The Nexus of Privacy

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

Currently at @nexusofprivacy, but looking for a new home and so checking out infosec.exchange

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nprofile1qqsvws4raj5lnukw4nma68e6g9chjmrrlxzejkz2c5jf98z0wn3zlaqcr6ydm

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Last Notes

2025-04-09 22:52:18

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Social Media Platforms Are Spreading Violent Warmongering Content Encouraging All-Out War Between Ethiopia and Eritrea, Again
A statement from @nprofile…fnss at https://www.dair-institute.org/blog/tigray-social/
"For the last 3 years, we have been researching and documenting the role of social media platforms in exacerbating the 2020-2022 Tigray war. We performed computational analyses to quantify the level of hate speech on these platforms, and interviewed content moderators to better understand the organizational practices that have resulted in the platforms’ failures to adequately curb genocidal language. These platforms pledged to do better following the revelation that they promoted violence that incited genocide against the Rohingya in 2016. Facebook claimed to do “longstanging work to protect people in Ethiopia” when confronted with its moderation failures during the 2020-2022 Tigray war which resulted in the genocide of Tigrayans. But we are seeing an acceleration of the same type of warmongering on social media platforms that we documented at the beginning of the catastrophic Tigray war in 2020.
It's not enough to perform a postmortem analysis after millions have been killed, maimed, or displaced, and merely promise to do better without delivering on that promise....
This spread of violent language is not unique to Facebook. Clear calls for mass violence and warmongering on TikTok, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube are exponentially growing with no signs of action by these companies. Supporters and opponents of both the Ethiopian and Eritrean governments have spent months antagonizing each other on these platforms, threatening to destroy each other on the battlefield, promoting the recruitment of fighters, and demonizing enemy factions. Renowned Ethiopian government-backed activists with hundreds of thousands of followers have flooded these platforms with clear calls for all-out war against Eritrea and the annexation of its territory."
#Ethiopia #Eritrea #Meta #Facebook #TikTok

2025-04-09 22:50:09

Effective moderation of social media to curb genocidal content
"The 2020-2022 Tigray war is reported to be the deadliest armed conflict of the 21𝑠𝑡 century, with an estimated 600 to 800,000 documented deaths and more than 100 thousand victims of rape as a weapon of war. Social media platforms were instrumental in spreading genocidal content during the conflict, and failure to effectively moderate hateful content resulted in the murder of civilians. This work investigates the expertise and processes required to effectively moderate such genocidal content, and compares these findings to the expertise and processes prioritized by social media platforms."
@nprofile…fnss's page has a 10-minute video and a link to the CHI paper, and a statement - which I'll include excerpts from in a reply.
#moderation #tigraygenocide #tigray #genocide

2025-04-09 22:44:02

2025-03-15 01:45:36

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@nprofile…pj45 I'm surprised to see you boosting this!
Bluesky data is public, and AI companies (and everybody else) can get access to it for free. Why do you think adding something robots.txt-y (that potentially creates legal liability for AI companies that ignore it) implies that they want to do deals with AI companies to scrape content?
@nprofile…zezf @nprofile…d3t6

2025-03-09 22:41:28

I'm trying out robin.live, which was demoed at #FediverseHouse today. The "about" page says that it will only show posts that are "pushed to it." (whatever that means) I wonder if this post will show up?

2025-02-25 03:40:32

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@nprofile…xt5t I saw that there was somebody from #Threads on the #RightsCon panel of "How we build a new social web".
Was their any disciussion of #FediPact, the "Free Fediverse", and and the strong opposition in so many areas of the fediverse to building a "new social web" that's baed on surveillance capitalism and anti-LGBTQIA2S+ policies?

