The Nexus of Privacy / is on Nostr

A newsletter about #privacy, #technology, #policy, #strategy, and #justice.

Currently at The Nexus of Privacy (npub14qf…w4yn), but looking for a new home and so checking out infosec.exchange

Newsletter: https://thenexusofprivacy.net

Last Notes

2024-10-15 06:17:19

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More questions than answers: another post about the Social Web Foundation and the fediverses
https://privacy.thenexus.today/swf-questions/
(Part 4 of "I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS Army, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!", but like other posts in the series it hopefully stands on its own)
#fediverse #ActivityPub #swf

2024-10-14 05:08:44

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The Social Web Foundation and the big elephant in the federated room
(Part 3 of the series)
https://privacy.thenexus.today/swf-and-the-meta-elephant/
Contents:<li>Intro</li><li>Let's talk about Meta</li><li>Meanwhile, back in reality ...</li><li>SWF could potentially be a useful counterweight to Meta (although I'm not holding my breath) </li><li>There are many different ways to engage</li><li>SWF and the Schism Within the Fediverses</li><li>To be continued!</li>
(originally publshed with a different title, but it didn't work well as a link preview so I changed it)
#fediverse #swf #SocialWeb

2024-09-10 05:19:45

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On second thought, an even better way to welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS Army, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses is to write a *series* of posts about it ...
Here's part 2: Is Bluesky part of today's Fediverse?
Spoiler: it depends on your definition of "Fediverse"
https://privacy.thenexus.today/is-bluesky-part-of-todays-fediverse/
#fediverse #bluesky #activitypub

2024-09-09 21:27:02

I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS Army, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!
And what better way to do that than with a long post about it?
https://privacy.thenexus.today/bluesky-atmosphere-fediverse/
#bluesky #fediverse #activitypub

2024-08-31 17:39:07

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https://bsky.social/about/bluesky-and-the-at-protocol-usable-decentralized-social-media-martin-kleppmann.pdf discusses Bluesky's approach to federation. A key difference is that their AT Protocol it's a protocol for *public* conversations. There isn't any direct analogy of a fediverse instance (although a AppView is instance-like). One key improvement over today's AP implementations are that the storage layer is separate so you can in principle host your own data (although it's still kind of janky, and only a few hundred people do) and perhaps at some point hosting services will emerge. https://berjon.com/ap-at/ looks at how AP could be implemented on top of AT
@npub18cr…ak0z

2024-08-28 17:55:56

Bluesky introduces anti-toxicity features -- including permission on quote posts
https://bsky.social/about/blog/08-28-2024-anti-toxicity-features
Some of the other highlights:<li>"hiding" replies, meaning they don't show up in the thread (aka conversation) view</li><li>timed word mutes</li><li>seeing where a post has been quoted, and the ability to "detach" a specific quote (so that you can't get to it from the original post)</li><li>notification filtering (somewhat similar to in Mastodon 4.3)</li><li>only showing replies from people you follow in the "following" feed (their equialent of the Home feed) if it's a reply to somebody you also follow (this matches Mastodon's behavior; previously, Bluesky showed all replies from people you follow in the home feed)</li>
All in all, it's serious progress, and builds on their previous work with reply permissions. It'll be interesting to see how #mastodon's upcoming quote boost feature compares.
#bluesky

2024-06-01 19:50:41

Happy Pride! From last year, here's "A (partial) queer, trans, and non-binary history of Mastodon and the fediverse" on
@npub10y8…6et3
https://wedistribute.org/2023/06/a-partial-queer-trans-and-non-binary-history-of-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/
As @npub1sdm…gc35 says “Queer people built the Fediverse.”
But also ...
"Despite all the major contributions they’ve made, queer, trans, and non-binary people of all colors have also been marginalized in Mastodon. The stories of their contributions are rarely told and when they are it’s rarely from a queer perspective, leading to the erasure I talked about above. And Mastodon and the fediverse have gotten big enough that there’s more and more money and other opportunities floating around. how much is going to queer, trans, and non-binary people? This is something that really needs to change going forward. "
#lgbtq #lgbtqia #pride #fediverse

2024-05-15 02:15:49

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great thread. It would be great to know more about the word fediverse was getting used in 2012, the [The Federated SNS (Fediverse) Historical Timeline](https://codeberg.org/ddfon/federated-sns/src/branch/main/fediverse-history.markdown?ref=privacy.thenexus.today#fn:user-content-coined-fediverse-twitter ) likes to a [Twitter archive](https://web.archive.org/web/20221210085942/https://twitter.com/search?q=%28fediverse%29+until%3A2013-01-31+since%3A2006-01-01&f=live ) that doesn't show usage really picking up until early 2013. But then again that's usage on Twitter ... what about actually on the (proto-)fediverse?

