We are going to continue our trial here for at least another six months while we share our findings internally and seek more engagement from other BBC teams. We are also planning to start researching ways to publish more BBC content using ActivityPub.
"... the website loads in a special browser built into the app, rather than your phone’s default browser. In 2022, privacy researcher Felix Krause found that Meta injects special “keylogging” JavaScript onto the website you’re visiting that allows the company to monitor everything you type and tap on, including passwords. Other apps including TikTok do the same thing."
Almost everyone who says "Mastodon didn't work for me" on Bluesky seems to have posted only "me me me" stuff for months (if that) on Mastodon, followed about 10-20 people, never replied to anyone and then gave up because "nobody there, it didn't fly".
It seems there is a big misunderstanding how this free and healthy social media works. We are not here for the easy wins, likes, shares and dopamine spikes. We are here because we accept the fact we are not part of the commercial hype machine. We choose natural engagement over spoiling algorithms, we choose conversation and meaning in our social media. At least that is how I see it.
It speaks of problematic developments under #ElonMusk and says, that for example #Nazi content is now barely moderated over there. And also that the significance of Twitter shrinks.
Here’s the story of how a 37-follower Twitter account seeded a propaganda narrative about Hawaii that made headlines around the world, thanks to a network of right-wing influencers — and amplification by both Russian and Chinese state media.
Stories like this remind us why being mindful of protecting one's privacy online is important and that "private" messages in the majority of places aren't private at all without end-to-end encryption.
Be mindful of what sensitive data you're relinquishing to companies.
Yesterday Justin Trudeau revealed that agents of the Indian government murdered a Canadian citizen on Canadian soil. When Canadian Sikhs went to post about it on Facebook, the platform removed their posts as a violation of Indian law.
All media and news outlets that are unsure if it's worth setting up a #Mastodon account because they won't get enough followers: Take a look at Ars Technica (@arstechnica).
Ars established their account fairly recently (Apr 25, 2023) and have quickly gained a large following -- 118K followers!
They actively post
Their account is verified
Their homepage has a link to their Mastodon account
Addendum: By "nobody is pushing hate speech," I mean that no company, owner of the Social Network, can deliberately and aggressively force posts with hate speech onto users solely for the purpose of selling more ads. This does not imply that there is no hate speech - unfortunately, this is a problem that also spreads in the Fediverse, and the tools are not always adequate.
My real worry with Google's voyage into enshittification (thanks to Cory Doctorow @pluralistic the term) is YouTube.
Through YT, for the past 15 years, the world has basically entrusted Google to be the custodian of pretty much our entire global video archive.
There's countless hours of archived footage — news reports, political speeches, historical events, documentaries, indie films, academic lectures, conference presentations, rare recordings, concert footage, obscure music — where the best or only copy is now held by Google through YouTube.
So what happens if maintaining that archival footage becomes unprofitable?
Our CEO, @mike just launched a new podcast series titled "Dot Social" to explore the evolution of the internet and how new open standards, like #ActivityPub, can forever change the web and the world of social media.
> We (the internet community) made such a terrible mistake with #SocialMedia. We formed connections and communities and friendships [but] those connections are only allowed to exist as long as they are part of a profitable system. How awful it is to reduce human connection to that. To think that I am only allowed to maintain certain social connections as long as they continue to produce monetary value for an intermediary. An awful, awful mistake.
For over a decade, @Flipboard's in-house editorial team has been curating the world’s best journalism around the clock. But to access this curation, you had to use the Flipboard app or visit flipboard.com.
Now we’ve decided to federate our Flipboard editorial profiles and their related Magazines in order to make our collections available to everyone on Mastodon and other Fediverse networks.
Here's what we're up to. Would love your feedback!
There’s been a lot of talk about #socialmedia companies’ power as users post support for #Palestine and report subsequent shadowbans.
We looked into it on Instagram—and found the platform:
⚠️ suppressed hashtags
⚠️ demoted photos of soldiers, tanks, and city ruins
⚠️ deleted captions without warning
⚠️ categorized comments criticizing Israel + supporting Palestine as “spam”
⚠️ limited users’ ability to appeal moderation decisions
⚠️ more.