- Develop automated tools to help moderators
- Do any AI-related work in partnership with AI researchers who take an anti-oppressive, ethics-and-safety-first approach
- Partner with IFTAS
I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17686207
> > It's a very long post, but a lot of it is a detailed discussion of terminology in the appendix -- no need to read that unless you're into definitional struggles.
I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses! (UPDATED)
An updated version, with a bit more about how Bluesky has addressed some of the problems that the 2022 Twitter influx to Mastodon ran into.
It's a very long post, but a lot of it is a detailed discussion of terminology in the appendix -- no need to read that unless you're into definitional struggles.
Good things are happening in the fediverses! What's on your list?
I'm working on a post for @thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange highlighting positive things happening in the fediverses. Of course there's also a lot of stuf...
Good things are happening in the fediverses! What's on your list?
I'm working on a post for @thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange highlighting positive things happening in the fediverses. Of course there's also a lot of stuf...
Work in progress! Feedback welcome!
Feedback welcome! There's a list of specific questions at the end of the post, but other topics are welcome as well!
Questions for others in the fediverses as well as SWF
Part 4 of I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS Army, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!, but like other posts in the series it hopefully stands on its own)