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Because I could
#Friendica #activitypub #PHP #Diaspora #Fediverse #mastodon #Twitter #Facebook #GNUSocial #ostatus #statusnet
This entry was edited (2 years ago)
Hypolite Petovan
Oh, and I fixed a typo in this post, because I could.
Ted
Too often, when I visit libranet.de this is what I see:

Sorry, the system is currently down for maintenance.


This Friendica node is currently in maintenance mode, either automatically because it is self-updating or manually by the node administrator. This condition should be temporary, please come back in a few minutes.
Ted
And libranet.de is still down. Maybe I should try another Friendica node.
Hypolite Petovan
@Ted Libranet is the biggest Friendica node and as such has been hammered with the recent Musk/Twitter news. Its admin is traveling so they have limited access to the server, so this condition is likely to persist over the next few days.

In the meantime please pick another node from the directory: https://dir.friendica.social/servers
@Ted
Hypolite Petovan
It was just two separate Twitter threads with similar arguments, I can give you the gist of them if you want.
Ted
Nerdica seems the most viable option to me.
Hypolite Petovan
@Ted Good choice, @Ingo Jürgensmann is the admin should you hit any snag.
@Ingo Jürgensmann @Ted
Tad
I have this diaspora account and another on Librenet. Pros and cons to both, for sure.
Ted
@Ingo Jürgensmann thanks for that information and your work maintaining the node. I think I will wait a while before making any changes. I'm pretty comfortable on diaspora. 😀
@Ingo Jürgensmann
Hypolite Petovan
Oh no, not even. Here's the gist, Mastodon is "bad" because:
  • Admins can read DMs
  • Instances can block each other
  • Instances can close


The main driver behind all three arguments was that you have to trust your instance admin which was seen as a bad thing because of pesky interpersonal relationships and people moving on.
Spencer
It just boggles my mind how thoroughly technology has warped us so the notion of "knowing and trusting the person storing your data" can be treated like an obnoxious extra hurdle.
Hypolite Petovan
On the fringe, I can understand how trusting your data to a faceless corporation might feel more confortable than having to think about this handful of singular beings who might have access to it. But c'mon.
hackbyte (friendica)
@Hypolite Petovan On the fringe, I can understand how trusting your data to a faceless corporation might feel more confortable than having to think about this handful of singular beings who might have access to it. But c'mon.

Uh, man .. srsly? There are _SO_ many examples where data stored by some company got leaked or was outright misused by individuals or even teams...

Mh .. no but i actually have to call this belief/this gut feeling a techno primitive superstition.....

And sadly there are still a lot of those out there. mh ;)
@Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan
It’s more about comparing a diffuse risk with a really personal risk. Sure, your data is misused by giant corporations, but you don’t know the people who exploited your data and you never will, which makes this risk almost abstract. You know it happens, but it rarely has any direct consequences for you, or you might not be able to link them with the corporation.

On the opposite side, there’s a smaller risk of a Mastodon admin reading your DMs, but it carries a risk of direct and personal consequences that may feel outsized because of how easy it is to imagine these consequences and link them to the admin.
Ted
Just because you don't know the people who are misusing your personal data, in no way means the offense is less egregious. Surveillance Capitalism is the greater evil.
Hypolite Petovan
@Ted I agree with you on principle, but perspective matters. If you've been embroiled in or heard about instance drama involving an admin reading DMs, it will feel more personal and more pressing than vague corporate data misuse, even if the scale of the harm is objectively bigger in the latter case.
@Ted
hackbyte (friendica)
@Hypolite Petovan Yeah, as i said, there is a huge disparity in the "feel" and "reality" parts of these problems. ;)

One should not assume any communication as safe at all, as long as one has seen to make it safer (by encrypting it)..

Btw .. uhm, how can the consequence of a private admin reading my private messages be greater than when a anonymous dude in a company reads it?

Disclaimer btw: I'm commenting from the perspective of being a BBS Sysop myself way back in the 90ies already - where things were different but exactly the same way as they are nowadays. ;)
@Hypolite Petovan
Hypolite Petovan
One likely scenario: you aren't publicly out and you share your gender/sexuality privately, admin reads it and exposes you.

Another possible scenario: you criticize admin in DMs, they read it and decide to terminate your account on their instance.
Ted
Yeah, well, I'm much more likely to embarrass myself in my public comments than in DMs that are not public. As for drama, I generally know how to stay silent when others want to pick a fight. 😀
Hypolite Petovan
@Ted I understand there are different people with different sensibilities, but blaming Mastodon in general for not perfectly fitting your own particular felt uncalled for to me.
@Ted
Roland Häder
@Hypolite Petovan@Jonathan Lamothe (he/him) Point 1) is true, but so for Twitter/Facebook and any other software that does not encrypt messages client-side. So in other words: If you write sensitive DMs, use client-side encryption and you don't have to trust your administrator. 2) Yes, including normal users, e.g. both on Friendica and Mastodon is known to me. You do this, when you feel to much annoyed of any accounts over there. 3) Yes, the administrator might want to move on and/or cannot effort to maintain his growing and growing instance like it happens now with mastodon.social . It is part of the dynamic that privately run instances suffer from. Still also commercial services can close, e.g. when the company behind it doesn't generate to much income to keep the servers running and maintaining the website (fixing bugs, adding new features, ...).