2025-02-19 16:59:25

Media Justice's political education series on "WTF: The Rise of the Tech Broligarchy" kicks off TODAY
https://mediajustice.zoom.us/webinar/register/4917386973981/WN_piTafZEaQ3CzljIl5wypbQ#/registration
"A live biweekly show examining the actions of the Tech Broligarchy and the implications of their agenda over Trump’s first 100 Days in office. Join MediaJustice and movement leaders as we expose and resist how tech billionaires are bankrolling mass deportations, weaponizing social media for hate, stealing public resources, and destroying civil rights protections."
it's at 3:00 pm Pacific time / 6:00 pm Eastern: -- strrongly recommended!
#broligarchy #tech

2025-02-16 02:59:44

Organizing on decentralized social networks (1 / N)
The Nexus of Privacy is planning a series of online discussions and video/phone calls focusing on organizing on decentralized social networks. There's a range of topics to cover, including looking at the tradeoffs between the different platforms for different use cases, brainstorming how organizers can leverage these platforms, easy ways to start exploring, and ways for groups to move as a whole.
https://privacy.thenexus.today/organizing-on-decentralized-social-networks/ has a CryptPad survey (as well as a link to a version using Google Forms if you prefer that)
Or if you prefer, here are a couple of polls along with open questions, that cover some of the key information
#organizing #fediverse #bluesky

2025-01-20 06:35:12

What resources and/or suggestions do you have for newcomers?
It's great to see so many newcomers ... and with campaigns like #HelloQuitteX and #vamonosjuntas (and other social networks getting worse and worse) it really feels like we're at the start of another wave. Welcome!
The fediverse is very different than corporate social networks, and can be confusing -- especially at first. Fortunately, there are a lot of good tips and resources to make it better. Long-timers, please share your insights! Newcomers, if there are resources or suggestions you've found helpful -- or quetions you have -- please join in!
I'll kick things off ...
fedi.tips has a lot of great tips, beginning with their getting started guide.
If you use a screenreader, check out Accessibility resources for Mastodon and compatible software
How to find interesting people to follow? Check out hashtags, the local and explore feeds, directories like FediDevs' starter packs, and Mastodon’s Account Recommendations
Including "alt text" on pictures makes a huge difference for people who rely on screenreaders. Please do! Or, if you don't have the spoons (or are dealing with software that makes it hard to add alt text), use the #altText4Me hashtag to ask for help. FediTips has more details, along with other suggestions about how to make posts more accessible to blind and low-vision people.
There are a lot of different apps out there, and many people prefer them to the "official" ones. Personally I like Phanpy, both on my phone and laptop, but there are lots of other options too. If you've got a recommendation, please leave it in the replies!
What else? Suggestion welcome!
#welcome #fediverse

2025-01-19 03:18:59

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Pixelfed's rapid growth is very exciting. Still, until you have a mod team -- and the underlying software supports mod dashboards and roles -- please consider switching to invite-only registration (and encourage or even require other instances listed on pixelfed.org to do the same).
The opportunity isn't going to go away: Meta and Instagram aren't going to get any less evil, so people who are interested now will still be interested one you've got the team and softrware in place. In fact many other social networks have successfully used invite-only phases to build pent-up demand.
But a moderation disaster (which is increasingly likely as things grow without the proper tools and teams in place) could permanently damage Pixelfed's reputation in a way that's very hard to recover from. And, until there's good moderation support in the software, you're putting both the people who sign up and the people who are hosting instances at risk.
@nprofile…asy0

2025-01-08 19:04:09

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Agreed that Meta's changes are troubling and concerning. So I would strongly urge you and any instance admin exposing their users to the harassment there to reconsider their alignment with Threads and defederate now .
That's expecially for you and mastodon.social. Think about the message that you're sending: "Instead of proactively protecting people on this instance, we'll wait for you to be harassed and then take action on individual harassers. And, we'll make that the default for new Mastodon users!"
There's a huge opportunity for Mastodon here if you take a courageous position. So please do!
@nprofile…g8jv

2025-01-07 21:56:04

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It's worth highlighting how much organizing there's been here in the 18+ months since Meta first announced their plans to embrace, extend, and exploit the Fediverse.
@nprofile…wskp's Closing the Door to Remain Open: The Politics of Openness and the Practices of Strategic Closure in the Fediverse is a great overview.
And from June 2023, the "Why the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact is good strategy for people who want the fediverse to be an alternative to surveillance capitalism" section of Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ! talks about the importance of the #FediPact.

