2022-08-15 10:52:11
2022-07-26 10:00:09
2022-07-26 10:00:09
6674390
An adblock-like solution for the fediverse. Thoughts?
Hey people on the fediverse, I have a serious question/proposal. I talked about this in the past, but I want to create a thread about it and I will tag a few people because it is an important discussion:
The problem: like on any such platforms, you'll come across the crazies (the nazis, the bots, the spammers, and so on).
The other problem: what you find as crazy and despicable, I may not. So having admins decide for everyone is not a good approach. Plus, admins cannot do a good job at blocking everything and everyone for you.
The solution: how about we collectively and open sourcely create well defined lists like: bots, spammers, nazis, porn, etc.. And let the debate happen in 1 single place (say a git repo) where you are obliged to transparently submit proposals and have them accepted to the list. We end up with (hopefully) well defined lists (categories) of "bad actors", in a transparent manner. Now services like Friendica, Mastodon, and the like should implement an easy way for any user/admin to toggle on or off these lists. You wanna see no nazis? Enable the nazi filter. Easy. And everything on that list, users or instances, will be blocked for you, the user.
That's the beauty of AdBlockers. Users have the control and they are well designed and functional, and easy to use.
What do you people think?
@Rokosun @Michael Vogel @Informa Pirata @Hypolite Petovan @Eugen @Hank G @Humane Tech Now @Amolith @ar.al🌻 @Cleo McKee @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @dansup @Jeena @Snopyta @TBlock @utzer ~Friendica~ @xantulon
The problem: like on any such platforms, you'll come across the crazies (the nazis, the bots, the spammers, and so on).
The other problem: what you find as crazy and despicable, I may not. So having admins decide for everyone is not a good approach. Plus, admins cannot do a good job at blocking everything and everyone for you.
The solution: how about we collectively and open sourcely create well defined lists like: bots, spammers, nazis, porn, etc.. And let the debate happen in 1 single place (say a git repo) where you are obliged to transparently submit proposals and have them accepted to the list. We end up with (hopefully) well defined lists (categories) of "bad actors", in a transparent manner. Now services like Friendica, Mastodon, and the like should implement an easy way for any user/admin to toggle on or off these lists. You wanna see no nazis? Enable the nazi filter. Easy. And everything on that list, users or instances, will be blocked for you, the user.
That's the beauty of AdBlockers. Users have the control and they are well designed and functional, and easy to use.
What do you people think?
@Rokosun @Michael Vogel @Informa Pirata @Hypolite Petovan @Eugen @Hank G @Humane Tech Now @Amolith @ar.al🌻 @Cleo McKee @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @dansup @Jeena @Snopyta @TBlock @utzer ~Friendica~ @xantulon
@utzer [Friendica]
@Michael Vogel
@Amolith
@Eugen Rochko
@Hypolite Petovan
@snopyta
@Hank G
@smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)
@Aral Balkan
@Jeena
@dansup
@Cory Doctorow
@TBlock
@xantulon
@Informa Pirata
@Cleo McKee
@Rokosun
This entry was edited (1 year ago)
like this
Informa Pirata, Poliverso - notizie dal fediverso and Andrea like this.
reshared this
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now), Dr. Percy, Informa Pirata, Rokosun, Poliverso - notizie dal fediverso and Pen² L reshared this.
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)
Unknown parent • • •Federated Moderation: Where moderation actions, both admin-level and personal federate as metrics one can decide to act on.
(Extension to that is Delegated Moderation, but that's not relevant here)
https://lemmy.ml/post/60475
Federated Moderation: Towards Delegated Moderation? - Lemmy
lemmy.mlDr. Percy reshared this.
utzer [Friendica]
in reply to Tio • • •I can understand the approach, I also understand that it tries to avoid what I think is the bad idea, but I think it will be used differently.
What I would like it so be able to set accounts on my servers as unlisted, so that all their posts don't show up in remove public timelines. Also I would like to be able to receive reported accounts, so I as an admin can decide what to do about an account. I would like this process to adhere to the laws applicable, so the reported account gets notified and I want this account owner to be able to respond and maybe delete some of their content in order to avoid suspension.
I would like this kind of process that Twitter employed, but make it better and fairer, not sure if I want to decide on all the reports.
