Flipping The Bird (#DeleteTwitter)
March 24, 2018 9:08 AM Subscribe
With #DeleteFacebook in full swing, is #DeleteTwitter far behind?
Launched on Nov 17th 2017, Counter.Social (aka: CoSo) describes itself as:
"The first Social Network Platform to take a zero-tolerance stance to hostile nations, bots and trolls weaponizing OUR social media platforms and freedoms..."
CoSo values community, discussion, kindness, integrity, and people before ideology.
And @realDonaldTrump is banned. Forever.
Committed to user data protection, (CoSoGuard) and founded, hosted (on a secure, hardened server) and administered by Spy Museum hacker legend JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUΔL³³º¹ (Twitter: @th3j35t3r)
and the bane of extremists worldwide, from ISIS, to the Taliban, to the Westboro Church, WikiLeaks and Russia. (Full bio: Who is Jester?), it is a proactive response to the hijacking of American social media for cyberwarfare, gaslighting and psychological influence operations.
It runs using the Mastodon open source framework (Previously 1, 2, 3), which lets users compose 500 character "toots".
But that's where any similarity toe Twitter or any connection to Mastodon ends. CoSo has since forked off of the Mastodon "Federation" after the creator of Mastodon banned it from the Mastodon "Federation" (the collection of mini-communities connected via use of the Mastodon open software) for not allowing IP traffic from countries that have attacked the US via cyber operations. Currently banned countries include: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria.
All opinions are respected, but racism, white supremacism, sexism, harrassment or abuse, of any kind, is not tolerated at all. In the words of one CoSo user: Bots and trolls have 'the half-life of a may-fly" and their existence on the platform can be measured in seconds.
CoSo has attracted 14000 users in five months (a feat that took Twitter a year), as well as, Wil Wheaton (@wilw), Joy Reid (@joyannreid), Rick Wilson (@therickwilson), Rosie O'Donnell (@rosieodonnell), Mark Cuban and Portugal the Man (@PortugalTheMan) have already joined. There's no advertising or corporate involvement and is supported via Patreon and Bitcoin (via QR code on site) donations.
Most @ names are still available. Make sure you say hello to the community's mascot: The incomparable @Gippy.
Launched on Nov 17th 2017, Counter.Social (aka: CoSo) describes itself as:
"The first Social Network Platform to take a zero-tolerance stance to hostile nations, bots and trolls weaponizing OUR social media platforms and freedoms..."
CoSo values community, discussion, kindness, integrity, and people before ideology.
And @realDonaldTrump is banned. Forever.
Committed to user data protection, (CoSoGuard) and founded, hosted (on a secure, hardened server) and administered by Spy Museum hacker legend JΞSŦΞR ✪ ΔCŦUΔL³³º¹ (Twitter: @th3j35t3r)
and the bane of extremists worldwide, from ISIS, to the Taliban, to the Westboro Church, WikiLeaks and Russia. (Full bio: Who is Jester?), it is a proactive response to the hijacking of American social media for cyberwarfare, gaslighting and psychological influence operations.
It runs using the Mastodon open source framework (Previously 1, 2, 3), which lets users compose 500 character "toots".
But that's where any similarity toe Twitter or any connection to Mastodon ends. CoSo has since forked off of the Mastodon "Federation" after the creator of Mastodon banned it from the Mastodon "Federation" (the collection of mini-communities connected via use of the Mastodon open software) for not allowing IP traffic from countries that have attacked the US via cyber operations. Currently banned countries include: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria.
All opinions are respected, but racism, white supremacism, sexism, harrassment or abuse, of any kind, is not tolerated at all. In the words of one CoSo user: Bots and trolls have 'the half-life of a may-fly" and their existence on the platform can be measured in seconds.
CoSo has attracted 14000 users in five months (a feat that took Twitter a year), as well as, Wil Wheaton (@wilw), Joy Reid (@joyannreid), Rick Wilson (@therickwilson), Rosie O'Donnell (@rosieodonnell), Mark Cuban and Portugal the Man (@PortugalTheMan) have already joined. There's no advertising or corporate involvement and is supported via Patreon and Bitcoin (via QR code on site) donations.
Most @ names are still available. Make sure you say hello to the community's mascot: The incomparable @Gippy.
Pretty sure it would have to tell us if it were a cop. It's like, in the constitution or something.
posted by mdash at 9:15 AM on March 24, 2018 [38 favorites]
posted by mdash at 9:15 AM on March 24, 2018 [38 favorites]
So it's a non-federated Mastodon instance with harsh rules?
posted by Going To Maine at 9:26 AM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Going To Maine at 9:26 AM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
And Bitcoin.
posted by clawsoon at 9:28 AM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by clawsoon at 9:28 AM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Jester Actual is the last entity you want organizing a community.
I did the "delete Twitter and use Mastodon" thing about three months ago, after the fifth+ time Twitter's leadership failed to protect its users and the world from yet another Nazi. I was so mad I just left entirely. But I missed it too much so I went back about two weeks ago. Mastodon is fine technology but I tried as hard as I could and the community just isn't there. It's a chicken-and-egg sort of problem. But in this case I think the new chicken needs to be really new, like featuring photos or disappearing messages or something. Right now Mastodon is just "like Twitter but not quite as good a product, with fewer people".
posted by Nelson at 9:28 AM on March 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
I did the "delete Twitter and use Mastodon" thing about three months ago, after the fifth+ time Twitter's leadership failed to protect its users and the world from yet another Nazi. I was so mad I just left entirely. But I missed it too much so I went back about two weeks ago. Mastodon is fine technology but I tried as hard as I could and the community just isn't there. It's a chicken-and-egg sort of problem. But in this case I think the new chicken needs to be really new, like featuring photos or disappearing messages or something. Right now Mastodon is just "like Twitter but not quite as good a product, with fewer people".
posted by Nelson at 9:28 AM on March 24, 2018 [13 favorites]
racism, white supremacism, sexism, harrassment or abuse, of any kind, is not tolerated at all
But xenophobia is A-OK!
posted by airmail at 9:29 AM on March 24, 2018 [16 favorites]
But xenophobia is A-OK!
posted by airmail at 9:29 AM on March 24, 2018 [16 favorites]
The “creator of Mastodon banned it from federation” link leads to a toot where the admin account of Mastodon.xyz, a French Mastodon instance, discusses banning Counter Social. While the guy who runs Mastodon.xyz does run instances.social, a place that can help you choose from one of the many Mastodon instances on which to start your account, he didn’t create Mastodon. That honor belongs to @gargron@mastodon.social.
posted by egypturnash at 9:31 AM on March 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 9:31 AM on March 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
Nelson: Mastodon is fine technology but I tried as hard as I could and the community just isn't there. It's a chicken-and-egg sort of problem. But in this case I think the new chicken needs to be really new, like featuring photos or disappearing messages or something. Right now Mastodon is just "like Twitter but not quite as good a product, with fewer people".
You kids don't know how good you have it. Back in my day, you had to use Altavista to search for random subjects and hope that it got you to an interesting mailing list. Which, by the way, you didn't know existed, because you didn't know what mailing lists were. We had to work for our pitiful dose of online socializing, goddammit!
posted by clawsoon at 9:33 AM on March 24, 2018 [38 favorites]
You kids don't know how good you have it. Back in my day, you had to use Altavista to search for random subjects and hope that it got you to an interesting mailing list. Which, by the way, you didn't know existed, because you didn't know what mailing lists were. We had to work for our pitiful dose of online socializing, goddammit!
posted by clawsoon at 9:33 AM on March 24, 2018 [38 favorites]
As someone who deleted their Facebook account and has abandoned their Twitter and Instagram account, I think this is moving in the wrong direction for me.
