thenexusofprivacy

thenexusofprivacy OP , 1 month ago

Back in December, they tried to get an even WORSE FISA extension bill through as part of the NDAA -- without even a vote on it -- and the pushback was strong enough that they abandoned the plan. In 2020 grassroots activism kept them from rauthorizing Section 215 of the PATRIOT Act . In 2015 grassroots activism kept them from doing a straight reauthorization of the PATRIOT Act. So there really is a track record of it being effective on this issue.

The key dynamic here is that both parties are split on the issue -- progressive Dems along with Libertarian and MAGA Republicans all favor reform. So even representatives in a district that one party always wins have to consider the politics: Republicans wanting to keep their MAGA cred against MAGA challengers, Democrats facing progressive challengers (or progressive Dems who need strong support from their base against centrist challengers). Plus there are a handful of centrist Dems in purple districts who might vote the right way if it can pick up some Republican votes.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

As I say in the article:

Despite these problems, many people on well-moderated instances have very positive experiences in today’s fediverse. Especially for small-to-medium-size instances, for experienced moderators even Mastodon’s tools can be good enough.

However, many instances aren’t well-moderated. So many people have very negative experiences in today’s fediverse.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

I’ll get to that in a followon post, but one straightforward way to make progress is to change some of the defaults

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

From the article:

I’m using LGBTQIA2S+ as a shorthand for lesbian, gay, gender non-conforming, genderqueer, bi, trans, queer, intersex, asexual, agender, two-sprit, and others (including non-binary people) who are not straight, cis, and heteronormative. Julia Serrano’s trans, gender, sexuality, and activism glossary has definitions for most of terms, and discusses the tensions between ever-growing and always incomplete acronyms and more abstract terms like “gender and sexual minorities”. OACAS Library Guides’ Two-spirit identities page goes into more detail on this often-overlooked intersectional aspect of non-cis identity.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

If you read the article and follow the links you’ll find plenty of evidence. The Whiteness of Mastodon, A breaking point for the queer community, and Dogpiling, weaponized content warning discourse, and a fig leaf for mundane white supremacy are three places to start.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

I didn’t say the fediverse has come a long way. I said that many people on well-moderated instances have good experiences – which has been true since 2017. In general though I’d say there was a brief period of rapid progress on this front in the early days of Mastodon in 2016/2017, and since then progress has been minimal. Lemmy for example has much weak moderation functionality than Mastodon. Akkoma, Bonfire, Hubzilla etc are better but have minimal adoption.

And @originallucifer Ipeople have been complaining about this for years – it was an issue in 2011 with Diaspora, 2016 with Gnu social, 2017 with Mastodon, etc etc etc – so it’s not a matter of fediverse software as a whole being in its infancy. Even Lemmy’s been around for almost four years at this point. It’s just that the developers haven’t prioritized this.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

If you’re looking for more of a technical deep dive, check out Threat modeling Meta, the fediverse, and privacy

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

At some level you’re not missing anything: there are obvious solutions, and they’re largely ignored. Blocking is effective, and it’s a key part of why some instances actually do provide good experiences; and an allow-list approach works well. But, those aren’t the default; so new instances don’t start out blocking anybody. And, most instances only block the worst-of-the-worst; there’s a lot of stuff that comes from large open-registration instances like .social and .world that relatively few instances block or even limit.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

It’s tricky … many people do use “queer” as an umbrella term, but a lot of trans people don’t like being lumped under that, and some lesbian, gay, bi, and agender people don’t consider themselves queer. There aren’t great answers.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

Total bullshit response. Yes, there are a lot of LGBT people on the fediverse. There's also a lot of homophobia and transphobia on the fediverse. And the instances run by nazis and terfs very much care if you're trans and will harass you just as much on the fediverse as anywhere else.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

Thanks, glad you liked it. Agreed that blocklists (while currently necessary) have big problems, it would really be great if we had other good tools and they were much more of a last resort … I’ll talk more about that in a later installment.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

That’s great! And a lot of trans people I’ve talked with on Mastodon say similar things, which is also great. But a lot don’t. It depends a lot on the instance you wind up choosing. So the people who stay wind up as a self-selecting sample.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 6 months ago

Oh well, thanks for trying.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 8 months ago

Agreed. At the Senate Commerce Committee hearing, both Cantwell and Markey said they had heard from a lot of consituents about the bill’s problems, especially for LGBTQ+ people, and that there’s work to do before going forward … so at least the pushback is getting noticed.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 8 months ago

here’s the list of cosponsors … if they’re there, then they’re certainly supporting it. It’s worth contacting them in any case; they’ll often send you a form reply saying their position on the bill.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 8 months ago

That’s disappointing … but, enough pressure can get them to change their position (or, almost as good, ask Schumer not to bring the bill to the floor so that they don’t have to take a politically costly vote). In the Senate Commerce Committee hearing, both Cantwell and Markey voted yes but said they had gotten a lot of calls and email from constituents who were concerned about the impact on LGBTQ+ teens so there was work to do before bringing the bill to the floor … so the pressure is definitely getting noticed!

thenexusofprivacy OP , 8 months ago

Great point about editing the letter – and calling is even better!

In terms of whether or not we’ll be able to change it … last year the broad pushback succeeded in stopping KOSA, and there’s certainly a decent chance to do the same this year. Who knows, but as you say, it’s always worth trying!

thenexusofprivacy OP , 8 months ago

Thanks for making the effort! On bills like this, enough pressure can make a difference – we stopped KOSA from passing last year, and have a good chance this year as well.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 8 months ago

!bad_internet_bills is tracking all the bad internet bills … right now KOSA’s where the most action is.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 8 months ago

WTF indeed. But, thanks for emailing them – they track how much email they get in each direction, and if there’s enough they may rethink their position.

thenexusofprivacy OP , 9 months ago

That’s true, and legislation that passes in the US also influences legislation elsewhere. However quite a few people from outside the US have repeatedly asked for discussions of this and other legislation to include something in the title that indicates that it relates to US legislation, so I went with US-specific on this post.