Louis Ingenthron @LouisIngenthron@social.cleverlibre.org

@trainman @rbreich I didn't think they'd ever get over the actual malice standard for incitement, but the committee hearings have made a pretty compelling case.

The fact that Trump knew there were insurrectionists armed with guns, knew that they "weren't there for [him]", and then proceeded to rile them up and focus their anger, and then fought his own secret service detail to try to lead the march on the capitol... It's a high standard, but it's no longer unreachable.

@gabrielquotes To their users. Just like the responsibility you bear for any other guest you invite onto your property.

As owners of the property, they're free to set whatever rules they want, but they should then strive to adhere to those rules consistently. Arbitrary and unexplained decisions just erode trust.

On top of that, they also bear a responsibility to the fediverse. Obviously, not everyone has to federate with everyone else, but defederating for arbitrary reasons disconnects and damages the network effect of Mastodon as a whole.

@ASquareClaire Sure, but then I'd argue that federation isn't the right tool for what they want, then.

They'd probably be better off in a private chat server or message board that serves that community.

@gabrielquotes @Tupp_ed @jmproffitt @sflanagan @jeffjarvis There's no law against pissing into the wind either, but that doesn't make it any less irresponsible.

Blocking entire swaths of users for arbitrary, capricious, and often-unverified reasons strikes me as quite irresponsible indeed.

@ASquareClaire That was in response to "choosing a server with moderation practices that are in line with my own personal preferences".

I may have misinterpreted your intent in that statement.

@jmproffitt True, but the one advantage they have over the monolithics is scale.

My instance has 25,000 users, compared to Twitter's 450,000,000.

So, moderating users becomes much easier. Moderating instances, not so much, especially for those without the time to do proper research.

My thought was that this needed to be solved with a solution like email's RBL. Take the server-level block lists from the biggest servers and average them together to form a high-level blocklist.

@jmproffitt And here's the actual site for the UFoI (scroll down a bit for links to their constitution/bylaws).
https://gitlab.com/ufoi/constitution
https://ufoi.org/

Freemo recently stepped down as temporary chairman since he's such a "controversial" figure, to try to lend the movement more credibility.

@jmproffitt I haven't, but others have.

Search the #UFoI hashtag to see chatter about it.

Or check out Freemo's blog post here outlining the start of the story:
https://jeffreyfreeman.me/eugen-rochko-ceo-of-mastodon-found-to-support-nazis-agenda/

And here's a follow-up: https://jeffreyfreeman.me/more-lies-from-the-fediverse/

I haven't tagged him here because I didn't want to drag him into the conversation unnecessarily, but if you tag freemo @ qoto.org, he's usually pretty happy to talk about all this stuff too.

There's a lot of crazy in the story. For example, at least one instance blocked our server because, when asked if this server blocks CSAM, the answer was "the issue hasn't come up" instead of an unequivocal "no". (The unequivocal no was added to the server rules the next day)

@ASquareClaire If you want an echo chamber, sure.

I come to social media for opposing opinions though. Helps me learn and grow. If my admin blocked sources for those opinions, I'd be moving accounts damn quick.

We need to learn to draw the line better between unpopular opinions and abuse.

@jmproffitt If you want a more concrete example of that, look up what's happening with my server, QOTO, Fediblock, and UFoI.

We got put on the block list because of easily-disproven lies, but despite the protestations of our instance admin, have been unable to reason with blocking servers.

My admin, freemo, then tried to start the "United Federation of Instances", which was meant to be a non-block pact with a set of rules and internal arbitration for violators. Unfortunately, it has so far backfired, with the same instances that bought the lies before claiming that it's a trojan horse. Now, any instance that showed interest in UFoI is getting added to Fediblock.

It's pretty nuts.

@Tupp_ed @jeffjarvis @jmproffitt Then that sounds an awful lot like a culture that never should have federated in the first place. 🤷‍♂️

@Tupp_ed @jeffjarvis @jmproffitt Not "because... something".

Because users can choose to block it themselves. Server-to-server blocks are the nuclear option and should be reserved for egregiously bad conduct. Anything short of that is just curation, and users are capable of handling that for themselves.

@sflanagan @gabrielquotes @Tupp_ed @jmproffitt @jeffjarvis Responsible instances will keep a public list with reasons/evidence (usually on their about page).

Irresponsible instances block with reckless abandon based on rumors.