IFTAS is Federated Trust And Safety. It is a non-profit dedicated to improving user safety in the Fediverse and supporting the work of Fediverse moderators. The "I" doesn't seem to stand for anything!

IFTAS

IFTAS is a non-profit initiative advancing independent, sovereign social networks, and supporting the people who uphold trust, safety, and inclusion on these decentralised platforms. We provide guidance to organisations and institutions engaging with the open social web, and we support volunteer moderators, service providers, and communities operating across the diverse and evolving landscape of federated…

IFTAS (about.iftas.org)

DNI is the "do not interact" blocklist maintained by IFTAS. It's a "worst of the worst" list that prevents interaction with, among other things, dedicated instances for racist, transphobic and homophobic trolls.

IFTAS Do Not Interact (DNI) Denylist

About this denylist The Do Not Interact List is an IFTAS-curated list of domains that are highly recommended for defederation. Each domain is labelled using a shared vocabulary label. Each domain is investigated by human review for governance, common content, network and service activities, hosting location and more. Inclusion on this list means we believe: Federating…

IFTAS (about.iftas.org)

@evan WordPress and BridgyFed offer it as a default option, would love to see more platforms educating their admins as to the basic why-you-might-want-a-denylist and offering recommended options.

@evan I also believe platforms that offer a "flagship" server should make /their/ denylist available at install, after all, they know a lot more about what they're seeing on the platform than anyone else. "We block these servers, you might want to, too'

@evan

I’m gonna scope-creep this by adding: an easy API for publishing and subscribing to multiple blocklists.

Like, why are we still trading CSV files when we could just publish this info over ActivityPub?

Let’s make a tool for building/managing blocklists as an AP actor for anyone to subscribe to.

Add in a “polyfill” to subscribe and load this data straight into big apps like Mastodon, and we have instant moderation as a service.

I can start on Monday.

@evan I also believe platforms that offer a "flagship" server should make /their/ denylist available at install, after all, they know a lot more about what they're seeing on the platform than anyone else. "We block these servers, you might want to, too'

@iftas this should happen this year for Mastodon
@evan

@evan

I disagree. The only servers that should be blocked are those that fail to address their users who engage in unwanted tagging. That's harassment/abuse. It drives away users. I could support a list of servers somehow so verified.

But to go further than this is a kind of censorship of content allowed elsewhere on the web. Stuff we basically never stumble on while browsing. Without algos here, it will never be forced on us.

I can easily see posts critical of Israel called antisemitic.

@wjmaggos @evan I disagree. The only servers that should be blocked are those that the operator of the service exposing themselves to the responsibilities and liabilities of hosting user generated content wish to block. Everyone gets to make their decisions, for themselves or for their community. Not me. Not you. Them.

Federation is a privilege, not a right.

@benpate @evan let's talk about labels, I believe any nextgen ingestion should use the shared vocabulary to take in blocks by label https://about.iftas.org/library/shared-vocabulary-labels/

Maybe you want to block CSAM, but don't care about copyright infringement... (This way we could run one list instead of five and you choose the harms you want to block, as everything is labelled)

@iftas @evan

I imagine a 90s world with a diversity of browsers that all made their own choices re what sites to render and many fewer people leaving AOL.

EDIT: let me add that this would quickly lead to sites and a few dominant browsers that weren't so strict and we'd lose some decentralization that might have been if people had tried harder to balance expressing all opinions and maybe warning about upsetting stuff instead of requiring a different browser.

IMHO

@evan /me whispers "independent"

Yes. This is a fantastic list, and would be a good starting point for anyone publishing their own DNI list.

How do you feel about each publisher defining their own terms? I’m conflicted.

It might be nice to have something truly decentralized, like hashtags, where anything goes.

But there’s probably more utility in some set of standardized codes. It would allow admins to check off the topics they want to follow.

Or maybe there’s a middle ground that could achieve both goals?

@iftas @evan

@benpate @evan I'm biased, we use industry standard terms available under creative commons. These are not IFTAS labels btw, these are DTSP labels.

@iftas @evan

So, you're saying we should use a standardized list? I'm fine with that if we're confident that all of the (realistic) reasons are covered.

So long as "pissed off the mod this one time" isn't a standardized code

@iftas this should happen this year for Mastodon
@evan

@wjmaggos @evan I was there for the 90s. We are not in that. We are in an interconnected world of 40,000 services sending copies of their content to be stored and hosted by their peers. Some of this content is illegal in most countries. Some of it has caused severe harm to people I've worked with as they melt down. Some of it is appropriate for a given community, some of it is not. Some of it is regulated by some of the countries some of these services are located in. Welcome to the 2020s.

@iftas @evan

how does what I want conflict with that?

if a number of users on a server are intentionally pushing any kind of junk at people that they do not want (either obviously or after being told), tell the admin and if they do nothing to stop it or prevent it in the future, defederate them. put them on the default fedi block list. that covers the abuse, malware, illegal stuff.

my dispute is on hate speech that is not pushed. it's unnecessary and such debates will keep many off the fedi.

@wjmaggos @evan it only conflicts if you want to pressure other people to take your approach. You get to do it your way. 40,000 other people get to do it their way.

And I'll add, not all activities need to be reactive, some proactive steps can be helpful, including blocking known bad actors.

@iftas @evan

I'm asking what problems that you listed above, does my more limited approach fail to deal with? afaict we are only arguing over the hate speech. that wasn't in what you brought up.

and I can't bring any pressure. I can only argue in a public forum for a different approach. just as Evan is arguing for that list being taken as a default block list, I'm agreeing but saying nobody should be on there for that which is not pushed on others.

yes block bad taggers but not bad posters.

@wjmaggos @evan I'm not saying it fails to deal with anything at all, from your perspective, for your needs. There are a million fediverses, you get to do whatever you want with yours.