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The Nexus of Privacy

@ thenexusofprivacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

Posts
62
Comments
75
Joined
3 yr. ago

  • What’s the difference between Mastodon, Bluesky, and Misskey?

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  • Misskey's a vibrant colorful very interactive experience

    Bluesky's a very good Twitter alternative, at least for now, although it's owned by a VC-funded startup so we'll see how long that lasts

    Mastodon (and even moreso forks like Glitch and Hometown) are good if you want a small-to-medium size community along with the ability to be part of broader conversations. It can be a decent Twitter alternative for some people (especially white techies) but Bluesky's a lot more usable, easy to get started on, and diverse.

  • Rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about "millions of missing votes" and voting machine fraud

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  • What's the evidence you find "literally incontrovertible"?

    The comparison is apt though:

    • In 2020, almost all non-partisan voting rights organizations and election experts (as well as most Republicans, despite losing) were saying that there was in fact no evidence of widespread election fraud. So conservatives claiming election fraud were seen as conspiracy theorists who were spreading disinfo (either intentionally or because they really thought there was evidence).
    • In 2024, almost all non-partisan voting rights organizations and election experts (as well as most Democrats, despite losing) are saying that there was in fact no evidence of widespread election fraud. So ...

  • Rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about "millions of missing votes" and voting machine fraud

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  • Sure, if it's somebody you know or trust who's saying this, then it's not disinformation; agreed about helping them contact election officials and/or other authorities, and if you think it's useful to amplify it, then I'm not trying to talk you out of it.

    If it's not somebody you know or trust, then amplifying it is quite possibly helping out a disinformation campaign.

    And in any case, amplifying individual claims is very different from the unsupported claims about "millions of missing votes", and that's what I am trying to talk people out of.

  • Rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about "millions of missing votes" and voting machine fraud

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  • It's true that downballot Dems ran ahead of Harris in most states. Why do you think it's statistically unlikely? Polls ahead of the election showed downballot Dems were more popular than Harris. Republicans focused most of their negative campaigning on Harris. Biden's very unpopular and she didn't try to distance herself from him (I'm not saying that she should have, I'm just observing that she didn't). Sexists and racists were less likely to vote for Harris.

  • Rumors, conspiracy theories, and disinformation about "millions of missing votes" and voting machine fraud

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  • I talked about that in the article:

    Don't get me wrong, multiple voter suppression techniques actually were used to keep people from voting – purging voters from rolls, felon disenfranchisement, 6-hour lines, texts with false information, voter intimidation, voter id laws, signature challenges, etc etc etc. But that's not what these conspiracy allegations are focusing on.

    And I also discussed it in terms of the goals of people pushing these conspiracy theories:

    focusing attention on an alleged fraud that didn't occur is a good way to divert attention from all voter suppression that really has occurred and has been steadily ramping up ever since Republicans on the Supreme Court gutted the Voing Rights Act – and got even worse this year after Republicans blocked legislation that could have provided voters and election officials with more protection.

  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    5 ways to fight election disinformation on Bluesky and the Fediverse

    about.iftas.org /2024/10/29/5-ways-to-fight-election-disinformation-on-bluesky-and-the-fediverse/
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    A tale of two prototypes

    privacy.thenexus.today /a-tale-of-two-prototypes-2/
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    5 ways to fight election disinformation on Bluesky and the Fediverse

    privacy.thenexus.today /fiighting-election-disinfo-2024/
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Mastodon, two years later

    privacy.thenexus.today /mastodon-two-years-later/

  • How are Misskey and its forks doing?

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  • Thanks for the clarifications!

  • I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

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  • Yeah, it's somewhat useful but certainly not a great solution. It's great that they went the opt-in route, but there aren't any good existing frameworks for how to do it, so they had to roll their own. There's certainly room for improvement, it would be great if either Bluesky or the Social Web Foundation (or both) or somebody else invested in it, but hard to know if and when thta'll happen.

  • I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

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  • I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

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  • Fediverse history piece from 2017: A Brief History of the GNU Social Fediverse and ‘The Federation’

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  • I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

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  • For what it's worth, the guy who mostly maintains the Wikipedia page agrees with you. And yet even so, at least for now, the Wikipedia page states "The majority of fediverse platforms ... create connections between servers using the ActivityPub protocol" -- which pretty clearly implies that not all fediverse platforms use the ActivityPub protocol.

    Anyhow whether or not you agree to disagree ... we disagree. Time will tell how broad usage of the term evolves. In the original article I pointed to examples of TechCrunch and Mike Masnick using the term in the broader sense, but maybe those will turn out to be points off the curve. We shall see!

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  • Yep. And also, like I said in https://privacy.thenexus.today/bluesky-atmosphere-fediverse/

    For one thing, most of the people who came to Mastodon in late 2022 didn't have good experiences ... so didn't stay in the Fediverse.6 Flash forward to 2024, and Mastodon still hasn't addressed the reasons why.

