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
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utzer [Friendica]
in reply to Tio • • •@Tio @Michael Vogel @Eugen @Hypolite Petovan @ar.al🌻 @Hank G @dansup @Jeena @Humane Tech Now @
... Show more...@Tio @Michael Vogel @Eugen @Hypolite Petovan @ar.al🌻 @Hank G @dansup @Jeena @Humane Tech Now @Snopyta @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @Amolith @TBlock @Informa Pirata @xantulon @Cleo McKee @Rokosun I am not so happy about to much of a automatism in this area, it is easy to get on such a list and hard to get off, at least as far as I see there is usually not way how to contest against being on a blocklist.
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.
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Abid Nevesinjac
in reply to utzer [Friendica] • • •Tio likes this.
Tio
in reply to utzer [Friendica] • •Yes this is an issue I agree. But at least if you know there is 1 place where you can see if you are on such lists and argue against if you are one of them, seems better than not knowing at all. Right now for example I have no clue if my instance is blocked by other or not. It is not at all transparent.
Good idea!
I agree with this too.
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censored for “transphobia”
in reply to Tio • • •The list would violate the GDPR for any accounts listed which identify an individual; e.g. if their nick is their full name. If the lists are diligent to only include (pseudo)anonymous accounts, I suspect it would be #GDPR compliant, but then someone could stay off the list just by choosing a nick that looks like a real name.
@utzer @heluecht @amolith @Gargron @hypolite @snopyta @hankg @humanetech @aral @jeena @dansup @pluralistic @tblock @xantulon @informapirata @toplesstopics @roko
censored for “transphobia”
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • • •Tio
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • •Tio
Unknown parent • •Tio
Unknown parent • •sky_scat
in reply to Tio • • •From a user perspective (I'm not an admin, I don't run a host) I'm concerned about this topic. It's not clear to me the need for centralized censorship lists. What is the problem that isn't adequately handled by current technology (muting, blocking, imposed content warnings)?
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
... Show more...From a user perspective (I'm not an admin, I don't run a host) I'm concerned about this topic. It's not clear to me the need for centralized censorship lists. What is the problem that isn't adequately handled by current technology (muting, blocking, imposed content warnings)?
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
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Tio
in reply to sky_scat • •Right so I do not want these list either to be honest. I am against banning people/instances at the instance level. But after many discussions on the fediverse I realized that many admins block other instances and users, and this is non-transparent. This idea with block lists is to address these non-transparent and "personal" decisions and to give users the power to quickly block spammers and bots.
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 • • •I'm not sure ad blockers are the best comparison. Ad blockers serve to prevent invasion of a computer system by malicious JavaScript and tracking beacons. Bad JavaScript can result in the security compromise of systems possibly resulting in takeover. It makes sense for knowledgeable people to offer prepared lists of known sources of malicious software for ad blocker users.
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...I'm not sure ad blockers are the best comparison. Ad blockers serve to prevent invasion of a computer system by malicious JavaScript and tracking beacons. Bad JavaScript can result in the security compromise of systems possibly resulting in takeover. It makes sense for knowledgeable people to offer prepared lists of known sources of malicious software for ad blocker users.
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
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Tio
in reply to sky_scat • •Look I am the one who tries to fight against admins blocking entire servers or users. I had many discussions about this and I think it is wrong for an admin to do that. Users can do whatever they wish to with their online presence.
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 • • •I appreciate what you have to offer, and I'm not saying it's wrong. Remember, I'm offering my views from a user perspective, not as an admin.
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 tha
... Show more...I appreciate what you have to offer, and I'm not saying it's wrong. Remember, I'm offering my views from a user perspective, not as an admin.
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.
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Tio
in reply to sky_scat • •sky_scat
in reply to sky_scat • • •I appreciate your desire for transparency, but there's a dark side to that, as well. Imagine such a set of lists where who is being blocked and who submitted the proposal to block them is publicly viewable.
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 • • •Transparency is needed particularly when a node admin does the blocking. E.g. mastodon.social currently blocks mg@101010.pl & does so in a deceptive way that disguises the fact that the ban is done by mastodon.social not 101010.pl. It’s an abusive Reddit-style shadowban that keeps both sides of the ban in the dark.
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censored for “transphobia”
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • • •Of course when a bully is banned, then transparency harms bully victims.
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
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Aral Balkan
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • • •Informa Pirata likes this.
