Attention Beige Party-goers! State of The Instance - July 2024
Well, better late than never! I'm in the Pacific time zone so it's technically still July over here. It's been another busy month so I'm running behind again, but I did want to briefly go over moderation policy, because I've gotten a few reports related to an issue that's not covered by our current server rules and I would like to have a more defined policy in place.
New Rule Proposal: Content Attribution and Generative AI
When I started this instance I pretty much just ripped off mastodon.social's instance rules because I figured they knew what they were doing over there and their rules seemed like a good place to start. Over time I have tweaked them slightly to further clarify things that I thought were too ambiguous, and for the most part I think they have been sufficient to effectively moderate this instance. But I adopted these rules in late 2022, before generative AI really took off.
Since then, mastodon.social has adopted a new rule:
Rule #6: Content created by others must be attributed, and use of generative AI must be disclosed
Content created by others must clearly provide a reference to the author, creator, or source. For adult content, this should include performers. Accounts may not solely post AI-generated content.
What I like about this rule is that it's founded upon the principle of proper attribution. If we are posting content that is not our original creation, we should provide attribution so that it is clear who the original creator of the content is. This is generally good manners, and if we're talking in terms of copyright, it's the law. I live in the US, so in order to start this instance I had to register as a DMCA agent, which means I'm legally required respond to DMCA takedown requests.
Unfortunately, as we all know, Silicon Valley tech billionaires are exempt from such trifles as obeying the law. They designed large language models that are basically automated mass-copyright-infringement machines. They knew that they were violating the law, but they did it anyway because they figured that if they could get generative AI to the point where it actually worked, everyone would be so amazed by the technology that nobody would care about the massive copyright infringement going on under the hood. This tactic seems to have worked, which is, to put it mildly, not great. Like it or not, however, this technology exists, and it will continue to exist, so we need to deal with it.
I know there are those who will disagree with me on this position, but I don't think it makes a whole lot of sense to punish people for using these tools. The fact of the matter is that it's not us who funded this technology, it was billionaire assholes like Elon Musk. Generally speaking, most AI-generated content I have seen here has just been silly fun, and I think that living through the slow decline of global society, which has been instigated by billionaire assholes, entitles the rest of us to have a little silly fun as a treat. Given all that, I think a fair compromise is to require that AI-generated content at least be attributed as such, so that people are aware of the source of the content and can make their own decisions about how they choose to interact with it.
I'm not really sure what to make of the adult content clause. I haven't had to deal with that much here, and to the extent that I have, most of it has fallen into the "original content" category. I don't see any reason not to adopt it, so I am proposing that we adopt mastodon.social's rule as written.
I invite you to share your thoughts in the replies. As always, whatever policy we adopt, I want to make sure it's something that we can all understand and build a consensus around.
Ok, on to the numbers!
New sign-ups:
In the month of June we gained 25 new party-goers, for a grand total of 460 nifty non-fungible fedizens. Of those, 260 accounts have been active in the last month.
Welcome new party-goers! if you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me directly.
Finances:
For the month of June we received $290.00 in donations. After PayPal fees, that comes out to $253.53. We had $1,803.44 left over from May, so our total available funds for paying the June hosting fees was $2,056.97.
The hosting fees for June break down as follows:
VPS Hosting: $129.57
Foreign Transaction Fee: $3.49
S3 Storage: $10.87
SMTP Relay: $17.00
Total: $160.93
After paying the hosting bills for June, we have $1,896.04 left in donation funds. That's enough to keep us running for about a year, so we are in good shape. Thank you to all who donated!
I've already mentioned this in a previous post, but I'll restate it here for greater visibility. I have recently come down with a spot of that awful affliction known as hope, and I don't think it's too much of a stretch to say that most of you are here, at least in part, because you really don't like fascists. That was a big reason why I started this instance in the first place. So, if you are a US citizen, and were planning to donate to the ko-fi this month, I would encourage you to consider donating to ActBlue instead:
https://secure.actblue.com/donate/kamalaharris2024
I know this is specific to US politics, but unfortunately the consequences of US politics do not remain politely confined within the borders of the US, and a fascist takeover of this country would have disastrous effects around the world. I won't make a habit of mentioning US politics in my official capacity as admin of this instance, but the stakes of this feel too high for me to just stand by and say nothing.
For those who are unable, or would just prefer to donate to the ko-fi, you can do so here:
https://ko-fi.com/drinky
The link can also be found in my bio and on the about page for the site.
And once again a big thanks to all the Beige Party-goers. I am really proud of the community we have created here, and that has everything to do with you fine folks.
Beige-bless