Having said that, I DID try Mastodon a bit ago, just to see if it might be somewhere I could play, but agree with Nelson: Right now Mastodon is just "like Twitter but not quite as good a product, with fewer people".
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 9:35 AM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
Having said that, I DID try Mastodon a bit ago, just to see if it might be somewhere I could play, but agree with Nelson: Right now Mastodon is just "like Twitter but not quite as good a product, with fewer people".
posted by Major Matt Mason Dixon at 9:35 AM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
So it's a non-federated Mastodon instance with harsh rules?
More like standards and very similar to MeFi.
posted by Skygazer at 9:36 AM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
More like standards and very similar to MeFi.
posted by Skygazer at 9:36 AM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
But xenophobia is A-OK!
Oops...forgot that. Xenophobia not cool there either.
posted by Skygazer at 9:37 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Oops...forgot that. Xenophobia not cool there either.
posted by Skygazer at 9:37 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Jester Actual is the last entity you want organizing a community.
Some context please?
posted by stevil at 9:43 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Some context please?
posted by stevil at 9:43 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Wil Wheaton (@wilw), Joy Reid (@joyannreid), Rick Wilson (@therickwilson), Rosie O'Donnell (@rosieodonnell), Mark Cuban and Portugal the Man (@PortugalTheMan) have already joined.
That's the opposite of a reason to sign up.
posted by riruro at 9:43 AM on March 24, 2018 [22 favorites]
That's the opposite of a reason to sign up.
posted by riruro at 9:43 AM on March 24, 2018 [22 favorites]
Wait...so no one from one of those banned countries is allowed on this new platform? Some of the most important voices out there in the social world are coming from those countries.
posted by NoMich at 9:45 AM on March 24, 2018 [29 favorites]
posted by NoMich at 9:45 AM on March 24, 2018 [29 favorites]
That's the opposite of a reason to sign up.
Yeah, but when you write your press release for your new product, you have to include all the famous people you signed up.
posted by sideshow at 9:46 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Yeah, but when you write your press release for your new product, you have to include all the famous people you signed up.
posted by sideshow at 9:46 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Oops...forgot that. Xenophobia not cool there either.
[...]
Currently banned countries include: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:48 AM on March 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
[...]
Currently banned countries include: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:48 AM on March 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
"Xenophobia not cool there either" != "Currently banned countries include...".
If you're not very wary of "celebrity hacker" types at this point I don't know what to tell you. Especially ones who, you know, are all "the community can't handle me!". We've seen this story before.
The (federated, well-run) mastodon instances I've been using are very nice and refreshingly free of hate or drama. They're growing all the time. They lack celebrities, if that's a problem.
posted by phooky at 9:48 AM on March 24, 2018 [10 favorites]
If you're not very wary of "celebrity hacker" types at this point I don't know what to tell you. Especially ones who, you know, are all "the community can't handle me!". We've seen this story before.
The (federated, well-run) mastodon instances I've been using are very nice and refreshingly free of hate or drama. They're growing all the time. They lack celebrities, if that's a problem.
posted by phooky at 9:48 AM on March 24, 2018 [10 favorites]
Oops...forgot that. Xenophobia not cool there either.
Pretty sure that was a shot at the blanket ban of countries and the rationale surrounding.
Do, uh - do spies and agents provocateurs generally operate under their real IP address?
posted by atoxyl at 9:50 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Pretty sure that was a shot at the blanket ban of countries and the rationale surrounding.
Do, uh - do spies and agents provocateurs generally operate under their real IP address?
posted by atoxyl at 9:50 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Little slow on the draw on that one, apparently - sorry.
posted by atoxyl at 9:51 AM on March 24, 2018
posted by atoxyl at 9:51 AM on March 24, 2018
“Yeah, but when you write your press release for your new product, you have to include all the famous people you signed up.”
Or when you want to give people a little context. YMMV.
posted by Skygazer at 9:53 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Or when you want to give people a little context. YMMV.
posted by Skygazer at 9:53 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Do, uh - do spies and agents provocateurs generally operate under their real IP address?
Only when they forget to turn on their VPNs.
posted by Artw at 9:54 AM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
Only when they forget to turn on their VPNs.
posted by Artw at 9:54 AM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
Do, uh - do spies and agents provocateurs generally operate under their real IP address?
They also aggressively ban quite a few VPNs, though, which makes it harder.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:55 AM on March 24, 2018
They also aggressively ban quite a few VPNs, though, which makes it harder.
posted by Going To Maine at 9:55 AM on March 24, 2018
You can take a look at the justification for the ban on the FAQ
I feel like it tells you a lot about the guy
posted by airmail at 9:56 AM on March 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
I feel like it tells you a lot about the guy
posted by airmail at 9:56 AM on March 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
I took a casual survey on facebook about whether people were leaving. Obviously, I wasn't going to get comments from people who'd left, but I thought I could get a rough idea from people who were thinking about leaving and whether people knew anyone who'd left.
The result was that there were a of lot people who were staying, some who were planning to cut back, and some who knew a few people who'd left. Of those who were staying, a fair number said they felt they had no hope of privacy.
It doesn't look like a big exodus from Facebook.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:56 AM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
The result was that there were a of lot people who were staying, some who were planning to cut back, and some who knew a few people who'd left. Of those who were staying, a fair number said they felt they had no hope of privacy.
It doesn't look like a big exodus from Facebook.
posted by Nancy Lebovitz at 9:56 AM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
sideshow: Yeah, but when you write your press release for your new product, you have to include all the famous people you signed up.
But do they have Metafilter's Own(TM)?
posted by clawsoon at 9:56 AM on March 24, 2018
But do they have Metafilter's Own(TM)?
posted by clawsoon at 9:56 AM on March 24, 2018
That's the opposite of a reason to sign up.
Big names you might not like - but who aren't actively trying to be terrible human beings - are, unfortunately, going to have to be part of any social network that's going to replace the facility of Twitter, whose entire selling point is mass communication. A major reason Mastodon as a whole hasn't really taken off like its users want is because it has a small and relatively slow adoption rate.
posted by mightygodking at 9:57 AM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Big names you might not like - but who aren't actively trying to be terrible human beings - are, unfortunately, going to have to be part of any social network that's going to replace the facility of Twitter, whose entire selling point is mass communication. A major reason Mastodon as a whole hasn't really taken off like its users want is because it has a small and relatively slow adoption rate.
posted by mightygodking at 9:57 AM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
“Wait...so no one from one of those banned countries is allowed on this new platform? Some of the most important voices out there in the social world are coming from those countries.“
I totally agree, but until a better way is found, it actually cares about having Social media platforms hijacked by hate and psy-ops, it works. And it works like a motherfuxker...
posted by Skygazer at 9:58 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
I totally agree, but until a better way is found, it actually cares about having Social media platforms hijacked by hate and psy-ops, it works. And it works like a motherfuxker...
posted by Skygazer at 9:58 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Mastodon lets me make all the jokes and microblog content I want without pissing off my IRL friends by filling their timelines. I still use twitter for perspectives on breaking news but I limit its use after going cold turkey for two months and seeing how much better I felt.
