social.wildeboer.net is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
Mastodon instance for people with Wildeboer as their last name

Server stats:

2
active users

Why am I here and not on or ? Because here I am on my own instance, hosted in the EU, and not on a centralised service from the US (which both Bluesky and Threads are) where soon a Trump government is installed that can easily force both Bluesky and Threads to hand over full access to all my data (I am quite sure Musk is already offering the X/Twitter social graph to Trump). That's my personal risk calculation. Yours might be very different. And that's perfectly fine! 1/3

And yes, I still treat every single post and message here as ultimately being stored and analysed by adversaries because for me the Pub in ActivityPub means public. My private communication happens via Signal or old fashioned pen and paper. Or, even more often, by direct communication over a coffee, beer or a walk outside :) 2/3

Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:

Another reason for staying here is metadata. Trust me, not many organisations out there really care about the content of your posts. They focus far more on the connections and frequency of data on likes, boost, follow/unfollow etc. In a centralised service that metadata is, uhm, centralised too and easy to access. In a federated network that isn't that easy, especially when, like me, you live on your own instance and not a big one like mastodon.social. Decentralisation makes abuse expensive. 3/3

@jwildeboer but isn't fediverse easily scraped? Allowing one to harvest metadata too? Sure not as comprehensive as centralised media, but still...

@knezi Try it :) You can see the difficulties already in your daily experience here when you notice that not all replies to a post show up in your timeline. Building the complete social graph of all interactions in the Fediverse is an exponentially bigger problem than doing that on a centralised service like Bluesky or Threads.

@jwildeboer

I swear if you didn't word it so perfect, I thought I wrote it.

(Note: if you can serve ActivityPub, you probably can serve an XMPP with encryption like OpenFire and drop Signal, for another decentralized network) 😁

@jwildeboer Just Just FYI, your server is configured to publicly expose your following/followers connections. Harvesting exposed metadata across a federated network is not really very expensive.

@jwildeboer

Wait, this argument does not hold.

Like you said, the data is already public on ActivityPub. Whatever adversaries interested in building the social graph or analyzing metadata can do so, regardless of your instance location or who is in power.

@jwildeboer It is good that someone posts about the importance of metadata.

However, in a surveillance state, the absence of signal is a signal in itself. If you do not have a continuous track of metadata on social networks, if you do not show a record of your life as a "good citizen", that is enough of a signal to light a warning. And that is a lot more difficult to escape.

@jwildeboer That is already a reality today. If you need a US visa, you need to tell them about your social accounts. Be prepared to have to explain why you don't use FB.
If you need credit, you need a record of your credit usage. Problem if you pay most in cash. In countries where most people pay by card, be prepared to explain what you do with your money if you are controlled by the tax authorities. They will have access to your bank accounts and see cash withdrawals.

@jwildeboer If you want a job, employers want to see your Linkedin and FB account. It may not be always legal, but it is hard to prove you did not get the job because of lack of access or lack or a suitable track record.
In some dating circles, people who do not have the right pictures to show on their phones are suspicious.
Online shopping sites make it more difficult for new customers and will extra check them. It is easier if you have a track record of purchases.

@jwildeboer All these work because the burden of the proof is put on you. That is the opposite of a fair judicial system, but we are talking of unfair regimes.

@jwildeboer Come to think of it, this is going to be even more important, because society is experiencing a "passive revolution". Young generations simply do not want to work for "the system". And, contrary to popular belief, a sizable proportion of them is not on mainstream social networks.

@jwildeboer This has the potential to be very disruptive because how can you compel people to earn a living if they choose poverty? How can you sustain a civilisation if people refuse to reproduce? How can economic empires thrive if individuals no longer wish to work for large corporations?
When this behavior will be recognized as disruptive, the absence of positive signals will be seen as a negative sign.

@dl2jml @jwildeboer
"In some dating circles, people who do not have the right pictures to show on their phones are suspicious."
I'm not sure I understand this sentence. Something to do with dating apps?
"Online shopping sites make it more difficult for new customers and will extra check them." I'm even more puzzled. what kind of sites?