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Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

infosec.exchange

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Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#261

Post by yardie »

weinzierl wrote: post #183
yardie wrote: post #159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don’t own your followers. When you move they get a notification you moved and their following lists are adjusted accordingly.

Not when the instance you are on is banned or otherwise disappears and you use your exported data to "revive" your account on a different instance (with a different handle), which is the scenario I proposed above.

The only way to avoid that is to stand up your own instance. And that is the great thing about decentralized systems. Because you as a user have no visibility into the systems, finances, nor management of any of these platforms.

I still blog on a server I rent but the backup is hosted in a server in my closet. I’m fully aware that rental can go away any time. And that’s been the case for decades.

Maybe it’s a generational thing but it appears people assume these platforms owe them something. The TOS makes it clear they owe them very little. So you can be muted, banned or deleted at any moment.

I’ve watched many social networks disappear and end up in the footnotes of a Wikipedia article. Nothing about the internet is guaranteed nor permanent. Twitter nor Mastodon owe you anything.

Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#262

Post by 323 »

hk__2 wrote: post #222
323 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But everything about Mastodon seems badly designed and engineered. The focus on "servers" seems technologically anachronistic Jack linked to nostr which tries to solve some of these problems: https://nitter.it/jack/status/1603945963944480768 > The problem with Mastodon and similar programs: - User identities are attached to domain names controlled by third-parties; - Server owners can ban you, just like Twitter; Se…

https://github.com/nostr-protocol/nostr > How do I find people to follow? > > First, you must know them and get their public key somehow And here lies the main problem of most of these decentralized alternatives: how do you discover new content? One of the biggest innovation of Twitter was to be able to follow a hashtag-- say #SomeEvent2022 and you see all tweets using that hashtag, not only those of people you follo…

You can implement search on top of crypto hashes. This is how decentralized P2P file networks like Kad worked.

The discovery doesn't need to be at protocol level. You can have some servers following large number of accounts, analyze the feed, create a "trending" list and publish that under their own account that you follow. Then you can have second level "trending" servers which aggregate over first level ones if you want even more "trendiness"

Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#263

Post by mmastrac »

skissane wrote: post #185
weinzierl wrote: post #135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think I'm in the same demographic as you, but I don't see it as negatively. Most of the issues you mentioned don't bother me as much or could be fixed. The only thing that concerns me is the risk of defederation. Why would anyone want to run an instance if they (and their users) are at the risk of being excluded on the whim of a small and intransparent group of people? I mean so far moderation on Mastodon seems to…

> I mean so far moderation on Mastodon seems to work, but it still does not sit right with me that we basically replaced a dictatorship with the (benevolt) oligoply of the group of most popular server's owners. Elon Musk has made some dumb moderation calls, but he seems open to changing some of them in response to popular feedback and media pressure. I don’t know if the same is true of those people. If new Twitter ba…

Has he really though? Apparently now he's banning journalists asking him for comments on stories. It seems to be getting worse and more arbitrary on his end.

https://taylorlorenz.substack.com/p/elon-musk-banned-me-from...

Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#264

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

rdpintqogeogsaa wrote: post #236
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How are they not in compliance?

For example by not providing a privacy policy that contains all the information required by GDPR article 14.

Wouldn't that be only applicable if they were harvesting people's information submitted by other people?

My first thought is that people running Mastodon wouldn't qualify as data controllers, but I am no expert in GDPR laws.

Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#265

Post by that_guy_iain »

codeflo wrote: post #39

I'm exactly in the target demographic that desperately wants a a return to the old, decentralized, protocol-based internet. We need working alternatives to Twitter to prevent a single mentally unstable billionaire from having this kind of power. But everything about Mastodon seems badly designed and engineered. The focus on "servers" seems technologically anachronistic, but worse, fragments the community and creates…

> I'm exactly in the target demographic that desperately wants a a return to the old, decentralized, protocol-based internet. We need working alternatives to Twitter to prevent a single mentally unstable billionaire from having this kind of power.

Personally, I think we should have this stuff regulated. We have power, mail, phones, internet, etc but most of the internet just isn't. Which seems really odd considering that for most people their Outlook/Google email is far more important to them than their postal mail but can be taken away from them because they emailed a photo to a doctor. Your revenue generating Twitter account can be suspended because you tweeted something some random person just didn't like with no real recourse. YouTube is probably the worse for kneecapping people's livilhoods over dodgy claims.