Counter.social was a neat idea for an agora that was replaced very quickly with AstroTurf. If you want to build your own “good parts only” version of Twitter, you will have to till and weed the soil for a long time and follow lots of people like me and my comparatively boring friends. The Mastodon equivalent of @dril, @jonnysun and other Twitter faves aren’t going to bloom overnight.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:59 AM on March 24, 2018
Counter.social was a neat idea for an agora that was replaced very quickly with AstroTurf. If you want to build your own “good parts only” version of Twitter, you will have to till and weed the soil for a long time and follow lots of people like me and my comparatively boring friends. The Mastodon equivalent of @dril, @jonnysun and other Twitter faves aren’t going to bloom overnight.
posted by infinitewindow at 9:59 AM on March 24, 2018
It seems VERY performative.
posted by Artw at 9:59 AM on March 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
posted by Artw at 9:59 AM on March 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
From the FAQ: Blocking these nations is the most effective way to keep our community safe and secure for our users
Oh, walls. What a brilliant progressive solution.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 10:00 AM on March 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
Oh, walls. What a brilliant progressive solution.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 10:00 AM on March 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
While the problem of malign state-level actors is one Mastodon is going to have to deal with if it actually manages to become a major platform for talking about stuff on the Internet, I don’t think that “completely block off federation, block entire countries via IP geolocation” is really the right way to do it. A lot of the attraction of Mastodon for me is that it’s not owned by any one entity, and this is replicating that.
One less extreme way some instances have been exploring is a federation whitelist - by default, they ignore other instances, but have an ever-expanding list of trusted instances they’ll swap toots with.
I knew there was some drama about CoSo’s policies but I didn’t realize it had completely de-federated.
While we are talking about Aggressively Breaking Mastodon, let us consider Hiveway. It was a fork of Mastodon that mixed in a cryptocurrency miner to be run by the users, thus theoretically paying to keep the sites up. John McAffee was involved. And it federated with nobody. It also went to great pains to completely remove credit from everyone involved in writing Mastodon, thus violating the licenses on the code. It appeared and disappeared in a loud but short kerfuffle, measured in a matter of weeks, at best.
posted by egypturnash at 10:05 AM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
One less extreme way some instances have been exploring is a federation whitelist - by default, they ignore other instances, but have an ever-expanding list of trusted instances they’ll swap toots with.
I knew there was some drama about CoSo’s policies but I didn’t realize it had completely de-federated.
While we are talking about Aggressively Breaking Mastodon, let us consider Hiveway. It was a fork of Mastodon that mixed in a cryptocurrency miner to be run by the users, thus theoretically paying to keep the sites up. John McAffee was involved. And it federated with nobody. It also went to great pains to completely remove credit from everyone involved in writing Mastodon, thus violating the licenses on the code. It appeared and disappeared in a loud but short kerfuffle, measured in a matter of weeks, at best.
posted by egypturnash at 10:05 AM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
I use Twitter mainly to follow journalists, retweet political news, and slowly lose followers as they get annoyed. Can I do that with Mastadon?
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:05 AM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 10:05 AM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Also um Skygazer you’re kinda threadsitting on this very Pepsi Blue feeling post. Close the tab and walk away.
posted by egypturnash at 10:06 AM on March 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
posted by egypturnash at 10:06 AM on March 24, 2018 [15 favorites]
Isn't blocking entire nations 'racism'?
No. The nations blocked contain individuals of all races
This is why engineers need the humanities
I'm allowed to say this, I'm an engineer
posted by airmail at 10:12 AM on March 24, 2018 [31 favorites]
No. The nations blocked contain individuals of all races
This is why engineers need the humanities
I'm allowed to say this, I'm an engineer
posted by airmail at 10:12 AM on March 24, 2018 [31 favorites]
I’m pretty sure that head of one mastodon instance cannot cut off another instance from federations with ANYBODY else. Just, instance A can block instance B from itself. That’s all.
Lots of Mastodons block lots of other Mastodons which they deem abusive. That’s a feature of Mastodon: you can be picky about who you allow in your living room.
If a very important and well connected host blocks people from an up and coming new host this can still be very significant, but it’s not quite as dramatic as the summary above makes it sound.
And “no users from designated bad guy countries” is arbitrary and probably a terrible idea, but it’s also a feature of mastodon that people can tweak their instances to do arbitrary things, like disallow the letter “e”.
The natural response to somebody tweaking their host’s software or culture in a way you consider bad is to block them.
This is drama but it’s drama of a kind which comes naturally to mastodon by design.
posted by edheil at 10:13 AM on March 24, 2018
Lots of Mastodons block lots of other Mastodons which they deem abusive. That’s a feature of Mastodon: you can be picky about who you allow in your living room.
If a very important and well connected host blocks people from an up and coming new host this can still be very significant, but it’s not quite as dramatic as the summary above makes it sound.
And “no users from designated bad guy countries” is arbitrary and probably a terrible idea, but it’s also a feature of mastodon that people can tweak their instances to do arbitrary things, like disallow the letter “e”.
The natural response to somebody tweaking their host’s software or culture in a way you consider bad is to block them.
This is drama but it’s drama of a kind which comes naturally to mastodon by design.
posted by edheil at 10:13 AM on March 24, 2018
Right now Mastodon is just "like Twitter but not quite as good a product, with fewer people".
Filed under “Not bug, Feature”
posted by chavenet at 10:15 AM on March 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
Filed under “Not bug, Feature”
posted by chavenet at 10:15 AM on March 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
Also mastodon is a better product than twitter in some ways: content warnings for example.
posted by quaking fajita at 10:21 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by quaking fajita at 10:21 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
So if Metafilter was hatched today it would be using Mastodon? My other question is why would Mastodon care if an instance blocked entire nations? What if I only wanted people from my job or school to join my network?
posted by Brian B. at 10:22 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Brian B. at 10:22 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
(BTW, I don’t mean to diminish the significance of blocking whole countries, just the notion that this is a fundamental, game changing schism involving all of Mastodon one way or the other.)
posted by edheil at 10:23 AM on March 24, 2018
posted by edheil at 10:23 AM on March 24, 2018
If you're interested in Mastodon, this Metatalk thread from October 2017 has a lot of MeFi accounts you can follow. I wrote a little intro to Mastodon blog post about then too. No idea how much of this applies to Counter Social; being partially isolated from the main Mastodon federation makes things complicated.
posted by Nelson at 10:24 AM on March 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Nelson at 10:24 AM on March 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
I've mostly switched over to Mastodon. I still have twitter but I find myself only logging in once a week to check on a few specific accounts that I want to catch up on and most of those people know that it's easier to text me. Twitter is just too full up with media/politics/trump/ugh. And I'm so tired of all of that.
The nice thing about my switch to Mastodon is that I've made a rule for myself: NO MEDIA/POLITICS follows. And this isn't to say that the humans I follow don't talk about these issues from time to time, what I mean is that I'm actively avoiding accounts that are just focused on MEDIA/POLITICS.
I'm just trying to connect with other chill human beings. And it's worked out great, I've made some new friends and it's just relaxing to be on a timeline where I'm not being stressed out constantly. I'm @sonicbooming@octodon.social :)
posted by Fizz at 10:25 AM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
The nice thing about my switch to Mastodon is that I've made a rule for myself: NO MEDIA/POLITICS follows. And this isn't to say that the humans I follow don't talk about these issues from time to time, what I mean is that I'm actively avoiding accounts that are just focused on MEDIA/POLITICS.
I'm just trying to connect with other chill human beings. And it's worked out great, I've made some new friends and it's just relaxing to be on a timeline where I'm not being stressed out constantly. I'm @sonicbooming@octodon.social :)
posted by Fizz at 10:25 AM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
Context on Jester Actual.
Jester is sort of "what if 4chan, but an effective adult and possibly a psyops campaign of the US government?". If you're in to nihilistic, jingoistic anonymous hacker collectives, maybe his community is the one for you.
posted by Nelson at 10:26 AM on March 24, 2018 [20 favorites]
The Jester (also known by the leetspeak handle th3j35t3r) is an unidentified computer vigilante who describes himself as a grey hat hacktivist. He claims to be responsible for attacks on WikiLeaks, 4chan, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Islamist websites. He claims to be acting out of American patriotism. The Jester uses a denial-of-service (DoS) tool known as "XerXeS", that he claims to have developed. One of The Jester's habits is to tweet "TANGO DOWN" on Twitter whenever he purports to have successfully taken down a website.I regret posting a Wikipedia link for the context, it's more problematic than usual for an anonymous hacker entity with aggressive politics, but I'm too lazy to dig up primary source articles. The Wikipedia article is well sourced.