2025-01-07 21:11:54

With today's news that Meta is getting rid of fact checkers and changing its policies to allow more hate speech directed at trans and queer people, seems like a good time to resurface these detailed instructions on how to block Threads.
https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/
If you want even more protection, your best bet is to move to an instance that's blocking threads -- see https://fedipact.veganism.social to check the status of your instance. And I agree with @nprofile…aev3's recommendation in the excellent Untangling Threads
"I think the nearest thing to reasonably sturdy protection for people on fedi who have good reason to worry about the risk surface Threads federation opens up is probably to either…
block Threads and post followers-only or or local-only, for fedi services that support it, or
operate from a server that federates only with servers that also refuse to federate with Threads—which is a system already controversial within the fediverse because allowlists are less technically open than denylists."
#FediPact #meta #threads

2025-01-07 21:02:28

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Yep. I've got screenshots for both of these approaches in. https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/#from-profile
@nprofile…naem

2024-12-24 18:45:38

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@nprofile…7nr8 thanks for this! On page 5, you mention "better user retention" ... are there any metrics related to this? CC @nprofile…xt5t in casae you have the data.

2024-12-19 19:16:38

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@nprofile…v4kz you're a trendsetter!

2024-12-04 19:02:41

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For those who are concerned about harassment, stalking, and data harvesting threats from Threads ... if you're on an instance that doesn't block Threads, the risks just increased substantially.
How to block Threads on Mastodon - and a reminder that blocking on the fediverse only provides limited protections has instructions on how to block Threads, with screenshots -- although moving to an instance that does block Threads gives more protection. Here's a post with information about how to reduce the risks.
And @nprofile…g8jv @nprofile…8lpk and everybody else who does see the connection with Threads as a good thing, please understand that some people are in fact at risk here. It would be great to. have official statements on this both from Mastodon and Threads for how people who do feel they're at risk can protect themselves. Until that happens, please share information from me or (if these links aren't to your taste) others.

2024-12-04 18:27:58

It looks like Threads has taken their next incremental step in two-way federation: according to Mark F***ing Zuckerberg "now you'll be able to follow people from other fediverse servers who liked, followed or replied to federated profiles on Threads." As always in the fediverse, opinions differ:
If you're concerned about harassment, stalking, and data harvesting threats from Threads ... the risks just increased substantially. This post is for you, with information about how to dcerease them.
if on the other hand you're one of the many people here who see federaton with Threads as a good thing, then Zuckerberg's announcement is good news, and this post is for you to share with friends who are at risk.
So, if you don't want your posts going to Threads, now's a good time to move to an instance that blocks Threads.
If you're on an instnace that doesn't block Threads and don't want to move yet, you can still block the domain yourself. This doesn't provide as much protection as being on an instance that blocks Threads, but it's certainly better than nothing. How to block Threads on Mastodon - and a reminder that blocking on the fediverse only provides limited protections has instructions, with screenshots.
Still, if you're concerned about Threads, it really is much better to move to an instance that blocks them. Even this doesn't provide bulletproof protection, but it's stronger than individual domain blocking. Unfortunately, you can't move your posts (although you can create an archive), but you can usually keep of your followers.
@nprofile…u9u3 Transferring your Mastodon account to another server is a thorough guide. Erin Kissane's Notes From a Mastodon Migration and Cutie City's Migrating Servers are also very useful -- it's worth reading all of these before you move!
And if you're really concerned about the risks and want to have protection be as bulletproof as possible, I agree with Kissane's suggestions in Untangling Threads
"I think the nearest thing to reasonably sturdy protection for people on fedi who have good reason to worry about the risk surface Threads federation opens up is probably to either…
block Threads and post followers-only or or local-only, for fedi services that support it, or
operate from a server that federates only with servers that also refuse to federate with Threads—which is a system already controversial within the fediverse because allowlists are less technically open than denylists.
We're starting to see examples of that second approach now -- The Website League is one, an island network where none of the servers federate with Threads; see their December update for more. I expect we'll see more of these over time.
#threads #fedipact #fediverse

