I'm wondering how decentralized systems based around ActivityPub plan to combat problems like spam and astroturfing? These seem to be easier to address in the walled garden platforms due to the administrators having a global view of the social networks. Decentralization on the surface seems to allow bad actors to more easily mask their activities from effective moderation.
What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
21–30 of 133 posts
Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
#22What could help Mastodon grow significantly is if the moderation on a large number of instances was toned down a bit. What happened to Wil Wheaton was a bit nuts. And conservative opinions are often banned due to being agressively labelled as hate or racist when they are usually not technically so. Most people don't want to be part of a social justice warrior authoritarian "fall in line or we will ban you" community.…
I’m not sure this is really an issue when we consider that there are gobs and gobs of completely unmoderated instances. You might be correct, but considering there are so many totally unmoderated instances and that anyone can easily attach their own instance to the network and have the exact level of moderation they deem appropriate for their community, im guessing it’s really just a matter of getting people away fro…
Completely unmoderated is also not the right balance. I wouldn't want to be part of a completely unmoderated instance. Moderation is tricky. I am suggesting only that the most politically charged forms of moderation be toned down.
Changing usernames when you change instances is also a very significant problem. Are there proposals for addressing that?
Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
#23Also take a look at DIF's Identity Hub - a large-scale initiative that goes far beyond a social server/mailbox, and incorporates solutions for the identity issues people here have flagged: https://github.com/decentralized-identity/identity-hub/blob/...
Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
#24Earlier quoted context omitted.
I’m not sure this is really an issue when we consider that there are gobs and gobs of completely unmoderated instances. You might be correct, but considering there are so many totally unmoderated instances and that anyone can easily attach their own instance to the network and have the exact level of moderation they deem appropriate for their community, im guessing it’s really just a matter of getting people away fro…
Completely unmoderated is also not the right balance. I wouldn't want to be part of a completely unmoderated instance. Moderation is tricky. I am suggesting only that the most politically charged forms of moderation be toned down. Changing usernames when you change instances is also a very significant problem. Are there proposals for addressing that?
Your username generally has to change if you don't like your email provider. Either that, or you host your own (ex: email@mydomain.blah).
That is a point though: moderators change over time and a moderation team you like one year may be grossly different 5-years from now. To "leave" to a new instance means to give up your old identity entirely.
Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
#25It can maybe change the Web, but not the Internet, and only a portion of it :)
ActivityPub is based on HTTP/JSON standards, for real-time solutions in other "out of Web" environments I'd prefer to use something like XMPP-Pubsub (that is built on top of TCP) directly.
XMPP can pretty much covers what ActivityPub offers (feeds, comments, articles publication) with a lot more related features (presences, contact list, video-conferencing, chatrooms…). Also, social features on XMPP are basically Atom 1.0 on top of Pubsub, so no need to convert Atom to some new JSON format, you simply embed it! (ArsTechnica on XMPP Pubsub https://nl.movim.eu/?node/news.movim.eu/ArsTechnica, or my personnal blog https://nl.movim.eu/?blog/edhelas@movim.eu).
Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
#26What could help Mastodon grow significantly is if the moderation on a large number of instances was toned down a bit. What happened to Wil Wheaton was a bit nuts. And conservative opinions are often banned due to being agressively labelled as hate or racist when they are usually not technically so. Most people don't want to be part of a social justice warrior authoritarian "fall in line or we will ban you" community.…
There might already be instances that have the policy you want. I don't know an easy way to find them, though.
As with BBS systems in the old days, there are lists, but it's a bit of a hunt.
Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
#27So.. I like this direction, but haven't the "decentralized social network" been tried a few times already? What different this time?
> So.. I like this direction, but haven't the "decentralized social network" been tried a few times already? What different this time?
It seems to be all an evolution. Gnu Social -> OStatus -> ActivityPub -> PeerTube.
As all things open source, every few years, a new innovation builds on top of already established communities and tries something new. True, ActivityPub / Masteodon are relatively new, but the roots of the network are well planted in the general Fediverse.
Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
#28Every community I know that's been started for the goal of 'protecting' some group has ended up as the most toxic tarpit imaginable.
Mastodon seems to be headed in the same direction.
Tone down the rhetoric of protecting peoples feelings and have actual human conversations instead. You will only attract the worst people from both sides of that debate if you keep it up.
You just made me orders of magnitude less likely to use it because all I heard there was "prepare for lots of drama".
Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
#29The idea that you should be able to shield or blind yourself to content is a flat out stupid one. Not to mention that the way Mastodon works kinda lends it self to the old issue of jerk forum admins. If an instance owner doesn't like what you say for any reason they boot you off. They can also share that information with other instances to block you from going to those instances as well. Sure, you could start your own or join an instance that doesn't do that kinda stuff, but then what's the point of federation?
Those are really the only two issues I have with Mastodon.
Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?
#30The idea that you should be able to shield or blind yourself to content is a flat out stupid one. Not to mention that the way Mastodon works kinda lends it self to the old issue of jerk forum admins. If an instance owner doesn't like what you say for any reason they boot you off. They can also share that information with other instances to block you from going to those instances as well. Sure, you could start your ow…
> Sure, you could start your own or join an instance that doesn't do that kinda stuff, but then what's the point of federation?
That is exactly the point of federation.
Maybe jerk admins are a real problem, maybe they aren't - but they can't boot you off the network, and you'll always have options.