For bots, high frequency posters, twitter cross posters and pr0n we could also have account flags, users should be able to set them by themself, but admins should be able to override them.
Too much written, but I don't like the central prepared and easy to integrate list idea.
like this
sky_scat likes this.
reshared this
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) and Dr. Percy reshared this.
Abid Nevesinjac
in reply to utzer [Friendica] • • •Tio likes this.
Tio
in reply to utzer [Friendica] • •Good idea!
I agree with this too.
like this
utzer [Friendica] likes this.
censored for “transphobia”
in reply to Tio • • •@utzer@heluecht@amolith@Gargron@hypolite@snopyta@hankg@humanetech@aral@jeena@dansup@pluralistic@tblock@xantulon@informapirata@toplesstopics@roko
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) reshared this.
censored for “transphobia”
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • • •Tio
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • •Tio
Unknown parent • •Tio
in reply to smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) • •sky_scat
in reply to Tio • • •Most of the concepts behind bans are personal points of view. For instance, my chosen home server caters to naturists and nudists. Some might like to see us banned as "pornography." Trom.tf courageously hosts @ToplessTopics, a top-freedom advocate who has been banned from just about every other venue as "pornography" or "adult content."
How is this list to be regulated? By the number of votes? What if 99% of the submissions agree to ban a certain religion, or vegans, or economists who wear yellow shirts on Tuesday? What measures protect the voice of the minority or of protesters? What stops the list on an individual's repository from becoming their own property catering to their whims?
I understand admins need to exerci... show more
Most of the concepts behind bans are personal points of view. For instance, my chosen home server caters to naturists and nudists. Some might like to see us banned as "pornography." Trom.tf courageously hosts @ToplessTopics, a top-freedom advocate who has been banned from just about every other venue as "pornography" or "adult content."
How is this list to be regulated? By the number of votes? What if 99% of the submissions agree to ban a certain religion, or vegans, or economists who wear yellow shirts on Tuesday? What measures protect the voice of the minority or of protesters? What stops the list on an individual's repository from becoming their own property catering to their whims?
I understand admins need to exercise control over issues like bullying, spamming, and conforming to local legal regulations. I'm even okay with certain hosts being marked to hide all media by default, or not showing in the federated timeline. But beyond that I'm leery about ban lists.
@tio@tblock@hypolite@pluralistic@aral@Gargron@dansup@humanetech@amolith@heluecht@informapirata@hankg@snopyta@roko@toplesstopics@xantulon@utzer@jeena
TROM.tf – trade-free online services
trom.tflike this
ToplessTopics, Mark and Scifijunkie like this.
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) reshared this.
Tio
in reply to sky_scat • •Because you make lists based on what you want to ban, like adblockers do. And it is up to the users what lists they want. There are adblocker lists about blocking ads and trackers, some block fb, twitter and the like, others porn and so forth. WHo decides? I do not know...who decides for adblockers?
sky_scat
in reply to Tio • • •In the Fediverse the most dangerous thing is an idea, or worse, a conversation about an idea. Dangerous as ideas may be, they don't compromise the programmatic Integrity of an operating system giving control to a state actor or a group hell bent on compromising bank accounts. They don't follow someone from web site to web site constantly nagging them to buy something.
The proposed lists seem to me more like email blacklists. To a degree blacklists help with spam, but they're a mallet where often a scalpel is needed.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think ready-made blacklists that users can apply simply with a click and nary a second thought strikes me as similar to big tech's algorithms.... show more
In the Fediverse the most dangerous thing is an idea, or worse, a conversation about an idea. Dangerous as ideas may be, they don't compromise the programmatic Integrity of an operating system giving control to a state actor or a group hell bent on compromising bank accounts. They don't follow someone from web site to web site constantly nagging them to buy something.
The proposed lists seem to me more like email blacklists. To a degree blacklists help with spam, but they're a mallet where often a scalpel is needed.
I guess what I'm saying is that I think ready-made blacklists that users can apply simply with a click and nary a second thought strikes me as similar to big tech's algorithms.
If someone wishes to block all my posts because I promote naturism, I'm fine with that. What is harmful is offering a list that promises to block porn, and mixed in among the list entries are naturists, top freedom and breast feeding advocates, breast cancer survivors and many others who would be silenced because thousands of unsuspecting users think they're blocking dick pics.
