You know what's nice about here...knowing I can criticize and call out any corporation, politician, or wealth hoarder without being suppressed, hidden, etc at the whim of advertisers or megalomaniacs. #Fediverse
Is it just Kbin, or does every fediverse service have the issue of being totally swarmed with bots advertising illegal pharmaceuticals? Is this just the result of limited moderation?
Kbin seems more affected than others from what I can see in reports but it exists on other instances too.
It is a moderation issue in the sense that it is too easy for these bots to sign up. Individual instances could improve this by requiring an application for example.
With Lemmy, we have seen huge numbers of bots at times but most large Lemmy instances have registration applications turned on. As in you apply to join an instance instead of just being able to make an account.
By default this means waiting for manual approval of your account, but many instances set up automated approval behind the scenes.
This function means many spam bots are averted before the public sees them, and also spammers avoid instances with registration applications.
I mention this because Kbin, or at least Kbin.social, doesn’t appear to have registration applications which makes it a prime target for spam.
Also Lemmy has coordination between dozens of instance admins sharing details of spammers. I.e. a lot of hard work behind the scenes. I’d guess the lack of moderation at the admin level also accounts for part of the issue on kbin.
(A lot of Lemmy spam also comes via federation from Kbin.social, so much that many instances block high spam communities on Kbin and some block Kbin completely).
Can you imagine what the #Fediverse would look like now if the response to Gab had been "Admins don't need to block these instances, individual users can just choose whether or not to apply a user-level block (mute) themselves"?
And #Meta is even more corrosive than Gab. Gab users just posted a barrage of hate and unpleasantness. Meta is commercially incentivised to destroy what some people are inviting it into.
Today was a huge milestone in our quest to federate #Flipboard and tear down the walls around our own walled garden.
First, we launched a new version of Flipboard for iOS and Android which brings the promise of two way federation to life. Now when a federated Flipboard user curates, people in the fediverse can reply, favorite, boost or follow those Flipboard users who will in turn see that activity in their usual notifications tab. Even better, Flipboard users can directly reply to people in the fediverse -- and very soon they will also be able to follow each other.
Second, we federated some of our best curators today who are actively curating more than 10,000 magazines about everything from climate change to kale smoothie recipes. I'm grateful to our many curators and the service they provide to so many others who want to find the best content about a shared interest. I know our curators are excited to have millions more people who could potentially benefit from their curation. I also know that people in the fediverse will give a warm welcome to these curators. Especially now that everyone can hear and talk to each other over what was once two totally separate networks but now increasingly are in one and the same #fediverse.
There is a lot of criticism on the #Fediverse for people who won't leave Twitter/X. And, indeed, there are plenty of good reasons for leaving that platform, or for any other commercialized social media platform for that matter.
However, we need to remember that while these platforms are not safe for marginalized people, neither is #Mastodon and the #Fediverse by default. The user base is still overwhelmingly white and European and North American.
And, all other things being equal, this user base tends to be wealthier than other demographic groups, and has more free time as well.
This is important, as running and moderating Mastodon instances is a non-trivial investment in money and time - things that marginalized people are more likely to lack. And given how they are more likely to be subject to discrimination, marginalized people need even more and better moderation - and they likely have to do it themselves, as others are unlikely to even recognize many forms of harassment.
So, stick to Twitter/X and experience lots of harassment... or move to the Fediverse where you will also experience a lot of harassment unless you spend lots of time and resources on moderation? Time and resources you might not have in the first place?
When put that way, it's not such an easy choice to make. Especially if the vast majority of your community is still on Twitter/X, and is unlikely to move to Mastodon without a clear demonstration that the Fediverse is better for their community.
I don't have a solution for this dilemma. But we can't find a solution without recognizing the problem in the first place.
This is your periodic reminder that you will be happier in the #Fediverse and find it more rewarding if you are quick to follow people and also quick to unfollow / mute / block.
Quick to follow is important because that's how to build a community of interest.
Quick to unfollow etc. is even more important, because you don't owe anyone here your time or attention and you shouldn't give it to people who don't spark joy. #FediTips#fediquette
@celeste Yeah just sucks that users data are being taking like always. Guess people just don't care about how much data companies take from them these days
Serious question for those that this is relevant to: if you don't understand how ActivityPub works, even a little bit, why do you feel the need to have opinions on how it should work?
Isn't this backwards as hell? Shouldn't you try to understand how something works, then ask why it is that way and if it's intentional?
Too many people here have this strange opinion that they have some sort of privacy, even if their profile/posts are set to "public".
This is just simply not true. We're on the internet. There's over 20,000 Fedi instances and there's just no way to manually parse them to make sure there's no "bad actors" using your "public" posts for whatever the hell they want.
We already see this happening with things like NewsMast which is aiming to be a "news" app where their users don't have to login or register to a Fediverse server, yet they will see posts by Fediverse users from bigger instances based on "categories".
Maybe do some research about how the protocol works and how it's VERY opt-out to the core, before you have opinions on it. Just saying....
Threads has joined the fediverse in an open beta, allowing people from US, Canada and Japan to opt-in to having their Threads post be visible in the fediverse
@fediforum happened this week, with a ton of great demos, a large variety of sessions, and multiple calls and initiatives for more collaboration across the fediverse