Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon • Hacker News Board

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#221

Post by gargron » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:28 PM UTC

inkblotuniverse wrote: post #127

throwawaysea wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The big problem I have with Mastodon is that it has a culture of censorship equivalent to Facebook. My recollection is that to be listed in their directory of instances, you need to abide by the content rules created by key Mastodon people, and those instances in turn are required to only peer with other instances that follow the same rules. Those rules basically include moderation based on various progressive politi…

Mastodon follows the activitypub protocol. There are other backends that implement the same protocol, like Pleroma; the Fediverse (all the systems that use activitypub) is bigger than mastodon, and much bigger than mastodon.social and co. There's a sort of blocking firewall around mastodon.social and sites broadly on the same 'side' as it, in that all these servers tend to share blocklists. One of the things they'll…

We at mastodon.social don't copy our blocklist from anybody and don't consider ourselves to be on anyone's "side". Our blocklist is of a quite reasonable length for 5 years of operation and based on personal experiences of our moderation team only:

https://mastodon.social/about/more#unavailable-content

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#222

Post by gargron » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

throwawaysea wrote: post #111

mikeytown2 wrote: post #22

https://joinmastodon.org/ Might as well see what FB is scared about

The big problem I have with Mastodon is that it has a culture of censorship equivalent to Facebook. My recollection is that to be listed in their directory of instances, you need to abide by the content rules created by key Mastodon people, and those instances in turn are required to only peer with other instances that follow the same rules. Those rules basically include moderation based on various progressive politi…

> My recollection is that to be listed in their directory of instances, you need to abide by the content rules created by key Mastodon people, and those instances in turn are required to only peer with other instances that follow the same rules. Those rules basically include moderation based on various progressive political stances, so you can’t honestly discuss controversial topics from different perspectives.

Here are the requirements for us to promote your server:

https://joinmastodon.org/covenant

The only hard requirement related to content is that racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia be not allowed. There is no requirement to peer with anyone or have any specific political stances. If your political stance or perspective requires you to dehumanize people of different races or sexual orientation, then yes, you are not welcome.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#223

Post by Nevermark » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:31 PM UTC

tayo42 wrote: post #215

Nevermark wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well maybe the big powerful corporation should be up front about what it moderates and what it doesn't, and changes in policy as it learns. Then abide by and reference that. That way people can understand why their post was removed without having to speculate. Maybe filtering changes should be rolled out slowly at first, with every customer complaint analyzed, to catch these bugs you speak of before they are widespre…

Your making excuses for being confidently uninformed.

I have not bothered to speculate why the took action in the case being discussed here.

Not informing customers, then being amused that they are uninformed (and some invariably speculate), is not a solution to anything.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#224

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:33 PM UTC

dragonelite wrote: post #192

rapnie wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There may be more reasons to see Mastodon as a potential threat. There's something of a different paradigm to it. First of all it is decentralized (federated), and anyone can spin up servers for themself or a community of users, set their own topic and rules (CoC, ToS) and connect with the larger social network (the Fediverse). Second of all this fediverse is based on open-standards and anyone can develop their own s…

uuhm going back to a time before the algos took over my timeline would be awesome.

For those innocent days of Usenet k00ks, crapfloods, MAKEMONEYFAST, sockpuppets, crossposts, GREEN CARD, spam, warez, pr0n, Serdar Argic, and Hasan Mutlu.

And the ~100,000 or so people who actually used that network.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#225

Post by dredmorbius » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:35 PM UTC

spoonjim wrote: post #92

stncls wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, Facebook's upper management is definitely not freaking out about Mastodon. However, from my own experience working at a large, somewhat ethically-challenged organisation (not fb), it would not surprise me in the least if they gently yet actively pushed down a competitor, provided it can be done discreetly.

Mastodon is a “competitor” to Facebook the way a grandma doing middle school tutoring in her backyard is a competitor to Harvard.

Grandmas don't tend to undergo exponential growth.

Networks can.

