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So would seem that recently Sunbeamcity.com has stated that their administrative position is to support and protect doxxing when they deem it appropriate.
This puts people at real danger especially considering the poor reputation the person doing the doxxing has (a laundry list of false accusations with no evidence).
The question I want to ask, should the QOTO policy be updated t include a clause where we defederate from any instance that supports doxxing?
Vote if you'd like but ultimately the comments will decide where I stand on the issue.
#Mastoadmin #Fediblock #Mastodon
* Sunbeam.city
@freemo You'll have to defederate from me if so 😭
If people make their info public, they don't get to cry that it isn't private, that's how I see it.
The risks are rea, and generally i agree if you make some information public that on you. But we are talking about someone actively trying to hack their accounts to get private information then disseminate that to others. Yes people should be aware it happens, but I feel that goes beyond free speech.
@Ox I don't think of administration in terms of abstracts like "free speech" I think of the experience I'd want to have as a user and implement that. In the case of this instance, the direction I'm going rn is antispam. That's the only legal content I plan to target insofar as moderation goes. I put responsibility beyond that on the user, they can post unlisted or block users from that instance if they like, it's not my job, I wouldn't expect any admin to protect me from security risks .@freemo
Agreed our rules are not clearly stated and this is intentional. Instead what we do is record all our moderator actions on our discourse and explain why it was takena nd include screen shots. We feel it makes more sense for people to judge us based on our administrative decisions than a codified set of rules.
@Coomer Thats not doxxing, the incident that happened at sunbeam citt involved a user actively trying to hack a persons account to get their email address which they did NOT make public. They did a poor job of it mind you, but this wasnt just the case that they shared public information, they actively tried to reveal information that was not public.
@freemo Fair enough.
How would defederating from this instance prevent that from happening to a Qoto user?
@Coomer It would make it more difficult for the user to have access to information.
Usually users see something, get triggered, and misbehave. If they are defederated from then they are less likely to see the initial triggers to misbehave int he first place.
@freemo That gets into the "obfuscation as a security feature" debate that no one on Fedi can seem to agree on.
@Coomer I dont view it as security, though it does provide a minimal increase in safety...
Its a bit like asking "Why dont you accept calls from that guy who rapped you"... I mean sure the guy could just come to your house and stalk you, not answering calls isnt preventing that. But it is still probably a sound move.
What's the cost? What is sunbeamcity.com's content worth to your users? That's the first thing I'd consider, how infrastructure level changes affect my users.
What's the payout? Breaking federation doesn't seem to solve the issue of "malicious users exist" presented, so it would be a poor response in my opinion, even if the cost is low.
If it's just a matter of curating what shows up in TWKN you could 'quiet' the instance with MRFs (presuming you're using Pleroma) without breaking federation which might be a preferable option.
We are a fork off mastodon, so more similar to mastodon.
I do agree silencing might be better. The key here are two fold 1) let the server know their administrative policies, when explicitly harmful, have consequences 2) limit the amount of information malicious actors have access to.
#1 makes me hesitant and is why we general dont defederate, it should be a users choice. But #2 is appealing to me.
2. As in "not let the evil haxor know the precious toots of qoto"? Then you should also close up public access to local/federated timelines, making qoto "registered user only", and then maybe also block all instances that don't block the evil haxor, for good measure... sounds good?
Unless you mean something like preventing malicious actors on qoto(or instance federating with qoto) from having access to information publicized on the evil instance? I don't think that's effective either, the information will remain public even if all other instances block it, and the doxer can always post it anywhere else they wish. If anything, silencing/blocking them will be most effective at preventing users in qoto from knowing that they might have been doxed (or that someone embarrassed themselves by failing at it).
No They could still access our toots by just going straight to the server. It isnt to prevent them access. It to ensure our name and posts dont cross their path during the normal day-to-day activity. Out of sight, out of mind.
You have to step back and understand, this person is causing **real world** harm to others, inciting potentially physical violence, as well as other forms of attack.
If we dont do something in response to that, then whats left.
I do agree with your last point, it might hurt us as much as them.
One option, I could modify the server so when we block a server we can still see their content but they cant see ours.
Sure it is bad. If you think it is illegal in a specific case and really want to help maybe you should take legal action. If not then the least you can do is to let people see the crime, so that maybe someone does, or at least there is some form of backlash. Just blocking seems like a "lets forget about it, and hope it never happens to us" kind of deal.
A "they can't see us, we can see them" block sounds interesting, but not sure it's worth it. Better spend time on raising awareness of privacy on internet in general, or contributing to projects that work on that.
I think these kind of problems are beyond what mastodon instance admins should be trying to solve in their federation policies. After all most doxers will not be publicly announcing their intentions along with several failed attempts, from any account/identity that is worth a dime to them. This particular situation is more like a misguided person seeking all the wrong kind of attention. If you want to be extra careful and block them, that's fine I think, but not sure it's worth writing up a vague policy that might create the wrong impression or cause dilemmas in future.
For the sake of correctness, I'll note that it's "sunbeam.city" rather than "sunbeamcity.com".
@khird oops thanks for the correction
@freemo @mngrif @design_RG I guess with the later development we should put on hold any decision on sunbeam.city.
As far as scholar.social is involved, I'll dig in that too, I've always appreciated the users from that instance
@freemo I trust your motive and have seen the recent thread where DK was attempting this doxxing of someone in another instance.
Visited the sunbeam city mastodon, and their Wiki does have a specific restriction about "doxxing other members " (not specified if only locally or in other instances as well) being unacceptable behaviour. See screenshot below, from https://wiki.sunbeam.city/doku.php?id=code_of_conduct
If you do have a post or thread from their admin staff stating doxxing of people in other instances might be acceptable, I would suggest it would be productive to insert a link and maybe a screen capture here so people can verify it.
@design_RG Yes let me find it, users brought the doxing up to the admin and they said they allow it.
@design_RG I havent foudn the original post (though I could have swore I saw it earlier today, ill keep digging). But here is a post of someone else who also saw the administrator response to it.. their wording was that they approve of doxing on "Acceptable targets".
https://veenus.art/objects/96ede878-8bd9-49af-b53a-afa88223a0cc
@design_RG I just dug a little deeper, While I cant find the actual post where they stated that doxing is acceptabe I did find that the person who did the doxing is actually a moderator on SBC in the first place. So a bit of a moot point. I think it should be clear that despite what their wiki says considering their moderator is actively engaging in doxxing we can assume its a supported tactic of the instance.
@freemo @design_RG admin is a step up from mod, right? Has anyone tried getting in touch with the actual admin and getting him to clamp down on his rogue mod?
I am all for trying to contact them first, many people have tried, by all means give it a go. They hat eme so best you do it.
I could be wrong but I was under the impression DK has been the mod of SBC for a long time now.
Tagging my fellow moderators for their input: @arteteco @mngrif @design_RG