2024-12-04 15:52:00

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Sorry to hear about warhammer.social's possible closure.
A couple more useful links on migration that complement @nprofile…u9u3 excellent guide:
https://erinkissane.com/notes-from-a-mastodon-migration
https://guide.cutie.city/the-fediverse/migrating-servers/
@nprofile…mc0x @nprofile…vtvz

2024-12-02 22:07:51

Decentralization and erasure: Blacksky, Bluesky, and the ATmosphere
https://privacy.thenexus.today/decentralization-and-erasure-blacksky-bluesky-and-the-atmosphere-2/
There's been a lot of discussion about whether or not Bluesky and the ATmosphere (the ecosystem using the AT protocol) are decentralized. Blacksky runs three feed generators, a moderation service, and a work-in-progress personal data store (PDS) as well as providing a starter pack. And the vision for Blacksky "extends beyond any single platform".
That sounds pretty decentralized to me!
But as far as I can tell, nobody else in the discussion is talking about Blacksky as an actually-existing example of decentralization. What's with that?
#bluesky #blacksky #decentralization

2024-12-02 00:52:12

Here's The Website League's Devember update ... lots of progress! It also includes instructions for how to join the Website League.
https://buttondown.com/websiteleague/archive/website-league-update-for-december/

2024-11-27 01:26:07

Someone Made a Dataset of One Million Bluesky Posts for 'Machine Learning Research'
https://www.404media.co/someone-made-a-dataset-of-one-million-bluesky-posts-for-machine-learning-research/
Who, who could have predicted?
Well, everybody. Bluesky's an all-public artchiteture that's optimized for surveillance capitalism. But other than "everybody" ... who, who could have predicted?
#bluesky

2024-11-26 03:41:49

Here;s Digital Defense Fund’s Abortion Privacy Guide, created with the input of abortion workers, legal experts, digisec experts, and patients.
DDF's materials are always extremely high quality and this is no exception!
There's also a Canva version available with QR codes to download signal and instructions on how to erase your digital history.
#abortion #privacy
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/113/547/172/032/418/369/original/a4755d19504ce362.jpg
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/113/547/174/402/938/000/original/6cdddaf555fe1913.jpeg
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/113/547/176/776/435/031/original/567cd71c76705224.jpeg
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosec.exchange/media_attachments/files/113/547/179/257/952/981/original/ffd12e9ebe933e33.jpeg

2024-11-18 03:33:48

The official Mastodon web user interface and mobile apps aren't great from an accessibility perspective. Fortunately there are some better alternatives – and many of them also work with Mastodon-compatible software like Glitch, Hometown, GoToSocial, Akkoma, and Friendica.
https://privacy.thenexus.today/mastodon-accessibility-resources/
This is a draft, and I'm sure I missed a lot. Feedback welcome!
#mastodon #fediverse #accessibility

2024-11-17 04:29:21

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@nprofile…asy0 starter packs are certainly useful functionality. A couple questions, based on problems I've seen with Bluesky:
are they opt-in?
if not, do people get notified when they're added to a starter pack?
how do people remove themselves?
EDIT: also, will they pay attention to existing opt-out / opt-in signals? @nprofile…hj2e had some thoughts on that at
https://fietkau.social/@julian/113469285233683859

2024-11-16 20:44:26

UPDATED: I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, millions of Brazilians, Black Twitter, and sex worker Twitter to the fediverses!
https://privacy.thenexus.today/bluesky-atmosphere-fediverse/
Yes, Bluesky's problematic in a lot of ways -- and I added a new section on that. But people leaving Xitter are looking for a Twitter alternative, and Mastodon (and other fediverse platforms) isn't a great option for that for most people. So while it's quite possible that a year or two from now everybody will be saying "oh shit time to move again", right now Bluesky is incredibly valuable.
Of course there's a lot more to social networking than Twitter alternatives, and there's plenty of good stuff happening here too. Still there are some problems we really need to address. So right now things are coplementary, and let's hope Mastodon and the rest of the ActivityPub fediverse takes advantage of this situation to finally make progress on its long term -- starting with anti-Blackness
@nprofile…98rg
#bluesky #fediverse

2024-10-28 05:19:17

Mastodon, two years later
https://privacy.thenexus.today/mastodon-two-years-later/
A continuation of Mastodon: a partial history
#mastodon #fediverse

