I recall seeing another's account of blowback from fielding the idea of functional searching. My engagement with people on mastadon has been remarkably limited. I mainly lurk. But in the small...
I recall seeing another's account of blowback from fielding the idea of functional searching.
My engagement with people on mastadon has been remarkably limited. I mainly lurk. But in the small handful of times I've tried to interact with people there, I've been met as an antagonist. I am not an antagonistic person by nature by a long shot. Granted, this is an incredibly small sample size and I shouldn't be taking it at an illustration of the community as a whole. But it's hard not to when combined with other impressions.
I see these forays into mastadon searchability as a mechanism of testing security resilience. This concept was even mentioned in this write-up as well as the other I read through (sorry I don't have a link for it; it was remarkably similar with regards to blowback). So in my mind, the signal being sent isn't just "we want privacy", it's also "we don't want to know about privacy issues". Lack of noindex propagation is a prime example.
It can be assured that bad actors do and will continue to take advantage of any given lack of security feature. Exclusion from federation will likely only eliminate a percentage of the whole, as plenty will slip by unnoticed. Finding and resolving issues, coming up with improved models, and working with the people within the community who are motivated to do the digging would all be necessary to improve upon matters. Instead, those efforts seem to simply be met with stamping of feet, planting of a flag, and a pronouncement of "this is our town!"
It's in keeping with my own small sampling of interactions. Has more of a feel of driving others out of town than it does of trying to build up a community. Which, given the state of social media as a whole, is unsurprising. I think that what's currently most desired in social media is more insular than what mastadon's design has to offer. I've found far more value in the limited feedback from people who I like and trust than I did from having a broad audience with all its varied responses. The loss of a broad audience is hard to get past at first. The feeling of being seen by many is alluring. But the quality of interactions is fundamentally different.
I get the impression that a lot of people there are in the throes of grappling with that effect. While I'll continue to lurk the site for useful information, I stopped wanting to try to talk to people there. Hopefully they'll collectively come through the other side having figured out what they want from the platform and from online interactions in general.
Yeah, I found the reaction really interesting. I think there are—essentially—two major principles in conflict at least with the Searchtodon experiment, and therefore plausibly the Fediverse as a...
Yeah, I found the reaction really interesting.
I think there are—essentially—two major principles in conflict at least with the Searchtodon experiment, and therefore plausibly the Fediverse as a whole or in large part (n.b. I don't meaningfully participate, so this is at best the observations of an outsider):
The Internet is not a safe "space", socially speaking. Being accessible to the public Internet means you will be attacked, both technically (e.g. driveby password stuffing, random exploit attempts, DoS, etc.) and socially (harassment, unwanted archival, copyright infringement, SWATting). There is not generally any meaningful recourse possible for good actors.
A significant portion of the Fediverse seem to want a "friendlier", or at least more polite and respectful, online social space than those which otherwise exist (for example: they would like their posts not to be archived, potentially to be dug up and used as ammunition for harassment at a later date), which is itself not private.
To be clear, I don't think the second point is an unreasonable thing to want—I want it myself! But the point the author of this retrospective raises is that, in the presence of the first point, it's not possible. If you want public involvement in your social space, you must be prepared to go to war with online bad actors, which includes everyone from generic assholes and bored script kiddies, to states literally trying to influence public discourse. And (again, as a serious non-expert) it sounds like the Fediverse, both technically and socially—isn't. The main tool for fighting bad actors seems to be defederation, which is simultaneously far too imprecise and far too weak to be effective. (Are you really going to boot an entire other server for the actions of a single bad actor you don't think they're adequately addressing? And if you do, what's to stop that bad actor from creating an account on another server, or just standing up their own? Since public participation is wanted, any bad actor willing to give up their handle is indistinguishable from a desired new participant.) The control mechanisms the author mentioned are purely advisory, and nothing they were doing would have generated abnormal access patterns which would have attracted attention. If they hadn't talked about it (because they were explicitly trying to be a good actor), nobody would be the wiser.
