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What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

jeremydormitzer.com

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Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#51

Post by eridius »

jklinger410 wrote: post #18
mikedilger wrote: post #17

What 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.…

For those who were unaware what happened to Wil ( http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-... )

For those of you who believe Wil's post, what actually happened was he got bofa'd and kind of went crazy. He started harassing other users, reporting anyone who said anything remotely negative about him, and going to the point of digging through users' old posts to find anything negative they might have said in the past, and when instances started blocking him, he used alt accounts (or assistants) to continue to harass people on those instances (this happened on at least one instance I know of, and I'm assuming it happened on others). He wasn't the victim of an internet mob, the people reporting him were doing so with very good reason.

And to put the cherry on this awful sundae, a lot of the people he was harassing were trans people, the very people that he caused such terrible problems for with his Twitter blocklist.

Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#52

Post by sincerely »

eridius wrote: post #51
jklinger410 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who were unaware what happened to Wil ( http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-... )

For those of you who believe Wil's post, what actually happened was he got bofa'd and kind of went crazy. He started harassing other users, reporting anyone who said anything remotely negative about him, and going to the point of digging through users' old posts to find anything negative they might have said in the past, and when instances started blocking him, he used alt accounts (or assistants) to continue to hara…

Wil is kind of notorious for freaking out on social media - it really doesn't seem like he has the temperament required to be a celebrity online. Remember when he wrote upwards of a thousand words complaining about the time someone made a lego minifigure of his character on star trek with a crying face?

Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#53

Post by afuchs »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #37
jklinger410 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who were unaware what happened to Wil ( http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-... )

Why do people like Wil blame Twitter for Alex Jones & Donald Trump? The only people being bothered are the people that want to be bothered. You can 1. Block people you don't want to see 2. Ignore it. Twitter is not forcing you to view pages you don't like. There are entire other extremely large groups of people that enjoy this stuff and are completely harmless.

What stops someone you blocked from asking their followers to harass you? Should it be possible to force someone to spend several hours a day blocking people?

Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#54

Post by eridius »

sincerely wrote: post #52
eridius wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those of you who believe Wil's post, what actually happened was he got bofa'd and kind of went crazy. He started harassing other users, reporting anyone who said anything remotely negative about him, and going to the point of digging through users' old posts to find anything negative they might have said in the past, and when instances started blocking him, he used alt accounts (or assistants) to continue to hara…

Wil is kind of notorious for freaking out on social media - it really doesn't seem like he has the temperament required to be a celebrity online. Remember when he wrote upwards of a thousand words complaining about the time someone made a lego minifigure of his character on star trek with a crying face?

I never saw that post, but it sounds like exactly the sort of thing he'd do.

Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#55

Post by yesenadam »

Twisol wrote: post #36
pathseeker wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's honestly not surprising that someone so divisive in the start of the post (twitter being right-wing, "Shitler", etc) would attract a lot of problems. The guy is clearly a political troll so he's going to be poison to any community he joins where he posts like that.

This comment is a stunning example of Poe's law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law

I know nothing about this issue except what I've read just now. Tell me, whose is the parody you're referring to? I don't get it.

Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#56

Post by droopybuns »

hello_marmalade wrote: post #29

The 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…

I feel like one of the truly unique aspects of American millennials is the widespread abandonment of a commitment to free speech.

It is so disheartening to hear people who earnestly equate physical violence with offensive speech. Mastodon offers a forum for people who see the wisdom of a commitment to free speech.

Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#57

Post by latexr »

prolikewh0a wrote: post #37
jklinger410 wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For those who were unaware what happened to Wil ( http://wilwheaton.net/2018/08/the-world-is-a-terrible-place-... )

Why do people like Wil blame Twitter for Alex Jones & Donald Trump? The only people being bothered are the people that want to be bothered. You can 1. Block people you don't want to see 2. Ignore it. Twitter is not forcing you to view pages you don't like. There are entire other extremely large groups of people that enjoy this stuff and are completely harmless.

A thought exercise:

Let’s say a popular HN user with a large following (let’s call them “Dex”) starts a campaign on HN to harass you. They start posting lies all over the site, claiming you hit puppies, spit in the coffee of blond people, and talk at the theatre. Dex has rabid fans that take his word over their own research, and those users start to hate you. You start getting hate messages, and they eventually dox you.

> The only people being bothered are the people that want to be bothered.

You don’t want to be bothered by Dex’s actions. You may not even have a clue who he is. Yet you are being bothered by his actions and those of his fans.

> You can 1. Block people you don't want to see

You can’t block people in real life, when they start sending packages of excrement to your house or start swatting you.

> 2. Ignore it.

Pretty hard to ignore AFK harassment that is targeting you and your family in your own home.

> Twitter is not forcing you to view pages you don't like.

By now it should be clear it’s not about being offended by words you don’t want to see.

> Why do people like Wil blame Twitter for Alex Jones & Donald Trump?

In our parallel, let’s say you and a large portion of HN know Dex’s actions are spiteful and based on lies with the sole objective of harming you, and you can prove it. Yet HN does nothing. Instead, it keeps making excuses as to why they won’t silence Dex, thus allowing the attacks on your person to continue.

Do you see the problem?

Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#58

Post by cabalamat »

hello_marmalade wrote: post #29

The 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…

> If an instance owner doesn't like what you say for any reason they boot you off.

Social media has to have some form of moderation/curation, otherwise it would just be full of spam.

> but then what's the point of federation?

Censorship is a fraught issue: Some people think lots of things should be blocked; other people think only things against the law should be; and yet others think not even that. There's no way of pleasing everyone. So having a federation of different instances allows each to have whatever moderation policies that suit them, instead of one size fits all.

Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#59

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

hello_marmalade wrote: post #29

The 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…

How do you you propose blacklisting spammers or dealing with material that is illegal in the server's country?

Re: What is ActivityPub, and how will it change the internet?

#60

Post by hello_marmalade »

MattJ100 wrote: post #30
hello_marmalade wrote: post #29

The 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.

Well more specifically, what I was trying to say is, if you wanted to be part of, say - the cross-stitching community, and you made a post about how over-under stitching sucks, and so the owner of that server banned you, and then let every other cross-stitching based mastodon know about your terrible stitching beliefs, then while you can still "join" another mastodon instance, you are effectively removed completely from the "cross-stitching community".

From what I'm aware of, this has kinda happened with certain instances have essentially been blackballed by the groups of instances which don't like them, or whatever.

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