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2024-11-12 01:57:48

benroyce@mastodon.social

bear with me for a second:

a million reasons, but a big reason the #democrats lost is because the center of gravity for #media has moved to #socialmedia

where the #trolls and #disinfo play. enough dum dums bought the lies

the democrats didn't play that game. because what game can they play in that shit?

it's literally owned by #plutocrats and #fascists

so... how do we fight?

we need our own

and what do we have

#mastodon and the #fediverse

we need to grow like a fucking weed

am i wrong?

show all 40 comments

2024-11-26 21:14:56

obscurestar

obscurestar@mastodon.social

@benroyce Struggled with this a lot. Lying to people, scaring them, making them hate is EASY but it doesn't respect them as human beings, it uses them as tools.

Fighting exploiters is almost impossible due to their resources.

Teaching people critical thinking skills seems the most effective strategy. Making it accessible, palatable, and engaging to the people who need it is where I get stuck.

May need a pre-req of organizing ourselves more effectively. How do we build an agile committee?

2024-11-26 21:22:26

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@obscurestar

job number one is #sanctuary

establish #mastodon as the preeminent #usersafety focused place

#fediverse still has a problem with #replyguys. that has to be nuked

then we can build towards your goals, our goals, the goals we need for our #politics and #society away from #plutocracy #socialmedia

the foundation:

1. laser focus on user safety
2. onboarding process as easy or easier than centralized social media ("pick a server? what?", "my timeline is empty", etc are showstoppers)

2024-11-26 23:54:04

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Ben Royce 🇺🇦 If you want to max out user safety in the Fediverse, do not place all your bets on Mastodon!

Again: The Fediverse is not only Mastodon. The Fediverse isn't Mastodon with stuff bolted onto Mastodon either.

There's a whole lot of stuff in the Fediverse that's developed fully independently from Mastodon. There's stuff that's older than Mastodon. There's stuff that's a whole lot different from Mastodon. And "different" doesn't mean "wrong". Mastodon is not the Fediverse's quality standard. No, really, it isn't.

One issue that you've mentioned are reply guys. What you seem to be looking for is a technological barrier that's absolute, 100% water-tight safety from reply-guying.

This means that you'll have to go with Mastodon's re-definition of a reply guy: anyone who replies to you without being mutually connected to you, and without having been mentioned by you in the post which that person replies to. Because by Mastodon's standards, it shouldn't even be possible for such a post to show up on your timeline.

But, again, the Fediverse is not only Mastodon. Nor does the Fediverse in its entirety work like Mastodon. Especially in this regard. Not everything in the Fediverse tries to mimic Twitter.

For example, Friendica. Friendica is a Facebook alternative that was launched in 2010. And when Mastodon was launched, it immediately federated itself with a Friendica which, at that point, was five and a half years old and had its own living, breathing culture based on its own technology. Which is vastly different from Mastodon.

Friendica doesn't think in single posts loosely tied together. Friendica thinks in full conversations. Whereas Mastodon doesn't even know what a conversation is.

And: On Friendica, if you receive a post, you receive the whole thread. With all comments.

Let's suppose you follow Alice. Alice sends a post. Bob comments on the post. Carol comments on the post. But Bob and Carol don't mention you, and you don't follow them.

On Mastodon, you only see Alice's post.

On Friendica, you see Alice's post, Bob's comment and Carol's comment. With no following, with no mentions. Because you've received Alice's post, you also receive all comments.

This is not a bug. This is absolutely intentional. For this is how Facebook works which Friendica aims to replace. It has always been this way. And it's deeply engrained in Friendica's culture.

This also means that anyone on Friendica can and does comment on comments by people who haven't mentioned them and whom they don't follow, just because these people have commented on something someone wrote whom these Friendica users follow.

Oh, and by the way: Hubzilla, a fork of Friendica by Friendica's creator from 2015, works the same. (streams), a fork of a fork of three forks of a fork (of a fork?) of Hubzilla by Friendica's and Hubzilla's creator from 2021, works the same. Forte, a fork of (streams) by still the same creator from this year, works the same.

They're all part of the Fediverse, and they're all federated with Mastodon. I'm writing to you from Hubzilla right now.

