Clif @Clif@social.cleverlibre.org

I love all of you and I want nothing but the best for each of you, particularly those on infosec.exchange. I understand that Mastodon isn't Twitter, that DMs are end-to-end encrypted, that we are spread across different instances and it can be hard to find your friends, and that an instance can go away at any time, and that translating posts doesn't work correctly, and there is no native giphy support, and that some instances are overwhelmed and super slow, and that you don't think the federated model can scale to a billion users, or that it doesn't support full text search of every post and account, or that we can't comply with the GDPR, or that we don't support quote tweet style functionality, or that we shouldn't collect IP addresses, and many other things.

The fediverse is a work in progress. I've been here for going on 6 years. In that time, it's come a long, long way. That said, Mastodon is not going to appeal to everyone. The decisions I make are not going to appeal to everyone. No one is forcing you to be here. No one is forcing you to disclose your personal secrets into a network of federated servers running by volunteers and hobbyists. NB: this is not Twitter. It has some similar functionality, but it is not Twitter. Parts of it are better, IMO, and parts are not. The security community is generally among the most skilled and competent IT people the world has to offer. Mastodon is open source. Do you see where I'm going?

I set this instance up a long time ago for reasons I don't even remember. I have poured my soul into this thing because I believe in the importance of this community. I have effectively peaked in my career as a CISO and I and my family live well. I am not running this instance for fame, money, a better job, or anything other than wanting to foster a community of people that can learn from each other and make the world a better place. That's it.

As I've said in several recent interviews, I felt particularly obligated to ensure the security community had a good handing spot in the fediverse as everyone was running for the doors in Twitter. We've grown from 180 active users to about 30000 in the span of 3 weeks. I do not expect everyone to stay. Some will set up their own instances. Some will move to one of the other excellent security focused instances. Some will give up and move to on to some other social media. And that is OK. While I am super excited to see the buzz here, I don't have subscriber targets, engagement targets, retention targets, or anything else. The only metric I hold myself to is whether I think this is serving a useful purpose to the community.

I appreciate all of you, regardless of where you land. Infosec.exchange has been here for a long time and will continue to be here for you.

Interesting development: “Poynter is in talks with the journa.host team about bringing the social network under its umbrella. For the overworked administrators of the server, it would come as a relief.”
“We don’t have the time to be doing this,” Mr. Weiss said. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/11/21/style/mastodon-twitter-adam-davidson.html @bernstein @nytimes #journalism #media

I'm still learning about #engagement on #Mastodon and unlearning the algorithm-think of #Twitter. I already have a higher engagement rate here in relation to my number of followers than I do on Twitter, where I have wayyy more followers. The Twitter #algorithm doesn't reward me because I avoid using antisocial or histrionic tactics to earn clicks. Mastodon seems to reward constructive conversation through its nature - no algorithm required. Despite the rough UI, I think I'll stick around here!

Scientists! Many of my fellow reporters at @sciencemagazine are here now:

Ace pandemic reporters @kakape and @joncohen;

@rpocisv, covering diversity in science;

@boron110, our delightful podcast host;

@martinenserink, international editor and public health guru;

@klangin, covering the scientific workforce;

@DanClery, covering astronomy;
@lguterman, editing chem and bio;

@cathleenogrady, writing about science and society;
@meredithwadman@newsie.social, covering medicine and bad behavior.

Tremendous investigation on large companies using junk carbon offsets to claim carbon neutrality from the folks at Bloomberg: https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2022-carbon-offsets-renewable-energy/?sref=Ptu9QECN

👎 Fired: the Twitter human rights team, those working on lies, bias and online harm, the people responsible for privacy, security and safety…

👍 Welcome back: the anti-semites, liars, conspiracy theorists and all-round crazy people.

Don’t say Elon Musk has no idea of where to take Twitter.

It is VERY clear and VERY dangerous !

