Fediverse

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.basedcount.com/post/225787

I have built an AutoMod bot for my instance, lemmy.basedcount.com. The bot covers the following features:

• Automated removal
  • of posts, based on their title, content or link
  • of comments, based on their content
  • configurable with either regular expressions or substrings
• User whitelisting and exceptions for moderators to selectively lift some or all of the aforementioned rules for certain users.
• Mention based pinning and locking of a post, through commands exclusively available to the mod team
• Discord notifications for new registration applications through a webhook. [only for admins]

Naturally, the bot is completely open source. I have also written a rather comprehensive (albeit long-winded) documentation and some examples.

This project is mainly targeted towards admins of small instances, however anyone can spin up their own AutoMod instance for their favourite community (provided they are a moderator there).
The automoderator is also available as a Docker image, for ease of installation.

Feel free to suggest any additional features that you might want to see added to this bot.

I've created a Fediseer frontend that's easy to use!

URL: https://fediseer.lemmings.world Source: https://github.com/RikudouSage/FediseerGUI

If you don't know what Fediseer is:

The Fediseer is a service for the Fediverse which attempts to provide a crowd-sourced human-curated spam/ham classification of Fediverse instances as well as provide a public space to specify approval/disapproval of other instances.

In simple terms, using the Fediseer, we attempt to figure out whether an instance is spam or not, through a human-driven system called the "chain of trust".

The Mixtape is an ongoing feature highlighting the musicians whose tracks are broadcast on Radio Free Fedi. For this edition, we've decided to put together a blended mix of songs to accompany you on a drive!

I just read up on it and it seems good, at least in theory. How does it compare to Lemmy, would you say?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4546141

Last year, the corporate-dominated web came alive, much thanks to the help of corporate-owned social media platforms - how long will it take until the open sections of the web do so?

And if that has been achieved: with stuff happening in the digital world that doesn't in the real world, it could actually be worthwile for people to immerse further into the digital world, which up until now was always the problem behind the idea of the "Metaverse" (I'm not necessarily for this; its just something that came to my mind yesterday). Could that be the actual next iteration of the web and realize what was in the past considered the "smart" web or would it be a dystopia?

And one last question that came to my mind: would it be possible to make the LLMs somehow run independently (could the blockchain maybe be finally put to some use here?) and how would all of that be experienced like from the user perspective?

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4374751

I think this has negative effects on the threadiverse because it tends to keep user's focus at lemmy.world and in general keeps users to stay in their bubbles

PS- The "real" (non-joke) full guide for the Masto-curious is here.

Does something like this exist? As far as I can tell, setting something similar up would require:

• A dedicated Lemmy instance for Mastodon tag-based crossposting (probably, since most existing instances probably don't want to clutter their instance with thousands of script-generated communities)
• Some kind of form on a site where users who want to follow a Mastodon tag that is not already set up as a Lemmy community could submit the tag they want added, which would automatically set up:
• A Lemmy community for that tag on the aforementioned instance, and
• A Mastodon hashtag bot that automatically crossposts all posts with that tag to the linked community

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4204288

I think a big problem behind the reluctance of alternatives to the strictly chronical timeline on Mastodon is that people fear that too much power is taken out of their hands if they are introduced. But the fact is: it is already the case that we put a lot of trust in administrators to put the correct software in place. A strictly chronological timeline makes one thing less to worry about but basically, it only reduces the symptom of the problem. Instead, I think the real problem needs to be faced: take away the fear of users that their instances are not working as they are supposed to and give them the power to check themselves whether the instances they are on are actually doing what they subscribed to.

As the most important, I think of the following two:

• Defederation Tool: shows from which other instances your own instance defederated (I think that already exists).
• Timeline tool: is the timeline curated based on the algorithm the instance proposed.

If these are in place, you could check that you see the right posts by the right instances, which is already a nice thing to know to begin with and would at least me quite content for introducing custom timelines and thereby giving more power to the admins. And with the mentality of this being an important issue, there would always be someone trying to see if an instance is run as promised and most admins wouldn't bother trying to do bad things.

Additionally, the algorithms would need to be determinstic and data collected by the instance about the user downloadable.

PS: Of course admins are doing a great job here, also given that most of them are volunteers. I'm not saying they are bad people, I'm just saying there need to be tools to control what they are doing if more powerful tools will be introduced to them in the future like custom timelines.

This shouldn't come as a huge surprise. Meta is moving forward with their plans for Theads and the Fediverse, and their adjusted terms reflect a new impending reality for Fediverse users.

cross-posted from: https://literature.cafe/post/1133610

I am seeing a lot of fearmongering and misinformation regarding recent events (CSAM being posted in now closed large lemmy.world communities). I say this as someone who brought attention to this with other admins as I noticed things were federating out.