I dunno. I don't have an answer to this. But I think the apparent current approach of, essentially, "rely on people to behave appropriately" has almost certainly already failed, and its failure is going to become impossible to ignore in a very unpleasant manner in the not-too-distant future. My personal answer has been to massively scale back my participation in non-private social spaces. (Note I'm defining essentially all in-person social events as "private" in this context.) But I do think that's sad, and I think we lose something that was very beautiful about the ability to have people from across the world participate when we close up our social circles like that.
(Finally, I want to reiterate that I am definitely not an expert on the Fediverse, either socially or technically. If I'm wrong in any of my assumptions above—of which there are many—I'd love correction, both because I think it's an interesting space and am interested in learning more, and because I'd really like my conclusions to be wrong. =)
I think this is slightly too pessimistic. For example, Tildes seems pretty good. Despite all our posts being searchable, I don’t think that’s been weaponized? I don’t recommend letting your guard...
I think this is slightly too pessimistic. For example, Tildes seems pretty good. Despite all our posts being searchable, I don’t think that’s been weaponized?
I don’t recommend letting your guard down, though. Posting under a pseudonym is an important line of defense, for anyone who needs it.
Tildes is young, small, and walking the line between public and private by virtue of being invite-only. I don't know of anyone having been harassed or targeted due to things they've posted here,...
Tildes is young, small, and walking the line between public and private by virtue of being invite-only. I don't know of anyone having been harassed or targeted due to things they've posted here, but the probability of it happening approaches one as our community ages, and especially if it tries to grow substantially.
It's definitely true that intentionally small and exclusive communities mitigate many of the issues I observe, and maybe that's a path forward. I agree with you that it's working well enough for Tildes. The problem the Fediverse has is that it doesn't want to be either of those things.
Yea, for sure it's one sided. That's kinda unavoidable considering I'm talking about my own impressions. Total of two interactions (I said I was a small sample size): posted something empathizing...
Yea, for sure it's one sided. That's kinda unavoidable considering I'm talking about my own impressions.
Total of two interactions (I said I was a small sample size): posted something empathizing with OP. One was met with basically I don't know what you're getting at, subtext of are you just looking for an argument? The other was met with Godwin's Law. Apart from that, I'm not going to get into details of the interactions. You're free to not take my word for it. Those examples were brought up only for context of my own personal impressions, not as evidence of the problems (which I think are sufficiently illustrated in the main post).
As for what people were upset about, my best guess is laid out in my previous post. I think people are just inherently wary of broadly scoped interactions due to the state of social media.
I recall seeing another's account of blowback from fielding the idea of functional searching.
My engagement with people on mastadon has been remarkably limited. I mainly lurk. But in the small handful of times I've tried to interact with people there, I've been met as an antagonist. I am not an antagonistic person by nature by a long shot. Granted, this is an incredibly small sample size and I shouldn't be taking it at an illustration of the community as a whole. But it's hard not to when combined with other impressions.
I see these forays into mastadon searchability as a mechanism of testing security resilience. This concept was even mentioned in this write-up as well as the other I read through (sorry I don't have a link for it; it was remarkably similar with regards to blowback). So in my mind, the signal being sent isn't just "we want privacy", it's also "we don't want to know about privacy issues". Lack of
noindexpropagation is a prime example.It can be assured that bad actors do and will continue to take advantage of any given lack of security feature. Exclusion from federation will likely only eliminate a percentage of the whole, as plenty will slip by unnoticed. Finding and resolving issues, coming up with improved models, and working with the people within the community who are motivated to do the digging would all be necessary to improve upon matters. Instead, those efforts seem to simply be met with stamping of feet, planting of a flag, and a pronouncement of "this is our town!"