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/kanye-west-twitter-account-returns-elon-musk/

There were two notable moderation incidents on mastodon.social and mastodon.online in the past 24 hours that I would like to address. In the first, a post was wrongfully removed due to a report claiming it contained a dogwhistle, and in the second, a person was wrongfully suspended due to a report claiming it's an impersonator. Both were undone and apologies issued.

”Global Witness found more than 600 people at the talks in Egypt are linked to fossil fuels.
That's more than the combined delegations from the 10 most climate-impacted countries.”

"If you want to address malaria, you don't invite the mosquitoes”
#COP27

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-63571610

@david_megginson I am talking about @wickdchiq's account being suspended because of a report alleging it's a fake account, and a tweet being misread to support it. It's an unfortunate mistake. Nobody is banned for posting about racism.

via Vox

Here are the first moon photos from NASA’s Artemis I mission

https://www.vox.com/recode/2022/8/27/23323463/artemis-1-moon-orion-sls-nasa-kennedy-space-center-florida
#News #NASA #Artemis #Space

You might have seen somebody using the proverb Vox Populi, Vox Dei. What was missing was the context in which it was used:

Nec audiendi qui solent dicere, Vox populi, vox Dei, quum tumultuositas vulgi semper insaniae proxima sit.

In case you do not speak Latin, it means in English:

And those people should not be listened to who keep saying the voice of the people is the voice of God since the riotousness of the crowd is always very close to madness.

Village in French Alps demolishes its ski lift because there's no #snow left https://www.cnn.com/travel/article/french-ski-resort-dismantled-ski-lift-scn/index.html #climatechange #europe #france

@adamdavidson I just read this from Der Spiegel and it convinced me to leave. It's not a social network anymore it's a social experiment and we are the test subjects. I think they nailed it. Here is the link: https://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/apps/elon-musk-entsperrt-donald-trump-twitter-hat-keine-nutzer-mehr-sondern-nur-noch-benutzte-a-ddc72793-1c1b-47b2-89e7-fa179760a3f5

I bet you’ve heard of Galileo & Hubble, but what about Henrietta Swan Leavitt?

Leavitt changed astronomy. She figured out new ways to measure a star’s distance from Earth & her work helped determine the universe is expanding.

Her boss, Edward Pickering, published her findings UNDER HIS NAME. Later, Shapley used her findings to determine distances around the Milky Way w/o credit.

Leavitt’s work is still used today. So next time you hear about famous men in #science share her remarkable story.

It increasingly appears that Twitter has become an H-1B trap. Remaining employees reportedly are heavily skewed toward H-1B visa holders who can't leave Twitter without losing their ability to legally stay in the U.S. Not quite indentured servitude, but in the same movie.

Not trying to be a dick but can the Twitter migrants let the numbers game go? That’s what led to so much pointlessness on that app in the first place. How about just connect and have fun with ppl instead of making it all about follower numbers.

The moderation team is bigger than ever and so is the amount of reports we have to process. We're dealing with unprecedented growth despite having closed registrations on these servers weeks ago. Some false positives are unavoidable, but we understand these mistakes are upsetting and unacceptable, and we are trying to do better. Luckily all moderator actions can be appealed and reversed.

😘
COP27, a small step forward for the planet?
No progress on emissions but the loss and damages principle accepted.
➡️ https://open.substack.com/pub/theplanet/p/cop27-a-small-step-forward-for-the?utm_source=direct&r=f6p28&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
➡️ Boost
#ClimateCrisis #COP27 #environment #nature #news #climatechange

@jeff This sentence is already there: "Keep in mind that the content you create on your first server stays there."

"After the encouraging outcomes of the midterms, the latest twists & turns—including the House GOP’s obsession with prioritizing Hunter Biden & his laptop—offer fresh reason to doubt we can ever turn our total focus to making life better.

"Just when signs of light appear, the malignant ones find a way to wrest back the darkness and force more unnecessary struggle. As Michael Corleone said in The Godfather, Part III, 'Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in.'” https://america.substack.com/p/jack-smith-takes-over