PCLOB (the Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board) has received approval to release an unclassified version of its December 2020 classified report on the National Security Agency’s (NSA’s) use of XKEYSCORE, an intelligence analysis tool.
Why would pro-LGBTQ+ companies like Snap and #Microsoft endorse #KOSA? Business is business! What's important is looking like they're trying to protect children -- even though KOSA would actually harm kids.
Politically, KOSA's anti-LGBTQ+ aspects gives Republicans (and anti-LGBTQ+ tech companies) a reason to get on board. If some of the Democrats who say they're pro-LGBTQ+ Democrats "reluctantly" decide to support it then it's got the votes to pass. On the other hand, if pro-LGBTQ+ Democrats and legislators of both parties who really do want to help kids stick to their guns, then Congress is a lot more likely to do something that actually helps kids.
Microsoft endorses anti-LGBTQ online "child safety" bill KOSA night before Big Tech hearing (US Politics)
Worth noting: Microsoft owns LinkedIn, which wouldn't be particularly affected by KOSA.
There's a hearing on Wednesday, and potentially a Senate vote soon, so if you're in the US now's a good time to contact your Senators. https://stopkosa.com and EFF's page make it easy!
There are some straightforward opportunities for short-term safety improvements, but this is only the start of what's needed to change the dynamic more completely.
Washington's short legislative session is in high gear, Unfortunately, despite HB 1951's good intent of dealing wth algorithmic description, it looks like it was written by tech lobbyists. Here's my written testimony.
An excerpt:
"My position on HB 1951 is CON. While the goal of providing protections against algorithmic discrimination is vital, the bill as drafted does not actually provide meaningful protections to Washingtonians. Other witnesses at the hearing discussed several of the key problems with the bill including the lack of requirements for transparency (aka notice) or opt-out, the narrowness of the definition of "automated decision tool" (Sec. 1(3)), and the lack of a private right of action.
Coming at it from the technical perspective, I'd also like to highlight the weakness of the impact assessment requirements in Section 3."
"Meta's fediverses", federating with Meta to allow communications, potentially using services from Meta such as automated moderation or ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta's behalf.
"free fediverses" that reject Meta – and surveillance capitalism more generally
The free fediverses have a lot of advantages over Meta and Meta's fediverses, some of which will be very hard to counter, and clearly have enough critical mass that they'll be just fine.
Here's a set of strategies for the free fediverses to provide a viable alternative to surveillance capitalism. They build on the strengths of today's fediverse at its best – including natural advantages the free fediverses have that Threads and Meta's fediverses will having a very hard time countering – but also are hopefully candid about weaknesses that need to be addressed. It's a long list, so I'll be spreading out over multiple posts; this post currently goes into detail on the first two.
Opposition to Meta and surveillance capitalism is an appealing position. Highlight it!
Focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety
Emphasize "networked communities"
Support concentric federations of instances and communities
Consider "transitively defederating" Meta's fediverses (as well as defederating Threads)
Consider working with people and instances in Meta's fediverses (and Bluesky, Dreamwidth, and other social networks) whose goals and values align with the free fediverses'
Build a sustainable ecosystem
Prepare for Meta's (and their allies') attempts to paint the free fediverses in a bad light
Reduce the dependency on Mastodon
Prioritize accessibility, which is a huge opportunity
Commit to anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and pro-LGBTQIA2S+ principles, policies, practices, and norms for the free fediverses
"instances are valuable for the relations and interactions they facilitate locally AND for their ability to connect you to other parts of the network."
By contrast, @evanprodromou notes that "Big Fedi" advocates typically see instances as typically see the instance as "mostly a dumb pipe." But The Networked Communities view aligns much better with the free fediverses' values – as does the "Social Archipelago" view @noracodes sketches in The Fediverse is Already Dead. Not only that, it's good strategy!
The free fediverses should work together with people and instances in Meta's fediverses and on Bluesky whose goals and values align with the free fediverse
Many of the Meta advocates I've talked to share the free fediverses' long-term goal of building a sustainable alternative to surveillance capitalism -- and the same is true for people on Bluesky. So there are likely to be situations where some of the people and instances in Meta's fediverses and Bluesky wind up as situational allies to the free fediverses.
A few areas where collaboration could be very useful:
A key principle of organizing is meeting people where they are.
Moderation on decentralized networks is a shared challenge.
Bringing concepts similar to Bluesky's custom feeds to the fediverses, and more generally focusing on human-focused and liberatory (as opposed to oppressive) uses of algorithms in decentralized social networks designed from the margins.
Meta's fediverses, Bluesky, and the free fediverses are all vulnerable to disinformation.
@matthias i'm looking at migrating Nexus of Privacy to Wordpress (primarily because of your fediverse integration and the flexibility of formatting). Something that would be really useful is a guide to setting up Wordpress for the fediverse and Indieweb -- not just the basic mechanics but also how to make sure the theme's accessible (important for the fediverse!), how to comment on others' posts (or do I need a separate Mastodon account for that), how tags manifest as hashtags, what other plugins could be helpful, how to post to Lemmy (does it work to tag the community the way it sometimes but not always does from some but not all Mastodon installations), etc.
