Poll: should the new Social Web Foundation (SWF) be transparent about their funding?
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Poll: should the new Social Web Foundation (SWF) be transparent about their funding?
@socialwebfdn recently launched with a mission of "a growing, healthy, financially viable and multi-polar Fediverse”. In TechCrunch, @Sarahp reported that SWF has "some backing" from Meta as well as Flipboard, Ghost, Mastodon, and others as well as a "large grant" from the Ford Foundation. "In total, SWF is closing in on $1 million in financial support."
But there aren't any details about the funding , and the only grant from Ford Foundation to SWF's fiscal sponsor anybody's found so far is for $50K, which is a lot less than $1 million. So there's a lot of speculation -- and considering that Meta's involved, a lot of suspicion.
Transparency about funding could potentially be helpful here. If there is indeed a larger Ford Foundation grant, good to know, and what's it for? Also, maybe Meta's just chipping in a bit to get things off the ground. Even if Meta's contributing a lot more, far better to be up-front about it.
Then again, transparency about funding could also have its downsides. In a thread on SocialHub, SWF advisor @ben (who's worked in non-profits for a while) noted that there are quite a few reasons why making finances available in real-time (as opposed to the legally required annual Form 990) "may not be desirable - not least because it may impact ongoing fundraising from other groups." And it's certainly true that different non-profits take different approaches here, there isn't any one right answer in general.
So ... what do people think?
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The Nexus of Privacyreplied to The Nexus of Privacy last edited by
Poll: How should the Social Web Foundation engage with Meta?
One of the hot-button issues about the new Social Web Foundation ( @swf ) is their relationship with Meta (Facebook and Instagram's parent company). There are a lot of different ways to engage ... which do you think is the best option?
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The Nexus of Privacyreplied to The Nexus of Privacy last edited by
Poll: Should SWF take funding from Meta?
The first poll in this thread asked about transparency, and the second asked about different ways SWF could engage with Meta. This one zeroes in on the hot-button question of funding.
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Pelle Wessmanreplied to The Nexus of Privacy last edited by
@thenexusofprivacy @swf @erlend Isn’t @swf primarily a business cooperation? To promote and further the work of companies invested in the ActivityPub technology?
It’s not a community organization? For that, look at @fediforum or such I guess, or the SocialWG at W3C, or the IndieWeb community
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The Nexus of Privacyreplied to Pelle Wessman last edited by
@swf has a 501c3 as their fiscal sponsor, they've reportedly gotten a large grant from Ford Foundation, and there's a "donate" link up on their site, so they're not just a business association. And their mission is "a growing, healthy, financially viable and multi-polar Fediverse”, so it's not unreasonable to ask people in the fediverse whether they see engaging with Meta as compatible with "healthy"!
Questions of engagement with Meta also come up at the SocialWG. Most -- but certainly not all -- of the people there who have expressed an opinion see Meta's involvement as a good thing, and W3C policies wouldn't allow banning Meta employees (or employees from any other company) in any case, so there's no point in doing a similar poll there.
It's a good point about @fediforum ... @j12t it would be very interesting to do a similar poll before tne next #FediForum to see how the community feels about Meta's participation, both in general and as doing one of the featured demos.
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The Nexus of Privacyreplied to The Nexus of Privacy last edited by
Poll: How much of the Social Web Foundation's resources should go to safety-related projects?
Safety's a critical issue on the fediverse, and SWF's budget is reportedly "closing in on $1M", so they could have a big impact here. Then again, there are lots of other important issues as well.
Your thoughts?
(See Will the Social Web Foundation prioritize safety? disucsses the general topic for more detailed discussion, but please feel free to vote in the poll where or not you read the article!)
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Emelia 👸🏻replied to The Nexus of Privacy last edited by
@thenexusofprivacy @fediversenews 10% seems the most likely, though I could be surprised
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The Nexus of Privacyreplied to Emelia 👸🏻 last edited by
Time will tell! Currently almost all the respondents think it should be more than that, so if the numbers hold up ... well let's just say that if they actually do only spend 10% on safety, it won't do much to allay concerns.
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Emelia 👸🏻replied to The Nexus of Privacy last edited by
@thenexusofprivacy @fediversenews 10% of 1 million is still 100k, that's nothing to be shy about
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The Nexus of Privacyreplied to Emelia 👸🏻 last edited by
It's certainly something. I'm not arguing either way on whether or not it should be higher than that, I'm just pointing out that there are concerns that SWF is prioritizing growth over safety, and 10% probably won't allay those concerns.
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Emelia 👸🏻replied to The Nexus of Privacy last edited by
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@thisismissem @thenexusofprivacy @fediversenews I think it should be safety first, because we have some catching up to do. Once that's at an acceptable level, usability next, then outreach.
