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Jon

@ jdp23 @lemmy.blahaj.zone

Posts
20
Comments
65
Joined
3 yr. ago

Hi!!! I’m a strategist/entrepreneur/software engineer/activist, focusing on the intersection of justice, equity, and software engineering. I've been on the fediverse for a long time and am currently checking out /KBin. @jdp23@indieweb.social is my main account on

  • Is Now the Right Time for Black Americans to Get Our Reparations?

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  • Thanks very much for excerpting that!

  • Is Now the Right Time for Black Americans to Get Our Reparations?

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  • Reparations aren't just a cash payment -- the article lists five different aspects of reparations, and it's very compatible with investing in Black communities. There's debate iover who should be eligible but it's not an unsolvable problem. And sure some people will use it as an excuse to declare racism's over, but the same was true when Obama got elected ... so that's not a reason not to do it!

    In terms of support in general, do you support the 1988 decision by the US to pay reparations to Japanese-Americans who had been sent to internment camps?

  • Attempting to parse Authenticated Transfer Protocol, or Atproto

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  • Great writeup! A couple thoughts:

    First & foremost, which is somewhat glossed over, is the notion that ordinary people will have the knowledge or interest in deploying their own Personal Data Servers. This isn’t really touched on from what I’ve seen in their documentation, despite it being touted as such a major benefit of the architecture.

    Very true. There's a line buried in their white paper that "we expect that most users will sign up for an account on a shared PDS run by a professional hosting provider – either Bluesky Social PBC, or another company" but they very much do tout it as a major benefit. It's certainly true that the ability to move your data around is a very good thing, and something the fediverse is bad at today, so from a positioning perspective it makes sense to focus on this; their claims that this gives the user power are, um, exaggerated.

    due to the high volumes of data involved, there are likely to be fewer Relays deployed instead of many.

    Yeah I was in in a discussion where a Bluesky developer suggested that non-profits might run their own Relays ... seems unlikely to me, both because of the volume and because of the risk of potentially relaying content that's legal in whatever jurisdiction the PDS is in but not in the Relay's jurisdication. Of course Relays don't have to be for the full network, so we might see more smaller-scoped Relays (although I'm not sure how that differs from a Feed Generator), but if BlueSky and a few others provide the only full-network Relay, that's a pretty powerful position for them to be in.

    Also in that conversation the said that AppViews are likely to be even more resource-intensive than Relays, and so anybody developing an AppView might as well have a Relay as well, so there's likely to be the same kind of power concentration.

    That said I think it's very good that Relays explicitly appear in their architecture. Relays are also critical for smaller or less-connected instances in today's fediverse, but don't get a lot of attention.

    Arguably this may make the AuthTransfer network no more decentralized (they go back & forth on describing their approach as decentralized and distributed) than the ActivityPub network is.

    Yep. They've split the functions of the ActivityPub instance, but it seems to me that they've just shifted the power imbalances around, and potentially magnified them.

  • If we're going to have an effective strategy against FB/Meta, we should clear up some misconceptions around defederation

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  • Right. And that's why I'm on blahaj.zone!

    For many thought it's not that simple: they're okay with Meta housing hate groups as long as it doesn't directly lead to users on their instances being harassed. And it wouldn't surprise me that if harassment starts happening it'll still turn out not to be that simple for them because there are a lot more non-harassing accounts than harassing accounts

  • If we're going to have an effective strategy against FB/Meta, we should clear up some misconceptions around defederation

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  • Totally agree. Back in June I wrote about the reasons the FediPact was good strategy and started it with

    Most importantly, it counters the gaslighting that resistance is futile. The segment of the fediverse that wants to reject Meta is clearly large enough that it will survive no matter what the big Mastodon instances and pundits do.

  • If we're going to have an effective strategy against FB/Meta, we should clear up some misconceptions around defederation

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  • Agreed that figuring out the right action is important! It's clear from the conversation so far that a lot of instances are going to defederate, and a lot of instances are going to federate, so any strategy needs to take that into account.

    I talked with a lot of people about this when I wrote Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ! and don't think it's the case that we share the same goals. Some people see increasing the size of the ActivityPub network as a goal in and of itself (and generally support federation); others are in the fediverse because they want nothing to do with Facebook or Meta (so unsurprisingly support defederation). And some people have a goal of communicating with people on Threads -- friends, relatives, celebrities, etc; others don't. So again, these different goals are something to take into account.

    Wanting to stay federated DOES NOT mean the user wants to help Meta or thinks that Meta is here for our benefit.

    That's correct, but many of the people I've seen arguing in favor of federation do seem to think Meta's looking for a win/win situation where the fediverse benefits as much or more than Meta. And conversely many would argue that wanting to stay federated means the user is helping Meta whether they want to or not.

  • Fediverse @lemmy.world
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Threads is officially starting to test ActivityPub integration

    www.theverge.com /2023/12/13/24000120/threads-meta-activitypub-test-mastodon

  • Stop the surveillance power grab. Tell Congress to OPPOSE HPSCI’s Horrific Surveillance Bill and SUPPORT real reforms!

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  • politics @lemmy.world
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    FISA Section 702 Reauthorization: House likely to vote on two surveillance bills tomorrow (US)

    www.politico.com /live-updates/2023/12/11/congress/johnson-braces-for-spy-powers-fight-00131117
  • Politics @beehaw.org
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    FISA Section 702 Reauthorization: House likely to vote on two surveillance bills tomorrow (US)

    www.politico.com /live-updates/2023/12/11/congress/johnson-braces-for-spy-powers-fight-00131117
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Stop the surveillance power grab. Tell Congress to OPPOSE HPSCI’s Horrific Surveillance Bill and SUPPORT real reforms!

    getfisaright.net /2023/12/10/stop-the-surveillance-power-grab-tell-congress-to-oppose-hpscis-horrific-surveillance-bill-and-support-real-reforms/

  • A poll: are followers-only posts on Mastodon public?