2024-10-22 22:29:48

A lot of good stuff is happening in the fediverses!
https://privacy.thenexus.today/good-stuff-in-the-fediverses
Including:
DAIR-tube, the PeerTube page of Dr. Timnit Gebru's's Distributed AI ResearchCenter
The Website League, an island network that's taking a very different approach
GoToSocial v 0.17, continuing their focus on safety and privacy with interaction controls.
Piefed and the #Threadiverse
Bonfire's new Mosaic service along with their work on Open Science Network and prosocial design
#Letterbook
#Bluesky and the ATmosphere's continued momentum
And that's not all! The last section of the article briefly touches on @npub1qmc…v6gx's work on revealing the fediverse's gifts, Weird and the Leaf protocol, @npub1w57…ent3's Channel.org and the Patchwork fork, @npub1pak…jkzf bringing @npub1efg…sd7m and hundreds of other publishers to the Fediverse, Bandwagon, a proof of concept integration of Faircamp into Hubzilla, Mastodon 4.3 ...
There really is a lot going on!
#fediverse @npub1gsm…5y8l

2024-10-22 02:16:07

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Interesting data, thanks for sharing! @npub1cxc…akj4 @npub185n…luq0

2024-10-18 03:50:49

Online Safety and the “Great Decentralization” – The Perils and Promises of Federated Social Media
By @npub1pc7…t0s3 and @npub1fhd…q58c
https://www.techpolicy.press/online-safety-and-the-great-decentralization-the-perils-and-promises-of-federated-social-media/
On Bluesky, Lai summarizes their recommendations:
Here’s how we fix it:
(1) Larger platforms can fund tool development efforts and share info on their moderation decisions
(2) A multi stakeholder structured hub curating pooled data to identify threat actors
(3) Tool builders can create platforms for mods to share information with each other
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:ybj3ulqmitcqt4iqueoadgb5/post/3l6pydaskjv2m
#fediverse #safety #TrustAndSafety

2024-10-05 19:02:08

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@npub1ke6…z7av oh blush. thanks!

2024-10-05 00:36:04

A huge victory for Max Schrems, @npub14e7…e044 , and privacy!
"The European Union’s top court said Friday that social media company Meta can’t use public information about a user’s sexual orientation obtained outside its platforms for personalized advertising under the bloc’s strict data privacy rules. "
https://apnews.com/article/facebook-meta-schrems-privacy-80fd4e6c59f48a3b583d6665af3ede86
#privacy #lgbtqia #lgbtq

2024-09-14 22:35:02

DON'T AMPLIFY RACIST DISINFO!
I just saw a post a video setting racist false anti-immigrant ranting from the debate to the theme from Peanuts. Stuff like this just gives oxygen to the racist disinfo. Please don't do this!
(And no, I'm not going to link to it. That's the point. If you hvaen't seen it, it's easy to find on X!)
#disinformation #racism #uspol

2024-09-14 00:16:13

News Detective is an interesting startup that's trying to combine moderated crowdsourcing and professional fact-checking to combat misinformation on social media. https://newsdetective.org/about
And, now they've got a labeler on Bluesky! https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:qezlipqc4yfk2lebu7533zyr
This is an interesting use case for the stackable moderation approach, so it'll be interesting to see how it works out
#bluesky #disinformation #disinfo

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

2024-07-16 01:17:34

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@npub126c…7zt6 especially bogus since everybody points to Apple's modal consent dialogs at app install/upgrade time as an example of how, gosh, it really *can* be a good experience.

