17
Post-election disinfo: weaponized inaccurate exit polls targeting marginalized communities (privacy.thenexus.today)
submitted 1 day ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/politics@beehaw.org
0 comments fedilink

Well-crafted disinfo takes advantage of our emotions by getting us to amplify false and misleading messages. A specific example of post-election racialized disinfo that I'm seeing a lot of is weaponizing exit poll data to target Latinos, Black men, trans people, and other marginalized demographics.

79
A lot of good stuff is happening in the fediverses! (privacy.thenexus.today)
submitted 2 weeks ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
2 comments fedilink

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17792698. I had posted here last week asking for suggestions, and incorporated some of them -- for example, the last section mentions the proof-of-concept Faircamp integration into Hubzilla.

Including:

  • DAIR-tube, the PeerTube page of Dr. Timnit Gebru's Distributed AI ResearchCenter
  • The Website League, an island network that's taking a very different approach
  • GoToSocial v 0.17, continuing their focus on safety and privacy with interaction controls.
  • Piefed and the Threadiverse
  • Bonfire's new Mosaic service along with their work on Open Science Network and prosocial design
  • Letterbook
  • Bluesky and the ATmosphere's continued momentum

The post has more info on all of these and more ... there really is a lot going on.

I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses! by thenexusofprivacy in c/fediverse@lemmy.world
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 2 weeks ago

Yep. And that's far from the only way it could work out badly. I talk about this a bit in the section on "Bluesky is a useful counterweight to Threads"

Bluesky is far from perfect. They're venture-funded, so likely to end with an exploitative business model. They've got a surveillance-capitalism friendly all-public architecture. It's great that Jack Dorsey's no longer on the board but he was.

160
I for one welcome Bluesky, the ATmosphere, BTS ARMY, and millions of Brazilians to the fediverses! (privacy.thenexus.today)
submitted 2 weeks ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
54 comments fedilink

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/17686207

It's a very long post, but a lot of it is a detailed discussion of terminology in the appendix -- no need to read that unless you're into definitional struggles.

17
Angelica Ross is back—breaking barriers and building the future with TransTech (www.out.com)
submitted 3 weeks ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/technology@beehaw.org
0 comments fedilink
62
Good things are happening in the fediverses! What's on your list? (discussions.thenexus.today)
submitted 3 weeks ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
20 comments fedilink
The Stallman report by thenexusofprivacy in c/technology@beehaw.org
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 11 points 3 weeks ago

Yeah it's a very thorough report and makes it very clear just how little excuse there is for FSF and Stallman's other defenders to continue to enable and support his behavior. Agreed that he himself isn't particularly relevant, but his supporters are still very influential in some areas of the open source community.

Why is Mastodon struggling to survive? by thenexusofprivacy in c/fediverse@lemmy.world
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 4 weeks ago

https://erinkissane.com/mastodon-is-easy-and-fun-except-when-it-isnt is a good overview (not by me!) of issues that the November 2022 wave ran into. What's frustrating is that so many of these are very similar to the issues the April 2017 wave ran into!

Release 4.3 did some work on the recommended accounts, that's good, but the problems start even before that. What instance to sign up to? Most people have better experiences on smaller instances that match either their interests or their geography ... but how to find them? mastodon.social is (for most people) kind of meh -- certainly not the worst, but it's not all that well-moderated, and it's big enough that the local feed isn't useful for finding interesting people or stuff -- and that's now the default. Also it took over a year to get 4.3 out; I get it, they're a small team, some stuff turned out to be a lot harder than expected, and they had to deal with a bunch of security patches in the interim ... still, that means progress is frustratingly slow.

Why is Mastodon struggling to survive? by thenexusofprivacy in c/fediverse@lemmy.world
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 4 weeks ago

Bluesky certainly provides another option ... when Apartheid Clyde led to Twitter getting shut down in Brazil, there was a small bump in Mastodon's numbers, but a much bigger influx to Bluesky. Then again Bluesky's addressed a lot of problems people coming to Mastodon in 2022 had, and Mastodon hasn't, so if everybody had come to Mastodon instead the pattern would likely have repeated itself and most of them wouldn't have stuck around.

271
Why is Mastodon struggling to survive? (www.reddit.com)
submitted 4 weeks ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
182 comments fedilink

I don't like the clickbait title at all -- Mastodon's clearly going to survive, at least for the forseeable future, and it wouldn't surprise me if it outlives Xitter.

Still, Mastodon is struggling; most of the people who checkd it out in the November 2022 surge (or the smaller June 2023 surge) didn't stick around, and numbers have been steadily declining for the last year. The author makes some good points, and some of the comments are excellent.

46
Poll: How should the Social Web Foundation engage with Meta? (infosec.exchange)
submitted 1 month ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
16 comments fedilink

The Social Web Foundation (SWF) is a new non-profit with a mission of "a growing, healthy, financially viable and multi-polar Fediverse”. In TechCrunch, Sarah Perez reported that SWF has "some backing" from Meta as well as Flipboard, Ghost, Mastodon, and others as well as a "large grant" from the Ford Foundation. "In total, SWF is closing in on $1 million in financial support."

