Notices by blaine (blaine@mastodon.social)

My hot take for the day: Mastodon should implement support for atproto PDSes for every user account.

(on the flipside, I hope that Meta is actually pursuing these things in an honourable way, and just taking a cautious approach to user safety – something they absolutely should do! The line gets crossed if they use their power to force (implicitly or explicitly) everyone else to behave in a way that is primarily beneficial to Meta. cc @evan)

@fediversereport their opt-in requirement is so obviously bogus – if it were something that Meta's lawyers would insist on, then SMTP should also be subject to opt-in policies (sadly, in practice it almost is these days).

It will be a devastating outcome if online decentralization becomes subject to onerous federal / european-level regulatory baseline requirements in order to enter the market. I hope that the regulators see past this attempt at regulatory capture.

cc @pluralistic

@fediversereport my belief is that the opt-in requirement is so that Meta can use their policy clout to ensure that we end up with a "closed open" regulatory regime like the phone networks: you *can* federate, and the system is "open" but so highly regulated "for safety" that only large corporations can even imagine doing so, and in practice the whole thing is run by duopolies or pseudo-cartels (e.g. in the US: Verizon, T-Mobile, AT&T).

This would suit Meta just fine.

@fediversereport I go further in my speculation. I think the opt-in requirement for Threads federation stands out as a signal of where Meta is going. I can't find the quote, but Mosseri has said that the opt-in requirement is to protect their users' privacy, security, and IP rights and defend against spam and abuse.

I call bullshit. Meta has always been crap (intentionally and unintentionally) at those things, even on their own fully-controlled platforms.

@mkljczk @rysiek @cwebber @ben that's not unreasonable, but I would ask how is it different to receive a follow request (or follower) from one of Threads' 200 million users different from one of the fediverse's max. 10 million? Especially given Meta's horrendous record of moderation and consistent contempt of their users?

I'm convinced it's Meta's intentional (or, charitably) incompetent attempt to drive regressive regulation rather than an earnest attempt to "protect" their users.

@stefan @cwebber imho, <<they're the same picture>>.

I very much agree with @pluralistic's concerns that bsky need to *actually ship* meaningful, non-reversible federation (but also trust the folks involved to do that. There will be a *lot* of side-eyeing and loss of faith in progressive movements if they don't 😅).

@kissane there are cultural differences on the various networks, to be sure, but negotiating THAT is a conversation that actually goes somewhere.

Being someone who only uses PNG – and only communicates with people who also use PNG – because it's somehow a better technology? The sooner we can get past that particular phase of all of this, the better.

As @polotek started with, the reasons people choose one network over another are just so unrelated to technology it's not even funny.

@kissane 1000% this.

To take a small part of what you're saying and to be massively reductionist, as far as the technical stuff, goes:

RSS = Software-agnostic "what's happening with my website"
ActivityPub = Software-agnostic "what's happening with my website"
atproto = Software-agnostic "what's happening with my website"

It would be way healthier if we framed the distinctions more like those between JPEG, DNG, and PNG.

@kissane @polotek the particulars of a given technology matter, but the best technologies are those that can be invisibly replaced and upgraded.

As someone who's worked on protocols, my biggest feeling of success comes when the thing grows beyond what my original imagination and/or capacity was, becomes something bigger, and no-one but some boffins notice.

Getting excited about technology can be great – getting religious about it? Can we not, please? 😅

@darius nice! The only folks who *I* could imagine insisting on this being opt-in are Oracle's legal team, and they were told in no uncertain terms that this sort of data isn't even *eligible* for opt-out, even in the US of A. 😅

As we (at least in Canada) move towards a situation where government organizations are not* (in general, locally at least) engaged in direct suppression of less privileged people in support of more privileged people (i.e., as things get better), the state monopoly on violence is at risk of migrating to a state monopoly on care. When bureaucrats have jurisdiction over civic things that provide safety and security, a lack of capacity or will in government becomes an implicitly hostile gate.

Actually, if anyone who's comfortable with Tailwind (I went with Svelte/Skeleton) could help out, I'm working on a VERY BASIC site to help match evacuees from fires in my area with community resources, and I could really use some help making it look good (even readable would be an improvement) on mobile and desktop. I would extremely appreciate the help!

@evan nothing new, looks like activity has dropped off, initial Rank 6 fires have dropped to Rank 2-3, community meeting this evening. The wildfire service is really incredible and feels well organized from the interactions we've had. ❤️

@evan we'd been considering the possibility of a Montreal trip this summer, but felt uneasy leaving in summer (also it's really nice here when it's not burning 😅). Soon, though!

(I gotta say I don't miss planes, either. I wish the trans-Canada train had a slightly more comfortable and affordable seating option, would 1000% do that. I'll have to get your long distance rail tips at some point)

@evan heh, thanks, 💯 preaching to the choir. We're very well set up and safe in a nearby town about an hour away, extremely fortunate in that respect. ❤️

@evan looking slightly further out, we all need to take decisive political action – both to fight climate change and the effects of climate change, but also to take immediate actions that will protect our communities, environment, and infrastructure when disasters strike (not if — ask not for whom the climate bell tolls). Our highly reactive emergency/rescue orientation in funding and action is amazing to see in action but saddening because so much more could be done in prevention.

@evan wait. Hope.

Evacuated. We're safe with our cats, we'll see how the next few days go for our home.

Apocalyptic scenes up here in south-central British Columbia. This photo was from when things were relatively calm.

@thisismissem @evan alternatively having a "DM-native" protocol handle DMs – whether that's Signal or another protocol, it would be *trivial* to point a webfinger profile (or mastodon profile, but it'd be nice if this worked across different AP implementations) at a Signal account and let that other system handle it. Also adding developer-parseable support for DMs to AP would be trivial (except for all the encryption, so not really trivial ;-) ). Remember: we made all this up. It can change!