@jonah@neat.computer
@jonah@neat.computer avatar

jonah

@jonah@neat.computer

Founder https://mastodon.neat.computer/@privacyguides, podcast co-host https://social.lol/@techlore, infosec educator. • Instance admin @ https://mstdn.party, https://mstdn.plus, and https://neat.computer

Want to support my work on #MstdnParty or any other project? A tip at https://ko-fi.com/jonaharagon would be hugely appreciated 😎

Minneapolis, MN, USA | he/him :bisexual_flag:

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

downey, to opensource
@downey@floss.social avatar

So @Gargron be like:

"Decentralization is a big part of Mastodon’s DNA and is at the forefront of our mission. You may be asking, how a default server option furthers decentralization."

... literally no one is asking that, because it is literally the opposite of decentralization.

This is the price we pay for having an project with a BDFL.

:boost_love:

https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/05/a-new-onboarding-experience-on-mastodon/

jonah,
@jonah@neat.computer avatar

@downey what I don't understand about @Gargron's decision most is: He already curates a list of Mastodon servers, including general-purpose ones. He could have just randomized which general instance is displayed if he cared that much about eliminating server choice, while at least promoting a modicum of decentralization.

e.g. give the people a button to shuffle through domains until they find one that sounds neat lol

jonah, to random
@jonah@neat.computer avatar

Well, moving is always a pain in the ass, but it’s finally over and I’m able to settle in to my new apartment 🎉

Much closer to downtown 🏙️ which is great, should save me a half hour each way on my commute 😎

supernovae, to fediverse

deleted_by_author

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    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @supernovae I’ve requested things like better moderation tools—based on my experiences running mstdn.party and other feedback I’ve heard—multiple times on Discord, GitHub, and elsewhere, and get very dismissive responses from the community. The fact that DMs are still completely impossible to moderate, for example, when they are a huge vector of abuse according to so many people including the black community is insane to me. We can play pretend all we want that there are “evil admins” who would snoop through all your messages, while meanwhile people are spammed privately in their replies with racism and gore posts that go largely unchecked.

    There is a very particular vision driving Mastodon, and it just doesn’t jive with what some communities are looking for, unfortunately. It’s no surprise to me that people give up on trying to shape Mastodon into the thing they want it to be.

    jonah, to internet
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    The biggest annoyance about to me is that it's literally not federated or decentralized at all, it's purely theoretical and not even completed AFAIK.

    It could be like when Apple launched FaceTime and said it would be an interoperable standard, how did that turn out? If Bluesky doesn't decentralize soon, I could definitely see them just sticking with the current model forever.

    ernie, to random
    @ernie@writing.exchange avatar

    The problem with Mastodon is that some people want to be swept off their feet to join a social network, and they want a special invite.

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @ernie so what are your impressions of Bluesky so far? After a few days it doesn’t seem like a genuine community to me, it feels like a clique of people invited all their friends and they all talk to each other, but as an outsider I’m not seeing anything even close to what Mastodon offers in terms of discovery and engagement.

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @ernie didn't you join after that though, or did something just change?

    jonah, to random
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    Something I do miss from Twitter is being able to see who favorited my boosts. Now it’s hard to gauge whether they’re annoying people or not lol

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @jeanettepizzurro I don’t think so… it’s been asked for since August https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/18222

    ernie, to random
    @ernie@writing.exchange avatar

    I am now publishing my Substack newsletter on LinkedIn. Something I learned today is that LinkedIn promotes your newsletter to literally your entire connection list.

    Between Substack and LinkedIn, it’s at about 150 subscribers in about a week and a half.

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @ernie I do the whole Indieweb POSSE thing, and can confirm that Medium is completely useless. I do have ~3x more followers on Substack, but I got literally ~100x more views on my last post on Substack compared to Medium. All of Medium's changes over the past 2 years have basically ruined it for me 🤷‍♂️

    jonah, to fediverse
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    mfw is better at encouraging alt text than is

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @LukeDashjr I think so, there was text in the photo but it didn't use that, it was just kind of a generic description: "graphical user interface, text, application" (it was a screenshot)

    Better than nothing, I guess? I'm more impressed it prompted me at all to add a better description after not including one.

    jonah, to internet
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    must've really taken off this weekend, because I've never seen so many posts about it here before.

    I think we should wait and see how it turns out. It doesn't even have federation yet, so I can't really encourage it, but if the "mastodon.social promotion in the mobile app" thing is any indicator, we need another serious player in the federated microblogging space. Competition is good, actually, remember? 😄

    adam, to random
    @adam@social.lol avatar

    deleted_by_author

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    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @adam correct, the real pro-tip for using Bluesky is to search for people with omg.lol usernames.

    jonah, to internet
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    As of 15 minutes ago I can also be found on , if you’re there come find me @jonaharagon.com 😜 Now it’s past my bedtime, so I’ll have to actually explore it tomorrow lol

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @Spellbind0127 it’s self-imposed, I need my beauty sleep 💁‍♂️

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @hen I'm committed to: decentralized social networking, smh

    danarel, to random

    I have about 12.6K followers on birdsite, yet if I post a status update, it gets 0-1 like, no replies.