2024-03-24 17:19:01

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That makes sense. I wasn't sure whether "viewing the profile:" counted as interacting with the account. As always, I really appreciate you taking the time for the discussion!
Is it okay with you if I link to this thread from a blog post I'm doing? I'm using searching for and viewing zuck's profile as an example, and want to reassure people that I'm not trying to trick them into sharing all their profile data and relationships with Meta.
@npub1cx7…8tc2 @npub17ge…hgsu

2024-03-24 17:09:09

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Got it, thanks. If I like an account there, what info is federated? I see that they're grouping all the fediverse likes into "your account has been liked by N fediverse users on K servers", but do they have info about the specific accounts?
@npub1cx7…8tc2 @npub17ge…hgsu

2024-03-24 17:03:33

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Thanks much for the quick response! Presumably that will have change once they have the ability to block individual fedi accounts?
@npub1cx7…8tc2 @npub17ge…hgsu

2024-03-24 16:44:41

@npub1cx7…8tc2 @npub17ge…hgsu a question about federation with threads.net -- not sure you're the right people, if not could you please pass this along.
What data is shared if I search for an account on thread.net (like @npub1aen…sz4a for example), and then click on the search results to view the profile?
- my account (@npub18xu…9cer)?
- information on my profile?
- my followers/following lists (assuming I haven't turned them off in my preferences)?
- anything else?

2024-03-24 01:26:00

How to block Threads on Mastodon -- with screenshots! (UPDATED)
https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/
IMPORTANT UPDATE: New, more privacy-friendly instructions!
Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ! If you're one of the fediverse influencers who sees Threads arrival it as "historic" and "a glimpse of the future" ... well, you might want to skip this post.
But if you're one of the many many people on the fediverse who doesn't want to deal with Threads, read on!
#BlockingThreads #Meta #Threads

2024-03-21 22:01:12

With Threads starting federation, seems like a good time to reshare "Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ!"
https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/
I've got an opinion, obviously, but the article presnts a wide range of perspectives from multiple sides. It was originally written last June, and then updated late December ... there haven't been any surprises sine then so even though it doesn't have the latest news it's all still relevant.
#Meta #Threads #fediverse

2023-12-20 19:52:45

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Since the fediverse is so much smaller than Threads, the most obvious ways of exploiting it – such as stealing market share by getting people currently in the fediverse to move to Threads – aren't going to work. But exploitation is one of Meta's core competences, and once you start to look at it with that lens, it's easy to see some of the ways even their initial announcement and tiny first steps are exploiting the fediverse: making Threads feel like a more compelling platform, and reshaping regulation. Longer term, it's a great opportunity for Meta to explore – and maybe invest in – shifting their business model to decentralized surveillance capitalism.
I got feedback on an earlier draft that I should be clearer what I meant by "exploit" so I included the definition from dictionary.com in the article:
exploit: verb (used with object)
· to utilize, especially for profit; turn to practical account: to exploit a business opportunity.
· to use selfishly for one's own ends: employers who exploit their workers.
https://privacy.thenexus.today/embrace-extend-and-exploit/
#threads #meta #fedimeta #fediverse

2023-12-20 19:46:34

Embrace, Extend, and Exploit: Meta's plan for ActivityPub, Mastodon and the fediverse
https://privacy.thenexus.today/embrace-extend-and-exploit/
Embrace #ActivityPub, , #Mastodon, and the #fediverse
Extend ActivityPub, Mastodon, and the fediverse with a very-usable app that provides additional functionality (initially the ability to follow everybody you're following on Instagram, and to communicate with all #Threads users) that isn't available to the rest of the fediverse – as well over time providing additional services and introducing incompatibilities and non-standard improvements to the protocol
Exploit ActivityPub, Mastodon, and the fediverse by utilizing them for profit – and also using them selfishly for Meta's own ends

2023-12-19 06:08:00

Compare and contrast: Fediseer, FIRES, and The Bad Space
https://privacy.thenexus.today/fediseer-fires-and-the-bad-space/
The Bad Space is only one of the projects exploring different ways of moving beyond the fediverse's current reliance on instance-level blocking and blocklists. It's especially interesting to compare and contrast The Bad Space with two somewhat-similar projects:
- Fediseer is another instance catalog, including endorsements as well as negative judgments about instances.
- FIRES (an acronym for Fediverse Intelligence Recommendations & Replication Endpoint Server) is infrastructure for moderation advisories and recommendations.
Many thanks to @npub175x…2fat and @npub10jl…nepl for feedback on earlier versions of this post!
(Part 4 of "Golden opportunities for the fediverse – and whatever comes next")
#TheBadSpace #Fediseer #FIRES #fediverse

