[HN Gopher] Every greenfield OSS project should join Mastodon
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Every greenfield OSS project should join Mastodon
Author : erlend_sh
Score : 16 points
Date : 2023-08-15 19:17 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (blog.erlend.sh)
(TXT) w3m dump (blog.erlend.sh)
| CharlesW wrote:
| > _The hardest part about entering the fediverse is joining an
| instance [of Mastodon]._
|
| In the fediverse, organizations shouldn't have to homestead on
| someone else's Mastodon instance. But unfortunately, self-hosting
| Mastodon at anything more than "toy" scale is incredibly onerous.
|
| On the bright side, a vendor recently posted about their
| proprietary Mastodon clone operating at 100 the efficiency of
| Mastodon, so happily this doesn't appear to be an intrinsic
| problem with ActivityPub. Let's hope there are better open-source
| solutions soon.
|
| > _So why make the effort? Because the fediverse, like open
| source, is a movement._
|
| Statements like this make me very sad about the probable future
| of the fediverse. Nobody cares about "movements" other than
| zealots. In order to succeed, federated services _must_ be better
| and at least as convenient as centralized alternatives.
| butz wrote:
| This call should be extended to governments and public utilities,
| maybe with some instructions of easier onboarding.
| erlend_sh wrote:
| Agreed, but the open source community seems like a good place
| to start for a groundswell.
|
| Governments need a very different kind of convincing, and its
| partly happening on its own:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37067357
| memefrog wrote:
| > That's because you didn't install Linux to save time. You
| entered the world of Linux (or WordPress, Node, Python etc.)
| because you got the sense that something is happening over there.
| People who are as annoying as they are clever never seem to shut
| up about it.
|
| I use Linux because it is just better than the alternatives, not
| because it is a super special secret club for the smart. It
| isn't. Using it doesn't make you special. Going on about it
| constantly doesn't attract people, it turns them off, especially
| when framed like this.
|
| > It used to be that you had to use Twitter because of its
| network power and consequent reach.
|
| No, you didn't. Most people have never had an account and have
| never even been to it. Facebook is something that was nearly
| universal. Twitter has always been that weird esoteric platform
| for journalists and celebrities and their (pretty pathetic)
| groupies. It is certainly not necessary for open source software
| developers to have an account.
|
| > You'll also be sharing the space with an increasing amount of
| far-right influencers and a diminishing number of reputable
| scientists.
|
| Where "far right" presumably means you aren't a communist and
| don't believe in gender ideology.
|
| >I will argue that the 10+ million people already on the
| fediverse are actually the exact group of nerdy open culture
| enthusiasts you wanna be reaching out to.
|
| I cannot imagine a group of people I would want to "reach out to"
| LESS than the people I see on Mastodon when I look at it. Yes I
| really want to go to a social network where I will get verbally
| abused for not putting alt text on images. Yes I really want to
| share a social network with people that will ban me for using the
| "wrong" pronouns. No.
|
| >Diverse leadership and community.
|
| >Tech-leaning but open to all.
|
| >Highly safety-minded, as most recently evidenced by their
| Federation Safety Enhancement Project.
|
| Reminder: when these people say "safety" they mean safety from
| ideas and sentiments that challenge them. They do not mean
| "safety from pedophiles" (fediverse is full of them, including
| people advocating for children to go to burlesque and drag
| performances). They do not mean "safety to express ideas without
| fear of censorship". They mean "safety from anything that might
| challenge leftist orthodoxy".
| lakomen wrote:
| Call it the fediverse please.
|
| And it had a censorship problem.
| NoraCodes wrote:
| I'm curious what you mean by that. It seems hard to censor
| people when anyone can run an ActivityPub-compatible server on
| a $5 VPS.
| memefrog wrote:
| Because if you refuse to censor any WrongThinkers you'll get
| defederated, and as a result all WrongThinkers have to sit in
| the same couple of isolated instances.
|
| The one nice thing about Twitter was that people with very
| different viewpoints shared the same platform. C didn't get
| blocked by A just because C wanted to be able to see tweets
| by B, just because B blocked A for a different reason.
| Fediverse people use defederation for viewpoint moderation
| (censorship) when it should be used for blocking spammers
| rsynnott wrote:
| There are lots of instances which largely don't defederate.
