The Nexus of Privacy

This is a work in progress, so feedback very welcome! And, if please check out the Mastodon poll about interest in a fork

Contents:

• Intro
• There's a lot of low-hanging fruit
• Safety is an especially good area to focus on
• It's not as easy as it sounds ...
• But it's not like it defies the laws of physics!
• What about funding?
• Make sure there are funded leadership and project roles for Black, Indigenous, Muslim, trans, queer, and disabled people as well as others who have been marginalized in Mastodon's development history
• Let a thousand forks bloom!
• Clever conclusion! tbd

As the tbd in that last bullet implies, the conclusion isn't written yet. Like I said it really is a work in progress!

If you're a developer working on a fediverse app or service and want to get it right – or just don't want to be the center of the next firestorm – here are a few suggestions.

Big news in DC: a new bipartisan, bicameral proposal for a "compromise" federal privacy bill, the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA). At this point, take it all with a grain of salt; in 2022, the initial draft of the bill was promising, but it got weakened substantially by the subcommittee and then weakened further by the committee. I haven't read the discussion draft yet so don't have any strong opinions on it.

Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ! If you're one of the fediverse influencers who sees Threads arrival it as "historic" and "a glimpse of the future" ... well, you might want to skip this post.

But if you're one of the many many people on the fediverse who doesn't want to deal with Threads, read on!

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:

• It's about people, not just the software and the protocol

• It's also about the software

• And it's about the protocol, too

• Threat modeling and privacy by design can play a big role here

• Design from the margins – and fund it!

If you're in the US, https://stopkosa.com and EFF's page make it easy to contact your Senators and ask them to oppose #KOSA.

There are some straightforward opportunities for short-term safety improvements, but this is only the start of what's needed to change the dynamic more completely.

This is a draft, so feedback welcome!

Transitive defederation -- defederating from instances that federate with Threads as well as defederating from Threads -- isn't likely to be an all-or-nothing thing in the free fediverses. Tradeoffs are different for different people and instances. This is one of the strengths of the fediverse, so however much transitive defederation there winds up being, I see it as overall as a positive thing -- although also messy and complicated.

The recommendation here is for instances to consider #TransitiveDefederation: discuss, and decide what to do. I've also got some thoughts on how to have the discussion -- and the strategic aspects.

(Part 7 of Strategies for the free fediverses )

Many of the Meta advocates I've talked to share the free fediverses' long-term goal of building a sustainable alternative to surveillance capitalism -- and the same is true for people on Bluesky. So there are likely to be situations where some of the people and instances in Meta's fediverses and Bluesky wind up as situational allies to the free fediverses.

A few areas where collaboration could be very useful:

• A key principle of organizing is meeting people where they are.

• Moderation on decentralized networks is a shared challenge.

• Bringing concepts similar to Bluesky's custom feeds to the fediverses, and more generally focusing on human-focused and liberatory (as opposed to oppressive) uses of algorithms in decentralized social networks designed from the margins.

• Meta's fediverses, Bluesky, and the free fediverses are all vulnerable to disinformation.

(Part 6 of Strategies for the free fediverses )

There's likely to be a lot of moving between instances as people and instances sort themselves out into the free fediverses and Meta's fediverses -- and today, moving accounts on the fediverse today. There are lots of straightforward ways to improve it, many of which don't even require improvements to the software. And there are also opportunities to make creating, customizing, and connecting instances easier.

(Part 5 of Strategies for the Free Fediverses )

Here's how Kat Marchá describes caracoles:

"you essentially ask to join concentric federations of instances ... with smaller caracoles able to vote to federate with entire other caracoles.

And @ophiocephalic's "fedifams" are a similar idea:

Communities could align into fedifams based on whatever conditions of identity, philosophy or interest are relevant to them. Instances allied into fedifams could share resources and mutually support each other in many way"

The idea's a natural match for community-focused, anti-surveillance capitalism free fediverses, fits in well with the Networked Communities model and helps address scalability of consent-based federation.

What fediverse apps and software, support quote posts today?

Here's a great thread by @polotek about quoted posts.

https://social.polotek.net/@polotek/111699960916060256

What fediverse software platforms or apps supports quoted posts today (sometimes implemented as a link, a screenshot, or a reply)?

@[email protected] #fediverse #mastodon #quoteboost

The "free fediverses" are regions of the fediverse that reject Meta and surveillance capitalism. This post is part of a series looking at strategies to position the free fediverses as an alternative to Threads and "Meta's fediverses".

Originally written November / December 2023

Originally written June 2023, updated December 2023 after Threads launched