2023-11-13 23:47:52

Urgent: Call Congress to stop KOSA:
From @EFF's Call Congress to Stop KOSA;
The Senate may have a simple voice vote in the next week to move the Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) quickly through the legislature, without debate, but any one senator can stop it with a hold. We need you to call your senator's office today to tell them to stop KOSA. KOSA would censor the internet and would make government officials the arbiters of what young people can see online, and would likely lead to age verification.
Just last week more than 70 LGBTQ+ organizations came out against this dangerous and misguided bill, which would make kids less safe rather than more safe and especially harm LGBTQ+ youth. So it's crucial to stop it from moving forward!
EFF's page makes it easy to call your Senators; or, https://www.stopkosa.com/ makes it easy to send a letter (and find out more about the bill).
#kosa

2023-08-05 04:00:39

Nivenly, the cooperative that runs hachyderm.io, is having a community discussion and vote on what to do about Haidra and AIHorde, a distributed generative AI system.
@npub1qs2…na2a's Our First Community Discussion and Vote: Haidra has a summary and information about next steps. @npub10jl…nepl's The Birth of Haidra and the Join With Nivenly has background.
The discussion's open to all but voting is restricted to members They're also tracking discussion on social media in the Discord chatrooms but ask that official questions be submitted via Github discussions or email to info@nivenly.org. They're gathering questions between now 8 Aug 2023, and will be. posting followup blog pots, followed by a general member discussion from August 14 - 25 August 2023 and an "election" after -- specific mechanism TBD,
Eligible voters including project members, trade members, and general members who pay $7/month). Something that's always interesting to watch in situations like this who's at the table. For example Nivenly is tech- and open-source focused. How well represented will artists, photographers, writers, actors, and musicians -- the people who tools like Haidra exploit -- be in the discussions and voting? What happens if somebody used #AIHorde ("a crowdsourced distributed cluster of Image generation workers and text generation workers") to generate fake avatars and profiles, sign up 1000 new accounts and voted to ban these exploitative tools?
Here's an excellent thread from @npub14q6…4za2 with some initial thoughts and questions https://hachyderm.io/@hrefna/110833561126744694)
Nivenly's discussion potentially affects cross-intance communication as well, and is a good chance to think about AI-related issues in general. In the Github discussion, for example, somebody brought up a question about whether posts and images that federate to hachyderm (or another nivenly-run instance) would be used to train future AIs. No matter what the answer is in the Nivenly case, this isn't the only situation where there's a risk of using federated data without consent to train AIs. What kind of ground rules do other instances want to have, and do we need to have conventions such as extending the nodeinfo structure (which gives basic data about every fediveres instance) to include information about whether or not an instance is using data for AI training?
So it's certainly a discussion worth tracking -- and participating in, if you're interested.
#haidra #nivenly

2023-07-05 16:05:35

Threat modeling Meta, the fediverse, and privacy
https://privacy.thenexus.today/fediverse-threat-modeling-privacy-and-meta/
There's very little privacy on the fediverse today. Mastodon and other fediverse software wasn't designed and implemented with privacy in mind. Even the underlying #ActivityPub protocol that powers the fediverse has major limitations. But it doesn't have to be that way!
Meta's new #Threads product means that it's critical for the fediverse to start focusing more on privacy. Of course, #Meta's a threat in many other ways as well; that said, the privacy aspects are important too.
For one thing, if Meta does indeed follow through on its plans to work with #Mastodon instance admins and others "partners" who to monetize their users (and their data), people in the region of the fediverse that's not Meta-friendly will need stronger privacy protections to protect their data. And Meta's far from the only threat to privacy out there; changes that reduce the amount of data Meta can gather without consent will also help with other bad actors.
More positively, there's also a huge opportunity here. Privacy's even worse on Facebook and Instagram than it is in the fediverse. So If the fediverse can provide a more private alternative, that will be hugely appealing to a lot of people.
Any way you look at it, now's a good time for the fediverse to take privacy more seriously.
The bulk of the article focuses on threat modeling, a useful technique for identifying opportunities for improvement. It's a long article, though, so if you don't want to wallow in the details, feel free to skip ahead to the section at the end on the path forward and the specific recommendations.
And if you're already bought in to the idea that the #fediverse
should focus more on privacy, and just want to know how you can help make it happen, it also suggests specific actions you can take -- and there's a section with some thoughts for #MastoAdmin
Here's the table of contents:
* There's very little privacy on the fediverse today. But it doesn't have to be that way!
* Today's fediverse is prototyping at scale
* Threat modeling 101
* They can't scrape it if they can't fetch it
* Different kinds of mitigations
* Attack surface reduction and privacy by default
* Scraping's far from the only attack to consider
* Win/win "monetization" partnerships, threat or menace?
* A quick note to instance admins
* Charting a path forward
* Recommendations
This is still a draft, so as always feedback is welcome. And thanks to everybody for the feedback on previous drafts!
https://privacy.thenexus.today/fediverse-threat-modeling-privacy-and-meta/
https://media.infosec.exchange/infosecmediaeu/media_attachments/files/110/662/308/330/395/031/original/8e3e3b36f6bc4980.png

