@Billius27 I'm grateful to see you here!
Michael Karlin
Policy @ Canadian Digital Service. Reasonably subversive. #GCDigital. Words entirely my nonsense. He/him.
Michael Karlin boosted:
Powerful protest @Tate Modern by whom I'm guessing are young Iranian expatriates. How anyone can align themselves with that regime is completely beyond me. (I'd call the mullahs mediaeval but that's insulting to the many thinkers from that time.) #Iran #IranProtests2022
Michael Karlin boosted:
But, there's more:
I followed up the proposal for news organizations to stand up their own social media/Mastodon servers with a couple more newsletter episodes of notes.
In s13e18: Mastodon, or What Happens When Your Software Has Opinions And Now You Have Choices, I write about the high-level implications of instance moderation, choice, and opinionated software -- in this case, opinionated software and opinionated platforms.
https://newsletter.danhon.com/archive/s13e18-mastodon-or-what-happens-when-your-7233/
@skinnylatte The first time I visited the Bay Area I just sort of stared at a map with utter fascination.
@sbourne @mmahaffie @mheadd I think a potential minefield here is setting up and enforcing rules, especially around defederating. State-authorized instances defederating might be necessary (ie from extremist instances) but can cause unintended consequences (cutting someone off from emergency comms).
I was going to explore policy in a follow-up post next week. Will still be Canada-centric but hopefully some of it is relevant!
@jyasskin "Worrying so much" is unfortunately my biggest failing as a person. 😀 My wife is working on me though!
I think what you're saying is definitely true, but in some cases like an active shooter or natural disaster, ideally one doesn't wait 4-5 days for relays and interested people to boost. Another ActivityPub-based broadcast tool might be needed to fill that niche, and other announcements can spread organically.
@deltatux Yeah I'm going to move my content soon. A holiday break project!
Thank you so much for your comments! I'll read up more and write a second part.
Michael Karlin boosted:
@supergovernance
Great write-up, would love to see more government involvement in the Fediverse. The #EU is a big proponent of the #fediverse and they actually run their own instance and a lot of their departments have accounts there. This is part of their initiative to not rely heavily on corporate social media.
However, one thing that's missing & should be talked about is the use of #ActivityPub relay servers as they can help with the visibility problem. If the Government of Canada does decide to run their own instance, they should also insert themselves by subscribing to relays. This would include them into the federated feed of smaller instances or any instance that chooses to subscribe to relays. Right now there's a Canadian relay service available: https://relay.activitypub.ca/
Another option is the federal government can run their own relay and if all levels of gov't run their own instances, they can all subscribe to the relay and then instance admins can choose to subscribe to the government's relay.
Now the downside of this is that large instances like mstdn.ca has gotten so large and so well connected that they've decided to remove relays, so unless they choose to resubscribe, using this method for outreach wouldn't work as well as it would.
Second, it's up to the instance operator to subscribe to relays. If they don't, unless multiple instance users also subscribe to Government of Canada accounts, the federated links won't work.
Third, instance operators may choose to #fediblock the government instance, the instance admin becomes the gatekeepers in this case and the only recourse for users is to move instances.
P.S: Consider writing the #blog on a #WriteFreely or #WordPress with #ActivityPub add-on installed so these blog posts can be on the fediverse too 😉
Great write-up, would love to see more government involvement in the Fediverse. The #EU is a big proponent of the #fediverse and they actually run their own instance and a lot of their departments have accounts there. This is part of their initiative to not rely heavily on corporate social media.
However, one thing that's missing & should be talked about is the use of #ActivityPub relay servers as they can help with the visibility problem. If the Government of Canada does decide to run their own instance, they should also insert themselves by subscribing to relays. This would include them into the federated feed of smaller instances or any instance that chooses to subscribe to relays. Right now there's a Canadian relay service available: https://relay.activitypub.ca/
Another option is the federal government can run their own relay and if all levels of gov't run their own instances, they can all subscribe to the relay and then instance admins can choose to subscribe to the government's relay.
Now the downside of this is that large instances like mstdn.ca has gotten so large and so well connected that they've decided to remove relays, so unless they choose to resubscribe, using this method for outreach wouldn't work as well as it would.
Second, it's up to the instance operator to subscribe to relays. If they don't, unless multiple instance users also subscribe to Government of Canada accounts, the federated links won't work.
Third, instance operators may choose to #fediblock the government instance, the instance admin becomes the gatekeepers in this case and the only recourse for users is to move instances.
P.S: Consider writing the #blog on a #WriteFreely or #WordPress with #ActivityPub add-on installed so these blog posts can be on the fediverse too 😉
@pinecone Thank you! I'm a government employee and Parliament is debating a relevant bill on platform regulation so I'm purposefully reserved in that subject. Comes with the territory.
Michael Karlin boosted:
Experimented with reach on Twitter vs Mastodon by sending the same “canary” post on both platforms. I saw about the same engagement on both, despite having 4% the followers here.
Feels like the value of Twitter’s network is overestimated. If you’ve been there 10+ years, I bet most of your followers are inactive, and it’s harder than ever to get your tweets viewed because of the algorithmic timeline. Mastodon might be at the point where it delivers the same value. At least in my circles.
Michael Karlin boosted:
My suggestion if you want the Fediverse to work, follow and favorite and boost the absolute hell out of people. It’s not about dopamine or clout chasing, it’s about letting people know they’re not just typing into a void.
Michael Karlin boosted:
I wrote some very early thoughts I'm having about governments on the Fediverse, and how it can leverage it for public emergencies and service updates. I'm curious to the potential and would welcome a discussion. There could be some real opportunity, but only if people care.
I was cheeky and wrote it in on a closed platform because font is king.
#fediverse #mastodon #techpolicy
https://medium.com/@supergovernance/government-fediverse-7ae83dd95a42
@blaine Yeah definitely! Let's connect in the new year.
@mollyanglin Individual firms' cost-benefit analysis of engaging here is of itself fascinating though. Where would they go? Why? If the Mastodon population doubled or tripled would that affect the decision?
@rumon Awesome! And a great first start given its appeal.
I'd love to get a sense of:
- cost and timeline of Crown ownership of an instance
- how to measure reach and what analytics looks like in federation
- blockers to spinning up an instance
- how to set up instance rules (especially defederation!) and enforce them (if necessary)
- how to boost messaging on more popular servers.
And that's just Mastodon to start!
@mollyanglin Yes absolutely would try with a handful of different information services. I'm not sure what the analytics capabilities are but going to dig into it. It's a new pet interest!
Governments finding and measuring reach here is probably my #1 concern right now. Equity ones a close second.
I wrote some very early thoughts I'm having about governments on the Fediverse, and how it can leverage it for public emergencies and service updates. I'm curious to the potential and would welcome a discussion. There could be some real opportunity, but only if people care.
I was cheeky and wrote it in on a closed platform because font is king.
#fediverse #mastodon #techpolicy
https://medium.com/@supergovernance/government-fediverse-7ae83dd95a42
The existence of Ashley Madison shows that people underthink cybersecurity threat modelling.
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