Starter Packs, Follow Packs and all that...

Mastodon Migration

So what are the concerns? And shout out to @thenexusofprivacy for flagging some of these:

1. Opt-In vs. Opt-Out vs. Tough Luck
2. Who curates the list and what are the criteria?
3. If the pack includes bridged accounts to Threads and/or Bluesky does following it expose users data to these companies?
4. Can the pack list be used as a vector for abuse?
5. Can packs themselves include 'hidden' toxic accounts so people are fooled into following them.

3/n

#FollowPack #StarterPack

Mastodon Migration

1. Opt-In vs. Opt-Out vs. Tough Luck

This is a tough one. Clearly Opt-In is safest, but would it be such an impediment that it would kill the new feature before it can even get going? Opt-Out seems to be a minimum requirement and it is the technique that #FollowPack has adopted. Tough Luck should simply not be OK.

Would suggest when a pack is published, and again in any directory, users should be advised that they can ask to be removed and given a clear means to request removal.

4/n

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2. Who curates the list and what are the criteria?

Packs floating around without any accountability should not be tolerated. The creator of the pack should stay attached to it via a recourse address, and be responsible for curing any problems that may come up. The criteria they employed in selecting the members of the pack should be clearly specified when announcing the pack and again in any directory along with the recourse address.

5/n

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3. If the pack includes bridged accounts to Threads and/or Bluesky does following it expose users data to these companies?

Some might not care, but others might not want to bridge to companies like Meta whose privacy policy says they can use it for targeting ads and training AI.

Any pack that includes addresses outside the Fediverse should include a notice eg. "NOTICE: Following these Threads accounts could lead to your information being shared with Meta as per their privacy policy."

6/n

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4. Can the pack list be used as a vector for abuse?

This is a tough one. Certainly these packs have the potential to be used by those who would target a particular group of people. The entire purpose of the pack is to help people find others with similar interests. But rogue actors can also use packs to find people to abuse.

It is hard to say how to combat this other than to continue to strengthen our communities and moderation activities, but we need to acknowledge the threat.

Ideas?

7/n

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5. Can packs themselves include 'hidden' toxic accounts so people are fooled into following them.

This is now a known issue on #Bluesky, and should be taken really seriously. The proliferation of packs without accountability can easily lead to 'malware' or 'trojan' packs that contain accounts that expose unwitting users to follow people they would never want to deal with.

This underscores that the above mentioned accountability and recourse requirements for any pack.

8/n

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So, can we have nice things, or are we so concerned about these kinds of curation and privacy issues that we are unable to move forward?

Would argue that we can move forward while being aware of things that can go wrong and concerned about safety in the implementation of both technological and social progress. If we anticipate things that can go wrong and try to be intentional about our progress, it will be much better than dealing with all the fallout when things go off the rails.

9/n

Mastodon Migration

Thanks for sticking with this. Have learned a lot in the last few days implementing these fledgling #FollowPack lists. If you want to give them a try check out this post: https://mastodon.online/@mastodonmigration/113498826844243920 and the directory on this account's 'FediBlog' @mastodonmigration.wordpress.com .

Any thoughts or concerns relating to this implementation or packs in general? Suggestions for packs or want to collaborate to make one? Please feel free to reply here.

10/10

Kim Scheinberg

@mastodonmigration
When I first got here, I did a thing called Fab Women Follow Friday. Each week I picked 8-10 women and wrote a short description about why you should follow them. You can find links to 8 weeks' worth here:

https://mas.to/@kims/110039790471271850

Sadly, ~35% of these women haven't been active in the last two weeks, but the rest are still here. Someone with a bit more energy than I have right now could turn these names into starter packs

The Nexus of Privacy

@mastodonmigration thanks, and good catch on Bluesky accounts as an analogy to Threads -- I had missed that!

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@kims

Would be happy to create the pack for you. Would you be willing to 'sponsor' it? If so, just list the accounts in a post and @ mention this account.

One of the other lessons learned is that making packs too big becomes very unwieldy. Have settled on a maximum of about 35 accounts which is the same as the number that nicely fits in a 500 word post. Might suggest a max of 25 as that would leave some room to @ mention everyone and still be able to say something to them in a post.

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@thenexusofprivacy

Thank you for being on this. If we consider these, admittedly klunky, #FollowPack lists as a laboratory for the capability to follow groups of people, we can maybe guide our progress to avoid doing some things we may later come to regret. Your attention to these issues is a vital contribution to the Fediverse.

aGate to: peace and rest

@mastodonmigration regarding this, opt-out AND an explicit notification when you are added to a pack seem to be a bare minimum.

Because too often you can opt-out in theory but in practice you don't even know you are included in a directory or a list and as a result cannot opt-out.

Search engines, web.archive.org (and similar tools), software heritage, all have this flaw.

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@UnePorte

Agreed.

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@kims

Further, it might seem like 25 accounts is too small, but again experience shows that these accounts tend to boost other related accounts and following the first 25 will quickly expose a user to the entire topic area and lots of good accounts to add to their pack list.