@FediTips page here is the closest I know of (and a very valuable resources) so if there's some funding available it could be that the best approach is to just pay them to build it out a bit more including the IndieWeb and accessibility stuff and then license it for Wordpress. https://fedi.tips/wordpress-turning-your-blog-into-a-fediverse-server/
Extend ActivityPub, Mastodon, and the fediverse with a very-usable app that provides additional functionality (initially the ability to follow everybody you're following on Instagram, and to communicate with all #Threads users) that isn't available to the rest of the fediverse – as well over time providing additional services and introducing incompatibilities and non-standard improvements to the protocol
Exploit ActivityPub, Mastodon, and the fediverse by utilizing them for profit – and also using them selfishly for Meta's own ends
But there are also some important differences! For one thing, we've got the benefit of learning from the XMPP experience. And that's only the tip of the iceberg ...
What do others see as key similarities and differences between the two situations?
>> "were NOT implemented in XMPP clients because they were not compatible" — That's the opposite of EEE
Remove first 'NOT' above for EEE 🙂
Google and others have a right to implement new features that may be of interest to their users. As long as they DON'T change the underlying protocol itself to be incompatible, you cannot allege EEE.
The article says they developed new features in GT that they kept from XMPP client
I'm with @llorenzin here. EEE isn't only changing the protocol. Microsoft's "embrace, extend, and innovate" (haha) memo specifically described extend as "Offer well-integrated tools and services compatible with established and popular standards that have been developed in the Internet community." So in an EEE strategy, creating new user-centric features is indeed the middle E.
Sure Google has a right to add new features -- whether or not it's part of an EEE strategy. And Threads has a right to have Threads-only functionality and introduce incompatibilities that serve their users (and their corporate interests) better even if it's at the expense of the open fediverse -- whether or not it's part of an EEE strategy. For that matter predatory corporations in general have a right to try an EEE strategy. In fact it's their job! I don't necessarily think that's what Meta's trying to do here, but they certainly can if they want to.
The Bad Space is only one of the projects exploring different ways of moving beyond the fediverse's current reliance on instance-level blocking and blocklists. It's especially interesting to compare and contrast The Bad Space with two somewhat-similar projects:
Fediseer is another instance catalog, including endorsements as well as negative judgments about instances.
FIRES (an acronym for Fediverse Intelligence Recommendations & Replication Endpoint Server) is infrastructure for moderation advisories and recommendations.
Many thanks to @thisismissem and @Db0 for feedback on earlier versions of this post!
(Part 4 of "Golden opportunities for the fediverse – and whatever comes next")
@thenexusofprivacy@Db0 Good stuff. Only thing I would disagree is that the fediseer could offer less value to marginalized people. Maybe currently that is so, but if say, seirdy.one were to join and add their censures, that "lacking value" will be covered. Likewise is mastodon.art were to join and add their censures, that would be covered as well. My point here is that it's not a fundamental problem of the Fediseer as a platform.
@db0@thenexusofprivacy@Db0
I've previously argued that some of the early issues with Fediseer are simply a result of the fact that there are a limited number of people contributing to it, so their contributions are overweighted. But of course, as the essay mentions, it still depends on exactly who shows up to contribute
A poll: if you're planning on blocking Threads , do you want your posts to federate there so that hate groups can interact with them and Meta can track you?
The way blocking works on Mastodon, if your instance hasn't enabled "authorized fetch", blocking Threads won't actually prevent your posts from federating there if somebody on another instance who hasn't blocked Threads boosts your post. This means that anybody on Threads can still potentially see your posts, including hate groups like Libs of TikTok and Gays Against Groomers. And Meta's privacy policy says they'll use the information to target advertising and improve their products by training AIs. And most large Mastodon instances today haven't turned on authorized fetch.
If you're planning on -- or considering -- blocking Threads, do you still want your posts to federate there?
@gubi@sabrinaweb71 ho trovato il capitolo apposito sulla pagiina di amministrazione di Pleroma, e ho attivato Auth.Fel. - ma Carlo, se posso, cosa intendi per 'resource consuming'?
Since there's so muich discussion of Meta in the fediverse, it's a good time to call attention to the Stop Silencing Palestine campaign from @7amleh@eff@fight@article19 and other digital rights and human rights groups.
"We renew our call to Meta to stop its systemic censorship of Palestinian voices by overhauling its content moderation practices and policies that continue to restrict content about Palestine. Two years after our initial campaign, our demands remain unmet. Given the ongoing conflict, the urgency for Meta to address our—now updated—recommendations is greater than ever."
Some people think this is great: if all goes well, it's an opportunity for people on Mastodon, Pixelfed, Misskey, and other fediverse platfirms to follow (and eventually communicate with) friends and public figures on Threads.
Others see it as a threat -- because of Meta's long history of exploiting people's data without consent, hosting hate groups and harassers, discriminating against LGBTQ+ people, Black activists, and Palestinians, and contributing to genocides.
Threads (a fairly new social network from Facebook's parent company Meta) is testing integration with the fediverse. The first poll asked about how you personally are reacting; this poll asks about what you want your instance to do.
Others are silencing Threads. This reduces the chance of harassment, and the load on moderators, but doesn't prevent people's data from being shared with Threads (unless they individually block Threads)
And some aren't taking any action against Threads -- at least for the time being, if Threads starts behaving badly they can always revist the decision.