So these reasons are not only valid to the Fediverse, but of cause valid if any commercial social network.
@Hypolite Petovan @Jonathan Lamothe
Ted
I agree @Hypolite Petovan. Blaming the platform seems unrealistic, and maybe even childish. My attitude is, if you don't like it, don't use it.
@Hypolite Petovan
Valentin Nivuahc
Because I cloud : D
Tad
For me the wider Federation experience I have on Friendica is " a mile wide and an inch deep." There's more to see, for sure, and lots more people to interact with, but most of that has been quips and quotes, memes, and snarky comments from microbloggers. My Diaspora experience has been deeper and more thoughtful, though with fewer people. I like macroblogging better. So my Friendica account is just going to be a back-up for this Diaspora account, which I think I'll just stick with. I enjoy it so much more.
Martijn Vos
@Tad Is Diaspora any more macroblogging than Friendica is? To me they seem very similar, except that Friendica allows you to follow people on Mastodon, and you can edit posts and like comments.

That said, the most interesting interactions I have are still with people on Diaspora. Except maybe this particular discussion.
@Tad
Hypolite Petovan
I think that Friendica doesn’t have a clear publishing identity because it’s been supporting both macroblogging through the Diaspora protocol that’s clearly geared towards longer posts and less branching conversations, and microblogging through the OStatus protocol first, then ActivityPub which are both geared towards smaller statuses and infinite threads of quick replies.
Daniel
Wait a second this blown my mind....🤯

Are you saying that Mastodon Admin have god pawa while the admins of Diaspora* and Friendica do not?

This would explain a lot things... Mastodon is slow, convoluted and cumbersome if compared to Diaspora and Friendica, never understood why became so popular...

But if I got it clearly now I totally understand the real reasons, and it is pretty scary how intelligence agencies are able to manipulate almost everything and while we are speaking against closed services like feisbuk and the likes, security agencies can achieves the same with collaborative and lesser collaborative admins... 🤔
hackbyte (friendica)
@Daniel slow, convoluted and cumbersome?

You realize that #mastodon servers right now absorb several new accounts per minute all over the place since this musk-twitter thing became public?

I understand why you like diaspora better than mastodon.

But then the #fediverse is bigger than just #mastodon, #diaspora, #friendica or whatever....

I strongly dislike the way you try to introduce sharp lines dividing the overall network.
#Friendica #Diaspora #Fediverse #mastodon @Daniel
Hypolite Petovan
@Daniel No, Mastodon admins don’t have any more (or any less) powers than Friendica and Diaspora. An admin of any of these platforms can read DMs sent and received from/by their server given a modicum of technical know-how.

From my experience Mastodon sounds as cumbersome to install as Diaspora, Friendica being on the easier side.

Speed-wise, Mastodon is definitely snappier than both, not sure if it’s because it’s more efficient or generally installed on more powerful servers though.
@Daniel
Martijn Vos
@Ingo Jürgensmann Does that mean Nerdica is going to be faster? That would be nice. It's by no means painfully slow, but it's not exactly fast either.

I joined Nerdica recently hoping to interact with even more nerds, but so far all the nerds I'm following are still on Diaspora.
@Ingo Jürgensmann
Daniel
Never mind guys I totally misunderstood what I read and therefore I made a wrong analysis.

However I was referring in terms of UI/UX, I have been using Mastodon for quite month and still find it cumbersome and counterintuitive, when eventually I got how to add personal columns with personal #hashtag it becomes so slow that I was pretty surprised. I added just two columns for a total of 8 hashtags; on Diaspora and Friendica I have an average of 60 hashtag and never get so poorly performance...

🤷‍♂️
#hashtag
Tad
@Martijn Vos Not at all. Friendica is great for macroblogging! And includes the ability to edit posts (and comments as well), Like and dislike both posts and comments. And it reaches users on multiple platforms. But in my very limited experience, it's a little more complicated. That's not a show stopper for me at all. I can even use Markup on Friendica as well as Diaspora instead of that forum format [stuff} [/stuff] whatever they call it that is default on Friendica. Fewer keystrokes.

My only bother is that it is mixed with all the little microblogging stuff that comes in my feed, even if I limit my feed to just people I follow. "A mile wide and an inch deep." I prefer Diaspora because I don't want all the little short toots and quips mixed in with more substantial posts. Just a personal preference.
@Martijn Vos
Florida Ted
So, my libranet account is working again this morning. 😀

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