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Jorge Luis
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •reminds me of a poll I have recently made. I think having personal instances is a good way to go. Although, not everyone would consider this feasible. Additionally, how would this be different to communities where the moderation is left to the user?
The poll I mention: saturno.com.ve/notice/AJIznfEX…
Jorge Luis (@jorge@saturno.com.ve)
saturno.com.veIron Bug
in reply to Aral Balkan • • •censored for “transphobia”
in reply to Iron Bug • • •Yes but how do users know when they need their own svr (or another svr)?
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)
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censored for “transphobia”
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • • •#Lemmy is an interesting case b/c the s/w includes a modlog, so users can review the modlog and check whether a moderator or admin is reasonable. But with Lemmy it’s just an illusion b/c admins of the flagship instance (lemmy.ml) have actually been caught deleting modlogs when public attention is on an embarrassingly poor admin action.
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” • • •So consider this: Brussels police posted recovered stolen property on Facebook. Victims not on FB were unable to see if their stolen property was recovered, thus the police were only serving victims who use FB. When that story came to r/Brussels, Octave censored it.
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.
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Tio
in reply to Aral Balkan • •Rokosun likes this.
Tio
in reply to censored for “transphobia” • •But if a user bans the bully, then there is no reason for the bully to know. Transparency means for instances. When instances ban, it should be transparent to all. What users do with their own accounts is their own private business. But when instances do these sort of things, and affect other users, then it should be automatically public.
xantulon
in reply to Tio • •like this
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Tio
in reply to xantulon • •Hypolite Petovan
in reply to Tio • • •Scifijunkie likes this.
Tio
in reply to Hypolite Petovan • •I do not have an exact answer. How are the ones behind adblockers or the new content blockers for youtube, dealing with these? Will they remove self promoting content from some websites? How about the lists of trackers, are they gonna remove the trackers that are there for the purpose of making a website work? idk...but these projects started somewhere and got better and better over time, and super useful at what they do.
Labeling certain accounts as spamming or bots, or whole instances, may not be far from what the above examples are doing.
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio @utzer ~Friendica~ @Michael Vogel @Amolith @Eugen @Hypolite Petovan @Snopyta @Hank G @Humane Tech Now @
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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 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 • •I would like to also know this. @Hypolite Petovan @Michael Vogel is this a reasonable possibility? Perhaps the ability to have a list of instances/users that are made unlisted on the public timeline and can only be visible to the ones interacting with them directly.
... Show more...Yes and this is why Peertube
I would like to also know this. @Hypolite Petovan @Michael Vogel is this a reasonable possibility? Perhaps the ability to have a list of instances/users that are made unlisted on the public timeline and can only be visible to the ones interacting with them directly.
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...
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Tio
Unknown parent • •This, yes! Perhaps such lists should be for individual users, applied for their own selves, not for instance admins. Not sure what is best...
Tio
in reply to Tio • •By the way I want to mention that I really hate when admins block users/instances. They should only do that in extreme situations (like spam and bots). But I do understand that we need tools for this as well. Also you have to understand that if we do not have a better solution to this admins will continue to ban users/instances in a non-transparent way. Friendica at least publishes all such blocks publicly by default. But it needs to also send a notification to all users when a decision like this has happened.
So the discussion is very important. I see these adblock-like lists mostly geared for users and not admins.
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Tio
in reply to Tio • •So on Friendica whenever admins add domains to the blocklist, it becomes public at /friendica url. Admins are also forced to explain the reason of the block.
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 - github.com/friendica/friendica… . 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.
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rastinza
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?
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Rokosun
in reply to Tio • •@Tio @utzer ~Friendica~ @Michael Vogel @Amolith @Eugen @Hypolite Petovan @Snopyta @Hank G @Humane Tech Now @ar.al🌻 @Jeena @dansup @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @TBlock @xantulon @Informa Pirata @Cleo McKee
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 - social.trom.tf/display/dbc8dc4…
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Rokosun
Unknown parent • •@Humane Tech Now @Emacsen @CSDUMMI✝️🕊️🏛️ @utzer ~Friendica~ @Michael Vogel @Tio @Amolith @Eugen @Hypolite Petovan @Snopyta @Hank G @ar.al🌻 @Jeena @dansup @Cory Doctorow's linkblog @TBlock @xantulon @Informa Pirata @Cleo McKee
I have made another post to explain about the social impacts of moderation & censorship - social.trom.tf/display/dbc8dc4…
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".
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