thenexusofprivacy

@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

A newsletter about #privacy, #technology, #policy, #strategy, and #justice.

Currently at @nexusofprivacy, but looking for a new home and so checking out infosec.exchange

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

thenexusofprivacy, to fediverse

Strategies for the free fediverses

https://privacy.thenexus.today/strategies-for-the-free-fediverses/

The fediverse is evolving into different regions

  • "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

  • Organize!

@fediverse @fediversenews

thenexusofprivacy,

Thanks for the link. Instances in "Meta's fediverses" are likely to take the approach you recommend. I'm skeptical how well it'll work -- most well-moderated instances today rely on instance blocking as an important part of their toolkit -- but I hope I'll be pleasantly surprised!

But a lot of people and instances want nothing to do with Meta, and blocking them's the best way to accomplish that. Why block Meta?}(https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/#why) and [Why the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact is good strategy for people who want the fediverse to be an alternative to surveillance capitalism look at some of the reasons why. I don't really think of this as a boycott, for most people it's more choosing not to participate in an exploitative and dangerous system.

In any case, though, I certainly agree that blocking Meta's not the only action to take, hence the other strategies in this series.

@Crell @fediversenews

thenexusofprivacy,

@jenniferplusplus The ad targeting (and data harvesting that comes with it) is based on a leak six months ago via somebody at Instagram that discussed win/win opportunities via revenue sharing and ads. The automated moderation's based on statements from Meta's supporters.

Of course, Meta might not go that route (hence the "potentially"), and even if they do many of the current fediverse instances who join Meta's fediverses will probably just say no. But if Meta does decide to invest in the decentralized approach, they've got a great opportunity to partner with corporations and media who host their own ad-funded sites and share revenue. The "Decentralized Surveillance Capitalism" section of https://privacy.thenexus.today/embrace-extend-and-exploit/ goes into more detail.

thenexusofprivacy,

The free fediverses should focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety

https://privacy.thenexus.today/free-fediverses-and-consent/

(Part 2 of "Strategies for the free fediverses")

@fediversenews

thenexusofprivacy,

@Crell I'm not sure how either of your two points relate to @zdl's question -- which I think is a good one!

thenexusofprivacy,

@Crell That's true but
@zdl's question was specifically about your framing that we should "help" people by "bleeding them off Threads." It wasn't moderator-specific. And, even looking at it from a moderator's perspective, your response seems to assume that fediverse moderators have a duty to help people on Threads, and I'm not sure where you think that mandate comes from.

thenexusofprivacy, to random

@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/

jaddy, to threads German

Sehr ausführlich zum Thema und und das Fediverse.

Embrace, Extend, Exploit. Threads ist nicht nur „eine weitere Instanz“. Die zigfach größere Accountzahl sorgt dafür. Allein das Potenzial, Posts aus dem "restlichen" Fediverse den unregulierten Hatern in Threads absichtlich zum Frass vorzuwerfen (Empörungs-Algorithmen) dürfte einen deutlichen Einfluss auf die Kultur hier haben. infosec.exchange/
♲ infosec.exchange/

thenexusofprivacy,

@phil_s Vielleicht. Wir werden sehen.

Ich habe hier eine Sammlung von Perspektiven zu Meta und die fediverse (leider auf Englisch) https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/

Und entschuldigen Sie mein schlechtes Deutsch, ich habe vor 30 Jahren in München gelebt, aber das vor 30 Jahre!

@jaddy

thenexusofprivacy,

Danke für die kleine Korrektur, and "Du" ist ok für !

@phil_s @jaddy

thenexusofprivacy, (edited ) to fediverse

Embrace, Extend, and Exploit: Meta's plan for ActivityPub, Mastodon and the fediverse

https://privacy.thenexus.today/embrace-extend-and-exploit/

  1. Embrace , , , and the
  2. 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 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
  3. Exploit ActivityPub, Mastodon, and the fediverse by utilizing them for profit – and also using them selfishly for Meta's own ends
thenexusofprivacy,

@Ooze thanks much, fixed now!

DAIR, to random
@DAIR@dair-community.social avatar

404 Media reports that "Largest Dataset Powering AI Images Removed After Discovery of Child Sexual Abuse Material" 🧵

However, in 2021, a preprint by @abebab, Vinay Uday Prabhu & Emmanuel Kahembwe found a number issues in the dataset including " troublesome and explicit images and text pairs of rape, pornography, malign stereotypes, racist and ethnic slurs, and other extremely problematic content."

The preprint can be found here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2110.01963

https://www.404media.co/laion-datasets-removed-stanford-csam-child-abuse/

thenexusofprivacy,

@DAIR great to see this. kudos to @abebab et al for their work here!

thenexusofprivacy, to meta

There's been a lot of discussion about potential parallels between the situation with / / today and / Google Talk / back in the day -- see for example @ploum How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) and @evan's perspectives here.