Jester is sort of "what if 4chan, but an effective adult and possibly a psyops campaign of the US government?". If you're in to nihilistic, jingoistic anonymous hacker collectives, maybe his community is the one for you.
posted by Nelson at 10:26 AM on March 24, 2018 [20 favorites]
Cop.
posted by Artw at 10:29 AM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
posted by Artw at 10:29 AM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
Oh and for anyone interested, I've been using Tusky on Android for all my Mastodon/tooting needs and it works very well.
posted by Fizz at 10:29 AM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 10:29 AM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
While the problem of malign state-level actors is one Mastodon is going to have to deal with if it actually manages to become a major platform for talking about stuff on the Internet, I don’t think that “completely block off federation, block entire countries via IP geolocation” is really the right way to do it.
I've been thinking about this exact problem for a few weeks now, and it goes well beyond mastodon, the whole world needs to figure out how to deal with military-level cyberattacks, hopefully before the next election cycle.
Here's the best I've come up with: Time Sanctions. All the internet connection to us that you want, just delayed by a day or two (Russia? 3 to 5), until such time as the threats cease and treaties are signed imposing real sanctions should they decide to try again. (The main deterrent is cutting them off from meaningful access to our markets). The engineering challenge is to build enough data centers to act as the firewall/cache/antiviral scanner. (Admittedly that's a big challenge, data-volume-wise. Maybe also strip pix/video from traffic?)
Thoughts? :/
posted by sexyrobot at 10:32 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
I've been thinking about this exact problem for a few weeks now, and it goes well beyond mastodon, the whole world needs to figure out how to deal with military-level cyberattacks, hopefully before the next election cycle.
Here's the best I've come up with: Time Sanctions. All the internet connection to us that you want, just delayed by a day or two (Russia? 3 to 5), until such time as the threats cease and treaties are signed imposing real sanctions should they decide to try again. (The main deterrent is cutting them off from meaningful access to our markets). The engineering challenge is to build enough data centers to act as the firewall/cache/antiviral scanner. (Admittedly that's a big challenge, data-volume-wise. Maybe also strip pix/video from traffic?)
Thoughts? :/
posted by sexyrobot at 10:32 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Anyone have an Mastodon iOS client they like? Amaroq doesn't play well with non-phones, and Tootle seems to have been abandoned- the apostrophe bug9s really getting to me.
posted by zamboni at 10:37 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by zamboni at 10:37 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
for not allowing IP traffic from countries that have attacked the US via cyber operations. Currently banned countries include: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria.
Given the hijinks of the NSA, the United States itself should be on that list.
And beyond that, geolocated IP blocking helps eliminate some noise but anyone with a clue can and does tunnel through systems in other countries, including the US. (And not even through easily detected VPN providers but end user systems that use been hacked and are tricky to distinguish from legitimate traffic.)
posted by Candleman at 10:37 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Given the hijinks of the NSA, the United States itself should be on that list.
And beyond that, geolocated IP blocking helps eliminate some noise but anyone with a clue can and does tunnel through systems in other countries, including the US. (And not even through easily detected VPN providers but end user systems that use been hacked and are tricky to distinguish from legitimate traffic.)
posted by Candleman at 10:37 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Tootdon maybe? I hear it talked about, but I use Tusky on Android myself.
posted by quaking fajita at 10:40 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
posted by quaking fajita at 10:40 AM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
> Mastodon is fine technology but I tried as hard as I could and the community just isn't there.
Setting up yet another fragmented social network is certainly the solution!
I mean, for me personally, my most active years on Twitter were during its first five years. There was a point at which it became too noisy from my small circle of friends (less than a hundred) collectively retweeting enough stuff from the millions of other participants to cause my timeline to increment continuously, around the clock.
Most of my friends from Twitter, who I mostly know through social networks predating Twitter, have accounts on Mastodon instances. The good old times could be revived easily except for the circular dependency problem: each of them are ignoring their Mastodon accounts because they're not hearing from the rest of them through Mastodon.
posted by ardgedee at 10:57 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Setting up yet another fragmented social network is certainly the solution!
I mean, for me personally, my most active years on Twitter were during its first five years. There was a point at which it became too noisy from my small circle of friends (less than a hundred) collectively retweeting enough stuff from the millions of other participants to cause my timeline to increment continuously, around the clock.
Most of my friends from Twitter, who I mostly know through social networks predating Twitter, have accounts on Mastodon instances. The good old times could be revived easily except for the circular dependency problem: each of them are ignoring their Mastodon accounts because they're not hearing from the rest of them through Mastodon.
posted by ardgedee at 10:57 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
each of them are ignoring their Mastodon accounts because they're not hearing from the rest of them through Mastodon.
I'm finding that for many, Facebook and Twitter are where they're stopping with regards to adapting to a new social media platform, they feel like that's it, they're in a place where most of the people in their life are located, so going someplace else isn't worth it, it's comfortable and familiar and they're making peace with the corporate decisions that shape the platform they're on. To each their own I guess.
I've given up on trying to bring people over to Mastodon. Instead, I'm just doing my thing and if it means I'm hanging out in an instance that is a little less crowded and more focused on people than media, well that's better for me.
posted by Fizz at 11:02 AM on March 24, 2018 [10 favorites]
I'm finding that for many, Facebook and Twitter are where they're stopping with regards to adapting to a new social media platform, they feel like that's it, they're in a place where most of the people in their life are located, so going someplace else isn't worth it, it's comfortable and familiar and they're making peace with the corporate decisions that shape the platform they're on. To each their own I guess.
I've given up on trying to bring people over to Mastodon. Instead, I'm just doing my thing and if it means I'm hanging out in an instance that is a little less crowded and more focused on people than media, well that's better for me.
posted by Fizz at 11:02 AM on March 24, 2018 [10 favorites]
Is this thing a cop?
posted by Artw at 12:13 PM on March 24
Jester is sort of "what if 4chan, but an effective adult and possibly a psyops campaign of the US government?". If you're in to nihilistic, jingoistic anonymous hacker collectives, maybe his community is the one for you.
posted by Nelson at 1:26 PM on March 24
Sounds more to me like the latest scheme from Kim "K1M8L3/Kim Dotcom/Kim Tim Jim Vestor" Schmitz.
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:08 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Artw at 12:13 PM on March 24
Jester is sort of "what if 4chan, but an effective adult and possibly a psyops campaign of the US government?". If you're in to nihilistic, jingoistic anonymous hacker collectives, maybe his community is the one for you.
posted by Nelson at 1:26 PM on March 24
Sounds more to me like the latest scheme from Kim "K1M8L3/Kim Dotcom/Kim Tim Jim Vestor" Schmitz.
posted by Smart Dalek at 11:08 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
I feel like it tells you a lot about the guy
Wait isn't his whole thing being "the nationalist hacker?"
posted by atoxyl at 11:11 AM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Wait isn't his whole thing being "the nationalist hacker?"
posted by atoxyl at 11:11 AM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
#EmbraceMastodon > #DeleteFacebook
posted by Fizz at 11:23 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Fizz at 11:23 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
I don't like the solution of banning all of Russia, for example, but at the same time? Moderation costs money. I don't think people always get the degree to which just deleting obviously scammy new registrations on a free service can take a lot of time and energy. I think this whole thing looks as shady as any of the others, but I'm not going to call any free service xenophobic at this point for dealing with that headache that way, or with enforcing the use of English, for example, in order to preserve the usefulness of the service for a primarily English-speaking audience. It's an awfully big hammer to be solving that problem with, but I also don't think there's a viable path at this point for a new social media site starting up and actually getting traction while paying people a living wage to deal with spammers and harassment. I prefer the Metafilter model for keeping the signal-to-noise higher, but I don't think that barrier to entry works for a Twitter clone.
posted by Sequence at 11:41 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Sequence at 11:41 AM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Still very much figuring out Mastodon but enjoying it. Since the October of 2017 MeTa is closed, maybe another is due?
