embedding-shape
today at 3:50 PM
> I am nobody. I have little impact. I want my programs to be safe from government intrusions, from age checks, from encryption backdoors, from corporate surveillance. How do I win this battle with big tech?
If you're only talking specifically about your program that no one else has access to, I don't think there is any battle? Do whatever you want, no one cares nor would even know about it.
If you're talking about making software available for others, for free and open source, I also don't think there is any battles to be won here.
When people talk about the web not being open, or "age checks" and "backdoors" and so on, they're mainly talking about for-profit platforms, that let users "use" their platform in exchange for something. These probably shouldn't be "do whatever you want, consequences be damned" but instead have some sort of checks against them, so we don't end up letting the business-people rush towards building torment nexuses.
Even if platforms has to have age checks, encryption backdoors and a whole slew of other "bad stuff" or just "annoying stuff", I don't think the self-hosted ecosystem has much to worry about, we all run software "without warranties" already, and plenty of the stuff I'm running at home I've written myself, of course I won't care about age checks or whatever, even if it was regulated to be forced.
freedomben
today at 4:06 PM
In a world where big tech and governments are requiring user-facing things to do things (like age verification, etc) and be liable for what their users do with it, even the self-host becomes a problem unless you are your only user. There are plenty of people that are still doing it, but they're probably taking on liability they don't realize. For example if I stand up a self-hosted git forge and allow others to use it, and some user I don't know commits CSAM to their repo, to quote (paraphrased cause I don't remember exactly) Dijkstra from The Witcher: That's called being in the shit, and you're in the shit.
I mean, this is the case for a lot of things? Has always been the case.
If you host friends over for dinner at your house a lot, nobody will ever say you are subject to the same rules as a restaurant. You start letting other people host dinners at your house, and things could change. You start letting people solicit your place for paid dinners, similar outcome. Do it once, nobody will probably know or care. Continue to do it at scale, though, and I don't know why you would expect to not be subject to regulations.
AnthonyMouse
today at 7:09 PM
The problem is obviously that the government shouldn't be regulating private speech. They pass these rules by saying "look how big Facebook is, they need to be regulated" when the actual problem is that they need to be decentralized. But then the rules don't apply only to Facebook, and worse, are designed under the assumption of a centralized service so that they entrench the thing that should be eliminated.
But there is nothing obvious about this? For one, this is speech that can only be done using otherwise regulated means. You couldn't claim "free speech" and build a radio tower that transmits long distances, as an easy example. For that matter, you can't claim free speech to allow concerts at your house. You similarly could not claim free speech to rent or loan out rooms of your house for storage.
As has been pointed out elsewhere, if you want to take the effort to connect and verify the different parties that are going to communicate with your server, you are almost certainly going to remain free to do so.
Do I think there are probably some concerning ways those burdens can be placed on folks? Certainly. But we already require inspections and other similar activities for things that individuals can do at home without an inspection. See the food industry.
chromacity
today at 4:49 PM
> If you're only talking specifically about your program that no one else has access to, I don't think there is any battle? Do whatever you want, no one cares nor would even know about it.
Can I do it on my phone?
ChadNauseam
today at 4:51 PM
If you buy a google pixel 9 (the last version for which google released device trees), you can do anything you want on your phone. My pixel runs a version of android I built myself
No because a phone, despite being made from the same parts as a computer is actually a completely different thing.
You can't just run programs on your phone. You have to run apps, which require approved by the government and the company that made the phone, which tacks on additional fees as well. The phone also has constant cellular/GPS/wifi/bt-mesh location tracking, and it can never be completely turned off by the user without destroying the phone because even the batteries are glued in.
It's basicially the perfect slave device for your average goy. And everyone will need one to to access your bank account, recieve insecure SMS authentication, talk to other NPCs, and generally participate in the neo-economy.
If you don't think this is right, you are literally going to empty the bank account of my dumb ass grandma who can't stop installing malware, and in every way is better served by a flip phone from the early 2000's.
AnthonyMouse
today at 7:14 PM
> If you don't think this is right, you are literally going to empty the bank account of my dumb ass grandma who can't stop installing malware, and in every way is better served by a flip phone from the early 2000's.
Then why are you demanding that everyone else's mobile computers have to be locked down instead of demanding that somebody make a mobile phone that only makes phone calls?
Anyone will be able to lob legal complaints against your self-hosted mastodon instance if they don't like you, which will bring cops to your door like milkshake brings boys to the yard.
embedding-shape
today at 4:27 PM
Yes, again, you run a public service, expect to have to follow regulations for public platforms, not sure why anyone would expect something else.
I was talking about creating/running software for yourself, in a self-hosted scenario, not just "I run the software, but it's for others" but really "I run software and it's for myself and/or my family, no one else"./
The point of a social network, or blogging or whatever is that it's for others. Furthermore, I think people have the right to free speech and should have the ability to reasonably address the public square (for example, with a blog, or a forum or something).
What I'm saying in the previous comment is that regulations requiring "Age checks, encryption backdoors and other bad/annoying stuff" also apply to small hosts and can be abused like DMCA (unless you are hosting on tor/i2p with good opsec).
It's this notion that any regulation is good because it's done on a "big bad public company" that is at the heart of what I disagree with. At what point do you become a "big bad company"? Does anna's archive count? they accept donations. It just doesn't seem like a fleshed-out worldview.
embedding-shape
today at 4:57 PM
> What I'm saying in the previous comment is that regulations requiring "Age checks, encryption backdoors and other bad/annoying stuff" also apply to small hosts and can be abused like DMCA (unless you are hosting on tor/i2p with good opsec).
Yes, just like even if it's just you and your bakery, you still have to follow a bunch of health and food safety regulations, as you're providing something people can be harmed by.
I don't think it's so out of this world to require similar things for platforms and services available to the public on the internet. Although I wouldn't maybe say it should be straight up illegal, I wouldn't mind more research and understanding of how we could prevent the biggest harms, without infringing on what people do in private. But then is a self-hosted Mastodon instance connected to the public internet and other instances in public or in private? Personally I'd lean towards the first.
AnthonyMouse
today at 7:17 PM
> At what point do you become a "big bad company"?
Revenue exceeds 0.1% of US GDP or market share exceeds 10% of their own market.