It's in keeping with my own small sampling of interactions. Has more of a feel of driving others out of town than it does of trying to build up a community. Which, given the state of social media as a whole, is unsurprising. I think that what's currently most desired in social media is more insular than what mastadon's design has to offer. I've found far more value in the limited feedback from people who I like and trust than I did from having a broad audience with all its varied responses. The loss of a broad audience is hard to get past at first. The feeling of being seen by many is alluring. But the quality of interactions is fundamentally different.
I get the impression that a lot of people there are in the throes of grappling with that effect. While I'll continue to lurk the site for useful information, I stopped wanting to try to talk to people there. Hopefully they'll collectively come through the other side having figured out what they want from the platform and from online interactions in general.
Yeah, I found the reaction really interesting.
I think there are—essentially—two major principles in conflict at least with the Searchtodon experiment, and therefore plausibly the Fediverse as a whole or in large part (n.b. I don't meaningfully participate, so this is at best the observations of an outsider):
To be clear, I don't think the second point is an unreasonable thing to want—I want it myself! But the point the author of this retrospective raises is that, in the presence of the first point, it's not possible. If you want public involvement in your social space, you must be prepared to go to war with online bad actors, which includes everyone from generic assholes and bored script kiddies, to states literally trying to influence public discourse. And (again, as a serious non-expert) it sounds like the Fediverse, both technically and socially—isn't. The main tool for fighting bad actors seems to be defederation, which is simultaneously far too imprecise and far too weak to be effective. (Are you really going to boot an entire other server for the actions of a single bad actor you don't think they're adequately addressing? And if you do, what's to stop that bad actor from creating an account on another server, or just standing up their own? Since public participation is wanted, any bad actor willing to give up their handle is indistinguishable from a desired new participant.) The control mechanisms the author mentioned are purely advisory, and nothing they were doing would have generated abnormal access patterns which would have attracted attention. If they hadn't talked about it (because they were explicitly trying to be a good actor), nobody would be the wiser.
I dunno. I don't have an answer to this. But I think the apparent current approach of, essentially, "rely on people to behave appropriately" has almost certainly already failed, and its failure is going to become impossible to ignore in a very unpleasant manner in the not-too-distant future. My personal answer has been to massively scale back my participation in non-private social spaces. (Note I'm defining essentially all in-person social events as "private" in this context.) But I do think that's sad, and I think we lose something that was very beautiful about the ability to have people from across the world participate when we close up our social circles like that.
(Finally, I want to reiterate that I am definitely not an expert on the Fediverse, either socially or technically. If I'm wrong in any of my assumptions above—of which there are many—I'd love correction, both because I think it's an interesting space and am interested in learning more, and because I'd really like my conclusions to be wrong. =)
I think this is slightly too pessimistic. For example, Tildes seems pretty good. Despite all our posts being searchable, I don’t think that’s been weaponized?
I don’t recommend letting your guard down, though. Posting under a pseudonym is an important line of defense, for anyone who needs it.
Tildes is young, small, and walking the line between public and private by virtue of being invite-only. I don't know of anyone having been harassed or targeted due to things they've posted here, but the probability of it happening approaches one as our community ages, and especially if it tries to grow substantially.
It's definitely true that intentionally small and exclusive communities mitigate many of the issues I observe, and maybe that's a path forward. I agree with you that it's working well enough for Tildes. The problem the Fediverse has is that it doesn't want to be either of those things.
This sounds... One sided, to me. What do you mean, "met as an antagonist"? What were people upset about?
Yea, for sure it's one sided. That's kinda unavoidable considering I'm talking about my own impressions.
Total of two interactions (I said I was a small sample size): posted something empathizing with OP. One was met with basically I don't know what you're getting at, subtext of are you just looking for an argument? The other was met with Godwin's Law. Apart from that, I'm not going to get into details of the interactions. You're free to not take my word for it. Those examples were brought up only for context of my own personal impressions, not as evidence of the problems (which I think are sufficiently illustrated in the main post).
As for what people were upset about, my best guess is laid out in my previous post. I think people are just inherently wary of broadly scoped interactions due to the state of social media.