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  • Thanks, it's a good point!

  • A poll: are followers-only posts on Mastodon public?

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  • It depends if I've turned on "approve followers" -- upvote if you agree!

  • A poll: are followers-only posts on Mastodon public?

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  • No, followers-only posts are not public -- upvote if you agree!

  • A poll: are followers-only posts on Mastodon public?

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  • Yes, followers-only posts are public -- upvote if you agree!

  • Fediverse @lemmy.ml
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    A poll: are followers-only posts on Mastodon public?

    infosec.exchange /@thenexusofprivacy/111451811933789838

  • Parents of trans kids urge Senate to oppose online safety bill that could harm LGBTQ+ youth.

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  • You're right ... but tech has a lot of lobbying power and they are very very very strongly against a strong privacy bill, or even a bill that would regulate algorithms. So it's easier for legislators to pass something like KOSA -- or pass a weak privacy bill that will actually make the situation worse by getting rid of laws like California's -- and claim they're doing something.

  • LGBTQ+ @beehaw.org
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    KOSA sponsor appears to suggest bipartisan bill will censor transgender content online (US focused)

    www.nbcnews.com /nbc-out/out-politics-and-policy/senator-appears-suggest-bipartisan-bill-will-censor-transgender-conten-rcna103479
  • Politics @beehaw.org
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    The Kids Online Safety Act isn’t all right, critics say (US)

    arstechnica.com /tech-policy/2023/08/the-kids-online-safety-act-isnt-all-right-critics-say/

  • Congress Is Pushing An Online Safety Bill Supported By Anti-LGBTQ Groups

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  • yeah it's really disappointing.

  • LGBTQ+ @beehaw.org
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Congress Is Pushing An Online Safety Bill Supported By Anti-LGBTQ Groups

    www.vice.com /en/article/qjv3qp/congress-is-pushing-an-online-safety-bill-supported-by-anti-lgbtq-groups

  • Young People Should Oppose the Kids Online Safety Act (US-specific)

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  • Yeah really. Think of the children!!!!

  • Young People Should Oppose the Kids Online Safety Act (US-specific)

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  • Bad Internet Bills that Affect Our Privacy

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  • Yeah that is really horrible too!

  • LGBTQ+ @beehaw.org
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Heritage Foundation Says That Of Course GOP Will Use KOSA To Censor LGBTQ Content - Please contact your legislators! (US)

    www.techdirt.com /2023/05/24/heritage-foundation-says-that-of-course-gop-will-use-kosa-to-censor-lgbtq-content/
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Young People Should Oppose the Kids Online Safety Act (US-specific)

    www.eff.org /deeplinks/2023/07/young-people-should-oppose-kids-online-safety-act

  • Can the Fediverse Help Stop Bad Internet Bills? (US focused)

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  • Not exactly. These bills cut across party lines and there's a lot of desire to be able to pass something -- "think of the children!" So if anything the overall gridlock makes it more likely that these bills will pass. So the dynamics that led to stopping the bills last year was a combination of activists making enough noise, and privacy and digital rights groups pressing the case in meetings with legislators (as well as some grassroots groups with good relationships with their legislators). As a result, that Dem leadership decided not to move the bills to the floor, so the vote never happened.

  • Suggestions for activism campaigns on Lemmy and kbin?

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  • It turns out that crossposting to Lemmy works better from Lemmy communities. So, a Lemmy community is useful. Since I had already crated the kbin magazine and there's no way to delete magazines (!), looks like we'll experiment to see whether or not having two of them makes sense. Here's the Lemmy community I created, I'm using it for now to cross-post from other communities so that there's a single place to go for everything. !bad_internet_bills@lemmy.sdf.org

  • Bad Internet Bills: Letter from over 90 Human Rights and LGBTQ Groups Opposing KOSA (US-focused)

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  • Exactly! Have you considered a career in politics?

  • Technology @lemmy.world
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Bad Internet Bills: Letter from over 90 Human Rights and LGBTQ Groups Opposing KOSA (US-focused)

    cdt.org /press/more-than-90-human-rights-and-lgbtq-groups-sign-letter-opposing-kosa/
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act, preventing data broker sales to government agencies, moves forward

    cyberscoop.com /legislation-data-brokers-congress-privacy-surveillance/
  • Privacy @lemmy.ml
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Fourth Amendment Is Not For Sale Act has a markup session tomorrow - if you're in the US, ask your Representative to support and pass the bill!

  • Asklemmy @lemmy.ml
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Suggestions for activism campaigns on Lemmy and kbin?

  • LGBTQ+ @beehaw.org
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    A (partial) queer, trans, and non-binary history of Mastodon and the fediverse

    wedistribute.org /2023/06/a-partial-queer-trans-and-non-binary-history-of-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/
  • Fediverse @lemmy.ml
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Eight days later: KBin, Lemmy, the landed gentry, and the rise of the "threadiverse" (DRAFT)

    privacy.thenexus.today /8-days-later-draft-kbin-lemmy-landed-gentry/
  • Reddit @lemmy.ml
    Jon @lemmy.blahaj.zone

    Summary of Reddit CEO u/spez' responses

    old.reddit.com /r/Save3rdPartyApps/comments/145bxmi/ceo_spez_ama_overview/