I think it's going to be more important than ever that #Mastodon and the #fediverse are not centrally operated out of the US like almost every other social media platform out there.

thibault

@Gargron Yeah so please block out Threads

Nevarro

@Gargron I hate it when I read „Twitter/X has become so bad, now go use Bluesky“. No, Bluesky is not the solution, it’s (going to be) a part of the problem.

Davey

@Gargron hang on, aren't you the boy that said it was a Big W that people can follow the US president from Fedi?

Eugen Rochko

@davey_cakes I am for interoperability. That is the underlying principle of the fediverse and how all the Mastodon and non-Mastodon platforms on the fediverse talk to each other.

Davey

@Gargron well I would politely suggest that standards of conduct and safety are going to mean more to people than interoperability over the next while.

Perhaps now is a good time to address how to make the out-of-the-box Mastodon experience one where people aren't exposed to white nationalists by default.

You have a chance to do something.

Davey

@Gargron more explicitly - Mastodon the company should start directly alerting people to which servers they REALLY need to think about blocking, and needs to do it at the install stage, and afterwards as routine.

Eugen Rochko

@davey_cakes Improving the moderation experience by allowing admins to subscribe to shared blocklists is something we're planning for our next release, 4.4.

Davey

@Gargron I'm aware, but is that largely streamlining an existing practice which people still need to be here a while to understand?

I've used shared blocklists.

I'd like the company to explicitly direct people to block lists of known problem servers, will that happen?

Will we move beyond the likelihood of what happened the DAIR server happening again, where people join Fedi on the promise of how progressive it is, and get put on blast by neonazis?

Mitex Leo

@Gargron Couldn't agree more. US is not the only country on earth.

Mitex Leo

@thibault @Gargron You can block it from your instance.

Offbeatmammal

@luca @Gargron I suspect the EU in general is suddenly realizing the dangers of being so reliant on the US as a defense and trading partner, and certain parts of the EU becoming emboldened to push a bit quicker down the path to fascist rule (without looking at any of the consequences). Supporting a social media platform sadly won't align with either imperative

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

@Offbeatmammal @luca @Gargron

what got us into this mess is centralized social media

decentralized social media that is a serious player on the world's stage is the solution

however, you are correct that supporting a platform (or rather, this is a protocol) might not mean much. because

1. we are too tiny to matter now
1. if we ever could grow as big as we needed to be to matter, it might be too late

worth a try though

but we need to get very serious about it, very quick

Philip Cardella

@benroyce @Offbeatmammal @luca @Gargron I feel like if this fediverse is to grow and thrive it needs to be more than just a confederation.

It feels like the first US Republic/Constitution.

I feel like we need some way to be more united without being more centralized.

I'm not sure what that looks like or how to do it. More shared governance maybe? Idk.

But the racism here is the first roadblock to growing, I think. I'm not sure how to fight it one server at a time.

Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:

@Gargron
Yeah, this is what I was saying a few days ago. TechHub will likely be moving our server to Canada, but I worry about the smaller servers run by a single person in the US, where that might not be an option.

Tim Chambers

@Gargron You aren't wrong.

CohenTheBlue

@philip_cardella @benroyce @Offbeatmammal @luca @Gargron A pact. Addition to mastodon covenant? https://joinmastodon.org/covenant Something like that. Controlled by the victims of racism.

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

@cohentheblue @philip_cardella @Offbeatmammal @luca @Gargron

Yes

An extension to the mastodon server pact

Representing simple good governance

No bigots (same as we have)

No plutocrats (so that's a no to threads and bluesky, something we don't have yet, but we can make)

Other foundational things

All in the service of making it so appealing no one wants to be on centralized shit

Philip Cardella

@benroyce @cohentheblue @Offbeatmammal @luca @Gargron I feel like there needs to be some entity that provides enforcement of a limited set of civility expectations.

A moderating entity over multiple platforms. Maybe it has first crack at potential offending posts and the server the offender is on has veto power.

The uneven enforcement of moderating is a major problem.

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

@philip_cardella @cohentheblue @Offbeatmammal @luca @Gargron

good point, but i'd like to abstract from it:

moderation is per server. that doesn't mean you couldn't have the same mods on multiple servers. or you could have individual mods on individual servers, but they are all in this mastonserverpact+, that binds them to a code of mod conduct

it doesn't need to be centralized top down control, in fact i think that's counterproductive

it just has to be voluntary coordinated agreement

Oliphantom Menace

@benroyce @philip_cardella @cohentheblue @Offbeatmammal @luca @Gargron Shared governance of the network, and indeed enforcing certain standards of behavior as well as sharing moderation by applying consistent standards, these were all goals of "Island Networks."

The only catch? Allowlist-based. Because you fundamentally can't enforce what other instances do in a denylist-based federation.

The problem is that we can't speak for—or influence—the entire network. I can't control what happens on a random server, and I can't control your experience on a server that federates with it. I can only control what happens on my server.
But what if we could do more? What if we could take responsibility for the entire network because every member of the network has opted-in and agreed to abide by certain rules?