@logan_life@octodon.social
posted by lazaruslong at 12:01 PM on March 24, 2018
@logan_life@octodon.social
posted by lazaruslong at 12:01 PM on March 24, 2018
I deleted my Mastodon accounts last month after not doing anything with them since I signed up. I don't tweet and I don't really want to find "communities", I just want to be able to follow people who are linking to news articles that I might read and there wasn't much of that on Mastodon.
Also, I don't trust Mastodon any more than I trust Twitter/Facebook/Google/etc. If Mastodon suddenly became the dominant social network, there's nothing to prevent assholes from gaming that system either.
posted by octothorpe at 1:16 PM on March 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
Also, I don't trust Mastodon any more than I trust Twitter/Facebook/Google/etc. If Mastodon suddenly became the dominant social network, there's nothing to prevent assholes from gaming that system either.
posted by octothorpe at 1:16 PM on March 24, 2018 [5 favorites]
Huh. If it had occurred to me to wonder who, among people willing to try out something like Mastodon, would choose an instance that refuses all traffic from several major nations, is run by an admitted perpetrator of DDoS attacks, doesn't federate with the rest of the network, and has in its official description the phrase "we are unafraid to engage in offensive countermeasures", the answer that came to mind would not have been Wil Wheaton.
Anyway I guess it's time to try Mastodon. I'm not sure what it's for really, but following a bunch of you whose names I recognize on @logan_life's followed list seems a good start.
posted by sfenders at 1:17 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Anyway I guess it's time to try Mastodon. I'm not sure what it's for really, but following a bunch of you whose names I recognize on @logan_life's followed list seems a good start.
posted by sfenders at 1:17 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
A major reason Mastodon as a whole hasn't really taken off like its users want is because it has a small and relatively slow adoption rate.
That’s a bit of a tautology, if not at least self-defeating circular logic. I’m okay with slow & steady growth. I don’t post more there simply because of an hours-in-the-day problem I have. It feels very friendly & welcoming to me, if a bit heavy on the nerdish FOSS/Linux & gaming crowds, with which I don’t have a lot in common. People post good music there with some frequency, which I enjoy.
I can’t quit Facebook because too many IRL things are organized there - gigs, meetings, caving trips, conferences etc.
I haven’t summoned up the outrage to ditch the effort I put into 10,000 tweets, but damn it’s quite the fire hose of awful bullshit these days, despite my ongoing effort to aggressively mute all news orgs, Think-Fluencers, & celebrities, & I’ve been muting re-tweets form quite a few of the more prolific members I follow. I wish I could tame Twitter a bit more (thank Grid for Tweetbot)
Am sorely disappointed that Tootle does seem to be abandonare. It was the best iOS Mastodon client when it came out.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:24 PM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
That’s a bit of a tautology, if not at least self-defeating circular logic. I’m okay with slow & steady growth. I don’t post more there simply because of an hours-in-the-day problem I have. It feels very friendly & welcoming to me, if a bit heavy on the nerdish FOSS/Linux & gaming crowds, with which I don’t have a lot in common. People post good music there with some frequency, which I enjoy.
I can’t quit Facebook because too many IRL things are organized there - gigs, meetings, caving trips, conferences etc.
I haven’t summoned up the outrage to ditch the effort I put into 10,000 tweets, but damn it’s quite the fire hose of awful bullshit these days, despite my ongoing effort to aggressively mute all news orgs, Think-Fluencers, & celebrities, & I’ve been muting re-tweets form quite a few of the more prolific members I follow. I wish I could tame Twitter a bit more (thank Grid for Tweetbot)
Am sorely disappointed that Tootle does seem to be abandonare. It was the best iOS Mastodon client when it came out.
posted by Devils Rancher at 1:24 PM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Anyway I guess it's time to try Mastodon. I'm not sure what it's for really, but following a bunch of you whose names I recognize on @logan_life's followed list seems a good start.
Yeah, I pretty much went through and followed everyone from the regex scrape on the last Mastodon thread on MeTa, plus a handful of others. A lot of them aren't active, but some are!
posted by lazaruslong at 1:28 PM on March 24, 2018
Yeah, I pretty much went through and followed everyone from the regex scrape on the last Mastodon thread on MeTa, plus a handful of others. A lot of them aren't active, but some are!
posted by lazaruslong at 1:28 PM on March 24, 2018
I can't help but think of App.net, which was pretty nice until it died due to money issues. Everyone hates advertising but they hate paying for social networks even more.
posted by tommasz at 1:32 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by tommasz at 1:32 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Clarification:
Mastodon is the platform Counter.Social is on. Mastodon.Social and Mastodon.xyz (and a few other Mastodon.ETC) are its own instances which is part of the Mastodon "Federation".
Mastodon the "Federation" of instances is controlled by @gargron@mastodon.social, the designer/coder of the open source platform called Mastodon who banned Counter.Social from interacting with other instances, at which point Counter.Social, althought on its own secured server forked off of the Mastodon platform.
Signing up to any of the Mastodon platform instances will not allow you to use Counter.Social for those two reasons. Although you will be able to access all the other instances on the "Federation". To sign up and experience what Counter.Social is like, you will have to sign up/register an account at https://counter.social/.
The only connection Counter.Social has with Mastodon is that it uses the same open source platform. Otehrwise it has nothing to do with it. It is the quickest growing and most active instance using the modified Mastodon platform and is very much its own entity.
Apologies for not making that clearer up top.
posted by Skygazer at 1:50 PM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Mastodon is the platform Counter.Social is on. Mastodon.Social and Mastodon.xyz (and a few other Mastodon.ETC) are its own instances which is part of the Mastodon "Federation".
Mastodon the "Federation" of instances is controlled by @gargron@mastodon.social, the designer/coder of the open source platform called Mastodon who banned Counter.Social from interacting with other instances, at which point Counter.Social, althought on its own secured server forked off of the Mastodon platform.
Signing up to any of the Mastodon platform instances will not allow you to use Counter.Social for those two reasons. Although you will be able to access all the other instances on the "Federation". To sign up and experience what Counter.Social is like, you will have to sign up/register an account at https://counter.social/.
The only connection Counter.Social has with Mastodon is that it uses the same open source platform. Otehrwise it has nothing to do with it. It is the quickest growing and most active instance using the modified Mastodon platform and is very much its own entity.
Apologies for not making that clearer up top.
posted by Skygazer at 1:50 PM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
Since this has turned to general Mastodon discussion: I opened up registrations on dragon.style again, if any of y’all think “@username@dragon.style” sounds cool. And I’m @anthracite@dragon.style.
I also really need to get around to merging my customizations so I can update to the latest release of Mastodon...
posted by egypturnash at 1:50 PM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
I also really need to get around to merging my customizations so I can update to the latest release of Mastodon...
posted by egypturnash at 1:50 PM on March 24, 2018 [3 favorites]
I have mixed feelings because of the good that comes of the activism and networking, particularly for indigenous and disenfranchised communities, possible with facebook. There has to be a better way and I hope things like this can start to fill the need. Efforts to create an expansive accessible social connection online cost money- time and effort. So figuring out how to fund them without advertising/selling people's info- but also making it free and accessible so that it can really be used by everyone... that's complicated. I have faith there are better ways to do it though if we as a collective put our heads and our monies together when able.
posted by xarnop at 2:08 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by xarnop at 2:08 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Signing up to any of the Mastodon platform instances will not allow you to use Counter.Social for those two reasons. Although you will be able to access all the other instances on the "Federation".