Yes, this is an issue and what has happened in regards to CSAM is deeply troubling but there are solutions and ideas being discussed and worked on as we speak. This is not just a lemmy issue but an overall internet issue that affects all forms of social media, there is no clear cut solution but most jurisdictions have some form of safe harbor policy for server operators operating in good faith.

A good analogy to think of here is if someone was to drop something illegal into your yard that is open to the public. If someone stumbled upon said items you aren't going to be hunted down for it unless there is evidence showing you knew about the items and left them there without reporting them or selling/trading said items. If someone comes up to you and says "hey, there's this illegal thing on your property" you report it and hand it over to the relevant authorities and potentially look at security cameras if you have any and send them over with the authorities then you'd be fine.

A similar principle exists online, specifically on platforms such as this. Obviously the FBI is going to raid whoever they want and will find reasons to if they need to, but I can tell you for near certainty they probably aren't as concerned with a bunch of nerds hosting a (currently) niche software created by 2 communists as a pet project that gained popularity over the summer because a internet business decided to shoot itself in the foot. They are specifically out to find people who are selling, trading, and making CSAM. Those that knowingly and intentionally distribute and host such content are the ones that they are out for blood for.

I get it. This is anxiety inducing especially as an admin, but so long as you preserving and reporting any content that is brought to your attention in a timely manner and are following development and active mitigation efforts, you should be fine. If you want to know in more detail click the link above.

I am not a lawyer, and of course things vary from country to country so it's a good idea to check from reputable sources on this matter as well.

As well, this is a topic that is distressing for most normal well adjusted people for pretty obvious reasons. I get the anxiety over this, I really do. It's been a rough few days for many of us. But playing into other peoples anxiety over this is not helping anyone. What is helping is following and contributing the discussion of potential fixes/mitigation efforts and taking the time to calmly understand what you as an operator are responsible for within your jurisdiction.

Also, if you witnessed the content being discussed here no one will fault you for taking a step away from lemmy. Don't sacrifice your mental health over a volunteer project, it's seriously not worth it. Even more so if this has made you question self hosting lemmy or any other platform like it, that is valid as well as it should be made more clearer that this is a risk you are taking on when making any kind of website that is connected to the open internet.

It's hard not to overstate how much of a big deal it is that Mastodon is adopting this kind of search functionality. Mastodon still makes up a vast portion of the Fediverse.

While other platforms have supported this for way longer, having buy-in by the biggest player in the space will probably have a huge effect on standard expectations moving forward.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/4150119

The assumption is that centrally managed social media is bad because their algorithm is bad. But actually, they are bad because they are centrally managed and force one algorithm onto you. I’m not even advocating algorithm-by-choice. Even instance-specific algorithms would already work and would make the whole experience much more enjoyable and less boring. And if an instance’s algorithm(s) is too aggressive, it gets defederated. That would result in a much more exciting experience imo. And by the way: what’s the problem with getting old posts back in the timeline if it makes the overall conversation more interesting?

Please be creative! Will there be more communities? Will we refer to each other based on the instances we belong to? Will there be beefs between instances? Will there be doomed romances of two peoples meeting from different places of the fediverse?

Pixelfed, an alternative to Instagram, has matured over the years. One of its biggest, most powerful features is about to touch down - federated groups. And it will be compatible with Lemmy and Kbin.

The problems faced and solutions mentioned seem particularly relevant to !fediverse@lemmy.ml and !fediverse@lemmy.world

https://poptalk.scrubbles.tech/c/poptalkmeta

(The site is already down, and my instance wasn't subscribed, so I can't properly link, hopefully the bot will help).

Link from LW: https://lemmy.world/post/3979585

I realize that Mastodon is specifically intended not to have any sort of algorithm, and I understand and appreciate that, but it's not what I want, personally. I want to have the posts in my feed sorted by the ones with the most "engagement" as those are likely the most interesting ones.

Buying from an alternative ecommerce site usually sucks: you have to register for every website, enter your address, payment information and other information, they may leak data or store it improperly, you may not know the reputation of the website or business, you can't easily compare products with other vendors and more. Amazon and ebay offer a centralized good experience and you know you can trust them with your purchase. They benefit the consumer by aggregating many businesses so it fosters competition lowering prices but they have so much power and they have done some anti consumer moves. Their fees could also be a problem. The same way mastodon offers a viable alternative to the deadbird platform and slice power to small instances while getting a better user experience. (And lemmy to Reddit.) A fediverse version of ecommerce could perhaps be viable: federated ecommerce that aggregates small business shops, handle the user details and let the business access it when you hit buy. Activity pub to communicate the listings and purchase orders. I am not a programmer and don't know the technical implementations of it. So what do you think?