The good news is that there are some straightforward opportunities for significant short-term safety improvements. If fediverse funders, developers, businesses, and “influencers” start prioritizing investing in safety, the fediverse can turn what’s currently a big weakness into a huge strategic advantage.
Contents:
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It’s about people, not just the software and the protocol
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It’s also about the software
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And it’s about the protocol, too
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Threat modeling and privacy by design can play a big role here
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Design from the margins – and fund it!
I’ve been hearing a lot about much heavier blocking and opt in federation. If I were to predict how it all ends up, I see 10-100k users on a small group of servers siloing themselves, and the rest of the fediverse remaining as is. Or even opening up more than it is currently as the loudest people calling for it silo themselves away from the rest of the fediverse.
I won’t say that one particular model is against anything or wrong, the point of free software is the freedom to use it in the manor preferred and if people get value from a walled garden then more power to them. Just not for me.
Agreed that there isn’t one particular model that’s right or wrong for everybody, and that a split is likely – a region like today’s fedi and that welcomes Threads, and a more safety-focused region (with more blocking, a more consent-based federation).
I had shared the draft version here a few weeks ago, and this incorporates some of the feedback – including “This goes against everything the Fediverse stands for” 😎