In fact, Pleroma and its various forks, particularly Akkoma, knows conversations, too. Misskey and its many forks, including but not limited to Calckey/Firefish, Sharkey, CherryPick, Iceshrimp, Catodon, Neko, Meisskey, Tanukey etc., all know conversations. Again, they're all part of the Fediverse, and they're all federated with Mastodon.

So first of all, we have a difference in culture based on a difference in technology and use-case.

Of course, the natural reaction of many Mastodon users would be to put the proverbial gun against the chests of everything that isn't Mastodon and try to force it to become another Mastodon and ditch up to 90% of its features because Mastodon doesn't have them, and to force everyone who isn't on Mastodon to use whatever they have exactly like Mastodon. Believe me, I know people to whom this has actually happened. I could mention them.

You can try. But you can't expect it to work. No, seriously, you can't.

As for a technological barrier: If you want it installed on Mastodon, it won't work. Not with a Fediverse that isn't entirely Mastodon.

It might work with a proper permissions system like on Hubzilla or (streams) or Forte, and even that only if it was made into an FEP, a quasi-standard, and all the Fediverse adopted this system in fully compatible ways. And even that would only give you the power to define

whether people may generally comment on your posts, or whether nobody or only a select few may
who of your connections may comment on your posts
if it's more like Hubzilla, whether or not anyone is permitted to comment on the post that you're just writing

Properly implemented, this permissions system actually removes the controls for commenting from your Web UI if you aren't permitted to comment.

This, however, means:

The permissions system does not distinguish between people whom you've mentioned and people whom you haven't mentioned. Hubzilla, (streams) and Forte don't rely on mentions.
You can only define whether someone may reply to your posts. As in anything that isn't a reply. Replies aren't posts in this system. They're comments. Whether someone may reply to your comments is defined by whoever sent the post that you've just commented on. They own the whole conversation. They define all permissions in the conversation. And since you could comment on that post, probably anyone can, otherwise you couldn't either.

Speaking of permissions: If you want safety, ditch that underwhelming, intentionally lack-lustre and hopelessly outdated kluge that's Mastodon and look elsewhere in the Fediverse where the real innovations are made.

Imagine you, as a user, could generally define

who is allowed to see your personal timeline and your toots
who is allowed to send you their toots
who is allowed to fave and reply to your toots
who is allowed to send you DMs
who is allowed to see your profile
who is allowed to see your followers and followed
who is allowed to boost and quote-toot your toots

Yeah, I know, Mastodon has a few of these. But Mastodon doesn't have them all.

Also, Mastodon only has everybody and nobody as options. Now imagine you can generally grant any permission to

everyone on the Internet (only where this is possible and makes sense)
everyone in the Fediverse
everyone on Hubzilla
everyone on this instance
everyone who wants to follow you or whom you follow (there's no "who follows you")
everyone whom you follow
only those whom you follow whom you explicitly grant that permission
only you yourself

Yes, "whom you explicitly grant that permission". Imagine you can grant permissions individually to certain contacts and not to other contacts.

Imagine you can be mutually connected with Alice, but still keep Alice from sending you her toots. Imagine you can disallow Alice and Bob, both mutual connections of yours, to see your profile, but you can allow Carol to see it.

Science-fiction? No.

This has been reality on Hubzilla since 2012, for a dozen years, almost four years longer than Mastodon has been around. Permissions are everything on Hubzilla.

This is not experimental. This is rock-solid technology, daily-driven by thousands of Fediverse users. This is technology available in the Fediverse right now.

(streams) and Forte have a similar, compatible permissions system, only that the controls are different, and a few permissions are different. They have an additional permission setting for searching your posts, and they even let you allow or disallow individual contacts to send you boosts. Also, the only general, channel-wide permissions levels they have are

everyone on the Internet
everyone in the Fediverse
those whom you follow (and even then only if you explicitly grant this permission to them individually)
nobody except you

That said, these permissions have their limitations outside the Hubzilla/(streams)/Forte ecosystem. They can keep certain unwanted things out, but they can't keep them from happening.

For example, let's suppose you're on (streams), and you only let certain people comment on your posts. If someone is on Hubzilla or (streams) and receives one of your posts, and that someone isn't permitted to comment on it, certain UI elements for replying are removed for them, and so they can't reply.

But neither Hubzilla nor (streams) nor Forte can make UI elements disappear on Mastodon or on Misskey or on Iceshrimp or on Akkoma or elsewhere. In other words, a Mastodon user can still reply to you. You'll never receive that reply. If you're the only recipient of that reply on your instance, the whole instance rejects the reply. But still, that reply is made and sent. At the very least, it ends up on the replier's timeline and the local timeline of their Mastodon instance.