By all means, block harm (bullying, threats, spamming, etc.), but past that teach people to decide for themselves what they want to read. Don't make that decision in their behalf.
@tio@tblock@hypolite@pluralistic@aral@Gargron@dansup@humanetech@amolith@heluecht@informapirata@hankg@snopyta@roko@toplesstopics@xantulon@utzer@jeena
Scifijunkie likes this.
Tio
in reply to sky_scat • •That being said adblockers block ads, many of whom are not dangerous to any computer, just to the mind (an annoyance). The fediverse will be more and more full of spammers and scammers and bots. We need some lists for those, at least. And the rest of the lists (porn, guns, whatever) are a good alternative to what it is happening now. If the lists are public one can at least see their name/instance there and do something about that. But now you are blind to it all.
sky_scat
in reply to Tio • • •What I am doing is writing to the larger audience. You and I (and others in this thread) are having a discussion, which is what I think the Fediverse excels at. You make your case, I make mine, others chime in with additional thoughts. Beyond all of us participating directly, there is the larger audience of readers who don't participate but do read and think about what everyone has to say.
This topic needs as much input as it can get. From you, from everyone you included in the OP, and from anyone else who would like to participate.
I've given my viewpoint. I make no pretense that it's correct; it's just how I see things from my perspective as a user at this point in time.
Your viewpoint is just as valid, and just as important.
It's not about winning an argument---it's about getting as many differing viewpoints as possible to be considered before a final decision is made.
If I have given the impression... show more
What I am doing is writing to the larger audience. You and I (and others in this thread) are having a discussion, which is what I think the Fediverse excels at. You make your case, I make mine, others chime in with additional thoughts. Beyond all of us participating directly, there is the larger audience of readers who don't participate but do read and think about what everyone has to say.
This topic needs as much input as it can get. From you, from everyone you included in the OP, and from anyone else who would like to participate.
I've given my viewpoint. I make no pretense that it's correct; it's just how I see things from my perspective as a user at this point in time.
Your viewpoint is just as valid, and just as important.
It's not about winning an argument---it's about getting as many differing viewpoints as possible to be considered before a final decision is made.
If I have given the impression that I'm denigrating your viewpoint, I apologize. That was not my intention.
@tio@tblock@hypolite@pluralistic@aral@Gargron@dansup@humanetech@amolith@heluecht@informapirata@hankg@snopyta@roko@toplesstopics@xantulon@utzer@jeena
Tio
in reply to sky_scat • •sky_scat
in reply to sky_scat • • •Now image the person or people behind the blocked/banned website. They know exactly who is against them. Their target is perfectly described. Now comes the DDoSing, the doxing, the swatting, the complaint calls to employers, the endless harassment in other channels; or, if it's a corporation, a polite call from the legal department.
If I ran a server, the last thing I would do is make a public pronouncement about who I'm blocking and who told me to do so.
@tio@Gargron@amolith@aral@dansup@hankg@heluecht@humanetech@hypolite@informapirata@jeena@pluralistic@roko@snopyta@tblock@toplesstopics@utzer@xantulon
Tio
in reply to sky_scat • •censored for “transphobia”
in reply to sky_scat • • •@tblock@hypolite@pluralistic@aral@Gargron@dansup@humanetech@amolith@heluecht@informapirata@hankg@snopyta@roko@tio@toplesstopics@xantulon@utzer@jeena
like this
Mark and Scifijunkie like this.
censored for “transphobia”
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • • •The fedi needs to treat bullies different than politically motivated censorship.
MG is a beneficial svc but mastodon.social makes a value judgement to censor a fedi service from the biggest swath of fedi users. Abuse by admins needs transparency
@tblock@hypolite@pluralistic@aral@Gargron@dansup@humanetech@amolith@heluecht@informapirata@hankg@snopyta@roko@tio@toplesstopics@xantulon@utzer@jeena
like this
Mark and Scifijunkie like this.
Aral Balkan
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • • •Informa Pirata likes this.
Rokosun reshared this.
Aral Balkan
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •Informa Pirata likes this.
Rokosun reshared this.
