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As we approach the U.S. election, misinformation and abuse are on the rise and more people are fleeing X in search of something safer and more trustworthy. This is an incredible opportunity for the but only if we are able to maintain and expand the effectiveness of our as we scale.

In this latest episode of Dot Social I go deep with two well known trust and safety experts who are advancing decentralized moderation for the fediverse: @samlai.bsky.social and @jaz. We discuss strengths and weaknesses today as well as what the future could hold.

Check out the conversation on our PeerTube instance or wherever you get your podcasts.

flipboard.video/w/tqZTbSmU8vhS

@mike @samlai.bsky.social @jaz

will listen but so far I'm not sold on moderating for misinformation being a good idea. absolutely for harassment.

Mike McCue

@wjmaggos @samlai.bsky.social @jaz what are your thoughts on why moderating misinformation might not be a good idea?

@mike

1. adds a lot to admin workload
2. inherently political and divisive
3. makes choosing a server more difficult
4. impossible to do well
5. we are the open web, not an editorial page

I'm a dissident lefty. the culture here imo is very establishment left. Dem party basically. my hope here is to have the greatest public forum ever but we just had people very upset NYT was calling Biden too old post debate. if we were more diverse, bringing that up pre debate could easily get moderated away.

@wjmaggos @mike I think a good idea would be the community notes feature that Twitter had, but I can see how it can be abused and I don't know if something like that would even theoretically be possible.

@BeAware @mike

my hope is that we could do that just by making all replies ranked ala reddit. the best responses would show up right underneath the OP. this might also fix the reply guy problem as the worst replies to the most popular accounts would be the least likely to be seen.

@wjmaggos @mike Well, this won't work when Mastodon adds the limiting replies feature which is what worries me regarding misinformation.

However, it is a good idea, barring that feature.

@wjmaggos @mike

1. admin & moderator workload is real. reducing harms to users is real.
2. moderating false information which may mislead or increase likelihood of harm is not inherently divisive, and is sometimes required by law
3. only for people who want to consume misinformation
4. impossible to do perfectly, but certainly able to be done well
5. the server you administer publicly blocks 2 servers. this suggests you, along with most service providers, have applied editorial standards.

@jaz @mike

I'm not arguing for consuming misinfo. I block for harassment. And yes, misinfo can lead to real harm.

But the way we best figure out what's true is dialogue and sharing good journalism/science. Not admins being referee. What I fear they will usually do is take the current consensus position, with a bias towards their user base. Alternative but sometimes correct views will struggle to find a place they can be posted that is well federated to go viral and correct misunderstanding.

@wjmaggos @mike

>I fear they will take the current consensus position

Some will, some won't. Some will focus not only on misinformation and harassment, but also on the numerous other issues that also warrant intervention to reduce harm.

Here's 34 of them: connect.iftas.org/library/ifta

You are free to operate your service exactly as you please.

So is everyone else.

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IFTAS ConnectShared Vocabulary: Labels - IFTAS ConnectIFTAS and the SW-ISAC use the following labels and definitions to label actors, behaviour, and content. See Trust & Safety Glossary of Terms from DTSP…

@wjmaggos @mike

Fostering spaces where alternative viewpoints can be responsibly discussed and debated is important, but these spaces also need mechanisms to distinguish between genuinely insightful dissent and inauthentic behaviour that can lead to harm.

@jaz @wjmaggos Love this discussion. And thanks William for relaying your thoughts on this. I learned a bunch here.

@mike @wjmaggos @jaz
Because no one knows the truth a priori. It's discovered through thought and discussion. And if you think you've discovered it all on your own and therefore have the "right" to force it on others, someone might still have an argument that you haven't thought of yet. The only field for which you could be 100% sure of something like that would be mathematics, and misinformation isn't a problem in mathematics.