#fediverse
'Safety as Public Infrastructure? The Future of Moderation in the Open Social Web'
Talk by Saskia Welch, Aditya Singh and Sebastian Vogelsang
More info: https://ctalx.c-base.org/fediday-2026/talk/MGDNUN/
Click your tickets here: https://berlinfedi.day/
⁂
See you at FediDay!
'Safety as Public Infrastructure? The Future of Moderation in the Open Social Web'
Talk by Saskia Welch, Aditya Singh and Sebastian Vogelsang
More info: https://ctalx.c-base.org/fediday-2026/talk/MGDNUN/
Click your tickets here: https://berlinfedi.day/
⁂
See you at FediDay!
I'm thinking *a lot* about "Implicit Feudalism" these days - the idea that mods and admins (in the #Fediverse and elsewhere) are like feudal lords, wielding the only true power in online spaces - the power to silence other's voices.
That leaves regular users to be like serfs - bound to the land with no real power to make change besides 1) petitioning their lord, or 2) maybe leaving the lord's estate (if that's even possible).
I'm thinking *a lot* about "Implicit Feudalism" these days - the idea that mods and admins (in the #Fediverse and elsewhere) are like feudal lords, wielding the only true power in online spaces - the power to silence other's voices.
That leaves regular users to be like serfs - bound to the land with no real power to make change besides 1) petitioning their lord, or 2) maybe leaving the lord's estate (if that's even possible).
This affects the Fediverse.
This affects the Internet.
This is the equivalent of the "rubber hose method" of decryption.
All technical solutions (read: all technology) is subject to politics. To political power. To political interactions.
You cannot rely on purely technical approaches. You have to have social approaches, too. Like. Actual policy and procedure geared around social and political group dynamics.
Like. How will we react when the US Govt requires that @jerry to shut off infosec.exchange servers.
Or how we'll react when a specific Mastodon server is declared part of a terrorist infrastructure. Will federating with it mean any other Mastodon server is now part of the officially designated terrorist network (what then of people that federate with a server that federates with a server that is classified as part of a terrorist network. And so on)
You cannot carry the conceit that tech alone or a purely technical approach will save you.
This affects the Fediverse.
This affects the Internet.
This is the equivalent of the "rubber hose method" of decryption.
All technical solutions (read: all technology) is subject to politics. To political power. To political interactions.
You cannot rely on purely technical approaches. You have to have social approaches, too. Like. Actual policy and procedure geared around social and political group dynamics.
Like. How will we react when the US Govt requires that @jerry to shut off infosec.exchange servers.
Or how we'll react when a specific Mastodon server is declared part of a terrorist infrastructure. Will federating with it mean any other Mastodon server is now part of the officially designated terrorist network (what then of people that federate with a server that federates with a server that is classified as part of a terrorist network. And so on)
You cannot carry the conceit that tech alone or a purely technical approach will save you.
Nineteen days before the U.S. sanctions deadline, Autistici/Inventati is shutting down.
For twenty-five years, A/I built infrastructure for people who understood that privacy, autonomy and resistance require more than good intentions. Now a government order has made keeping that infrastructure alive untenable.
There is grief in this. There should also be fury.
Because fascism does not arrive only as boots in the street. Sometimes it arrives as a designation, a compliance deadline, a terrified service provider, a bank account that suddenly stops working. Bureaucracy has always been one of authoritarianism’s favorite costumes. The paperwork looks terribly respectable while the walls close in.
And this cannot remain a problem for “the nerds.” People organizing in every sphere need to understand what autonomous infrastructure means, why it matters, and what happens when we leave it to a tiny number of exhausted technical collectives to keep the lights on for everyone else.
We need to become the thousand servers. Now.
If one autonomous project can be isolated, there should be ten more behind it. A hundred. A thousand. This should be the moment radical hosting, federated services, community servers, privacy infrastructure and collectively controlled networks begin flourishing, not retreating. Build them in basements, social centers, infoshops, collectives, cooperatives and wherever else people can keep a machine humming and a cable plugged into the wall.
The lesson cannot be that autonomous infrastructure was too dangerous to maintain.
The lesson has to be that we did not have nearly enough of it.
We ❤️ A/I. We are heartbroken to see it end this way. And we refuse to treat its shutdown as the end of the idea it spent twenty-five years proving was possible.
Use the logo and banner provided by @subvertising to keep their memory alive. Let's not forget this by next week!
Goodbye, A/I. Not farewell.
Read our full report:
https://sabot.media/post/ai-shuts-down
campaign page: https://sabot.media/campaigns/autistici-inventati
#AutisticiInventati #Antifa #DigitalRights #Privacy #MutualAid #AutonomousInfrastructure #Fediverse #SelfHosting #RadicalTech #NoBlogs #SabotMedia
Nineteen days before the U.S. sanctions deadline, Autistici/Inventati is shutting down.
For twenty-five years, A/I built infrastructure for people who understood that privacy, autonomy and resistance require more than good intentions. Now a government order has made keeping that infrastructure alive untenable.
There is grief in this. There should also be fury.
Because fascism does not arrive only as boots in the street. Sometimes it arrives as a designation, a compliance deadline, a terrified service provider, a bank account that suddenly stops working. Bureaucracy has always been one of authoritarianism’s favorite costumes. The paperwork looks terribly respectable while the walls close in.
And this cannot remain a problem for “the nerds.” People organizing in every sphere need to understand what autonomous infrastructure means, why it matters, and what happens when we leave it to a tiny number of exhausted technical collectives to keep the lights on for everyone else.
We need to become the thousand servers. Now.
If one autonomous project can be isolated, there should be ten more behind it. A hundred. A thousand. This should be the moment radical hosting, federated services, community servers, privacy infrastructure and collectively controlled networks begin flourishing, not retreating. Build them in basements, social centers, infoshops, collectives, cooperatives and wherever else people can keep a machine humming and a cable plugged into the wall.
The lesson cannot be that autonomous infrastructure was too dangerous to maintain.
The lesson has to be that we did not have nearly enough of it.
We ❤️ A/I. We are heartbroken to see it end this way. And we refuse to treat its shutdown as the end of the idea it spent twenty-five years proving was possible.
Use the logo and banner provided by @subvertising to keep their memory alive. Let's not forget this by next week!
Goodbye, A/I. Not farewell.
Read our full report:
https://sabot.media/post/ai-shuts-down
campaign page: https://sabot.media/campaigns/autistici-inventati
#AutisticiInventati #Antifa #DigitalRights #Privacy #MutualAid #AutonomousInfrastructure #Fediverse #SelfHosting #RadicalTech #NoBlogs #SabotMedia
Shared infrastructure is how the #Fediverse can grow without recreating enshittified platform silos.
We’re excited to share that Bonfire is working with Mastodon on two critical areas of Fediverse infrastructure: remote media storage and automated content detection.
Built around open Fediverse Auxiliary Service Provider (FASP) specifications, this work will help platforms connect to shared services instead of each having to build and operate the same capabilities alone.
Our aim is to make these capabilities open, interoperable, and available for any federated server to adopt.
A big thank you to @Mastodon@mastodon.social team for involving us in this work. We’re looking forward to building together and sharing what we learn along the way.
Read the full post: bonfirenetworks.org/posts/bu...
#ActivityPub #FASP
A (potentially-temporary) instance for playing with Bonfire.
