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Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

blog.joinmastodon.org

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Re: Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

#31

Post by M2Ys4U »

nsizx wrote: post #29
user-the-name wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? "Active moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia" is, indeed, just basic human decency. And people keep saying, over and over and over, that doing this is against "freedom of speech".

It is, actually. Once you restrict what others can say there's no freedom of speech anymore. It's like China saying you can't talk about the regime - I'm sure they consider that "basic human decency" as well.

>Once you restrict what others can say there's no freedom of speech anymore.

If you go by that definition then there is no country on Earth that has freedom of speech.

And that's a good thing because that definition is completely and utterly insane; Absolute freedom of speech would be a catastrophe.

Re: Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

#32

Post by southerntofu »

user-the-name wrote: post #28
southerntofu wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you care to elaborate for those people like me who don't have detailed knowledge of the Eunomia project? The official project page features wording that may lead a privacy-conscious person to raise eyebrows: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/825171

I can not see a single thing on there that would raise any eyebrows.

> determine whether information they come across online is trustworthy or not

Who gets to determine what is trustworthy or not? Is it a central authority, or a WoT? The former is a very dangerous tool of social control, the latter does not usually address concerns of misinformation, as the WoT forms information bubbles with their confirmation biases.

> the project will allow users to vote on content trustworthiness. The number of votes appears as an indicator that may assist others in assessing trustworthiness

How are these votes stored? Are they part of the ActivityPub protocol, or a third-party centralized layer, or some kind of blockchain/DHT? Do you get to see the votes of your contacts, or the overall votes? How do you prevent misinformation campaign to try and hijack the votes? If they are stored in a WoT/blockchain, what kind of measures can you take to protect the social graph?

More from the website:

> a unique peer-to-peer and blockchain infrastructure

> EUNOMIA users can see the modifications of online information in between different users' posts, in an information cascade

> This may include indicators of bot activity, such as the ratio of followers to following

I don't know about you, but these sentences make me raise eyebrows.

Re: Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

#33

Post by Kaze404 »

nsizx wrote: post #29
user-the-name wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? "Active moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia" is, indeed, just basic human decency. And people keep saying, over and over and over, that doing this is against "freedom of speech".

It is, actually. Once you restrict what others can say there's no freedom of speech anymore. It's like China saying you can't talk about the regime - I'm sure they consider that "basic human decency" as well.

Freedom of speech isn't freedom to be a bigot. You can say whatever you want, but that doesn't mean the rest of the world has to listen.

Re: Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

#34

Post by sneak »

asutekku wrote: post #16
Vinnl wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And as a hint about whether that is a goal, take a look at Mastodon's instance picker [1], which says: > We only list communities that are committed to active moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia. [1] https://joinmastodon.org/communities

That’s just basic human decency right there.

Human decency involves not telling other adults what they are allowed to peaceably publish or read.

I find imposing censorship on others a denial of their basic rights to free expression, and is itself an indecent act.

Re: Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

#35

Post by Kye »

sneak wrote: post #34
asutekku wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just basic human decency right there.

Human decency involves not telling other adults what they are allowed to peaceably publish or read. I find imposing censorship on others a denial of their basic rights to free expression, and is itself an indecent act.

>> "Human decency involves not telling other adults what they are allowed to peaceably publish or read."

So you agree the Mastodon project should be able to decide not to publish certain instances in the list it maintains. Cool.

Freedom is not meaningful without the freedom to not do something. If they're compelled to publish things they don't agree with, then they don't really have free speech.

Re: Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

#36

Post by dgb23 »

nsizx wrote: post #29
user-the-name wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? "Active moderation against racism, sexism and transphobia" is, indeed, just basic human decency. And people keep saying, over and over and over, that doing this is against "freedom of speech".

It is, actually. Once you restrict what others can say there's no freedom of speech anymore. It's like China saying you can't talk about the regime - I'm sure they consider that "basic human decency" as well.

It's not a restriction of freedom of speech. This is just exercising freedom of association.

"If you're an asshole, I won't broadcast your stuff."

People are still free to be assholes, but the platform is free to not associate themselves with the assholes.

Very simple.

Re: Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

#38

Post by FeepingCreature »

user-the-name wrote: post #22
asutekku wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just basic human decency right there.

You will find that a lot of people crying about free speech do not place much value on basic human decency.

You are correct - as a person who cares deeply about free speech, I certainly place less value on basic decency.

To my mind, the correct response to violations of decency is giving people strong tools to screen and filter out content they don't like. The wrong response is centralized enforcement. Inasmuch as centralized enforcement would be better at enforcing "basic decency", I will confirm that I place its priority at a lower level than avoiding centralized enforcement.

I hold this view because in my opinion, I am far more likely to be harmed by attempts to enforce some unilateral definition of "basic decency" than the very indecency they aim to prevent. (I believe this is called the "paradox of tolerance", though few know it in that formulation.)

Re: Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

#39

Post by Kye »

dgb23 wrote: post #36
nsizx wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is, actually. Once you restrict what others can say there's no freedom of speech anymore. It's like China saying you can't talk about the regime - I'm sure they consider that "basic human decency" as well.

It's not a restriction of freedom of speech. This is just exercising freedom of association. "If you're an asshole, I won't broadcast your stuff." People are still free to be assholes, but the platform is free to not associate themselves with the assholes. Very simple.

It's even open source. Anyone who disagrees with the project's listing policy can make their own list.

https://source.joinmastodon.org/mastodon/joinmastodon

Re: Mastodon now a non-profit organisation

#40

Post by swiley »

sneak wrote: post #34
asutekku wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That’s just basic human decency right there.

Human decency involves not telling other adults what they are allowed to peaceably publish or read. I find imposing censorship on others a denial of their basic rights to free expression, and is itself an indecent act.

You'll note quoto.org is at the top of the technology oriented instance list. I know the admin to some degree (he followed me almost immediately after I joined) and while he won't tolerate you using his instance to harass people he's vocally tolerant of good faith arguments in favor of unpopular ideas and won't prevent you from following any account publishing legal content.

While free speech is not a goal of Mastodon the technology is very conducive to it and many of the admins are reasonable people.

[1]https://joinmastodon.org/communities/tech

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