get this; Russia’s watchdog is planning on banning twitter in a month (now even closer) if they don’t do anything about their illegal content in their platform. and now their ISPs are throttling twitter’s traffic to make it unusable.
Illegal content I mean, well… Illegal content. just go to the shady part of the internet and you’ll know what I mean. don’t actually do this
" On March 10th, 2021, the wave of new users started rushing into the Russian constellation of the Fediverse. Hundreds of people were displaced by the measures Russian state communication commission (“Roscomnadzor”) has taken against the microblogging website Twitter, after their failure to comply with the order to remove the unspecified “Illegan Material”. Under the sacntions, the Russian Internet service providers must throttle the traffic in order to make the service unusable, and further default on the Twitter’s side will lead to a full and complete blocking of the website on the Russian soil. " source
this was happening because Russia’s media watchdog announced it was launching an “initial slowdown” at the same day. twitter seems like they don’t even care. read the articles below. I don’t really know why they’re doing this, but I’m not complaining.
Twitter’s response; “We are concerned about free speech”
On Wednesday, Russia began throttling Twitter as a way of pressuring the San Francisco-based company to remove over 3,100 posts found to be in violation of Russian law. Specifically, this includes 450 instances of child pornograpy and more than 2500 incitements to underage suicide.
Twitter responded by saying it was “deeply concerned by increased attempts to block and throttle online public”
I can’t tell whether that’s a joke or not. they can’t be serious. what are they protecting really? I’m baffled here. that wasn’t really a smart move now is it. you have to read this;
Russia Blasts Twitter For Being “Too Slow” In Deleting Content “Harmful For Children”
mind you they were deleting those illegal content. but really, really, really, slowly. source It’s kind of a bit shady from twitter here. It’s only about 3,000 post requested to be removed. but why can’t they just remove it? It’s very questionable as far as this action speaks. why are they protecting those **** and **** posts. there is no reason to do this.
sources;
spoiler
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/517771-twitter-censorship-russia-illegal-content/
https://mastodon.online/web/statuses/105924846376829882
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/wireStory/russia-threatens-block-twitter-month-76488991
https://tass.com/economy/1269283
https://news.yahoo.com/russia-chides-twitter-slow-deletion-114842231.html?
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that’s it for today. this is really getting to me, I mean. It’s really funny though. the only thing I learn from diving into this rabbit hole is Twitter is really dumb. and yeah… have a great day everyone.
There are trade offs, platforms like Mastodon are federated and that means you end up playing wack-a-mole with them. Running a server is pretty easy, and people can just spin up instances and build communities with their friends there. If one instance gets shut down that doesn’t kill the whole network.
Each federated platform has a fingerprint though, like opening up API channels with the same names. It would be pretty easy to just block any server that has the fingerprints of a federated platform you don’t want in your country.
that’s a keen insight I hadn’t thought of, but with https it seems it would be a lot harder to dragnet and require probing the actual instances, no?
Yes, but just as federated instances can discover each other through existing federation connections, they can also do that if they wanted to blanked ban a platform.
definitely, just a bit more expensive. it would be funny to see a CV of an agent listing ActivityPub Special Task Force on it, but surely its out there in some form.
this seems like one more good reason to get robots enhancement in https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/707
except people can run servers inside the country
Wouldn’t that be even easier to ban?
Not really because you have to do it on case by case basis. It’s just an HTTP server, so unless you go banning HTTP entirely, you have to play whack-a-mole.
they would have no reason to ban a worldwide-and-fair social media platform. the reason they’re banning twitter is because the one controlling that platform is the US. I doubt they care that much about removing **** than they care about removing control from other geopolitical entities.
If the state of things have though me anything. is that people don’t care about it being federated. if they block fediverse instances people won’t be so keen to keep hoping from one another. don’t forget that not only it is veryhard to buildup large online communities, but once those online connections (social graph) are broken. it will be very hard for them to be revived.
With the fediverse at the moment having very little traction, I bet government bans will be a deadly blow to the fediverse. people will go back to whatever central coercive solution is provided.
I don’t think communities need to be large. I find that most meaningful interactions actually happen in small communities focused on particular interests. I think that people setting up servers and running small communities of hundreds or thousands of users results in much more interesting networks than giant platforms like Fb or Twitter.
That’s really true. the content in twitter. youtube, instagram etc. are too focused on celebrities and politics. too much scrolling on things that don’t matter that much as it has nothing to do with us. Social medias are supposed to be used to connect with people. if simping on celebrities everyday is your thing. well, I kind of find it detrimental to your well being. socialize with real people and go about your day chasing your dreams, surround yourself with people that are productive.