Notices by Ben Werdmuller (ben@werd.social)

So, uh, anyone else getting hit by Japanese spammers taking advantage of older abandoned Mastodon instances?

@ricmac And even the open social platforms often strip referrers and utm tags, so nobody knows how if traffic comes from there. (Still Mastodon's biggest own-goal imo.)

I agree re: Discover counterbalancing search. It's such a shift towards the curated and sanitized, alongside the black box nature of it. I don't think it'll end well.

There are some interesting referral statistics embedded in this piece. Facebook referral traffic has fallen more than 40% over the last year; referrals from Reddit have increased by 88%. #Media https://werd.io/2024/google-discover-is-sending-us-news-publishers-much-more-traffic

By secretly paying some creators to post on Threads, Meta is undermining trust in everyone's motivations. Suddenly everyone is assumed to be "engagement farming": https://werd.io/2024/threads-is-trading-trust-for-growth

"Surveillance Watch is an interactive map revealing the intricate connections between surveillance companies, their funding sources and affiliations." Nice. #Privacy https://werd.io/2024/surveillance-watch-they-know-who-you-are

The news cycle has moved on, but just as a reminder, they’re still bombing the shit out of Gaza and killing civilians in enormous numbers.

@Gargron @KevinMarks @davew Thanks for expanding. I think understanding your position on this is really important. I definitely agree that DRM is not the objective; sitting in the US, I don't know that I trust the courts to get to the right place. There's a strong possibility that the EU will do better.

@Gargron @KevinMarks @davew In offering Glaze they do seek to prevent artists’ work from being ingested. But beyond Cara, do you see the wider point about consent and author control in the fediverse?

There's no good way to prevent AI models from being trained on art published on the fediverse. But there's work we can do to prevent it and protect the artists who post there. #fediverse https://werd.io/2024/protecting-artists-on-the-fediverse

Some thoughts on student protesters. https://werd.io/2024/the-kids-are-alright

Buried here: "Vox Media’s technology news publication The Verge says it also has plans to federate its own site to have more ownership over its content and audience." #Media https://digiday.com/marketing/as-tiktok-ban-threatens-stability-in-social-media-ecosystem-some-brands-settle-into-the-fediverse/?utm_source=werd.io&utm_campaign=mastodon&utm_channel=mastodon

"Paying people to work on open source is good, full stop, no exceptions. We need to stop criticizing maintainers getting paid, and start celebrating. Yes, all of the mechanisms are flawed in some way, but that’s because the world is flawed, and it’s not the fault of the people taking money. Yelling at maintainers who’ve found a way to make a living is wrong." #Technology https://jacobian.org/2024/feb/16/paying-maintainers-is-good/?utm_source=werd.io&utm_campaign=mastodon&utm_channel=mastodon

Flipboard is making its entire platform fediverse-compatible, allowing anyone on any fediverse platform (eg Mastodon, Pixelfed, and eventually Threads) to follow content shared there. #Technology https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/18/24006062/flipboard-fediverse-mastodon-activitypub-profiles-social?utm_source=werd.io&utm_campaign=mastodon&utm_channel=mastodon

@dangillmor It's the most cynical, depressing thing I've seen come out of VC tech for a long time, and there's a very, very high bar for that. It's worse than wretched. He talks about wanting to make supermen and being anti-inclusion. There's a really nasty picture being drawn.

@aral I was just joking with someone about this the other day. My software was used by movements all over the world to rally and organize for justice. I only was able to get out of debt and find some retirement savings when I took a left turn into VC-funded startups for a while.

And now here I am in non profit open source, and, well, those savings were fun to have while they lasted.

Not that I did it for the money. But still.

Making my ask clear: please self promote your stuff. I want to see it. I want to learn about it. I might want to buy it. Tell me about it.