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Threads is blocking servers on the Fediverse. Here's how we unblocked ourselves. | Soapbox (soapbox.pub)

submitted 11 months ago by shish_mish@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

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[–] 0xtero@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago (13 children)

I find it interesting that Meta Platforms, Inc., a company known for harvesting user data, is blocking some servers from fetching its public posts. They decided to implement a feature Mastodon calls Authorized fetch.

This was always going to happen. They will block agressively, because they can't have their precious advertising money mixed with CSAM, nazis and other illegal content. And the fedi is full of that.

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social -5 points 11 months ago (3 children)

Umm Meta is basically only Nazis and Pedos at this point? I’d say there is far less of it on the Fediverse than on Facebook.

[–] breakfastmtn@lemmy.ca 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

There's far less because of server blocks. There are tons of gross servers that are just walled off from everyone else. Mastodon.social blocks a couple hundred servers.

Every now and then someone will write an article like, 'I love free speech so I thought I could run a Mastodon server without blocking anyone... boy was I ever wrong.' There's some truly vile shit out there.

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago (2 children)

A couple hundred servers is nothing compared to a couple hundred thousand facebook groups.

FB removed 73.3 million CSAM in the first 9 months of '22 alone, and that's only the stuff they bother to catch.

[–] 0xtero@kbin.social 3 points 11 months ago

It's also a matter of scale. FB has 3 billion users and it's all centralized. They are able to police that. Their Trust and Safety team is large (which has its own problems, because they outsource that - but that's another story). The fedi is somewhere around 11M (according to fedidb.org).
The federated model doesn't really "remove" anything, it just segregates the network to "moderated, good instances" and "others".

I don't think most fedi admins are actually following the law by reporting CSAM to the police (because that kind of thing requires a lot resources), they just remove it from their servers and defederate. Bottom line is that the protocols and tools built to combat CSAM don't work too well in the context of federated networks - we need new tools and new reporting protocols.

Reading the Stanford Internet Observatory report on fedi CSAM gives a pretty good picture of the current situation, it is fairly fresh:
https://cyber.fsi.stanford.edu/io/news/addressing-child-exploitation-federated-social-media

[–] lemann@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 11 months ago

73 million? Holy shit people are disgusting man

[–] AVincentInSpace@pawb.social 1 points 11 months ago

I'm not even sure that's true of Xhitter, and Faceb**k at least has a mod team

[–] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 0 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Have you gone on Instagram ever?

It's normies and wine moms.

[–] Deceptichum@kbin.social 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Nope.

But a quick google search shows:

Instagram has become a hub for young neo-Nazis to recruit young people to far-right groups, a report from an anti-racism group has warned.

Nick Lowles, Hope Not Hate’s chief executive, said: “Though we continue to warn about niche platforms like Telegram, a fertile recruitment ground for young neo-Nazis has been Instagram – its inadequate moderation and worrying algorithm recommendations are child protection issues that demand urgent action from the platform.”

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/mar/22/neo-nazi-groups-use-instagram-to-recruit-young-people-warns-hope-not-hate

Meta is Meta, I expect them to act like Meta and they do not disappoint.

[–] BraveSirZaphod@kbin.social 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yes, of course it has Neo-Nazis, because it has hundreds of millions of people and essentially every niche community has representation there. The doesn't mean it's remotely accurate to say that Instagram is "only Nazis and pedos".

The most followed user is Kim Kardashian, if I remember right, and she's targeting the most normie women possible. Nazis and pedos aren't exactly good for advertising.

This isn't to say that Instagram doesn't have moderation issues, but that isn't contradictory to the fact that Instagram is not solely composed of those kinds of users.

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