Zurück

@mho @tchambers

1) You can make even a single user instance have a wider reach through relays, especially targetted ones that are on the topics you're interested in. (More info at https://fedi.tips/using-relays-to-quickly-expand-a-servers-view-of-the-fediverse/)

2) Your own server's view of the Fediverse doesn't affect the visibility of your accounts to other people. For example my account @FediFollows has 60k followers despite being on a single user server with no relays.

@mho @tchambers

The danger of depending on large instances is you are more at risk of them doing something bad, perhaps accidentally or deliberately.

The surest way to guarantee your control over your account is to own your own server.

News organisations need to think about what their priorities are, and what their accounts are for, before deciding to just sign up somewhere large.

@feditips

Of course, that's right. I'm spitballing right now: Maybe it would be a good idea for journalists to have an account for "seeing" the fediverse on a big instance, and another one for interacting with it and being "seen" on an instance by their organization (like ours).

Or set up relays to "see" the fediverse but delete the content very rapidly, so to not fill the own server too much. (You don't want stuff from some days ago to reach you, maybe)

@ssundell You're right, I don't like this stuff either. Rest assured that I chose the examples not by accident.

@mho @ssundell It works like a clock that around 9:30 every morning a couple of journalists will call and ask me about whatever the British intelligence slide says that day. So yes, definitely some laziness there.

The list thing has been fixed in the latest version of Mastodon, so now you can actually have lists of people you don’t follow.

@anderspuck
(… or if it's been retreived by url by some user or bot on your server.)
@mho @feditips

@aslakr @mho

Yes, there are relays based on hashtags which are very handy for themed servers:

https://relay.fedi.buzz

@jwildeboer @feditips @tchambers
Yes, that's what I'm suspecting. Thanks.

@mho @jwildeboer @tchambers

Jan, did you try Fedibuzz relays where the relay has specific hashtags that it follows? That is apparently more careful in resource use than general relays?

More info at https://relay.fedi.buzz/

@feditips @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers

Instead of forcing journalist to have multiple accounts, wouldn't it be easier to have one separate search engine that aims to see all the fediverse? It could even be plugged in directly into the client's interface.

@raphael @feditips @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers
What would it take to build something like that and how would it scale with more mastodon users?

@Zeugs @feditips @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers

Nothing much, really. The fediverse is still relatively small. You can still crawl and index all of it with one (big) commodity server.

@raphael @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers

One server that someone wealthy can purchase and do nasty stuff, the way Google has?

The point of this place is to avoid such pinch points.

@feditips @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers No, one server that is affordable even by an independent software developer (such as myself and my business) and that could offer a service that is almost a commodity.

If any of these service providers tried to go rogue or evil, market forces would peg them down rather quickly.

@raphael @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers

How would it handle opting into indexing? Or would it just index everything it sees?

How would it deal with posts that it cannot see due to restricted visibility?

@feditips @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers

These are implementation details which are orthogonal to the architecture.

Personally, I'm of the opinion that we shouldn't pretend that information in a social network can be private or shielded, and we should educate people that *everything* posted in the internet should be treated as public information.

I know that this is not a popular opinion though, so a search engine could be made opt-in.

@raphael @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers

It feels a bit wrong that people should be sacrificing privacy for the sake of making life easier for journalists. And is it really journalism if it depends on centralised indexing of people's posts?

Couldn't the journalists just have multiple accounts and do some manual digging? It's not that hard to find people, I do it all the time over on @FediFollows

@raphael @Zeugs @mho @jwildeboer @tchambers @FediFollows

Judging from the vast number of news stories that are essentially just embedded Twitter or Instagram posts, it feels like journalists have got used to centralised services and forgotten how they did stuff in the past.

Not all of them, but those that think they cannot do their job without a centralised index.

@padeluun @feditips @tchambers
https://social.wildeboer.net/@jwildeboer/111141528934030581

@mho @feditips @tchambers Ja gut. Klingt logisch. Irgendwie auch tröstlich, dass es bei einem sozialen Netzwerk dazu gehört, sich mit anderen (auf einer Instanz) zu verbinden, statt dass jede.r seine eigene Instanz betreibt und als einsamer Wolf herumsocialisen kann. Es passt in mein Social-Media-Weltbild perfekt 'rein ;)

@padeluun Oder eben eine "eigene" Instanz..

@berkes

Yes, I understand that. But this was debated many times and many, many users see that differently. I think, the different approach is a good compromise.

@mho I think the only "solution" is either to continue this stalemate or someone who doesn't give a rats ass building it anyway.

You see, there's nothing preventing malicious actors from ingesting the fediverse. But there are many ways to prevent goodwilling actors from doing this

@berkes
There were multiple attempts, as far as I remember, and every time the backlash was too big to keep doing it. The only solutions, that were deemed acceptable, were with an opt-in. I think, nobody would want to try it again in the near future

@mho We were one of those attempts with @flockingbird . We gave up, despite hundreds of people cheering for us. Because a handful of people were campaigning (bullying, threatening) just a bit too hard.

I'm sure this will happen several more times, until someone just ignores the bullies and presses through.

@berkes
Ah, I understand. Well, Google already bullies through, doesn't it?

@mho hmm. How is the fact that Google acts like crap, any excuse to allow people on the fediverse to act like crap?

@berkes
You said, that you gave up because of the bullying and I just meant, that there is already someone scraping the data and not waiting for the Fediverse to allow it. Every time someone is forced to give up their project, it is ignored, what Google does. I think, that weakens arguments against such an indexing.

@mho ah. Sorry. I entirely misread (and therefore misunderstood) your comment. Sorry.

But yes, I completely agree. Google (and OpenAi, Yahoo, Yandex) and probably a few hundreds of social-media-data-services are quietly eating up the fediverse that we try so hard to protect.

@berkes
Exactly..