    I only get engagement on replies to others, or if an organization tags me and gets some engagement.

    I am either shadowbanned, or that site is THAT dead now.

    Or no one likes me.

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @danarel the algorithm boosts verified users 4x according to GitHub IIRC

    jonah, to random
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    It would be cool if took the opposite approach to Google Play App Signing, by using their build system to create a code transparency key that developers could then bundle with their app, and then developers could in turn sign that bundle with their own signing key.

    That way F-Droid could distribute apps that they’ve verified reproducible builds for (and check the CT signature in the F-Droid app), without having to sign the app with their own key—a common complaint about the default F-Droid repo.

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @jr it fits the F-Droid use-case when done as I described, because it would verify that the developer did not tamper with the app F-Droid built before signing it themselves. (I see this as a way to solve non-reproducible app builds is what I'm saying, but I don't know all the reasons an app might not be reproducible).

    I think reproducible builds also does solve this problem, I didn't catch this January blog post saying you had more than 6 lol - It will be cooler when the app indicates whether an APK was reproducible or not, and if the official F-Droid repo could eventually make reproducibility a requirement 👍

    a2, to internet
    @a2@a2.io avatar

    Joined a couple days ago and, so far, I’m enjoying it more than . It feels like it scratches the same “itch” that Twitter did, which I wasn’t expecting since I don’t know many folks there.

    Username is @a2.io for those who are already there.

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @jack I was just talking to someone else about this, that does seem to be their goal unfortunately, there isn’t a focus on self-hosted PDS implementations at all. https://mastodon.neat.computer/@jonah/110249275716238316
    @a2 @faisal

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @jack I don’t think ActivityPub particularly lives up to any “nomadic” promise either though so there’s really room for improvement all around.

    theresnotime, to internet

    Initial impressions of — unfinished, rough, ActivityPub clone 🥴

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @jesopo @theresnotime (I don’t use Bluesky, but) my impression of their moderation blog post is that you can subscribe to moderators independently of your instance. Maybe some of those moderators you can subscribe to are AI-based, but others might be manually done, like moderation on Mastodon, and you can choose to have your feed moderated by multiple parties for the best coverage. To me this seems like it would be strictly better than Mastodon’s setup of coupling moderation to your account/instance.

    https://blueskyweb.xyz/blog/4-13-2023-moderation

    rolle, (edited ) to fediverse
    @rolle@mementomori.social avatar

    I like the fact that in the the primary goal is not algorithms or making money, but owning your data and using social networks in your own terms.

    FEELS like open and decentralized but has been received funding from Twitter and has not yet fully revealed its monetization plans. This is why I won't fully trust it. I'm glad they won't invest in the ActicityPub protocol. Their reluctancy to AP is also something I find strange even after reading the arguments.

    Let's remember that a startup company, and companies are to make money. This is where for example is different, there is no monetization and never will be.

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @rolle @joepie91 I’m disappointed their stock “PDS” (homeserver) software is so reliant on AWS, and from what I’ve gathered in their public dev chat so far, it doesn’t seem like they have any plans to make one that is easily self-hostable. It seems like their vision is for people to have nomadic identities, but for them to be largely based on bigger/commercial PDS providers. Maybe the community will step in with a simpler implementation, but it’s a very different model from Matrix or Mastodon.

    I do see why they didn’t go with ActivityPub, stuff like account migration being a second-rate citizen here is one of my biggest annoyances with the fediverse, and their concept of label-based moderation you can subscribe to independent of your PDS seems novel to me, I’m a bit optimistic about that. So I want to try Bluesky out still and see how things play out, but yeah, there’s absolutely a lot of unanswered questions and a distinct possibility it just becomes Twitter 2.0. All that being said, Mastodon GmbH is also making a lot of suspicious moves I’m not excited about lol

    ernie, to random
    @ernie@writing.exchange avatar

    Some tech bro created an “unbiased” news site with AI generating every bit of the content.

    https://newsnotfound.com/whitepaper/

    cc @jeffjarvis @mmasnick

    jonah,
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    @ernie this just reads as satire to me, down to the name. It’s literally article spinning lol

    jonah, to fediverse
    @jonah@neat.computer avatar

    I’ve been very supportive of @Gargron in the past, I quite like his vision for and I understand a lot of the decisions he’s made in regard to unified design and governance over the project that lots of other people seem to disagree with.

    But, this latest change to the official mobile app—promoting mastodon.social over everything else—is exceptionally bad, no way around it. It’s the biggest problem that chat has too, and I REALLY don’t want to see it here.

    https://mstdn.social/@feditips/110233282251253677

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