2024-04-22 19:13:14

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There's always room for improvement in the user interface but it's actually prety hard for a user to block a domain unintentionally. It's not even an option from an individual post; you have to go to the profile. And when I click on "block domain" from a profile, here's the dialog I get -- it warns that you might not want to do this and makes it explicit that you'll lose all your followers from that domain.
[@schizanon](https://mastodon.social/@schizanon) [@mike](https://flipboard.social/@mike)
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/112/316/446/566/054/611/original/6050e5f6a458d53a.png

2024-04-22 18:04:41

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Interesting discussion, thanks for sharing!
In terms of [@rklambo](https://threads.net/@rklambo/)'s point about the value of individual users being able to block servers, I agree this is important -- and, it's possible in Mastodon. Here's a writeup I did on it last month. https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/
Also as Rachel noted, Meta's policies are crafted with input from civil rights groups as well as other stakeholders. That's good, and I think there's a lot to learn from this work.
It's worth highlighting though that good policies by themelves aren't enough. We sometimes see that on the fediverse today with instances that have policies against racism, islamophobia and anti-LGBTQ+ bigotry but don't consisntently enforce them. This has been a major challenge for Meta as well, and their lack of enforcement of these policies has been strongly critiqued by those same civil rights groups -- see the recent GLAAD report [Unsafe: Meta Fails to Moderate Extreme Anti-trans Hate Across Facebook, Instagram, and Threads](https://glaad.org/smsi/report-meta-fails-to-moderate-extreme-anti-trans-hate-across-facebook-instagram-and-threads/). So as Meta considers making moderation tools available to the fediverse, it's crucial to make sure they don't replicate these problems.
More positively, though, if Meta's willing to share detailed information about how the tools are designed, implemented, and tested -- and work with people in the fediverse and civil rights organizations to improve them -- there really is an opportunity for a breakthrough here.
[@mike](https://flipboard.social/@mike) [@pcottle](https://threads.net/@pcottle/)

2024-04-16 03:07:53

Eight tips about consent for fediverse developers
https://privacy.thenexus.today/consent-for-fediverse-developers/
There's a difference in opinion in the #fediverse on whether it's important to get consent to use somebody's public posts for a purpose they didn't originally intend it for. Some think this is just fine, or that it's enough to assume consent and give people the ability to "opt out" and withdraw consent. Others think that these uses should require informed, affirmative, "opt in" consent.
The good news is that this means there's a huge opportunity for fediverse developers here. From a strategy perspective, focusing on opt-in can be a powerful way to add unique value to an underserved audience.
Less positively, though, that's not how everybody approaches it. So there's a long history of developers writing or proposing fediverse search engines, scrapers, bridges and other services that use people's public posts without opt-in consent ... and suddenly being in the middle of a firestorm of criticism and feedback.
So if you're a developer working on a fediverse app or service and want to get it right – or just don't want to be the center of the next firestorm – here are a few suggestions.<li>Consent matters, even for public posts</li><li>Get broad feedback before launching – and listen to it</li><li>Honor existing opt-in and opt-out mechanisms</li><li>Include an additional opt-in mechanism for your service if it's not just a search engine or profile discovery (or something very close to them)</li><li>Make sure to communicate that you're taking an opt-in approach and honoring existing mechanisms</li><li>DON'T say the things that developers who ignore consent typically say</li><li>Be extra careful if you're a cis guy</li><li>Look at opt-in as an opportunity for a potential competitive advantage</li>
[@fediversenews](https://venera.social/profile/fediversenews) [@fedidevs](https://venera.social/profile/fedidevs)

2024-04-01 16:57:35

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"And I would have gotten away with it too if it weren't for you meddling open source developers!"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JV3tUPlYn98