I signed up on mastodon.host just now, in part because its about page indicates that its administrators don't generally "block" other instances without really good reason. I can see stuff from counter.social just fine I think, such as The Jester himself issuing forth a toot on the subject of Donald Trump some 19 hours ago.
So that is all entirely unclear.
posted by sfenders at 2:15 PM on March 24, 2018
I signed up on mastodon.host just now, in part because its about page indicates that its administrators don't generally "block" other instances without really good reason. I can see stuff from counter.social just fine I think, such as The Jester himself issuing forth a toot on the subject of Donald Trump some 19 hours ago.
So that is all entirely unclear.
posted by sfenders at 2:15 PM on March 24, 2018
Mastodon the "Federation" of instances is controlled by @gargron@mastodon.social, the designer/coder of the open source platform called Mastodon who banned Counter.Social from interacting with other instances
Could you provide more details on when/how this happened? My understanding was that individual Mastodon instances choose who they federate with.
posted by zamboni at 2:16 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Could you provide more details on when/how this happened? My understanding was that individual Mastodon instances choose who they federate with.
posted by zamboni at 2:16 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Mastodon the "Federation" of instances is controlled by @gargron@mastodon.social, the designer/coder of the open source platform called Mastodon who banned Counter.Social from interacting with other instances
Eugene isn't the Mastodon Pope, he doesn't have the power to unilaterally excommunicate an instance from 'the federation'. Individual instances might block C.S. or they may have modified their fork so much it doesn't speak the same protocol as regular Mastodon, or C.S. may be in a self-imposed exile and themselves block federation, but their isolation is not by gargron's fiat alone.
posted by Pyry at 2:16 PM on March 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
Eugene isn't the Mastodon Pope, he doesn't have the power to unilaterally excommunicate an instance from 'the federation'. Individual instances might block C.S. or they may have modified their fork so much it doesn't speak the same protocol as regular Mastodon, or C.S. may be in a self-imposed exile and themselves block federation, but their isolation is not by gargron's fiat alone.
posted by Pyry at 2:16 PM on March 24, 2018 [11 favorites]
I just don't get Mastodon in much the same way I just didn't get Tumblr, only now there are too many sidebars rather than too few.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:17 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 2:17 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
What Pyry said.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:19 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by tobascodagama at 2:19 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Skygazer > the "Federation" of instances is controlled by @gargron@mastodon.social
Ah, no, it isn't. Federation is controlled by whoever runs the instance. There is no central Blocklist Authority to which all Mastodon instances must bow.
Gargron and a few other people run/moderate mastodon.social, the flagship instance. Other instances are free to federate with whoever they please. For instance, I'm not blocking counter.social on the instance I run; if Jester chose to turn federation back on, dragon.style would happily exchange data with counter.social, unless counter.social proved to be a persistent source of problems with an admin who was unresponsive on dealing with this. In which case I'd block it.
When counter.social popped up, there was certainly a lot of discussion about Jester's choice to block based on geolocation. And some people decided to block counter.social because of this. Or because of other stances he's taken such as misgendering/deadnaming Chelsea Manning, that shit really doesn't go down well when a big chunk of the folks on Mastodon are genderqueer or trans people, yknow?
posted by egypturnash at 2:24 PM on March 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
Ah, no, it isn't. Federation is controlled by whoever runs the instance. There is no central Blocklist Authority to which all Mastodon instances must bow.
Gargron and a few other people run/moderate mastodon.social, the flagship instance. Other instances are free to federate with whoever they please. For instance, I'm not blocking counter.social on the instance I run; if Jester chose to turn federation back on, dragon.style would happily exchange data with counter.social, unless counter.social proved to be a persistent source of problems with an admin who was unresponsive on dealing with this. In which case I'd block it.
When counter.social popped up, there was certainly a lot of discussion about Jester's choice to block based on geolocation. And some people decided to block counter.social because of this. Or because of other stances he's taken such as misgendering/deadnaming Chelsea Manning, that shit really doesn't go down well when a big chunk of the folks on Mastodon are genderqueer or trans people, yknow?
posted by egypturnash at 2:24 PM on March 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
I really can't abide banning Syria. The Kurds have been diligently reporting what is happening in Afrin and elsewhere through social media, completely bypassing western narratives with actual video footage. That spread of information is vital to their struggle. Ditto Russia - anti-Putin and pro-democracy activists in Russia count on social media to spread the word of what's going on. I get that fascists and bots are a problem but blocking countries wholesale is a kind of baby-with-the-bathwater maneuver that hurts people fighting for freedom more than it does the corrupt.
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 2:27 PM on March 24, 2018 [17 favorites]
posted by Aya Hirano on the Astral Plane at 2:27 PM on March 24, 2018 [17 favorites]
The main reason nobody federates with counter.social is that the other admins don't trust it. I'm pretty sure gargron was like the very last person to weigh in. (If he did at all. He handed over moderation duties on mastodon.social to a team of moderators ages ago.)
Speaking of moderation, most Mastodon instances are donation-supported. Mainly this goes to hosting costs, but some of the bigger ones can afford to pay moderators as well. And admins can open/close registration at will, so they never have to take on more users than they can afford to host and effectively moderate.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:32 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Speaking of moderation, most Mastodon instances are donation-supported. Mainly this goes to hosting costs, but some of the bigger ones can afford to pay moderators as well. And admins can open/close registration at will, so they never have to take on more users than they can afford to host and effectively moderate.
posted by tobascodagama at 2:32 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
sfenders: I signed up on mastodon.host just now, in part because its about page indicates that its administrators don't generally "block" other instances without really good reason. I can see stuff from counter.social just fine I think, such as The Jester himself issuing forth a toot on the subject of Donald Trump some 19 hours ago.
Wow, yeah, I see what your saying. If you actively search for a user from Counter.Social the profile will come up along with their TL of messages, but that's it. Counter.Social's TL isn't propagating in that instance at all. Also when calling up CS profiles from Mastodon.Host the following and followers numbers are skewered.. I'm not sure why. Thank you!
Pyry (and Alvy, egypturnash) : Eugene isn't the Mastodon Pope, he doesn't have the power to unilaterally excommunicate an instance from 'the federation'.
That's right. I'm mixing up the back end aspect of all this, thank you. Eugene can't shut off CS from other instances, what he did do was recommend to all other Federation-wide instances, that they ban Counter.Social the way he banned it from his particular instance: Mastodon.Social and Mastodon.xyz followed suit and so did many other instances who did take his word as "fiat". At which point Jester Actual decided to Fork off the platform and Eugene told declared that wasn't allowed, although it is allowed under the " Affero General Public License" (Scroll down to License).
Alrighty then...carry on...
posted by Skygazer at 2:42 PM on March 24, 2018
Wow, yeah, I see what your saying. If you actively search for a user from Counter.Social the profile will come up along with their TL of messages, but that's it. Counter.Social's TL isn't propagating in that instance at all. Also when calling up CS profiles from Mastodon.Host the following and followers numbers are skewered.. I'm not sure why. Thank you!
Pyry (and Alvy, egypturnash) : Eugene isn't the Mastodon Pope, he doesn't have the power to unilaterally excommunicate an instance from 'the federation'.
That's right. I'm mixing up the back end aspect of all this, thank you. Eugene can't shut off CS from other instances, what he did do was recommend to all other Federation-wide instances, that they ban Counter.Social the way he banned it from his particular instance: Mastodon.Social and Mastodon.xyz followed suit and so did many other instances who did take his word as "fiat". At which point Jester Actual decided to Fork off the platform and Eugene told declared that wasn't allowed, although it is allowed under the " Affero General Public License" (Scroll down to License).
