FriendOfDeSoto

It happens. A very highly intelligent user will occasionally post something in a lot of communities and gets a rise out of downvotes, annoyed comments, and blocks. It’s annoying but that is often the nature of the internet. Report, block, and move on.

It’s only the very highly intelligent users who do this. So it doesn’t happen a lot.

Don’t engage with anybody you don’t know well on DMs. And if some other very highly intelligent person goes to the effort of sending you abuse via DM, take pride that you really got under their skin. Ignore it if you can.

I don’t think that what you are envisioning and the fediverse are necessarily a good fit. The fediverse is potentially able to network with every other instance operating on the same protocol. With every instance you add more potential to have bad actors within reach.

a system for stricter content moderation, especially something that would automatically delete NSFW/NSFL posts,

There is no tool that can automatically remove everything. There is also the Scunthorpe problem. And there aren’t enough moderators in the world to do this job safely for children that don’t also expect remuneration for their services. And then you need to add in the cross cultural differences in what constitutes NSF anything. Maybe in a few years you can train a model to do a decent job with this.

The protocol can probably be adapted to fit most of your requirements. But the fediverse is held together by donations, sweat, and duct tape. It’s having a hard enough time attracting adults; I don’t think a kids version is in the works. Plus, there are now real legal hurdles like in Australia.

Personally, I wouldn’t want my kids to social network until they are 15-16. Before that I’d try to keep them in services and settings where I’m the moderator. And only after having not only the birds and the bees talk but also the know about grooming, no nudes, and no bullying talks you can slowly release them into the wild. And at that age they will not want to sit at the kids table any more.

You are your own algorithm. If you see a lot of propaganda or whatever, it’s because you chose that content at one point or another. And you can just as easily stop seeing it by unfollowing and blocking.

Also, evidence. I see no signs of rampant propaganda on the fediverse, not on Lemmy or on Mastodon. Now, that doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist. But that’s where you should provide examples so I can check for myself.

You go to this website, choose the theme, then look for the floating bar at the bottom, hit the hamburger menu icon (three lines), choose log in > forgot password

The thought behind the post is worthwhile to ponder and discuss.

Personally, I don’t think it’s as dire as the text makes it seem. The speculation that a steadfast refusal of showing text only on PF might lead the AP protocol guardians to include a dummy pic in every post seems to me to be in the “possible but outlandish” category.

If the premise of AP was that every user should be able to see everything everywhere then defederating from certain instances shouldn’t be possible. But that’s a feature, not a bug.

The tree of the fediverse is big and nobody needs to saw off any branches. A picture only branch can sit next to a hypothetical text only one. I can see an argument that newbies to those particular branches could be more explicitly made aware of the filtering they will experience. While I was reading the text about the users who thought they saw everything from Mastodon on PF, my first thought was: this strains credulity. But then again, users are dumb. I hadn’t realized for a while that shared posts don’t show up in my PF feed on the app either.

I don’t think anybody could become too big for their breeches on the fediverse because the fediverse is in no position to challenge the incumbent corporate platforms. Don’t get me wrong, I love it here and on Mastodon (and on PF). But if you come from those polished centrally organized platforms and you’re not willing to invest at least a little bit of time into learning how federating works (also refer to users are dumb above), you’ll already be disappointed and put off before you realize you now need to also become your own algorithm. The threat scenario that PF could become so big that it can dictate protocol also presupposes that AP is the protocol that will endure forever. And with AT it already has a competitor waiting in the wings. As I said up top, the thought about how one dominating branch could damage the whole tree is worthwhile. But in a dramatic shift from this metaphor: we are in no position to have to cross this bridge any time soon.

Another reason why PF won’t be getting out the chainsaw is its usability. It’s only great for looking at pictures. It’s terrible for having discussions about them unless you only use the website. I’m using the Android app and it’s not great. Features came and went. The UI leaves a lot to be desired for me. It currently feels a bit abandoned because Dansup is more preoccupied with challenging TikTok. I still like PF because I go there just to look at pictures. I go to Mastodon for memes and dry remarks. And I don’t feel like I’m breaking the protocol.

This image may be a bit wonky but convenience stores don’t go out of business just because 24h supercenters exist. They both exchange ice cream for money but one of them has a bigger selection of flavors. PF is 7/11, Mastodon is Walmart.

IT’LL GO PLACES WITHOUT YOU THEN. THANKS FOR PIPING UP.

Ultimately, this is not about what capital M Mastodon allows but what the instance the bot is on allows. I just read through the guidelines of what mastodon.bot allows (because it came up in my search) and I think you could get away with that there. A stream is ultimately promoting its creator, i.e. a person, so you might run afoul of that restriction in their rules. I’m not sure. And as I said, it would depend more on the instance the bot is on.

In general, I would support allowing this.