| They're generally, well, pretty unpleasant places, but
| they're there.
|
| > Fediverse people use defederation for viewpoint
| moderation (censorship) when it should be used for blocking
| spammers
|
| Define 'should'. Instances have freedom of association. If
| an instance decides that it, say, doesn't want to federate
| with the instance with all the Nazis, why should should it?
| Anyone using the instance who doesn't agree can just go to
| an instance which suits their preferences better.
| Personally, if my instance decided "okay, we're federating
| with the Nazis now because not doing that is censorship (?
| still baffled by the logic there)" I would simply move to
| an instance with a view more in line with mine on how much
| oxygen of publicity Nazis should be given.
| cbeach wrote:
| Fediblock is a co-ordinated scheme for ostracising people
| from the Fediverse if they hold certain views. Generally it
| works by announcing blocks via the hashtag #fediblock, but
| there are also catalogues of instances to be blocked en
| masse, and automation available. One example of a list:
| https://joinfediverse.wiki/FediBlock
|
| Some examples of reasons stated for blocking individual
| instances from the Fediverse:
|
| * "libertarianism"
|
| * "TERFism" (feminists that oppose modern trans ideology)
|
| * "Trumpism" (blocking nearly half the American electorate
| based on their political views?)
|
| * "free speech"
|
| * "federate with evil instances"
|
| Sounds sketchy, right?
|
| At least Twitter 1.0 had concrete guidelines that it could
| use to justify its censorship.
|
| As can be seen from the list above, Fediblock is highly
| partisan and arbitrary. An ideal tool for political
| weaponisation of the Fediverse.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Surely, you don't want to be associated with those
| instances anyway, right? I'm not seeing the problem here.
| You aren't being excluded from the fediverse, just from
| that group of instances.
| cbeach wrote:
| So if I express a liking for "free speech," for example,
| my entire instance might be de-federated by Fediblock
| activists.
|
| And if I join another instance and discuss "free speech"
| I will be swiftly booted out, lest Fediblock comes for
| their instance, too.
|
| Can you see the issue with that?
|
| Do I represent a subversive niche group when I advocate
| for dangerous ideas like "free speech"?
|
| Am I the asshole?
| JohnFen wrote:
| > Can you see the issue with that?
|
| Not really, no. I understand maybe being a little
| irritated, but not being upset about it. Just associate
| with instances where you're welcomed instead.
|
| There are many groups who wouldn't want me to be around,
| in real life and otherwise. That's just life.
|
| > Do I represent a subversive niche group when I advocate
| for dangerous ideas like "free speech"?
|
| I have no idea what you advocate for, honestly. Your
| comments here don't make that very clear-cut. But it
| doesn't matter for this point.
|
| The point is that it's a matter of freedom of
| association. Do you really want to hang around where
| you're not welcome, for whatever reason? I know I
| wouldn't. Life is too short.
| cbeach wrote:
| The issue here, as I see it, is orchestrated blocking of
| viewpoints. Not just on one instance, but across many
| instances. Fediblock is systematic and partisan.
| JohnFen wrote:
| Sure, but I don't see how that changes the point at all.
| Alliances like Fediblock can't exclude you from the
| fediverse, only from those instances.
|
| I would think that the fediverse would be a thing that
| you, or anyone who is concerned about deplatforming and
| censorship, would be very happy about precisely because
| you can't be deplatformed or silenced on it.
|
| You can join like-minded instances, neutral instances, or
| even start your own, do whatever you want. You have total
| freedom of speech. You just don't have the freedom to
| impose your speech on people who don't want to hear it.
| Freedom of speech does not in any way imply that you have
| the right to force others to listen.
| [deleted]
| erlend_sh wrote:
| I refer to the fediverse plenty in the article, but Mastodon is
| the safest, simplest default for anyone starting out.
| [deleted]
| rsynnott wrote:
| How could it possibly have a censorship problem? It has no
| central control. I think perhaps your concern is actually that
| it has _freedom of association_; instances are not obliged to
| federate with instances which they don't want to federate with.
|
| Fortunately, there's a solution; you're perfectly free to make
| your own defederated protocol without freedom of association,
| if you can figure out how to do that.
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(page generated 2023-08-15 23:02 UTC)