Alrighty then...carry on...
posted by Skygazer at 2:42 PM on March 24, 2018
This is in Counter.Social's FAQ:
Well dayumm, CounterSocial must be somehow violating the (A)GPL license then?
No. Under the terms of the (A)GPL license anyone is free to modify the original code in ANY way they choose, so long as they "make an opportunity to receive the corresponding source code available from a network server at no charge" - which CounterSocial complies with, as outlined in our Terms of Service, right here. The (A)GPL license has no authority, legal or implied, to determine how external but connected hardware or software, such as, but not limited to firewalls, WAFs, traffic filtering are implemented or configured.
posted by Skygazer at 2:46 PM on March 24, 2018
Well dayumm, CounterSocial must be somehow violating the (A)GPL license then?
No. Under the terms of the (A)GPL license anyone is free to modify the original code in ANY way they choose, so long as they "make an opportunity to receive the corresponding source code available from a network server at no charge" - which CounterSocial complies with, as outlined in our Terms of Service, right here. The (A)GPL license has no authority, legal or implied, to determine how external but connected hardware or software, such as, but not limited to firewalls, WAFs, traffic filtering are implemented or configured.
posted by Skygazer at 2:46 PM on March 24, 2018
I’m personally enjoying the Micro.blog community. It’s RSS-based and everyone owns their own feeds, but the central discussion is moderated. It’s not perfect, but I like it so far: https://micro.blog/about
posted by mrbeefy at 3:00 PM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by mrbeefy at 3:00 PM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
This is my mistake, but his name is Eugen, without a trailing 'e'.
posted by Pyry at 3:10 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by Pyry at 3:10 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
For instance, I'm not blocking counter.social on the instance I run; if Jester chose to turn federation back on, dragon.style would happily exchange data with counter.social
IIRC, CoSo also broke the protocol in a way that caused errors on other instances back when it was still federating, the result of its "hardening".
posted by suetanvil at 3:17 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
IIRC, CoSo also broke the protocol in a way that caused errors on other instances back when it was still federating, the result of its "hardening".
posted by suetanvil at 3:17 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
Also: if you want to try out Mastodon, my advice is a) follow everyone who looks interesting and b) don't be afraid to unfollow. You will probably not find the same people you'd find on Twitter or Facebook but there's an interesting community of folks there with enough activity to keep the messages scrolling by.
What worked for me when I signed up was:
Since that's what I was looking for on Twitter, I've pretty much abandoned it for Mastodon now. I've heard other people say they use Twitter for news and related stuff. Current Mastodon isn't going to be a replacement for that, but it's a nice place to hang out.
posted by suetanvil at 3:45 PM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
What worked for me when I signed up was:
- Followed every mefite I could find.
- Followed everyone they followed or who followed them and whose bio and last few posts seemed okay.
- Started reading the federated timeline (i.e. all of the toots from anyone on a different instance followed by someone on my instance) and local timeline (i.e. all of the toots from everyone on my instance). If there was an interesting toot, I checked the person's bio and recent history and followed them if they seemed cool.
- Followed anyone my followers boosted who seemed interesting.
- Unfollowed anyone whose toots I wasn't enjoying.
Since that's what I was looking for on Twitter, I've pretty much abandoned it for Mastodon now. I've heard other people say they use Twitter for news and related stuff. Current Mastodon isn't going to be a replacement for that, but it's a nice place to hang out.
posted by suetanvil at 3:45 PM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
MetaFilter: #DeleteFacebook #DeleteTwitter
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:49 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by ZenMasterThis at 3:49 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
Just reading this conversation is exhausting, TBH.
This is (a) a tentative conclusion that (b) is admittedly coming from a place of great privilege in terms of contacts, social capital, etc., and which (c) I reserve the right to revisit at any time, but if my experiences with Flickr, Twitter and Facebook have taught me anything it's that I don't want to do this all over again. Not with any instance of Mastodon. Not at all. I'm done. I'm out.
I'm happy to share pictures on Instagram, despite its ownership, because there seem to be fewer ways to under/mine people behaviorally thereabouts, and because I love seeing what my friends notice about their worlds. But I just don't think I need another general-purpose social network. It feels to me very much like the time for that has passed (though again, I'm perfectly willing to consider that this may be a function of positionality).
posted by adamgreenfield at 4:03 PM on March 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
This is (a) a tentative conclusion that (b) is admittedly coming from a place of great privilege in terms of contacts, social capital, etc., and which (c) I reserve the right to revisit at any time, but if my experiences with Flickr, Twitter and Facebook have taught me anything it's that I don't want to do this all over again. Not with any instance of Mastodon. Not at all. I'm done. I'm out.
I'm happy to share pictures on Instagram, despite its ownership, because there seem to be fewer ways to under/mine people behaviorally thereabouts, and because I love seeing what my friends notice about their worlds. But I just don't think I need another general-purpose social network. It feels to me very much like the time for that has passed (though again, I'm perfectly willing to consider that this may be a function of positionality).
posted by adamgreenfield at 4:03 PM on March 24, 2018 [12 favorites]
Making your FAQ super defensive and framing it in "well actually" language is immediately off-putting even for folks who might agree with you.
The counter.social folk might understand platform but they have the same problem as (the leadership) at Twitter and Facebook: they don't understand human beings. And when faced with decidedly human problems they go for technological solutions to try to fix these problems. That hasn't worked very well so far and what they're proposing clearly shows that they don't have any better ideas or solutions than the competition they are trying to be an alternative for.
Also, the site is now down, but I didn't see anything about how they monetise/make profit.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:12 PM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
The counter.social folk might understand platform but they have the same problem as (the leadership) at Twitter and Facebook: they don't understand human beings. And when faced with decidedly human problems they go for technological solutions to try to fix these problems. That hasn't worked very well so far and what they're proposing clearly shows that they don't have any better ideas or solutions than the competition they are trying to be an alternative for.
Also, the site is now down, but I didn't see anything about how they monetise/make profit.
posted by slimepuppy at 4:12 PM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
It occurred to me the other day that Facebook is like church. It provides the good, necessary service of being a social hub. Like some churches, it leverages that into getting money and detailed personal information from people. (Think offerings, confession and prayer meetings.) Power - and responsibility - comes along with that money and information, but sometimes that power is abused.
I guess that makes this the Reformation, where a bunch of people leave the big church and start their own little churches?
posted by clawsoon at 4:49 PM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
I guess that makes this the Reformation, where a bunch of people leave the big church and start their own little churches?
posted by clawsoon at 4:49 PM on March 24, 2018 [6 favorites]
I signed on just for shits and giggles. So Jester gets to have cool letters in his name and I can’t have a haček in my name? Also, got a nasty gram about blocking cookies...
Look, I get why people are pissed off with Facebook and Twitter. So far I am under mpressed with alternatives too. This one pissed me off in the first 5 seconds. I am not sure I’ll be back.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 4:53 PM on March 24, 2018
Look, I get why people are pissed off with Facebook and Twitter. So far I am under mpressed with alternatives too. This one pissed me off in the first 5 seconds. I am not sure I’ll be back.
posted by Katjusa Roquette at 4:53 PM on March 24, 2018
Mod note: Skygazer, did you post this to share something cool you found on the web, or are you here to do PR for Counter.Social? Because right now it's reading like the latter and it's against the rules to make a post for an organization you're involved with.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:09 PM on March 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:09 PM on March 24, 2018 [9 favorites]
No, not at all, i think this is a cool site and would just like ppl to actually, you know , check it out.
posted by Skygazer at 5:17 PM on March 24, 2018
posted by Skygazer at 5:17 PM on March 24, 2018
Mod note: You need to take a break and stop trying to steer the thread.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:21 PM on March 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 5:21 PM on March 24, 2018 [8 favorites]
I deleted my facebook. I could only do it because the website has declined significantly over the past few years, so the social interactions I actually care about have already migrated to group texts etc. But at one point it would've been really hard for me to get rid of it, so much of myself was there.
