Notices by Jon (jdp23@neuromatch.social)

Harassment is a problem even if the person being targeted doesn't directly see it. This is why we have blocking in addition to muting!

@tchambers @osma

It’s not that it prohibits it, but there’s no way for a bridged aunt to subscribe to Bluesky blocklists or labellers
@tchambers @osma

Thanks @tchambers ...

but the protocols themselves the platforms use must support privacy moderation by other members of the Open Social Web.

That's very different than your earlier definition of "respects your privacy".

Agreed, though, that with this revised definition, ti's clear that privacy-violating apps like Threads and non-consensual ActivityPub search engines which are built on top of protocols that allow others to respect privacy if they want to, are part of the Open Social Web.

(On the other hand, AT Proto is all-public and doesn't support privacy moderation, so this revised definition seems to rule out Bluesky.)

Mastodon.oneline and mastodon.social aren't the whole Actiivtypub Fediverse

True but your definition says that the Open SOcial Web is made up of independent communities, and they aren't independent from each other. I guess you could change the definition to be just "connected communities " whether or not they're independent.

But do you really want to define it in terms of communities? Communities by definition involve multiple people, so this rules out single-user instances. And what about an instance that only hosts bots, not people?

For indieweb.social: all users on that platform can move to others that have moderation policies they prefer or start their own.

Again I think you've changed the definition here, from "users decide socnet interactions" to "users can create accounts on some other site."

XMPP if it bridges to open social web

No, I'm talking about just XMPP on its own. XMPP is an open protocol that supports privacy. XMPP servers are independent and connected. People who don't like one XMPP server can create another. So even if they don't bridge, it seems to me that by your definition XMPP servers are part of the Open Social Web. And the same goes for email, RSS, etc.

Which is fine if that's your intent, it's a coherent definition, I'm just not sure that's how most people use the term. Flipboard's Surf has one of the broader defintiions I've seen

Surf gives users the power to search the entire open social web and quickly add favorite sources from Bluesky, Threads or Mastodon, community hashtags, RSS feeds, podcasts and YouTube channels to their own custom feed.

and it does include RSS whether or not it's bridged, but it doesn't include XMPP or email

Three things: enough of an understanding of the way various people use the term to be able to talk admit the implications, an idea of whether or not there’s any agreement on what it means, an idea of the boundaries (if any).

@jenniferplusplus @tchambers @fediforum @ben @laurenshof

I don't think any of those are definitions. Look at what happens when you try to use them to determine whether or not something's part of the "Open Social Web"

• Threads doesn't respect my privacy. Does that mean it's not part of the "open social web"? What about non-consensual search engines which ignore Mastodon's opt-in search settings? What about Bluesky, which is all-public -- including blocks?

• mastodon.social and mastodon.online aren't independent (they're both owned by Mastodon gGmbH), does that mean they're not part of the "open social web"?

• indieweb.social blocks a lot of instances, which is good, but it means that people there don't have complete control over who they interact with ... does that mean indieweb.social isn't part of the "open social web"?

• XMPP's an open protocol, and anybody can write anything on top of it, so is everything XMPP-based part of the open social web? What about OAuth? HTTP?

• A farmers' market isn't run by a single company, is it part of the "open social web"?

etc etc etc.

@tchambers @fediforum @ben @laurenshof

That was one of Ben’s articles I was thinking of, but it doesn’t really define the term.

@tchambers @fediforum @ben @laurenshof

What definitions are people using for "Open Social Web"?

@fediforum is about ""Moving the Open Social Web Forward" and @laurenshof is doing a session on the Open Social Web. And @ben you've had multiple posts about it. So maybe I've just missed it, but at least so far I haven't been able to find any definitions.

#OpenSocialWeb

Another update on relay size - https://bsky.app/profile/bnewbold.net/post/3lkpdjgj5pk2i

@_elena @cwebber @laurenshof

I'm interested too! I thought that article was interesting but it didn't particularly change my views on decentralization.

@_elena for relay storage sie, somebody in the Discord chat estimated 10 GB per hour of replay for an archival relay. (Non-archival relays are smaller,. but as I understand it there's still some work in progress related to how thes are used, and I don't know what the tradeoffs are).

@cwebber @laurenshof

Advocates for Trans Equality has an excellent page for submiting comments on the proposed passport changes. And, comments can be submitted anonymously! (ACLU has links to the pages to submit comments in their article, but I personally found A4TE's page much more helpful.)

https://transequality.org/news/freedom-fly-passport-access-action

> Our strategy? Our community and supporters should submit as many comments as possible to all three portals. This will show massive public resistance, potentially leading to media attention and increased public awareness, making it harder for them to push these changes through. Each step is critical, and once you complete one, we’ll direct you to the next.
>
> Remember, the more comments we submit, the more difficult it will be for the government to deny us our rights. Your voice matters, and together, we can make a significant impact!

@alice

@are0h yeah I was just saying to somebody how fedi's collective focus on imitations of centralized tools has just been a huge missed opportunity. Yes, alternatives can be useful (DAIR-tube's a great example) but so much more is possible!

Here's what I said in Social threat modeling and quote boosts on Mastodon about approaches like an option about whether or not a post can be quoted in

"These limitations could have potential downsides as well. If a politician or some other public figure says something racist or anti-LGBTQ, should they be able to prevent people from quoting it? Mastodon's content warning (CW) norms are often racialized, with people of color getting told they need to put CWs on their personal experiences to avoid making white people uncomfortable. I could certainly picture similar things happening with requiring consent to quote.. For that matter, unless there are limits on who can ask for consent to quote, it's possible that bombarding somebody with consent requests could become a harassment technique in its own right. To be clear, though, these aren't necessarily reasons not to do these things, just factors that need to be considered in any design.

Of course, if people can't use quote boosts to do this kind of quoting, they'll fall back on screenshot-and-link or (if they have access) a media quote. There's no obvious way to prevent these. Norms about consent to be quoted could be somewhat helpful even if attackers ignored them ... once again, though, there are potential downsides. Still, as Leigh Honeywell disucsses in Another Six Weeks: Muting vs. Blocking and the Wolf Whistles of the Internet, a lot of harassment is low-grade, opportunistic, and not terribly persistent. Screenshot-and-link is more effort than a quote boost, so even if it remains an option, reducing abuse possibilities for quote boosts has value."

And I discussed the differences between screenshot-and-link and Twitter's QTs at length in the appendix of Black Twitter, quoting, and white views of toxicity on Mastodon

In general it's complex because directing attention to a post without pinging the author is useful for calling out problematic posts but also a vector for abuse. Given quote tweets importance to Black digital practices, and the racialized history of quote boost discourse on Mastodon, this is why I keep emphasizing the importance of ensuring that Black perspectives are heard and listened to during the design process. Of course those aren't the only perspectives that matter but they're critical and likely to be overlooked!

@hipsterelectron @dalias @hildabast @UlrikeHahn @javi

Right. Indivisible's largely focusing on getting D's to use their powe, although on the call also said there are at least a few R's who are very nervous right now about the overreach so potentially influencable.

@kissane @blaise