2023-06-23 16:35:45

- reply

"Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ!" ⬆️
has links to perspectives from @npub1856…vn6v @npub10vl…ce3r @npub10gx…uy6q @npub1l3z…4dy5 @npub15w9…gure @npub1grk…nqea @npub1yzr…gwml @npub1zun…4zjg @npub1kja…e5gq @npub1m9x…m94e @npub1g8e…qdqf @npub12ef…slks @npub1yyx…qa5g @npub1lrv…tth9 @npub1vyq…9wcm @npub1yp5…z46z and more ... like I say, opinions differ, but no matter where you are on it, I appreciate the time everybody's put into articulating their positions.
Thanks also @npub1jq7…jd3j @npub1gav…fmkl @npub1f9q…n32r @npub15a5…4cvg @npub1ttk…x6r5 @npub10av…kjl4 and @npub19uy…h4df for the feedback and discussions!
BTW in the last section when I'm discussing Mastodon's moderation issues, one of the things I mention is the lack of an ability to control who can reply to tweets ... so apologies in advance if this generates a bunch of notifications! I left the acknowedgments out of the main post to try to limit the damage, we'll see how well it works.
https://infosec.exchange/@thenexusofprivacy/110594384248698967

2023-06-23 16:06:20

Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ!
https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/
Contents:
- Two views of the fediverse
- The case for "Trust but verify"
- Wait a second. Why should anybody trust Facebook, Instagram, or Meta?
- Why the Anti-Meta FediPact is good strategy
- We're here, we're queer, fuck Facebook
- A few words about digital colonialism
- Now's a good time for instance admins to discuss with their communities
- In chaos there is opportunity!
@npub1xtm…3hcj @npub19ez…wrl2 #fediverse #Meta #FediPact

2023-06-10 21:53:45

Don't tell people "it's easy", and six more things KBin, Lemmy, and the fediverse can learn from Mastodon
https://privacy.thenexus.today/kbin-lemmy-fediverse-learnings-from-mastodon/
Reddit's strategy of antagonizing app writters, moderators, and millions of redditors is good news for reddit alternatives like KBin and Lemmy. And not just them! The fediverse has always grown in waves and we're at the start of one.
Previous waves have led to innovation but also major challenges and limited growth. It's worth looking at what tactics worked well in the past, to use them again or adapt them and build on them. It's also valuable to look at what went wrong or didn't work out as well in the past, to see if there are ways to do better.
Here's the current table of contents:
* I'm flashing!!!!!
* But first, some background
1. Don't tell people "it's easy"
2. Improve the "getting-started experience"
3. Keep scalability and sustainability in mind
4. Prioritize accessibility
5. Get ready for trolls, hate speech, harassment, spam, porn, and disinformation
6. Invest in moderation tools
7. Values matter
* This is a great opportunity – and it won't be the last great opportunity
https://privacy.thenexus.today/kbin-lemmy-fediverse-learnings-from-mastodon/
Thanks to everybody for the great feedback on the draft version of the post!
#kbin #lemmy #fediverse @npub1gsm…5y8l @npub19ez…wrl2 @npub1xtm…3hcj