Jorge Luis
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •The poll I mention: https://saturno.com.ve/notice/AJIznfEXlDsYFiVZbM
Jorge Luis (@jorge@saturno.com.ve)
saturno.com.veIron Bug
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •censored for “transphobia”
in reply to Iron Bug • • •The problem is not so much that an admin can abuse their power; it’s that when they choose to abuse their pwr it’s invisible to the users. Admins need control but a fair & balanced system spotlights bad admin actions so users know to bounce & avoid poorly admin’d nodes.
/cc (list shortened to just those who’ve participated)
@hypolite@heluecht@aral@humanetech@tio@sky_scat@xantulon
Tio likes this.
censored for “transphobia”
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • • •We need to get those modlogs on a public blockchain ;)
@hypolite@heluecht@aral@humanetech@tio@sky_scat@xantulon
censored for “transphobia”
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • • •You might say “fair enough, he’s the mod”. But admins & moderators are empowered by their users & Reddit ensures that most users are unaware of power abuses.
@hypolite@heluecht@aral@humanetech@tio@sky_scat@xantulon
Tio
in reply to Aral Balkan • •Rokosun likes this.
Tio
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • •smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)
in reply to Tio • • •https://conf.tube/w/8TLrJAfKcViUYGvYPMAKT4
“Keeping Unwanted Messages off the Fediverse” – Serge Wroclawski
ConfTubeTio likes this.
xantulon
in reply to Tio • •like this
Scifijunkie likes this.
Tio
in reply to xantulon • •Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Scifijunkie likes this.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •Labeling certain accounts as spamming or bots, or whole instances, may not be far from what the above examples are doing.
censored for “transphobia”
Unknown parent • • •like this
Tio and Mark like this.
Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •I know I'm late but I didn't check my Friendica account last day, so I'm only seeing this post now.
I have actually brought up this idea of blocklists before, but at the time we were talking about implementing something like that in a peer to peer system, because there are no admins or moderators there, users have to do everything themselves and having such a list can be helpful. And I hear some people saying they don't like the idea of a centralized list, but it doesn't have to be a single list you know, if someone disagrees with the list then they can always fork it and such, this is not a big issue IMO because we've already dealt with these problems in the domain of ad-blocking lists. And its important to categorize the list, so for example if someone is okay with nudity then they can choose to not block that category.
I'd like to know about the moderation tools that fediverse admins have access to. Can an instance admin simply remove an account or an entire instance from their local/global timeline without outright blocking them? So this means that their posts won't appear on the instance's timeline, but if a user follows them directly then they'll see the posts on their home timeline. I believe it would help a lot if admins have the power to do this, because there are some edge cases where they may not feel like banning it entirely, but just to get rid of it from the public's view.
When we're talking about censorship concerns in the fediverse, its important to address how easy it is for users to move instances, and currently with platforms like Mastodon, Friendica, etc, its not so easy. From what I've read so far, Hubzilla does it a lot better I think, because they have this concept called "nomadic identities". And Hubzilla also supports cloning so you can clone your account across multiple instances to make it resilient, how cool is that? 😀
I'm not exactly sure if moving instances in Hubzilla would also port over all of the previous user data, but that would be super cool if they can do that, so I can move from one instance to another without loosing all of my old posts and replies.
Another thing I'd like to see in a decentralized social media is an additional p2p implementation which can be used to talk to users or other instances directly without first going through my own instance, this would essentially solve most of the censorship concerns because now you don't have to rely entirely on your instance to communicate. But there comes some issues like what if I like/share a post, for that I'll have to depend on my instance right?
So maybe fediverse isn't the best place to add p2p, it wasn't originally made for that. Some of you may know about the p2p social network https://scuttlebutt.nz/, this actually does a lot of those things I listed above, with an option to use servers if needed. Only issue I have with this is that it won't scale as well as the fediverse. Because in Scuttlebutt you have to store all the information on your device itself, if you just joined a server then you'll have to first sync and download all the content that's on the server to your phone, and this can take lots of storage space. This video addresses some of these concerns -
So IMO the sane way to do it would be to find a sweet spot between what Hubzilla does and what Scuttlebut does. You don't have to make the network entirely p2p and make everyone store everyone else's data, its OK to rely on federated servers as long as its easy to move from one to another and supports cloning like in Hubzilla. If Scuttlebut only needs storing my own posts, replies, and other data then I don't see any issue with that, because this data is probably needed to move between different clients or servers. But I think storing the data of everyone in the network is overkill, let the users store a local copy of their own data and also keep a backup of the same data in the server(s) of their choice.
