Social media bans exist to prevent young people from organizing on climate change, Palestine, and LGBTQIA+ rights.
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Evan Prodromou 🇨🇦🇺🇸🇬🇷🇵🇸
@evan@cosocial.ca
mastodon 4.6.4He/him. Board member at CoSocial.ca.
Research Director, Social Web Foundation.
Author of "ActivityPub: Programming for the Social Web" from O'Reilly Media.
Founder of Wikitravel, StatusNet, identi.ca, Fuzzy.ai.
Creator of pump.io. Co-creator of GNU social.
Former co-chair of the Social Web Working Group at W3C. Co-author of Activity Streams 2.0. Co-author of ActivityPub. Co-author of OStatus.
Grad student in CS at Georgia Tech.
Greek, Arab, Palestinian, American, Canadian, Montréalais.
12342 Followers
2623 Following
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Joined December 11, 2022
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Boosted by @dansup@mastodon.social
I finally created a #FEP for using #CreativeCommons licenses (and other licenses) in #ActivityPub.
https://codeberg.org/fediverse/fep/pulls/939
Anyone who is interested in the #Fediverse and #ActivityPub is welcome to join the Social Web Community Group #SocialCG at the #w3c.
It's the group that develops and advances the social standards that make this network go. It's open to anyone. If you have specific interests, we have task forces that work on specific topics. Or you can start one!
It's easy to join.
https://www.w3.org/community/socialcg/
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Thanks to everyone who replied. If you've been thinking of starting a Fediverse meetup but you were worried noone would come, well, here's your answer. I'm yes, btw.
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My name is Evan and I live in #Montreal! #introduction I love the #Fediverse I love #NativePlants I have a #Citroen and I believe in a #FreePalestine
If someone called you their best friend, and they weren't your best friend, would you tell them?
#EvanPoll #poll #friendship #friends #BestFriend
If someone called you their best friend, and they weren't your best friend, would you tell them? #EvanPoll #poll #friendship #friends #BestFriend
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It seems like a really hard trade off for these organizations. Even if they think that they can have a positive impact on the development of AI, or that they can do their own work better using AI, there is a high cost to pay in that popular backlash. It's possible that the cost might end up being too high, and the organization falters.
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Over the last umpteen months, I have seen a repeating pattern in the FLOSS community with respect to AI. Some examples:
- OSI published Open AI guidelines
- Mozilla created Mozilla AI and included AI features in Firefox
- Software Freedom Conservancy published AI guidelines
- Debian had a vote on use of AI
- Internet Archive posted about showing ClimateGPT to students
- Linus Torvalds solved a bug with Claude
- EFF's legal counsel said training was transformative use for copyright purposes
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I would compare this structurally with how the US Democratic establishment is alienated from the rank-and-file over the issue of Palestine.
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The pattern I was intuiting was a disconnect between organizations in FLOSS, open web, and digital rights spaces, and their members, community and supporters.
There are two kinds of Americans: those who think it's unconscionable that a man named Abdul could become a US senator, and those who think it's unconscionable that a man named Abdul could not become a US senator.
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I usually don't give a response to polls until they're done but since I just published a blog post on this topic it feels dishonest not to link to it.
https://socialwebfoundation.org/2026/09/04/static-activitypub-publishing/
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That's still *really* high though.
Probably part of it is that there's a contingent of Fediverse users who don't give a shit about Open Source and Open Internet organisations. I tend to forget that and think everyone is here for the same reasons I'm here.
For these people, the question might as well be, "Do Indonesian soccer teams reflect your values with respect to knitting?" Like, maybe? But I kind of don't care?
Replying to on cosocial.ca
Hi, all. I will admit that I am surprised at these results. I'll explain my thoughts.
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In each of these cases, there was uproar, and some unfortunate brigading of these organizations or their team.
I've been especially sorry to see people who've put so much work and time into the Internet and FLOSS get called nasty names or get veiled threats because they work at places that have less-than-abstemious AI strategies.
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Thanks, all. I am opposed to slowdowns that concentrate power in a small number of companies or prevent use of open-weights models. But taking time to consider how and when to use any technology is always good. I'd say, yes but.
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I can't say how much of the No/No, But... is people who don't care.
As someone who works in Open Everything organizations, I don't think it's a good idea to round it down too much, though.
"About half our supporters don't think our AI positions reflect their values" might be a good place for orgs to start when thinking about this topic.
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So my prediction on this topic would have been something like 80% No or No, But... The actual numbers are ~56%, which is why I'm surprised.
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My "but..." is that something is going wrong here. I've been really used to close alignment between open digital organizations and their community and members. It's disturbing to see such a big spread. I think it's up to the orgs to make this right, or there's going to be a real effect on the ecosystem.
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Thanks to everyone who replied. I say yes.
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So, the only "but" I have is for purely factual information. Someone says you did something you didn't do, or vice versa. I think it's perfectly reasonable to give simple, objective, factual responses. I'd avoid whys and how oftens and whatever, but a straight reply can help others avoid getting worked up about something that's not real.
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I'd say, no, but.
For subtoots about someone who isn't you, sure, whatever. Your call.
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Anyway, for me personally, I would say yes, but.
I am an AI user who believes there may be OK ways to use AI. More information about my AI use here:
https://cosocial.ca/@evan/116206693774408287
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I think my ideas about AI are roughly in the ballpark of where orgs like SFC or Internet Archive are. Better use might be better.
I also mostly agree with what's becoming the Open Source project consensus on AI contributions: disclose use of AI, stand by your work, don't overload the maintainers please.
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I am in the metro right now so I'm going to give my reply while I'm thinking about it.
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If you think it's about you, and it's purely a personal attack, well, there's not much you can do to change anyone's minds about your motivations or your character. If someone doesn't like you enough to say mean things behind your back on the Fediverse, well, they're probably not a swing voter, so to speak.
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If you think it's about you, it might not be. If you jump in all irate and it turns out they were talking about some character from Buffy the Vampire Slayer or whatever, that will feel dumb. Sometimes, it's not about you.
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Hey, Fediverse friends. I see you here and I'm glad we're together.
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@dansup@mastodon.social That was the inspiration for the FEP! I love that Pixelfed lets you set the license info, but it's not in the JSON yet.
https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/issues/7597
Me and @benpate@mastodon.social , the best person to take a selfie with #Fedicon
Me and @reiver@mastodon.social #Fedicon