    Bluesky, by contrast, has put a lot of work into onboarding and usability – as well as giving people better tools protect themselves and others, and find and build communities ... So today, BTS ARMY and millions of Brazilians, and everybody else looking for a Twitter alternative are more likely to have a good experience on Bluesky than Mastodon.

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  • Great point. And Jay won the power struggle with Jack, which almost nobody gives her credit for.

  • A lot of good stuff is happening in the fediverses!

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  • Yeah, it's a great name.

  • Fediverse @lemmy.world
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    A lot of good stuff is happening in the fediverses!

    privacy.thenexus.today /good-stuff-in-the-fediverses/
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    A lot of good stuff is happening in the fediverses!

    privacy.thenexus.today /good-stuff-in-the-fediverses/

  • I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

    Jump

  • Kuba's link i that thread is good, it looks like there's currently about 370 PDS's -- Bridgy Fed got an exception from Bluesky so is the only one that currently has more than 10 uses. https://blue.mackuba.eu/directory/pdses I know some people who just run the open-source code for Bluesky's PDS (which is pretty straightforward) and some run other implementations.

  • I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

    Jump

  • You're not the only one who sees it that way. Historically the Fediverse was always multi-protocol but some people don't think it shojld be today. I talked about this view some in https://privacy.thenexus.today/is-bluesky-part-of-todays-fediverse/

    "Anyhow, if Evan and Eugen and SWF and fediverse.party want to choose a definition of Fediverse where history stopped with Mastodon's 2017 adoption of ActivityPub, erases earlier Fediverse history, and ties the Fediverse's success to a protocol that has major issues ... they can do that. "The Fediverse" means different things to different people. It's still worth asking why they choose that definition."

  • I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

    Jump

  • You didn't miss it, I didn't go into detail on it in the article ... one big reason is that because of how ActivityPub works you only see a fragment of the overall conversation (instead of everything). If you're on a big well-connected instance like mastodon.social you see more of it but still not all; if you're on a smaller not-so-well-connected instance you miss most of it. This comes in conversations (the "missing replies" problem), with search, and with hashtags.

    Another reason is that Twitter's got a lot of journalists, activists and organizers, politicians, government agencies, athletes, etc ... and Mastodon for the most part doesn't. That's not a technical issue, but for most people, following one or more of those groups is something they're used to from Twitter, so Mastodon doesn't fill the same role.

    Again, there's plenty of stuff Mastodon is good at! And Twitter clones replicate Twitter's problems as well as what people like about it. But for people who are sick of Twitter and want a similar experience elsewhere (as opposed to trying something different), they're more likely to get what they want on Bluesky (and in many cases even Threads, especially if they already have an Instagram account and don't want to see political stuff) than Mastodon.

  • I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

    Jump

  • I personally wouldn't say so -- crossposting isn't the same as two-way communications -- but others might.

  • I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

    Jump

  • Ah okay, I agree that you need to trust Bridgy Fed from a privacy and security perpective. Also agreed that most people don't know Bridgy Fed exists, and that's a problem. And yes, it would be better for the platforms to have more support for opt-in federation, but alas Mastodon's documentation describes allow-list federation as opposed to their mission ... I asked Renaud a while ago whether that was likely to change and he said no. So, yeah, it's certainly far from a perfect solution.

  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    9 things the Social Web Foundation could do to prioritize safety (if they decide they want to)

    privacy.thenexus.today /swf-safety/
  • Fediverse @lemmy.world
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

    privacy.thenexus.today /bluesky-atmosphere-fediverse/
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses! (UPDATED)

    privacy.thenexus.today /bluesky-atmosphere-fediverse/
  • Fediverse @lemmy.world
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Good things are happening in the fediverses! What's on your list?

    discussions.thenexus.today /topic/22/good-things-are-happening-in-the-fediverses-what-s-on-your-list
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Good things are happening in the fediverses! What's on your list?

    discussions.thenexus.today /topic/22/good-things-are-happening-in-the-fediverses-what-s-on-your-list
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    DRAFT: Will the Social Web Foundation prioritize safety?

    privacy.thenexus.today /swf-safety-draft/
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    More questions than answers: another post about the Social Web Foundation and the fediverses

    privacy.thenexus.today /swf-questions/
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    The Social Web Foundation and the elephant in the federated room

    privacy.thenexus.today /swf-and-the-meta-elephant/
  • Fediverse @lemmy.world
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Why is Mastodon struggling to survive?

    www.reddit.com /r/Mastodon/comments/1g1g844/why_is_mastodon_struggling_to_survive/
  • Fediverse @lemmy.world
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Poll: How should the Social Web Foundation engage with Meta?

    infosec.exchange /@thenexusofprivacy/113283777103763019
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Polls on the new Social Web Foundation (SWF)

  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Is Bluesky part of today's Fediverse?

    privacy.thenexus.today /is-bluesky-part-of-todays-fediverse/
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS Army, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses!

    privacy.thenexus.today /bluesky-atmosphere-fediverse/
  • The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone
    The Nexus of Privacy @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    5 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people

    privacy.thenexus.today /start-making-the-fediverse-less-toxic/