Tio
in reply to Rokosun • •Yes and this is why Peertube is amazing. Yo... show more I would like to also know this. @
Yes and this is why Peertube is amazing. You can force a clean instance by promoting what you want - choose what instances/users to follow. And even restrict the search to the local videos. I am thinking of something similar for federated social networks, where you choose the instances you want to federate with, and they will be shown in the global timeline and such. idk how well this applies for a social network...
like this
Speak softly love 🇱🇰, Rokosun and Rokosun like this.
reshared this
Speak softly love 🇱🇰, Rokosun and Dr. Percy reshared this.
Tio
Unknown parent • •Tio
in reply to Tio • •So the discussion is very important. I see these adblock-like lists mostly geared for users and not admins.
like this
Rokosun, LPS, Aaron and Scifijunkie like this.
Rokosun reshared this.
Tio
in reply to Tio • •Now I have asked them to automatically add a notification to all users of that instance when a domain is added or removed from the list - https://github.com/friendica/friendica/issues/11779 . This is a move in the right direction.
Friendica is leading the way to a great social platform in so many regards, and the develops, @Michael Vogel@Hypolite Petovan and @Tobias are so friendly and open to suggestions. I hope this never changes because it is the most important aspect of Friendica. I really feel comfortable talking to these guys and suggesting improvements for Friendica, without (hopefully) overwhelming or annoying them.
like this
Rokosun, Liwott, Aral Balkan, Mark, Scifijunkie and Aaron like this.
reshared this
Dr. Percy and Rokosun reshared this.
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)
in reply to smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) • • •Here is the link: https://cblgh.org/trustnet/
Trustnet
cblgh.orgsmallcircles (Humane Tech Now)
in reply to smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) • • •I added a note to the #Moderation brainstorm on #FediverseFutures for future reference.
https://lemmy.ml/post/60475/comment/240137
Federated Moderation: Towards Delegated Moderation? - Lemmy
lemmy.mlrastinza
Unknown parent • • •The list would be to help people who don't want to see that stuff to block it.
If someone is interested, why shouldn't he search it?
@utzer @Gargron @hypolite @aral @hankg @dansup @humanetech @jeena @snopyta @pluralistic @amolith @tio @tblock @xantulon @informapirata @toplesstopics @roko
Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •So the last time we talked about this topic I explained how most of these censorship issues could be avoided by using peer to peer systems. But now I wanna take a look at the fediverse itself and see how we can make things better. I have an idea that I want to share with you all, because I think it could solve a lot of issues with our current method of moderation. I felt like it was better to make a separate post for it so explained it here - https://social.trom.tf/display/dbc8dc44-1562-f428-15c1-f3b204992293
Informa Pirata likes this.
reshared this
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) and Rokosun reshared this.
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)
in reply to Rokosun • • •This makes all moderation activity native to the #Fediverse as federated #ActivityPub messages, which can serve the transparency part.
How you surface them in UI is app-specific. Will add your post to #Lemmy. CC @emacsen @csddumi
Federated Moderation: Towards Delegated Moderation? - Lemmy
lemmy.mllike this
Tio and Rokosun like this.
Rokosun
in reply to smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) • •I have made another post to explain about the social impacts of moderation & censorship - https://social.trom.tf/display/dbc8dc44-7762-f814-5ad9-208146996908
So far we've been talking only about the technical side of things, to see how we can improve moderation by giving more power and choice to the users. But looking at some of the replies I got on my last post I felt like maybe a lot of people don't understand why we're doing it in the first place, why should we give more power to the users over admins? So I wrote this post, to answer that question, but also to make people understand how much of a complex topic moderation actually is, it isn't just simply "blocking bad content".
like this
Tio, Eye and Aral Balkan like this.
reshared this
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now) and Eye reshared this.
smallcircles (Humane Tech Now)
in reply to Rokosun • • •But if I'd ever implement I'd create a Content Moderation domain model and ubiquitous language that concisely summarized the domain and business logic before starting any coding and to bring clarity to the great amount of input and requirements.
In other words I'd practice Domain Driven Design (Strategic DDD, to be precise).
Rokosun likes this.