@rwg@aoir.social
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

rwg

@rwg@aoir.social

Ontario Research Chair of Digital Governance for Social Justice, York University.

Currently writing a book, "Move Slowly and Build Bridges: Mastodon, the Fediverse, and the Struggle for Ethical Social Media" for Oxford University Press.

Been on the fediverse since 2017. I'm now helping set up AoIR.social

he/him

Trans rights are human rights. I boost #BlackMastodon and #MutualAid posts. I also call for alt text for accessibility.

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

rwg, to bluesky
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As I mentioned before, I'm digging into , trying to figure it all out.

Today, I'm studying its approach to .

If anyone has insights about this -- especially if you know how many actual content moderators they have -- feel free to reach out.

rwg, to random
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

My colleague @NatalieCoulter published a piece in The Conversation (Canada) about grad students facing online abuse when they do research:

https://theconversation.com/trolling-and-doxxing-graduate-students-sharing-their-research-online-speak-out-about-hate-210874

"Faculty must be made aware of the realities of online harassment and available university resources — including campus security, legal clinics and mental health services."

rwg, to random
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Hello, university website. A suggestion...

Instead of making sure the meaningless PR videos automatically play, how about you make sure the actual stuff I need to do my job works?

Thank you.

rwg, to bluesky
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It''s time for me to dig into , specifically the

I'm studying the docs, and I have a question for those who might know better:

The big thing AT is promising is better portability across instances (when such instances appear). My understanding of the docs (https://atproto.com/guides/overview#account-portability) is that this is made possible, in part, by having a copy of my data on my client.

So, I do have a bsky.app account. Where is my local data? I don't see any anywhere. Is that not implemented yet?

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

@rolle "True account portability" was the #1 reason they stated why did not want to use . I guess I assumed it would be one of the first things they would have implemented!

So I think I share your skepticism.

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

@timbray @rolle I guess I don't understand why this couldn't be done on top of ActivityPub. As @cwebber and Jay Graber pointed out here

https://gitlab.com/-/snippets/2535398

AP doesn't need to rely on https URIs. Any URI would do.

rwg, to random
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

Soon it's take your kid to work day

I should take my son to work. He can see the daily life of a university prof

filing expense reports
filling out doodle polls
zooms, endless zooms

the life of the mind

rwg, to random
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

Does this book exist?

"How Universities Lost the Internet"

or has someone done research on this topic? That is, the fact that many North American universities have ceded all technical capacity to Microsoft, Google, etc?

It used to be students could get web hosting, email, and even some cool experimental online stuff through their schools. Now every online communication channel is locked down.

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

It's ironic this has happened given that the precursor to today's Internet was built on college campuses (USC, UCLA, Utah, etc)

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

@karengregory I'd imagine it would have to be historical.

I also imagine universities-as-brands would be a big part of the picture -- with falling funding from states and increasing emphasis on advertising, they wouldn't want a bunch of students mucking about on 'official' channels

rwg, (edited ) to random
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

I'm on a search committee for a Canada Research Chair position at , focusing on data sovereignty:

https://www.yorku.ca/vpepc/faculty-affairs/wp-content/uploads/sites/698/2020/06/LAPS_CRC_IndiDataSov.pdf

If you have questions about the position, let me know!

(boosts appreciated)

(Edited to fix a typo)

chris, (edited ) to selfhosted
@chris@mstdn.chrisalemany.ca avatar

— Updated with a Reply with Instances! -- OK Mastodon - I have a question about universities and instances.
Do you know of any Universities or other Educational Institutions that are hosting their own or other instances? Please leave a reply with the example if you do. I'm building the case for my University to do so.
Thanks!

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

@chris I do believe MIT is.

https://mastodon.mit.edu/about

Several unis in the Netherlands are, as well, or so I've heard.

rwg, to random
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

sometimes, you get an email that makes your day

the person who sent the email knows who I'm talking about

the rest of you: I hope you get some happy emails today, too!

andrewiliadis, to random

Important paper discussing governance challenges for the fediverse/Mastodon w/ @aram @rwg

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

@cyberlyra @andrewiliadis @aram @bkeegan @andresmh @mako

We have a pre-print out in SSRN:

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4598303

rwg, to random
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

At the @aram and @dunia concert, taking a break from the troubles of the world.

rwg, to Podcasts
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Have I said how much I love ? Even if I just stay in one room, the awesome panels will appear!

In this case, I've remained in my previous seat and will get to see "Critical Race Internet Studies." First up, @brianabarner on Black .

rwg, to random
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

The panel I'm on features four people writing four books: on cryptology, ( @swest), on a network for people ( @brittparis), on the interplanetary internet ( @karppi), and my own on the fediverse. Will be fun to collect all of them in a few years!

rwg, to fediverse
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

A promo for my 8.30 panel today:

Come for the networks. Stay for the standards and protocols.

The panel features talks about , the , the interplanetary protocol, networking infrastructures and cryptography.

https://www.conftool.org/aoir2023/index.php?page=browseSessions&form_session=294&presentations=show

rwg, to solarpunk
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

I'm very much enjoying the panel on the ecological impact of digital networks. I'm working on a chapter on the possibility for a and/or . Can we build a less damaging social media network? Seyram Avle in particular is helping me think about this.

rwg, to random
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

A lot of participants are talking about and .

May I humbly suggest my latest book, co-authored with @seanlawson: Social Engineering (MIT Press 2022)?

Wherein Sean and I use hacker social engineering -- a very effective form of manipulative communication -- to look back over the history of and forward to the current, algorithmic form of disinformation we call "masspersonal social engineering"

It's

https://archive.org/details/mit_press_book_9780262368926

rwg, to random
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

Something's quite clear from the conversation at the #AlternativeSocialMedia workshop at #AoIR2023: this is a very complex field. We agree our work needs to aid many alternative social media communities, but what that looks like is complicated.

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

Now the conversation at the #AlternativeSocialMedia preconference at #AoIR2023 is on to the big question: research ethics.

Given the work I do -- I'm writing a book about #Mastodon and the #Fediverse -- fediverse folks, ask me anything about how the discussion is going...

rwg, to fediverse
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

Latest blog post: on , the Non-Standard Standard.

https://fossacademic.tech/2023/10/15/APnonStandard.html

This is based on a presentation I'll be giving at . It discusses 4 key ways ActivityPub is not a standard standard.

Comments welcome! You can comment on it by (publicly) responding to this Mastodon post.

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

@jonny @joelchan86 They made Webmention, Websub, Linkded Data Notification, Micropub, Activity Stream 2.0 and Activity Vocabulary (these last two are important for ActivityPub).

As for your second question: I have no idea!

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

@joelchan86 As for Semantic Web, a big faction of the SocialWG were very invested in that — the Solid folks. Their influence does appear on ActivityPub in the form of JSON-LD instead of regular JSON.

rwg,
@rwg@aoir.social avatar

@jamiexml @evan

I totally agree that making the standard in the absence of corporate oversight was beneficial.

The problem was a lack of consensus on how to proceed, but because the group just decided to make a lot of standards, they ended up doing some great work.

But it took a toll on people, too.

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