There's only one way for the Fediverse to become significantly safer: This kind of permissions system must be turned into an FEP, and it must remain fully compatible with the existing implementations. And the whole Fediverse, vanilla Mastodon included, must implement it to its full extent.

Yes, this makes the Fediverse harder to use.

But seriously, you can't expect your real-life home to be safer than Fort Knox while you're still able to walk in and out anytime without even having to open one single door.

CC: @obscurestar

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta

2024-11-27 00:19:53

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@jupiter_rowland @obscurestar

is friendica/ hubzilla open source?

i love the permissioning system

that does indeed squash reply guys

how do you deal with staleness? (meaning: you have preauthorized responders, but that naturally decays over time while n00bs, some of which suck, some of which are cool, are unable to respond, so there is no inflow of new responders)

2024-11-27 05:45:01

Fediverse Champion

FediChamp@mastodon.world

@benroyce @obscurestar one thing we could do in the short term is stop saying “server” and start saying “community.”

People understand that a lot better, especially when you see the list on joinmastodon.org with gaming devs, bicycle enthusiasts, etc.

The current landing page with its “pick this one server or choose from below” actually isn’t terrible. It’d be interesting to see the difference when using “join a general community to enter the open social web or”

2024-11-27 09:47:31

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Ben Royce 🇺🇦

is friendica/ hubzilla open source?

They're all free and open-source.

Friendica was originally under the MIT license and was relicensed by the community under the GNU Affero GPL v3 in 2012. The code is on GitHub.

Hubzilla is under the MIT license. The code is on Framagit.

(streams) is under the MIT license. The code is on Codeberg.

Forte is under the MIT license, too. The code is on Codeberg.

All of them are also as decentralised as Mastodon. That is, Forte still isn't officially ready for prime time; it's only used by its developer so far.

Also, (streams) never really took off because it's too uninteresting for the Hubzilla crowd, and hardly anyone else even knows about it. And the already small number of public instances shrunk further this summer. So it's basically currently down to only one recommendable public instance with open registration, and even there you'll have to give a reason why you want to join.

how do you deal with staleness? (meaning: you have preauthorized responders, but that naturally decays over time while n00bs, some of which suck, some of which are cool, are unable to respond, so there is no inflow of new responders)

By giving cool n00bs who connect to you permission to comment on your posts.

That said, limiting comment permission is a last resort because it means that the general public can't reply to your posts anymore, only a select few of your contacts. This means you'll inevitably end up in a very small bubble.

Unfortunately, you can't deny permissions to specific users which are granted to the general public. Also, granting permissions requires a connection.

So if you don't want to "punish" the general public for what a few people do, if you do want the general public to reply to you, the only way to get rid of specific reply guys is to block them. This is also the only way to get rid of people reply-guying your comments on other people's posts.

CC: @obscurestar

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Friendica #Hubzilla #Streams #(streams) #Forte

2024-11-27 09:51:33

Jupiter Rowland

jupiter_rowland@hub.netzgemeinde.eu

@Fediverse Champion

one thing we could do in the short term is stop saying “server” and start saying “community.”

On the one hand, that's what the (streams) predecessor Roadhouse already did from when it was launched in early 2021 on. (streams) and Forte do the same.

On the other hand, the more widespread definition of "community" is the Lemmy equivalent of a subreddit. So if you want Lemmy to refer to its instances as "communities", it first needs to find a new name for its discussion groups.

CC: @Ben Royce 🇺🇦 @obscurestar

#Long #LongPost #CWLong #CWLongPost #FediMeta #FediverseMeta #CWFediMeta #CWFediverseMeta #Roadhouse #Streams #(streams) #Forte #Lemmy #Communities

2024-12-02 05:25:25

Mike

mds2@arktos.social

@benroyce you had me at "grow" and "weed"

2024-12-12 03:07:53

Nicholas Riegel

nicholasri@mastos.online

@benroyce not wrong at all!

