pleroma.debian.social

jlines | @jlines@pleroma.debian.social

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@openrightsgroup @tek_dmn The problem is that the groups wishing to ban or limit encryption (police, governments, even people with legitimate concerns about crimes such as human trafficking) tend to encounter a disproportionate number of 'bad' people, which slants their view of the uses for encryption. I believe there are vastly more good people who want to be able to interact with each other freely, conduct legitimate business safely and privately.

@dorian I have just read the article at https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgm5k/truth-social-is-mastodon-trump where they say the Truth Social site claims that '“all source code” of Truth Social is proprietary.' Unfortunately the presence of a demonstrably untrue statement on the site will probably have no impact on how much it is trusted by its followers, as they seem to use different criteria for evaluating trust than I do.

@gert @dorian @humanetech @aral Self hosting is good in many ways, but tricky to generalise due to lack of static IP addresses. Freedombox https://freedombox.org/ is good in that area (I am a contributor), but the complexities of running behind a home router introduce obstacles.

@dorian I think it is naive to try to prevent people abusing free software by a licence change, in the same way as preventing bank robberies by putting them in a 20mph zone Also while there are people who take an extreme position on Free Speech or Free Markets, most people are more nuanced, for example agreeing that there should be limits on hate speech, or cautious about the benefits of Free Trade https://blog.wp.paladyn.org/2021/10/09/good-economics-for-hard-times/

@lxo @dorian I personally would certainly not. I do happen to know how to code, but live in an interdependent society where I would not expect to be abused by doctors because I do not have a medical degree, taxi drivers because I do not know my way around strange cities, refuse collectors because I do not deal with my own rubbish.

@humanetech @dorian I would like it to be easier for small non technical organisations to be able to set up and run their own web presence, as described at https://wordpress.debian.social/jlines/2021/11/11/small-organisation-server-the-target/ As a Debian developer I would like this entirely Debian based, but pragmatically Yunohost looks a better route for Oxford Phab Club https://oxford-phab.wp.paladyn.org/ for example, in the short term.

Success from planning vs success by accident. The DNS is almost invisible, planned carefully and openly by a small team of very smart people most people have never heard of. The reasoning behind it can be examined to learn from it in future. Facebook started as a college yearbook, Uber as a ride sharing app, AirBnb as a room sharing system. Theier creators deserve credit for not messing up, but should acknowledge a large measure of luck.

@sean I believe that to get Federated Social Media (of all types) to take off it needs to be embraced by traditional media as per https://wordpress.debian.social/jlines/2021/10/17/federated-social-media-and-journalism/ and small organisations like the imaginary Ambridge Garden Club https://wordpress.debian.social/jlines/2020/11/07/the-ambridge-garden-club/.

@sean apart from Debian and Blender, er peertube instances are run by people who are interested in peertube and the technology, rather than other stuff (and Debian is not exactly mainstream). My wife is leaning to crochet from YouTube videos, but what are the chances of someone with those skills knowing about peertube rather than youtube. https://peertube.paladyn.org/ has videos from Oxford Phab, but that is an anomaly as I can set up my own server.

re: Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust.

Digital Technology and the Resurrection of Trust.
Interesting UK parliament publication at https://committees.parliament.uk/publications/1634/documents/17731/default/ which, in its 153 pages covers a lot of interesting material.

Establishing Trust
I trust Debian, and f-droid (and other
similar systems) precisely because there is so much emphasis put on not automatically trusting them. Debian with reproducible builds, f-droid describes how replicate their build system. In the same way science (hard science at least) is based on other people being able to replicate a result.

Federated Social Media and Journalism
I have written a few thoughts about why I think journalists should have more involvement with the Fediverse at https://wordpress.debian.social/jlines/2021/10/17/federated-social-media-and-journalism/

@robertwgehl Another thing which may fit with your interests is the Freedombox project, which can host an XMPP service. See https://wiki.debian.org/FreedomBox/

@robertwgehl Do you host your own NextCloud server, as mentioned at https://fossacademic.tech/ - if so you could probably host a prosody server on the same (presumably virtual) system, and be robert@fossacademic.tech. Another possibility is that the guy behind the Conversations Android App (available via F-Droid), will, for 12 Euros per year host a one user XMPP site for you, if you control your DNS. See https://account.conversations.im/domain/.

Building Social Media systems on Debian
It would be useful to have the way pleroma.debian.social was built documented on salsa, so it could be replicated for other sites. I know there are barriers to getting pleroma as a proper package, but sharing information would help spread installation.

@pleiades @fribbledom Personally I like YYYY-MM-DD - which sorts into a date order. Really dislike companies who send, for example statements as PDFs named so that whether they are produced on, say the 14th or 15th day of the month is the most significant thing.

re: facebook mention, conspiracy theories
@robertwgehl From this account I am posting as a Debian developer, with an allegiance to the concept of Free Software. Similarly a scholar.social implies a connection to the academic community, but I would like people who are members of an organisation to be able to participate in social media with addresses like @joe.biden@democrats.org, for posts as a member of the Democratic party, or @president@whitehouse.gov, for official posts.

re: facebook mention, conspiracy theories
@robertwgehl - however they are more clustered, mostly. There are some instances with a more liberal policy about who can join them and what they can post, and even when I disagree with them, and many of the conspiracy theories have gaping holes in them, I feel freedom of speech is important.
I personally would like to much more knowledge of, and use of, Federated Social Media in the mainstream.

Why should you work on free software (or other technology issues)?

http://deblanc.net/blog/2020/11/22/why-should-you-work-on-free-software-or-other-technology-issues/

I would add that free software allows us to talk about these issues. Consider how alot of nonfree software has a EULA that says "the proprietor has the right to take away your license to use at anytime". Basically if you come in between the proprietor and their profits, your means to work, conduct activism, etc will be cut.

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