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?

thenexusofprivacy, (edited )

FYI @timbray @jens @rameshgupta @lena @darnell @llorenzin @dalias

I've curious what you think of the similarities and differences between the XMPP/ Google situation and ActivityPub/Threads. (I'm not trying to relitigate questions on whether it was or wasn't EEE or whether Meta's trying to EEE the fediverse, or if they are whether they's succeed, just asking about what's different and what's similar.)

The parent post ⬆️ setting out the question has a bunch of hashtags in it so I'm hoping that tagging you here in a reply will cut down how many notifications you get.

thenexusofprivacy,

@rameshgupta I largely agree with your take on Google and XMPP, and I don't think Threads is trying to EEE Masatodon ... I'm asking your perspective on the similarties and differences between the situations.

thenexusofprivacy,

@rameshgupta I edited the original post to make it clearer what I was asking, sorry for the confusion!

thenexusofprivacy,

@rameshgupta Thanks! I'll wait to see what others have to say before responding.

thenexusofprivacy, (edited )

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.

@timbray @jens @lena @darnell @dalias

drewharwell, to random
@drewharwell@mastodon.social avatar

New: Rite Aid secretly scanned shoppers with facial recognition for years, leading to false shoplifting accusations, "embarrassment, harassment and other harm," the FTC says. The chain banned workers from talking about it, and errors were common; one 11-year-old girl was distraught after being searched due to a false match. “Every black man is not [a] thief nor should they be made to feel like one"

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/12/19/ftc-rite-aid-facial-recognition/

thenexusofprivacy,

And here's the FTC's ruling in the Rite Aid facial recognition case -- banning them from using facial recognition for five years.

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/news/press-releases/2023/12/rite-aid-banned-using-ai-facial-recognition-after-ftc-says-retailer-deployed-technology-without

indieterminacy, to random

What was the most distressing thing about today?

Trying to sign up for newsletter, to then realize that this necessitated the use of Google's captcha service.

:(

thenexusofprivacy,

@indieterminacy yeah, the state government's voter information portal uses Google's captcha service. Distressing indeed.

mialikescoffee, to meta
@mialikescoffee@social.tchncs.de avatar

The discourse in the last few days regarding and gives the impression that the entire Fediverse is already blocking Threads. I wanted to take a look at the numbers and they speak a different language. The data source for my calculation is https://fedipact.veganism.social/?v=2.

Measured by user count, 76 % of all users are federated with Threads. Remaining instances with 24 % of users either block Threads or are limited (e.g. infosec.exchange).

thenexusofprivacy,

@mialikescoffee very useful data, thanks. Polls consistently show more users want to block or limit than federate ... they might not be representative, but if they are there's a significant mismatch between what admins are currently doing and what people want them to do.

Any chance you could rerun it with active users? It'd probably be similar -- most active users are on larger instances who generally aren't blocking -- but it'd still be interesting.

thenexusofprivacy,

@mialikescoffee Cool, I know this isn't the only "helpful" suggestion you're getting and there are only so many hours in the day!

Monthly and six-month active users are in the nodeinfo data ... and fedidb / fediverse observer / the veganism site all have monthly data as well.

dangillmor, to random
@dangillmor@mastodon.social avatar

Can someone catch me up on the de-federation thing that's apparently happening?

thenexusofprivacy,

@dangillmor here's a lengthy discussion with a range of perspectives. I have an opinion of course, but people who see things differently from me also say this does a good job of summarizing arguments in both directions. https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/

thenexusofprivacy, (edited ) to meta

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?

@fediverse @fediversenews

thenexusofprivacy,

@robotistry It'd be interesting try to come up with a terms of service for posts that prevent Meta from using them to make money but as far as I know nobody's come up with an approach yet that would work.

jerry, to random

I continue to be squeezed by both sides of the threads situation. I am operating on the premise that people who think I’m a terrible person and this is a terrible instance for allowing any interaction with threads have left and/or blocked, those remaining seem to want to either have nothing to do with threads at all and are mainly concerned with their data, and those who want to seamlessly interact with threads. I have threads limited/silenced on Infosec.exchange, but that isn’t seamless, and it’s also not fully blocking. So, here’s my proposal:
I remove the limit from threads, and run a job to domain block threads for each account. Any account who chooses can undo the block (or ask me to do it) and then they can seamlessly interact with threads, and those who want nothing to do with them get their way.

Thoughts?

thenexusofprivacy,

@jerry Sorry I missed this when it came out ... if it's still something you're considering:

If there's a desire to federate then I think the idea of running a job that domain blocks them from each account is a very good one -- it basically makes it opt-in.

Is auth-fetch turned on here? If not, people should know that once Threads starts accepting inbound federation, even if they block Threads, their posts could still get to Threads if others boost them. [This would be true even if infosec.exchange blocked Threads -- people on other instances who have followers on Threads boosting our posts.]

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