2024-12-17 15:38:58

LaemenPang

focusedontheberry@mastodon.social

@benroyce At first my 60 year old brain read "We need grow a little weed"
hahahahahahahahahah

2024-12-17 15:39:28

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@focusedontheberry

well that too 🤭

2024-12-19 19:56:36

BunRab Voted for Harris

BunRab@mstdn.social

@benroyce
The trouble is, the idea of constant growth attracts the wirst kind of capitalists trying to capitalize on that growth, regardless of the original purpose.

2024-12-19 19:56:58

RonSupportsYou

RonSupportsYou@mastodon.social

@benroyce Kamala Harris lost for several reasons, including the reason you stated. She did many things right and some things wrong. I believe she would have won if she would have distanced herself from Biden, especially on Gaza. I agree with you about what to do now concerning social media.

2024-12-19 20:09:20

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@RonSupportsYou

i disagree

what #israel is doing in #gaza is #genocide and the #usa should cease cooperation

but it takes a special kind of toxic idealist #american moron to hold one issue above all other issues, and not #vote, and give us #trump

even in the limited context of gaza it's worse for #palestinians

so i do not blame #harris

i blame airhead #leftists who have big hearts but are fucking idiots

it is impotent entitlement and privilege to hold a single issue above all other issues

2024-12-19 20:10:58

Globob

Globob@thecanadian.social

@benroyce I’d rather spend my energy figuring out what kind of system we actually want after the billionaires destroy this one. Change always happens at moments like these. Let’s seize the opportunity to design something better.

2024-12-19 20:17:01

RonSupportsYou

RonSupportsYou@mastodon.social

@benroyce You wrote: "i disagree. what israel is doing in gaza is genocide and the #usa should cease cooperation."

I totally agree with you about this, and this is consistent with other messages I wrote here. I voted for Kamala Harris but enough other people would not vote for her due to her position on Gaza that she lost. One big group of people she lost due to Gaza were Muslim Americans. I blame Harris for not having a better position on Gaza, which she could have had, gaining many votes.

2024-12-19 20:20:14

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@Globob

it's easier to modify the house than it is to try to build a new house in a sinkhole with a broken gas line belching fire

don't think sane coherent rational planning can exist under the effects of the shitshow which is coming and the damage it will cause

2024-12-19 20:29:18

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@RonSupportsYou

the problem is morons who destroy their own stated goals on the issue they are obsessed with, *and* at the expense of all other issues

a group of americans with zero strategic thinking skills and only guided by fragile, impotent toxic idealism

just as much as MAGA is a problem

we all have a social responsibility to vote, to pick between the better of two pieces of shit

but some want perfect, "now!"

easily manipulated idiots, destroying their own goals

2024-12-19 22:33:30

Van Sice

vansice@infosec.exchange

@benroyce @RonSupportsYou I am not convinced that narrative is real. How many of these mythical single issue left leaning voters actually exist? More people just didn't vote than voted R or Dem. They were the largest third.

2024-12-19 22:36:41

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@vansice @RonSupportsYou

agreed

i am merely focusing on one subgroup of morons who don't vote and their stupid reasons not to

2024-12-19 22:38:03

Van Sice

vansice@infosec.exchange

@benroyce @RonSupportsYou I think there was a pretty good confluence of factors dissuading people from voting, sadly.

2024-12-20 00:13:58

madmonk

madmonk@mastodon.social

@benroyce actually the Democrats were very active online crushing the left. The only time Democrats have strength is crushing leftist inside their own party. They would rather see Trump in office than offer any substantive change

2024-12-20 00:19:54

Paul Wermer, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

PaulWermer@sfba.social

@benroyce

Not sure how that addresses the issue of selected bubbles. An "I join people I know and trust" problem once we have become #bubblized - how do I reach into bubbles that do not trust me? (Or for Democrats, or DSA, or PDA, or climate advocates, or ... replace I/me with we/us)

#TheTroublesWithBubbles are a problem I don't hear discussed (at least not in my bubble)

2024-12-20 00:22:17

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

blogdiva@mastodon.social

“am i wrong?”

nope; but you know what am going to say next, right? it’s pretty much what i told them almost 20 years ago, about helping put money into all the blogosphere, big & small. what it got us: chosen stars with cushy deals in oligarchic media. what happened to the rest of us? they gave us a big fuck you, got mine.

i learned this needs to happen without the party and their ecosystem of parasites. they feast on the status quo and you’re asking them to blow up their through.