Whether or not Mastodon will is another question. (I've been on it since ~2016.) But in FB's position, paranoia pays, and is worth throwing billions at, if deemed a sufficient threat.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#226

Post by schmorptron » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

silisili wrote: post #70

schmorptron wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a timeline that randomly mixes in posts from users from other instances whom users from your instance follow

Perfect. I'll give it a go. Any specific recommendations? I figured mastodon.social just because it's the largest, is that bad reasoning?

I've found koyu.space to be very friendly, as long as you're cool with left leaning politics posts in there.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#227

Post by rglullis » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:36 PM UTC

LinuxBender wrote: post #115

folmar wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but then it's probably not the best tool for whatever you need.

Thankyou. Yes I currently use Murmur/Mumble + UnrealIRCd + phpBB for friends. Just exploring options. The UI's of my existing choices are a little dated.

Federation can be disabled and it will still work totally fine.

I am just wondering why is it such a hard requirement for you to stop other people to follow someone else that is not part of your server? Costs?

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#228

Post by minoru » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:38 PM UTC

pokey00 wrote: post #213

judge2020 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, on mastodon you can follow @someone@anothermastodon.local even if you are on firstmastodon.local, and the server running your instance will phone out to anothermastodon.local to retrieve posts from the person you follow.

Does firstmastodon.local need to be federated with anothermastodon.local for you to follow someone on it? I don't understand the system well enough to know if this is a dumb question or not.

Ain't a dumb question at all! It actually takes reading the ActivityPub specs to answer it, so no surprise if you didn't get it just from reading the landing page ;)

The answer is: it'll happen automatically. Just search for someone's handle, and your server will talk to that other server. When you follow that other users, your server will start federating with that other servers.

Note though that servers might block each other. For example, many Western servers block Japanese pawoo.net, since it allows posting lolicon. Western servers don't want this content in their timelines and caches, so they block it. If your server blocks another.social, you won't be able to follow anyone on there.

But your question also hints at a real problem with Fediverse (of which Mastodon is a part), which is: each instance only sees a subset of the Fediverse. Thus, searching by hashtag will only get you a subset of all posts that contain it. Full-text search is even more complicated.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#229

Post by wussboy » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:41 PM UTC

rglullis wrote: post #218

ribosometronome wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would be, but also you showed him pictures to prove it, he just didn't know they were photoshopped. And linked him to a news article on thebostontribune.com that was reporting that his kids were dead. And his family and friends were sharing their condolences. It's not as if folk AREN'T acting on misinformation or showing that they aren't really capable of distinguishing between the two. Tons can. And tons won't re…

This seems like really stretching the analogy just to remove personal responsibility. If I am the father of the missing children and I see the "family and friends" sharing their condolences, I would go talk to them first. If someone comes with pictures trying to accuse someone of something, no matter how shocking the accusations, there would still be the question of (a) why is someone bothering with taking pictures a…

Thanks for your reply, rlgullis.

The extremes of my example were only to show that there could be real and serious consequences from misinformation rather than silence. If we dial it back from "killing my neighbour" to "lost my job" or even "missed my bus", I believe my point still stands. In many scenarios that we experience every day, we would be better served by accepting censure over misinformation.

You claim "we should always operate on the premise that our information is incomplete, inaccurate or distorted by those controlling the information channels" and I agree with you in theory. But in practice this is impossible. The human brain is physically unable to work everything through from first principles. This makes sense conceptually and has been verified in research.

And this to me is the fundamental issue of our time:

In theory, social media and unrestrained free speech are a boon for all society.

In practice they have turned people against each other with very real and serious consequences.

Re: Facebook Censored Me For Mentioning Open-Source Social Network Mastodon

#230

Post by exporectomy » Sat, Sep 11, 2021, 10:43 PM UTC

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #146

ineedasername wrote: post #32

Interesting how "because COVID" has become the thinly veiled excuse here. A similar manifestation of the "think of the children" trope that can be used to manipulate emotions and shut down dissent.

> Interesting how "because COVID" has become the thinly veiled excuse here. The message says it triggered spam filters. It's not related to COVID misinformation. The only place COVID appears is in the warning that their manual review queues are longer than normal due to COVID.

Yes, that's the excuse. It's equivalent to "because we don't want to pay for it."