Catching up -- privacy legislation, FTC comments, Mastodon, and lotsa news

[jdp23]

It's the classic chicken-and-egg problem: there's not a lot of action here yet, so I don't always remember to cross-post here, so there's not a lot to see.  I'll try to do better!  (Famous last words.)

Here's two deep dive privacy-orgiented posts in the Nexus of Privacy newsletter:

• The elephant and the lame duck: ADPPA after the midterms (a federal privacy legislation update) (November 14, but still relevant)
• Consent, Automated Systems, and Discrimination (FTC Comments)

And we've had been a couple of posts on Mastodon as well.

• How to choose the right Mastodon instance?
• How to use filtering and muting to hear less discussion of odious people on Mastodon and Twitter

We've also had a steady diet privacy news entries: November 10, November 15, November 17, and November 22.

Mastodon: a partial history (DRAFT!)

[jdp23]

Here's a draft of a partial history of Mastodon, with a focus on the very early days looking at issues that aren't discussed in most narratives -- like race, and the unrecognized contributions of early LGBTQ+ volunteers.  Feedback welcome!

 

Table of contents

• Introduction
• Mastodon goes live – and flamewars commence
• Qrprzore 2016: EBG13 SGJ!
• Queer community-led rapid innovation
• Dogpiling, weaponized content warning discourse, and a fig leaf for mundane white supremacy
• April 2017:  The breakthrough month
• The Battle of the Welcome Modal
• A breaking point for the queer community
• The aftermath
• The patterns continue ...
• Does Mastodon really prioritize anti-abuse and user experience?
• The view from 2022