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I am gathering a list of people who want to be involved in the discussion around the formation of a "United Federation of Instances" which is an attempt to combat the fracturing of the fediverse and the general spreading of misinformation WRT moderation decisions.
If anyone is interested in being a part of it let me know in the replies. I will add you to the list, share the draft proposal, and we can start discussions. I have several people already interested.
@freemo why not just publish the draft first and have the discussion in the open? I would think you could generate more interest that way.
Have you reached out to other instance admin about this?
I feel like this could result in some negative unintended consequences. De-federation, and the social threat of de-federation is the main tool to apply pressure to instance admins that are not sufficiently moderating their community.
This seems it would make that process harder.
@ejg The intent is to do just this.. I just want a good starting point to kick off the discussion.. So im starting with a private discussion, going to refine the draft there, then im going to open it to everyone to contribute.
Yes I am working in private to get some admins and even users on board. I dont want to go public till we have a decent number of supporters just to help counter any backlash people might throw at us.
To your comment about making it harder... sort of.. an instance can always leave the UFI for starters, second, that process SHOULD be harder, at least in terms of collecting evidence and having some due process. The beauty is having curated evidence means even servers outside of the UFI can, if they wish, use us as a source of fact-checking..
@ejg Would you like to see a copy of the current draft in private?
@freemo I would be more interested in have the discussion in the open.
@freemo this seems to mostly add a layer of bureaucracy to the process of de-federation.
Those that are not in the UFI could be seen as bad actors.
This would penalize those that choose not to join the UFI, or that get expelled because they chose to de-federate from an instance, after a judgement went the other way, because they felt it was necessary to protect their community.
@freemo This could serve to pressure those to stay federated to instance thay feel are not moderating their community, instead of pressuring those who are not moderating their community to improve.
@freemo I do feel that dog-piling and bad-faith reporting is a problem in a lot of social network spaces. It would be nice to see beter tools and recourse on identifying and combating those forms of harassment.
@ejg The idea here is that the UFI itself wont need to be universal, but its due process log will act as a tool for those in and out of the UFI...
Any claims against or for servers in the UFI will be logged and the evidence logged and transparent.. So if an instance out of the UFI want to decide for themselves they still have access to the evidence and can make their decision in an informed way.
@ejg Any such tool would be central to the UFI ideally (We can use gitlab at first)... So id support it too.
That said the problem is these people arent very rational.. providing evidence alone wont help. There needs to be a "protective bubble" of solidarity as well, everyone just saving their own ass when one instance is attacked is not sustainable. Too many good instances have been lost
@freemo I still feel that this has the potential to apply social pressure in the wrong direction (so to speak) and pressure admins to allow the more marginalized members of their community to be exposed to harassment in an effort to stay in the UFI. Protections against that should be built in from the start. Bad actors have a knack for weaponizing tools that are suppose to keep things civil. So thinking about how this could be abused/twisted could help avoid pitfalls.
@ejg the beauty of the UFI is there vcan be more than one.. if they feel marginalized, leave the community, create your own federation with the same or similar or different rules
The UFI doesnt need tto be one monolithic entity but it is meant to "group" servers that have the same code of conducts as eachother.;
@freemo if someone isn't vibing with the community or doesn't agree with the rules, of course they can move instances. But if those who are already marginalized (or anyone in this instance) are being harassed. A moderators response shouldn't be to have the harassed leave the community, but to take appreciate action against the harassers. That may include de-federation. It should be a final resort, but I wouldn't want social pressure preventing an admin from taking that step if needed.
@ejg I agree with you entierly... harassment is against the rules. If someone is being harassed they shouldnt be marginalized and kicked out, the server should report the other for harassment and they should be kicked out of the UFI
@freemo an opt in 3rd party/independent/community driven reporting tool/space where claims could be logged and investigated might be something I would be more interested in. This could be a good tool to help identify forms of harassment that are not easily captured by the built-in reporting tools available. (Dog-piling, bad-faith reporting, etc.)
And still be a place to appeal against disinformation, or unfounded claims.