January 2025 UpdateWe have a few activities rumbling along and it’s probably time for an update, so here goes.Content Classification SystemCCS is a third-party content classifier operated by IFTAS, and in its pilot form it hashes and matches media to detect known CSAM. We’ve run over a million media files through the stress-test phase and our observation works out to four matches per 100,000 files. That may not sound like a lot, but it’s four more than it should be, especially as our pilot program has only a handful of servers participating.There is a mix of content, but to be clear, there is extremely vile content on the network. While we pursue funding to expand the pilot, I urge server admins to explore options to identify whether or not their services are being used to transact CSAM. We have some links to resources in the IFTAS Connect Public Library.This is the most expensive project we run, so we have applied for funding specifically to support this activity. Online Safety ActThe UK’s OSA is scaring more than few sites into shutting down. We have opened conversations with Ofcom and we are reviewing an option to create an OSA Guide for Decentralised Services (similar to our previous DSA guide). I strongly recommend service providers keep an eye on https://onlinesafetyact.co.uk/ – a collection of resources by Neil Brown, a UK-based tech lawyer who among other things runs his own Mastodon server.Moderator HandbookWe have a completed draft of the handbook but reduced resources and availability to finish getting it into everyone’s hands. I will be working on getting this out in a living-document good-not-perfect effort as soon as possible. FediCheckOur denylist observatory service is getting some upgrades, and includes a beta of an API that can be queried to retrieve the CARIAD 51, 66 and 80% agreement lists. If you’re interested in trying this out, come ask about it in the IFTAS Matrix chat space. Signed-in users can now monitor domains moving up and down the list in the web app. FediCheck is restricted to Mastodon admins and moderators, you’ll need a valid account to access the service.Our source (observed) server policy means that from time to time we may add or remove a server as it becomes eligible or ineligible to be an observed server, or an eligible server enables or disables public access to their denylist. A forthcoming update will remove one server, and add three, and will represent the blocks in place on the servers that collectively host 56% of all Mastodon accounts. In total we track over 74,000 historical federating domains, and roughly 2,000 are represented in the data we see on the observed servers. Of note, no domain is collectively blocked by all our observed sources.SustainabilityFund-raising is the bulk of my time right now, we have enough money to keep everything running through the end of April, but it’s fair to say that we are not seeing much interest from civil society or corporate sponsorship to keep us afloat. Our year-end community crowdfunding added a month of runway. We have two grant proposals under review, and several conversations with foundations in the coming weeks, so I’m hopeful we can get our message to the right people in time to keep us going while we build toward self-sustaining.IFTAS is my full-time job for as long as I can sustain it, but to do so I will eventually need to get paid and we will need to find sources of revenue to allow us to operate without grants or sponsorship. I know full well the community cannot sustain us, at least not yet, so the original plan of finding outside money for the first three years continues. I knew when this started it was a race to do as much as possible as quickly as possible to generate the trust and relationships we need to convince funders we are able to achieve the mission. I’m grateful to everyone who has donated their money, time, advice and love to the effort, and I hope to succeed in establishing a long-term option for IFTAS and all the volunteers it supports.
