Notices by Louis (louis@emacs.ch)

GNV - the Smallweb Index - now supports the Spartan protocol.

Over 100.000 Gopher and Gemini pages, and now already +8000 Spartan pages indexed.

https://gopher.emacs.ch

#gopher #gemini #spartan #smallweb

IMHO the real threat of an open and functioning Fediverse is not #Meta or #Bluesky, it is the fact that only 6 small instances decide (by personal opinions of their moderators) if your instance is worth to be federated with, disguised as an algorithmic blocklist called Olifant, which was originally invented to make life of instance admins easier (by protecting against CSAM and other illegal content), and is now used to suppress opinions that are just different.

#Fediverse

@icd @mms I'm sure that Google will follow soon by implementing a similar scheme when they realize that Apple actually gets away with that.

But then, let's not forget, the EU has a lot of lawyers. They must have predicted that this will happen or it was even part of "the deal". So don't expect they will do anything about it. Most EU laws are laid out to make them look popular, but in fact primarily benefit big corporations and only crippling small businesses because they are unable to keep up with all these new laws. But that's just my opinion.

#librewolf is so good, it's now my default browser. Good bye, #Firefox.

https://librewolf.net/

#Anonradio really grew on me last year. It’s freedom, features music from independent artists, open for contributions and of course the lispy gopher show! I can now enjoy it on my Ruark R2, too. Thanks to all who make it possible! http://anonradio.net @SDF @screwtape

@SDF Just be aware that Mastodon sadly is a registered trademark of a German legal company and there are restrictions on when and how you are allowed to use it. I.e. you aren‘t if you don’t use the original unmodified version of the Mastodon software.

So I think it is wise to have a fallback outside that namespace.

Evil greed. If you are a family and are bound to school vacation dates, greedy landlords try to extract the hell out of your pocket.

You pay between 2.5-4 times the rent for the same apartment during holiday season.

This chart is now publicly visible for everyone on many tourism websites. I hope it will have an impact. For me it already does - I rather stay home than pump my money into some greedy mf’s ass.

What do you think how long it will take until I have to remove this chart out of protest by the landlords?

#capitalism #tourism

Be an outlier with style: dive headfirst into the world of Emacs. Wave goodbye to telemetry, daily updates, corporate greed and paternalism.

At Emacs.ch we're a gathering of trailblazers and mavericks, and are ready to support you on your journey to freedom. 👋

#FOSS #Emacs #VSCode

@kspatlas @silvermoon82 Probably yes. But that so 1984-like. Next step: Google censoring your personal Google Docs if they see stuff they don't like.

@silvermoon82 If that is not a big warning sign to not use any Google services, I don't know what it.

I ask you to post the first words and associations that come to mind with the following statement as a response:

A stateless, classless, moneyless society.

At the risk of being redundant:

#Meta doesn't care about your posts. Because there is nothing of interest that you could possibly post. You are not interesting for Meta.

#Meta doesn't care about enabling their users to be part of an open network. All they want is hype, marketing and to skim the fallout from Twitter. All they want is their users personal data.

#Meta can never inject ads into your instance or timeline - ergo they are not interested in you.

#Meta cannot even correlate your account to anything in their database.

Meta's release of #Thread is as much of relevance for the Fediverse as a Biden farting in his chair.

@ramin_hal9001 You make some strong arguments here. It's great to see you laying out your reasoning in detail and with passion. :heart: That's the spirit.

What I have learned, however, is that Meta will only federate with select larger instances from the beginning. There will be contracts which also provide for financial compensation for the instance owners. Meta positions itself as a "savior", because especially the big instances have a very strong financial pressure. Users take it for granted that someone else is paying for everything.

In these contracts, Meta also specifies the rules regarding the moderation. Instances will have the option of allowing ads from Meta or not (with the benefit of additional compensation).

Smaller instances will have the possibility to register for a federation with Meta in a second step, but there will be no financial compensation and Meta decides if they will grant access based on their reputation.

In summary, there will be instances with the "plus Facebook" feature and those that do not belong to the illustrious circle. No #FediPact will be able to change that (btw. these are the same people that will silence and defederate from you if you don't play by "their" rules).

At the turn of the year there was a proposal from @freemo, where he proposed the creation of a "United Federation of Instances" (https://ufoi.org - ssl cert is expired). However, people associated the idea with one person and made fun of it because of his "reputation". If we had such a foundation today we would be in a much stronger position against Meta. It is the human condition not to be able to think outside our own bias.

Whatever Meta will do, the Fediverse will not go down because of Meta's decisions but because of the actions of its admins and users. When I follow the daily arguments on #MastoAdmin or (#)Fediblock, I quickly realize where the journey is headed. Silcening and public shaming instead of mutual respect and cooperaton is the motto.

Hmm.. just contemplating.. how does a Mastodon™ API-compatible server, that runs on SQLite, offers full-text search w/o Elasticsearch, is a single binary, handles 20+ times the traffic on the same machine, fully migrates existing Postgres databases and supports multi-instance hosting, sound to you operators? 🤔

I'm sure that must already exist somewhere? 🍿 I'm sure ...

#MastoAdmin #instance #MastodonDevs

I disagree with the current CEO of Mastodon about his stance on mid-sized instances. We don't want to be run in isolation, we are part of the Fediverse. "Normal users just want the default", he can repeat that as many times as he wants, it doesn't make it true because of that.

Diversity is the DNA of the Fediverse and Mastodon is just one part of the whole. Thousands of people spend their time and money to make it successful. Anyone who dismisses that and single-handedly tries to market the Fediverse as a Mastodon brand and use "crowding out" techniques to prevent users from even being encouraged to choose an instance from a diversity will ultimately fail.

I am super disappointed with the direction Mastodon Corporation is taking. If there is not enough headwind here soon, then sooner or later it will lead to a schism.

#Mastodon #MastoAdmin #fediverse

@anticomputer @cpbotha @carcosa @namilus @rudi @herve @efim @etenil @luishgh @bionicbabelfish @entilldaniel @ramin_hal9001 @RogerBW @dekkzz76 @chedi @Gargron That does not look like a moderated instance to me... I'll now block all mastodon.social accounts that look like these.

@anticomputer @cpbotha @carcosa @namilus @rudi @herve @efim @etenil @luishgh @bionicbabelfish @entilldaniel @ramin_hal9001 @RogerBW @dekkzz76 @chedi Thank you all for reporting that annoying spam coming from @Gargron 's Mastodon.social instance.

Nothing good came out of this instance yet and it seems to be the only one that has regular problems with spam attacks. But, as you might know, it is now the "default" instance. So the question is, is it worth considering defederation from the Mastodon's "default" instance or is it already too *big to fail*?

I really hope that @Gargron will soon implement strategies to prevent these wide spread spam attacks coming from his "default" instance. I can only encourage you to get in touch with Eugen and ask him to raise his attention to what is happening on his instances.