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1) You can make even a single user instance have a wider reach through relays, especially targetted ones that are on the topics you're interested in. (More info at https://fedi.tips/using-relays-to-quickly-expand-a-servers-view-of-the-fediverse/)
2) Your own server's view of the Fediverse doesn't affect the visibility of your accounts to other people. For example my account @FediFollows has 60k followers despite being on a single user server with no relays.
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The danger of depending on large instances is you are more at risk of them doing something bad, perhaps accidentally or deliberately.
The only way to guarantee your control over your server is to own your own server.
News organisations need to think about what their priorities are, and what their accounts are for before deciding to just sign up somewhere large.
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Jan, did you try Fedibuzz relays where the relay has specific hashtags that it follows?
Martin Holland
@jwildeboer @feditips @tchambers
Yes, that's what I'm suspecting. Thanks.
Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:
@feditips @mho @tchambers Adding relays to a small instance causes an explosion in storage needs (been there, done that, had to remove it).
Aslak Raanes
@mho @feditips I guess one could have relays that filters based on language and other criteria making it less expensive to relay from a large group of servers
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Yes, there are servers based on hashtags which are very handy for themed servers:
Martin Holland
Of course, that's right. I'm spitballing right now: Maybe it would be a good idea for journalists to have an account for "seeing" the fediverse on a big instance, and another one for interacting with it and being "seen" on an instance by their organization (like ours).
Or set up relays to "see" the fediverse but delete the content very rapidly, so to not fill the own server too much. (You don't want stuff from some days ago to reach you, maybe)
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@raphael @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers
One server that someone wealthy can purchase and do nasty stuff, the way Google has?
The point of this place is to avoid such pinch points.
Raphael Lullis
@Zeugs @feditips @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers
Nothing much, really. The fediverse is still relatively small. You can still crawl and index all of it with one (big) commodity server.
Zeugs
@raphael @feditips @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers
What would it take to build something like that and how would it scale with more mastodon users?
Raphael Lullis
@feditips @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers
Instead of forcing journalist to have multiple accounts, wouldn't it be easier to have one separate search engine that aims to see all the fediverse? It could even be plugged in directly into the client's interface.
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@raphael @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers
How would it handle opting into indexing? Or would it just index everything it sees?
How would it deal with posts that it cannot see due to restricted visibility?
Raphael Lullis
@feditips @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers No, one server that is affordable even by an independent software developer (such as myself and my business) and that could offer a service that is almost a commodity.
If any of these service providers tried to go rogue or evil, market forces would peg them down rather quickly.
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@raphael @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers
It feels a bit wrong that people should be sacrificing privacy for the sake of making life easier for journalists. And is it really journalism if it depends on centralised indexing of people's posts?
Couldn't the journalists just have multiple accounts and do some manual digging? It's not that hard to find people, I do it all the time over on @FediFollows
Raphael Lullis
@feditips @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers
These are implementation details which are orthogonal to the architecture.
Personally, I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't pretend that information in a social network can be private or shielded, and we should educate people that *everything* posted in the internet should be treated as public information.
I know that this is not a popular opinion though, so a search engine could be made opt-in.
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@raphael @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers @FediFollows
Judging from the vast number of news stories that are essentially just embedded Twitter or Instagram posts, it feels like journalists have got used to centralised services and forgotten how they did stuff in the past.
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I get what you're saying, that people shouldn't treat the Fediverse as a secure communcations system. There is a warning about this in Mastodon itself saying sensitive info shouldn't be sent through the DM system.
But you're treating privacy as a binary all-or-nothing thing, where anything that is revealed to spies and corporations will be visible to everyone, when it isn't.
Friction matters: any lock can be picked, but locks are still useful in keeping people out of your home.
Raphael Lullis
@feditips @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers @FediFollows there is no privacy being "sacrificed" here, that's my larger point. If the Fediverse ever becomes big enough, *someone* will index it. Having it "opt-in" is like asking "pretty please leave me alone" to 3-letter agencies and Big Data miners. Do you think they'll honor it?
Those that need real privacy should not even be on Mastodon and should use only provably secure communication channels.
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