One of the hot buttons in the discussion is SWF's relationship with Meta. So I set up a series of polls on Mastodon. Here are the options for this one -- I'm not sure how to do polls on Lemmy, so please leave your thoughts in the comments

  • SWF shouldn't engage with Meta at all
  • SWF should work with Meta occasionally, when it's necessary
  • SWF should work with Meta together often, but no formal relationship
  • SWF should have Meta as a partner, advisor, or some other formal relatoinship, but no funding
  • SWF should take funding from Meta, but no formal relationship
  • SWF should take funding from Meta and a formal relatiionship
1
5 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (privacy.thenexus.today)
submitted 2 months ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/techtakes@awful.systems
0 comments fedilink

Here's the list:

  1. Listen more to more Black people – and amplify their voices
  2. Post less – and think before you post
  3. Call in, call out, and/or report anti-Blackness when you see it
  4. Support Black people and Black-led instances and projects
  5. Approach it intersectionally

The full article goes into detail, and also has links to anti-racism resources and appendices with a list of common mistakes to avoid and blocklist resources for moderators.

Thanks to everybody who gave feedback on earlier drafts!

-28
Examples of racism on Lemmy? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 3 months ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/fediverse@lemmy.world
56 comments fedilink

In 4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) and its cross-posts, quite a few people said things like "maybe racism is a problem on Mastodon, but I don't see it on Lemmy." Then again, plenty of comments in the various threads were in fact examples of racism on Lemmy, so one takeaway is that at lot of people don't see racism even when they're looking at it. And helpful commenters pointed out some of the other patterns of racism on Lemmy. ... but that wasn't really the thrust of that discussion.

So I wanted to ask more generally, what are some of the examples you've seen of racism on Lemmy? Quotes and links are great, but also feel free just to describe examples or call out more general patterns!

33
Examples of racism on Lemmy? (lemmy.blahaj.zone)
submitted 3 months ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
85 comments fedilink

In 4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) and its cross-posts, quite a few people said things like "maybe racism is a problem on Mastodon, but I don't see it on Lemmy." Of course, plenty of comments in the various threads were in fact examples of racism on Lemmy, so one takeaway is that at lot of people don't see racism even when they're looking at it. And helpful commenters pointed out some of the other patterns of racism on Lemmy. ... but that wasn't really the thrust of that discussion.

So I wanted to ask more generally, what are some of the examples you've seen of racism on Lemmy? Quotes and links are great, but also feel free just to describe examples or call out more general patterns!

4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) by thenexusofprivacy in c/technology@beehaw.org
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 13 points 3 months ago

Thanks very much for wading in, @alyaza@beehaw.org - and thanks again to all the mods for taking action here. Any thread about racism in the fediverse becomes evidence of racism in the fediverse, sigh.

More positively, though, I got some very helpful feedback here from @Kwakigra@beehaw.org, @SweetCitrusBuzz@beehaw.org and @kalanggam@beehaw.org ... which is appreciated, and testimony to the fact that clearly a lot of people on Beehaw do get it!

4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) by thenexusofprivacy in c/technology@beehaw.org
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 3 months ago

Thanks very much for wading in!

4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) by thenexusofprivacy in c/technology@beehaw.org
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 3 months ago

Thanks much, I very much appreciate the supportive words! And, great analysis, thanks for that as well. Although, if you think things are bad here you should see the lemmy.world thread, where it's down to -47. And just imagine how much worse it would be if I were Black!

4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) by thenexusofprivacy in c/technology@beehaw.org
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 3 months ago

These things are basic, but most white people aren't doing them -- even people who think of themselves as staunchly pro Black. And there are multiple examples in the article of how white people might be impacting Black people unintentionally, for example thisiswomanswerk talks about how hand-wringing messages of symptay many times are themselves microaggresive, and suggestions like "Stop asking Black people for evidence of the anti-Blackness" and "Stop telling Black people that they'll experience less racism if they change instances (aka servers)"

4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) by thenexusofprivacy in c/technology@beehaw.org
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 3 months ago

No, "color blindness" perpetuates structural racism. Here's one study looking at that. Seeing Race Again Countering Colorblindness across the Disciplines has a lot more, although it's focused on law and academia.

4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) by thenexusofprivacy in c/technology@beehaw.org
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 20 points 3 months ago

Yeah, the section on "Listen more to Black people" didn't really cover the challenges on Lemmy. I added this:

If you're on a platform like Lemmy which doesn't yet have similar hubs, it's more challenging. One option is to use other social networks, news aggregators, and search engines to find articles, papers, and videos by Black people – and post them yourself to help others listen.

How's that?

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4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) (privacy.thenexus.today)
submitted 3 months ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/technology@beehaw.org
56 comments fedilink

Feedback welcome! Here's the TL;DR list

  1. Listen more to more Black people
  2. Post less – and think before you post
  3. Call in, call out, and/or report anti-Blackness when you see it
  4. Support Black people and Black-led instances and projects

Other suggestions?

1
4 things white people can do to start making the fediverse less toxic for Black people (DRAFT!) (privacy.thenexus.today)
submitted 3 months ago by thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone to c/techtakes@awful.systems
0 comments fedilink

Feedback welcome! Here's the TL;DR list

  1. Listen more to more Black people
  2. Post less – and think before you post
  3. Call in, call out, and/or report anti-Blackness when you see it
  4. Support Black people and Black-led instances and projects

Other suggestions?

Here Are the Secret Locations of ShotSpotter Gunfire Sensors by thenexusofprivacy in c/privacy@lemmy.ml
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 9 points 8 months ago

And, it gives cops another excuse to overpolice Black and brown neighborhoods.

The free fediverses should emphasize networked communities by thenexusofprivacy in c/fediverse@lemmy.world
[-] thenexusofprivacy@lemmy.blahaj.zone 12 points 10 months ago

Today almost no instances run ads (misskey is as far as I know the only platform that's got support for ads) and Threads is the only one that does tracking. I'm using "free fediverses" the way https://freefediverse.org/index.php/Main_Page does -- instances that reject federation with Meta.

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thenexusofprivacy

joined 10 months ago