cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7992691
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!
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You can immediately see who is an admin and who is not.
If you have an open instance and someone puts csam on it and reports you, you’re toast. Thats what blocklists are for and they arent new. Mastodon instances already have blocklists which every sane admin uses. They even come in different flavors.
The way this works is that certain instances „vote“ on blocks by applying blocks to certain instances and if one, multiple or all „trusted“ insrances block an address, it „federates“ through these updated lists.
From previous interactions with the author, I am convinced he is not really interested in the growth of the fediverse and is more than willing to sacrifice anything if it keeps it small and on the fringes. As much as I try to steelman his arguments, I can not find a good reasoning. At best, it is just a reactionary attempt to keep the fediverse exclusive to some minority. At worst, it becomes a way to submit everyone into a ESG-compliance racket. “Nice instance you have over there, it would be a shame if it was marked as the home of nazis…”
No, as the article says at the very beginning, it’s that I think a big reason that fediverse isn’t growing is its failure to deal with safety.
This is the type of argument that makes you less credible, because even if I take what you are saying at face value it shows how all your logic is biased. If “failure to deal with safety” was such a big impediment for mass adoption, how have come the Big Tech alternative still attract billions of users?
Who is the judge of these blocklists?
The Ministry of Truth, of course.
Nonsense. Instance blocklists are used across the fediverse today. They’re certainly not a perfect solution but they have the advantage of actually existing. See Blocklists in the fediverse for a lot more discussion.
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As an instance admin, I would be all in favor of some sort of group blocklist I could subscribe and unsubscribe to. Maintained lists of things like csa, loli, or other things would be extremely helpful, and would encourage more people to run their own servers.
While I get that individuals want free and open and a choice, fact is is that they aren’t the ones running these servers. It’s admins who have to risk things to host for other users - and giving admins an easy safety net out of the gate would really help.
I’ve imagined something like an API through fediseer that my instance could hook into, then select specific lists that I want to block
Imagining for a second that I had the technical ability to do so. The thought of running a lemmy server and letting random people make accounts sounds scary to me. Especially a “general purpose” one. I would feel responsible for the crappy stuff posted by users. How do people cope with that.
Also would not be able to conduct the “investigations” required to determine if an instance was csam etc. Because that means you have to go and check it out! we can’t have a system where every admin is basically required to view CSAM. that’s crazy.
Not just “feel responsible”, but under the law us admins are in fact legally responsible. I never thought I’d be a mandatory reporter and have contacts at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children - but here I am.
People love to say the fediverse should be completely anonymous and open to free speech - but I only a very tiny percentage of them are willing to actually spin up an instance to prove it.