@benroyce

2024-12-20 00:24:28

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@madmonk

i just love this "blame the folks opposing trump, for trump, and forgive those who make endless demands and never vote" idiocy

it's not anyone else's job to appeal to fragile, impotent toxic idealism

it's for fragile, impotent toxic idealists to understand they gave us trump due their abject stupidity

you never get what you want in this world

you get better or worse

forever

endlessly moving the goalposts towards perfection to justify a lack of accepting reality is no defense

2024-12-20 00:25:45

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@PaulWermer

yes but that's a second order problem

the first order problem is that a rigged bubble is never going to get you any results

2024-12-20 00:27:35

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@blogdiva

well said

but

fuck them

why even consider what they think or do. there is no value in positioning ourselves in reference to milquetoast compromised sludge. just utterly forget them

just make our own, and outcompete them

2024-12-20 00:31:15

DocHolliday

WmShakesp3are@mastodon.social

@benroyce @RonSupportsYou

You see, here we disagree. DJT was re-elected not because of Israeli genocide or airhead leftists.

DJT was re-elected (we can’t even blame the electoral college this time) because a majority of voting Americans are stupid, misogynistic, racists. We deserve everything we get.

2024-12-20 00:40:01

madmonk

madmonk@mastodon.social

@benroyce I don't even understand the relevance of this comment. A lesson you and other Democrats might learn but probably won't; going around talking down to everyone and acting like you are better than everyone else does not pull more voters into your camp. You're just being a Hilary. So go ahead keep pushing people away from the Democratic party, it needs to die #exitdems

2024-12-20 00:41:39

your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦

blogdiva@mastodon.social

🗣 SAY THAT!!!

@benroyce

2024-12-20 00:45:53

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@madmonk

so you want the GOP to win. by your own words you just wrote

you understand how voting works in the usa, correct?

i would think that this is a more important issue than "bad meanie man on intarwebs hurt my fee fees," no?

2024-12-20 01:18:32

madmonk

madmonk@mastodon.social

@benroyce you are writing your own narrative and trying to place it on me. We are done here. Peace and solidarity

2024-12-20 01:24:23

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@madmonk

"i firmly declare my intent to sabotage the left and hand the country to the right. oh and it's your fault. oh and peace and solidarity"

🤣 🤣 🤣

so weak

2024-12-20 02:36:04

Globob

Globob@thecanadian.social

@benroyce Maybe you don’t need to rebuild in the sinkhole, but rather up on the ridge with a better view of the sunrise. A shitshow offers opportunities for small nudges to have huge effects. Don’t forget that the shitshowers want us to give up.

2024-12-20 02:55:25

Snarky McSnarkface

MrBirch@mastodon.social

@benroyce @DemocracyMattersALot Yes and we need to find ways to make sure that the messages cross the chasm and get in front of the MAGAts

2024-12-20 02:57:24

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@MrBirch @DemocracyMattersALot

yes, agreed

eventually

but due to purposeful troll brigades and algorithms controlled by plutocrats, we have to build our own structure first, because that game over there is rigged

2025-01-19 00:28:31

Beggar Midas

Beggarmidas@mastodon.social

@benroyce Eh, it's more complicated than that. Yeah, the dems are kinda clueless. Sure. Their strategists are sealed in a bunkerlike echochamber for sure. But that's not why they lost or the degree that they lost i'm fairly confident.
(Thanks for the follow, BTW) I suspect the real answer is complicated. It involves some major underhanded fuckery that we should have guessed was going to be in play. Nor do I mean the foreign kind.

2025-01-22 21:46:22

Ideasbeforepersona

Technofeudalhermit@mastodon.social

@benroyce You're right of course but since they're ultimately owned by the same interests as Republicans and like them govern in opposition to their hase as well as bipartisan will of the people at best they occasionally serve as a stop gap or maybe a pretty veneer.

2025-01-22 22:10:41

Ben Royce 🇺🇦

benroyce@mastodon.social

@Technofeudalhermit

i wouldn't call it a pretty veneer. it's pretty fucking ugly

2025-01-29 01:12:05

Kataphract

Kataphract@masto.ai

@benroyce while you're not wrong I propose that during the win over trump, the democratic party did not focus on solidifying their center-voting voter base. Instead, from personal experience and perception, they took Biden's win as approval from the center, rather as a disapproval of trump, and acted accordingly.

I still agree, however, that trolling, disinformation, and blatant lying are key issues that can be solved by growing the fediverse.