James Fenn @james@is.a.horrific.dev

The power of a federated social network is that it is so cheap to kick somebody off your server and then block wherever they go. It is why Gab is a failure even tho they forked Mastodon. They can't talk to anybody... well, except the terfs I guess. Instance moderation works.

If you don't want vendor lock-in, stop using companies that have over 30 years history of locking you in!!!! It's actually not that hard!!!!!! There are at least 5 other popular versions of Github!!!! And most other things!!

Having led a few teams in my day, I can say for a fact Pleroma's attitude is an extension of who leads that project. As the saying goes, attitude reflects leadership.

It's not magic Pleroma is so friendly with Gab aligned instances. Bigots feel comfortable using and contributing too that project.

And that's intentional. I don't give a shit how well built it may or may not be.

It has been used to make not only fedi and the world in general an unsafer and more hateful place.

So Facebook took down the group that ORGANIZED the group of white terrorists that came specifically to Kenosho to kill people.

How long have we been SHOUTING about the the lack of responsibility these social media platforms have been showing has DIRECTLY lead to violence against targeted communities?

We keep telling you what the problem is but white people don't want to listen. And these terrorists take advantage of it.

We're seeing time and time and time and time again.

Imagine living in fear that on any given day, government agents could shoot you for any reason and face little to no repercussions.

Many don’t have to imagine it. It’s their reality.

When our actions aren’t enough to alleviate that reality and the fear it carries with it, we cannot respond by giving up or demanding approval.

Instead, we listen and learn to see the vision of a world without that fear.

And we hold that vision and take what actions we safely can to make that vision a reality.

Microsoft should not buy Mozilla. That's nuts. If we live in a world where it is inevitable that big tech companies buy independent open-source projects, then we are living in an unhealthy system. (which we are, but still)

Everyone clamors around GitHub because it feels nice (for now). But when (and it will happen, companies move against people and community by design) they move away from people, so many tools and components of the ‘community’ will be stuck behind those doors. (https://v2.jacky.wtf/post/85740de7-cbda-4f4e-a1c0-2f5df580b7ca)

https://anticapitalist.software/

Wow, ouch. I feel seen, and not in a good way. via https://diff.substack.com/p/working-in-public-and-the-economics

Technology doesn’t solve anything. It’s a mechanism for leverage.

When we grant that power freely, without thought to the way that leverage will be applied by we abdicate our responsibility as technologists.

Sometimes this is done due to coercion (We gotta eat!) but sometimes it is done for ego (People won’t adopt my project if it’s not MIT!)

I'm enjoying @1br0wn's paper, "Interoperability as a tool for competition regulation", explaining how governments can use open standards like ActivityPub to break up Big Tech monopolies. Really interesting reading, and it cites Mastodon specifically as a place where interoperability has benefits to content moderation (which is something I've been saying for years!)

https://osf.io/preprints/lawarxiv/fbvxd

(h/t @doctorow for linking this!)

cc @cwebber

I wrote a small entry (which, tbh, I should have written on my blog first - think I’ll [PESOS][] that) that’s like a small rant and - I don’t know, tbh. https://buttondown.email/jackyalcine/archive/should-i-just-give-in-like-it-doesnt-get-any/ (https://v2.jacky.wtf/post/52a28537-7535-4ecb-9d9c-27c1af4b85ba)

The Twitter hack is the latest in a long line of failures of centralised platforms. Regardless, the decentralised community underestimates resilience of these platforms and remains dangerously unprepared for the wolves that howl at the door of our users.

"This is Fine": Optimism and Emergency in the Decentralised Network.

https://newdesigncongress.org/en/pub/this-is-fine/