Decenteralized just seems like it'll be a pain for me to find stuff. And instead of being held hostage by a big company with policies and processes and money to sue them. You're being held hostage by some random guy who may decide he doesn't like being connected to a certain network and all of sudden you've got to create a new account somewhere else.

Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#266

Post by concordDance »

blacklight wrote: post #134

I am an admin of a small instance that most likely isn't on Twitter's block list, so my profile name and description could report the link to my Mastodon profile without getting me banned. However, even without a ban from their side, this has really been the last nail in the coffin between me and Twitter. Suspending accounts for posting links to another (open-source) social network is wrong on so many levels that I d…

Note that the vast vast vast majority of people and posts on Twitter are not fascist. Stinky shithole I'll grant, but that's been true for a decade.

Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#267

Post by mmastrac »

RivieraKid wrote: post #253

I don't think Mastodon has any chance of overtaking Twitter. Here's how I would do it: Create basically a clone of Twitter, with the same UI and functionality. The goal would be to make transition as seamless as possible. I have no interest in learning about why Mastodon works, why it runs on multiple domains and getting used to its UI. I just want Twitter without Elon. Make it possible to easily transfer your data,…

It's not about the look of the social network - it's about the people you are interested in moving to a place and you following them. Mastodon has been that for me (the infosec people moved over and enough interesting "celebs") and I've been enjoying my time after a couple of days of adjustment.

Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#268

Post by skissane »

vidarh wrote: post #246
skissane wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of friction at even getting started doesn’t bode well for Mastodon’s success - forcing people to pick a server: how do they choose? Go with the one everyone talks about? Closed to new signups. Pick some other one, run the risk that it closes (the owner gets bored, it becomes too much work, they find keeping it up and stable too hard). Or else that it gets “defederated”, and hence you get effectively banned,…

> This kind of friction at even getting started doesn’t bode well for Mastodon’s success - forcing people to pick a server: how do they choose? How do you choose anything? On joinmastodon.org/servers you're presented with filter options and descriptions. You look at the descriptions and pick one you think you'll like. If you don't, you can do an account move. Plenty of people will be happy to help. Personally I'm per…

> This is a highly exaggerated risk unless you go out of your way to find a server full of racists or other people that should instantly make it clear to you it's likely you'll face blogs. Some people will insist this or that mainstream server is banned everywhere (e.g. some say that about mastodon.social), and in reality unless the server is obviously bad it often turns out to be a few inconsequentially tiny instances which block them. Look at the list of banned instances on a handful of servers and you'll see that most places it's not very long and most of it is made up of a core set of common culprits

Look at how many controversies there have been about whether Twitter should or shouldn’t ban some controversial figure (everyone from Donald Trump to J K Rowling). What happens if Mastodon gets similar controversies, and then big Mastodon server operators disagree among themselves about how to respond, and then block each other’s servers out of that disagreement? Nobody can say it can’t happen, I can’t see any guardrails to prevent such splits. If anything, Mastodon’s community seems to be full of people who think that Twitter (whether pre or post Musk) is insufficiently moderated and not banning enough people, which seems to make such a development only more likely

Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#269

Post by lettergram »

lapcat wrote: post #251
lettergram wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair enough, perhaps it just seemed that way? Idk Also, interesting to see you on HN (didn’t realize you were in the tech space). I saw you on Tim Pools show, recognized the name

> Also, interesting to see you on HN (didn’t realize you were in the tech space). I saw you on Tim Pools show, recognized the name I am not Matt Binder. I just linked to his tweet.

Lol fair, then I’ll bring up how he was disingenuous on the Tim pool show (my impression anyway). Where he also advocated for abortion “after birth” and clearly was not being honest (or maybe he was idk lol). There were also several items of discussion where it appeared there were outward attempts to deceive.

I don’t view that dude as overly credible.

I personally have seen most people receiving a clear explanation. Previously, I’d had accounts banned without ANY explanation. I’m still suppressed in comment responses for some reason (on a different account)

Re: Twitter's anti-Mastodon filter evasion

#270

Post by ndsipa_pomu »

JumpinJack_Cash wrote: post #233
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, but the Italians are rubbish at buildings (source: I went to Rome and half the buildings are in ruins)

I don't think Germany can claim buildings superiority either given the lack of skyscrapers

The Berlin TV Tower is fairly tall
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