We’ve moved our internal communications from Discord to Zulip at Mastodon, and I think there are plans to do the same for our Patreon community.

[bontchev@infosec.exchange]

@Gargron Discord is just the canary in the coal mine. Soon, all Internet communities will face a choice - either ID everyone or be banned in many countries. Internet anonymity is dead. All because of a couple of despotic regimes that want to be the parents of our children and want to have full control and surveillance over communities that might have "subversive" (i.e., antigovernmental) thoughts. Sometimes I'm glad that I won't live long enough to see it accomplished...

[thechris@norden.social]

@Gargron Excellent. We have been using @zulip since the Covid pandemic suddenly convinced people that working from home was feasible, after all.

[tshepang@hachyderm.io]

@csolisr
I have not done this myself, but here are docs
https://zulip.com/help/cloud-to-self-hosting
@Gargron @kerfuffle

[sam@break3.social]

@grishka@friends.grishka.me @Gargron@mastodon.social It all started with the UK's Online Safety Act, where we now ID for porn sites, the UK Gov has since pushed for IDing on these platforms and it's being pushed out worldwide as it's not cost effective for just one country.

It's stupid and is one of the reasons I'm finding alternatives for friends

[d1@autistics.life]

@noodlejetski @Gargron this is relevant to add here, WRT "QOS rules":

Owl Eyes (@d1@autistics.life)

@Lockdownyourlife@infosec.exchange No matter what alternative video conferencing solution you pick, alas, it will live and die by how well the network routers that you traverse, treat your traffic fairly - governed by the invisible, so-called "QOS rules". "QOS" is short for "Quality Of Service", and is a technical term that Professional Network Administrators know. *Governments who don't favor "network neutrality" will almost certainly have these QOS rules skewed to the favor of the tech bros, who can afford to hire lobbyists - unlike people like you.* Unfavorable QOS rules will silently tackle down your praiseworthy efforts and unfortunately make you look bad, because you picked a solution which ultimately "didn't work" *through no fault of your own*. Whomever tries alternatives like #Jitsi, #XMPP, etc: you'll likely get silently tripped up on/mired by QOS rules when talking to *some* of your contacts. Even though I don't praise or advocate the Zooms of the world - that's where you'll likely be limping back to, unfortunately. Having said all this, I'd suggest giving #Signal video chats a cautious try. It might work for *smallish* numbers of people having group video chats. #infosec

Autistics Life Community (autistics.life)

[d1@autistics.life]

@darwinwoodka @grishka @Gargron I'm with you in spirit here, but I seriously doubt this, considering the actual teens I know, and how "path of least resistance" they are. Alas, no #ElbowsUp for these heel-dragging #Canadian teens I know! I'll believe it when I see it.

[d1@autistics.life]

@csolisr @Gargron @kerfuffle a highly relevant question

[grishka@friends.grishka.me]

Sam, so what happens if a porn site doesn't have any presence (e.g. a legal entity) in the UK, but doesn't ask for IDs either?

[phillip@social.lol]

@64bithero @Gargron does Stoat have voice chat? I can’t find anything about that, so I assume it doesn’t

[fasnix@fe.disroot.org]

@64bithero @Gargron

For pure voice chat: what about good ol' Mumble?

[64bithero@mstdn.games]

@phillip @Gargron for the record a few apps do offer voice chat but most that do have a Skype style call system. Stoat is the only one I know of that offers a drop in drop out style voice server like Discord has. And it’s why it’s my favorite choice

[phillip@social.lol]

@64bithero @Gargron oooh that’s tempting. I tried it a while back when it was still Revolt, but they didn’t have voice chat yet. I’ll have to try it again after work today

[sam@break3.social]

@grishka@friends.grishka.me @Gargron@mastodon.social If they refuse to ID people they can get 'fines of up to £18 million or 10% of qualifying worldwide revenue' whichever is bigger.

It's sadly not just porn sites but also self-help sites, subreddits, communities and all sorts now.

[grishka@friends.grishka.me]

Sam, yeah but how could that be enforced against a foreign entity? (maybe it's a stupid question, idk)

[hlrx@techhub.social]

@Gargron Check out Teamspeak with their new version. Otherwise, stick with the old version with Mumble

[sam@break3.social]

@grishka@friends.grishka.me You can fine foreign entities if they operate in your country. If they don't obey they can get blocked from the whole UK internet, we currently don't have access to Rule34, PornHub (at least the NSFW area) along with a few other NSFW services at all, others are IDed and illegal content has been made easier for children to find as these safer sites are now wiped out. So the OSA has done a lot more damage than fix.

[frankiezafe@mastodon.gamedev.place]

@Gargron thanks for the info, please share your feedback about the zulip. i'm starting a videogame studio, and if i can start clean it would be great!

[masek@infosec.exchange]

@Gargron Not happy about that Patreon statement though .

From my PoV I am paying Patreons share. I roughly know what is deducted and select my tier accordingly.

And for me it is worth the money.

I am backing 25+ projects with Mastodon receiving one of the larger backings (since April 2017, my 10-year-anniversary is around the corner).

I have no chance to track my patronages if those are distributed over dozens of services.