To me, any advertisement for "replacement" social media sites might as well be saying, "hey congrats on kicking that bad habit - you want to pick up another one?"
posted by Emily's Fist at 7:10 PM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
To me, any advertisement for "replacement" social media sites might as well be saying, "hey congrats on kicking that bad habit - you want to pick up another one?"
posted by Emily's Fist at 7:10 PM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
I am going to create my own private social network at friendsof.grumpybeary69.com and just invite, like, my friends.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:09 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:09 PM on March 24, 2018 [2 favorites]
So just looking at the wiki this vilely patriotic entity (I lean towards op rather than individual, but one whose poor quality is indicative of the decay of the USG) has previously compromised users who consume its content. Another reason to avoid this service.
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 8:43 PM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by save alive nothing that breatheth at 8:43 PM on March 24, 2018 [4 favorites]
I am going to create my own private social network at friendsof.grumpybeary69.com and just invite, like, my friends.
My social media existence is mostly a 4 member cat lady group text. It's so much better than racist uncles and spambots.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:34 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
My social media existence is mostly a 4 member cat lady group text. It's so much better than racist uncles and spambots.
posted by ActingTheGoat at 9:34 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
I am going to create my own private social network at friendsof.grumpybeary69.com and just invite, like, my friends.
This is basically how I use Discord--the nature of it being that if at some point we started hating Discord, the largest part of my social group which shares a server would then just pick up and move to a comparable service. Honestly, I think friends are the easy part. Keeping track of family members and coworkers who you really don't want to socialize with that much but need to keep up with in some vague way is the harder problem to solve until you just go "actually I don't really care about my second cousins' kids".
posted by Sequence at 9:37 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
This is basically how I use Discord--the nature of it being that if at some point we started hating Discord, the largest part of my social group which shares a server would then just pick up and move to a comparable service. Honestly, I think friends are the easy part. Keeping track of family members and coworkers who you really don't want to socialize with that much but need to keep up with in some vague way is the harder problem to solve until you just go "actually I don't really care about my second cousins' kids".
posted by Sequence at 9:37 PM on March 24, 2018 [1 favorite]
I was about to say how sad I am that oulipo.social (from this prior post) didn't stick around... but it turns out it's back again! I didn't know until just now! I can't wait to go catch up.
If you want to try out a Mastadon, I would point you towards oulipo.social without a doubt. But look at its FAQ first if you don't know about it. It has an unusual limitation that is important.
posted by Lirp at 9:58 PM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
If you want to try out a Mastadon, I would point you towards oulipo.social without a doubt. But look at its FAQ first if you don't know about it. It has an unusual limitation that is important.
posted by Lirp at 9:58 PM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
I si what you did tharr.
posted by suetanvil at 10:59 PM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
posted by suetanvil at 10:59 PM on March 24, 2018 [7 favorites]
> clawsoon:
"sideshow: Yeah, but when you write your press release for your new product, you have to include all the famous people you signed up.
But do they have Metafilter's Own(TM)?"
Well, YEAH! I have an account there!
posted by Samizdata at 12:23 AM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
"sideshow: Yeah, but when you write your press release for your new product, you have to include all the famous people you signed up.
But do they have Metafilter's Own(TM)?"
Well, YEAH! I have an account there!
posted by Samizdata at 12:23 AM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
(I use Tootdon on my iphone and have no complaints!)
posted by sacchan at 1:46 AM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by sacchan at 1:46 AM on March 25, 2018 [1 favorite]
banned Counter.Social from interacting with other instancesIt's counter.social's own code modifications that have disabled federation. For example, you can run this command to fetch ActivityPub data (part of the Mastodon and GNU Social federation protocol) for a user on any normal Mastodon instance, but it won't work for counter.social because they changed the code to limit such requests to logged-in web browsers:
curl -i -H "Accept: application/activity+json" "https://counter.social/users/th3j35t3r"
Federation may work to counter.social from other instances (as long as those instances haven't blocked counter.social) but it would be strictly one-way. Users on other instances can't follow counter.social users, regardless of their own admin's blocking policies.
posted by mbrubeck at 9:22 AM on March 25, 2018 [5 favorites]
Which counter-revolutionary are you? CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT!
posted by blue_beetle at 11:24 AM on March 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
posted by blue_beetle at 11:24 AM on March 25, 2018 [4 favorites]
Hahah, by Jester? No fucking way. Not at all surprised duder set up a dictatorship for himself.
What's the better scenario: the toxic self-aggrandizer is a charlatan in which case, wooo, Issues, or the guy has pissed off bad dudes for real?
In either case, a strong vote against his platform.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 8:46 PM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
What's the better scenario: the toxic self-aggrandizer is a charlatan in which case, wooo, Issues, or the guy has pissed off bad dudes for real?
In either case, a strong vote against his platform.
posted by Ogre Lawless at 8:46 PM on March 25, 2018 [2 favorites]
> Federation may work to counter.social from other instances (as long as those instances haven't blocked counter.social) but it would be strictly one-way.
Sounds like a way to scrape the Fediverse with minimal self-exposure.
posted by ardgedee at 4:02 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
Sounds like a way to scrape the Fediverse with minimal self-exposure.
posted by ardgedee at 4:02 AM on March 26, 2018 [1 favorite]
CoSo has since forked off of the Mastodon "Federation" after the creator of Mastodon banned it from the Mastodon "Federation" (the collection of mini-communities connected via use of the Mastodon open software) for not allowing IP traffic from countries that have attacked the US via cyber operations. Currently banned countries include: Russia, China, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan and Syria.
Even before reading the page and seeing that they scraped all mention of Mastodon from their intro page (while still using 100% of the rest of Mastodon, as far as I can tell), this is profoundly silly. Someone choosing not to federate/associate with the site you hosted is not banning for the same reasons that "I don't want to be friends with you" is not a vicious personal attack.
That along with the blatant xenophobia makes this whole thing sound like someone who is otherwise doing absolutely fine decided their petty personal drama was a grand-scale injustice and needed to be combated as such.
posted by cwill at 11:02 PM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
Even before reading the page and seeing that they scraped all mention of Mastodon from their intro page (while still using 100% of the rest of Mastodon, as far as I can tell), this is profoundly silly. Someone choosing not to federate/associate with the site you hosted is not banning for the same reasons that "I don't want to be friends with you" is not a vicious personal attack.
That along with the blatant xenophobia makes this whole thing sound like someone who is otherwise doing absolutely fine decided their petty personal drama was a grand-scale injustice and needed to be combated as such.
posted by cwill at 11:02 PM on March 26, 2018 [3 favorites]
In tootdon news, it turns out that it archives toots and stores OAuth tokens on their own servers. Unsurprisingly, a large number of mastodon users are concerned about such things. tootdon claims that it's just for searching and push notifications, but it's something to be aware of.
posted by zamboni at 11:13 AM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
posted by zamboni at 11:13 AM on March 28, 2018 [1 favorite]
I haven’t logged in for ages, but I thought Pawoo was nice. (The interface is in Japanese, which is either an enjoyable challenge or no good at all.)
posted by Going To Maine at 1:06 PM on March 31, 2018
posted by Going To Maine at 1:06 PM on March 31, 2018
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posted by Artw at 9:13 AM on March 24, 2018 [33 favorites]