Notices by kaniini (kaniini@mastodon.dereferenced.org), page 54

@Tanuki

indeed, IPOs only really happen with mature companies as far as i have seen in my lifetime.

the days of the IPO being truly attractive for speculation are long gone :(

@Laurelai @paulfree14 @status

precisely.

@Laurelai @paulfree14 @status

yes, that's my point.

there are legitimate reasons to ban his instance.

the bad take on his about page is not the reason to do it, and removes transparency.

@paulfree14 @status

many people who don't know any better refer to many script kiddies as "hackers."

there's never been any evidence that jester has written any of his own exploits, instead he just ddoses things.

@paulfree14 @status

yes, I agree there.

my point is that he shouldn't be banned based on that fantasy, when there are so many better reasons to ban him, which could be found with 5 minutes of research.

@paulfree14 @status

> ok then don't get your mind blown with what I'm sayn now:

ok, will do!

> moderation + no social algorytm + no pay to get more views

indeed, but paying to get more views is only part of what they were doing.

> Everthing jester described, why they are blocking IP's comming from 'hostile nations' can be solved with the way mastodon is designed.

yes, it absolutely can! and that's the point that should be driven home to jester!

> ...meanwhile the IP blocks don't work at all to stop fakenews, bots etc to spread around.

you're absolutely right! i covered that already: they use proxies & VPNs, making the GeoIP blocking ineffective.

> Also don't forget that he's connected with the army.

what does this have to do with anything? i know plenty of people who have served in various militaries, and they are good people with good leftist values. i'm not saying jester is a leftist, of course he is not, my point is just that military service does not make you evil.

@literorrery

Cox was the same way when I left them for AT&T and wound up getting the same service plus gigabit speeds for literally half the price they wanted to charge. ($300 vs $150, basically)

They also didn't want to match AT&T's pricing or actually fix the service reliability issues I was actually having (they let their cable infrastructure rot where I moved to, and every time the wind blew, our modem lost sync). Instead, they kept telling me that AT&T "did not offer gigabit service" even though I literally have gigabit service from them.

@paulfree14 @status

And again, it is a misinformed response to the *very well documented* weaponization attempts Russian intelligence has done on facebook.

In case you didn't know: all of those countries are allied with Russia.

I didn't say this was a good strategy for combating this problem, or that Russia is the only player in that space, it's just the one *everyone is talking about.*

@paulfree14 @status

I do not, I just don't wish to receive emails telling me I won the 'e-mail lottery' and to send my personal information to some person in Nigeria to get my money.

With that said...

Russian intelligence is trying to weaponize social media, this is *very well documented.*

They have done it in the US, they have done it in Europe, and they did significant astroturfing in regards to brexit, boosting with fake news and fake social media interactions, for the leave campaign. It is even possible that brexit happened because of this russian intelligence influence.

This is actually a real problem, because they *are* undermining democracies in the west with this fake crap they are pushing.

With *that* said... it is likely that the US and other western countries are doing the same thing against them.

So I do believe his intention is what he says it is: he is concerned about the manipulation intelligence agencies are doing on social media. Like I have said many times, it's just the strategy that is entirely tone-deaf and misinformed.

@paulfree14 @status

They (pointlessly) enforce rules based on what some dubious at best GeoIP database says about the IP you're connecting from.

The way you put it, they are blocking Russians who live in the US, and short of leveraging CLD3 (which their patch does not do), that's likely to be technically impossible.

For the last time, there's plenty of legitimate reasons to block counter.social, but the pointless GeoIP banning isn't really one of them.

@paulfree14 @status

I block Nigeria from my mail server, because I don't like 419 scams. Is my mail server nationalist?

@seanl

yes, but consider the consequences of such a block very carefully, please.

@status @paulfree14

and to be clear, i'm not a fan of the guy, but i don't see that as a reason to punish 9000+ users.

consider strongly that these people probably just signed up through his advertising and aren't really super aware of other instances yet. that is a problem with rapid growth.

@paulfree14 @status

in other words, an instance block should be considered a nuclear option, and used only with extreme prejudice.

where my position is that admins should take care with regard to blocking their own/remote users, it is even more stronger when it comes to blocking entire instances.

reading an about page and getting pissed off because you don't agree with it, without it otherwise being an actual problem, is no reason to just start playing ban-hammer.

@status @paulfree14

by the way, in case you didn't notice, posting a screenshot is not evidence that he intends to be nationalist, and even if that is the case, that's not the reason why an instance should be blocked.

an instance should be blocked if it's users are harassing people and the admin doesn't care about it, or if there is reason to believe (backed with evidence) that this will be the case in the future.

otherwise you are just punishing people who got sucked into his instance for no reason other than that you dislike the owner and/or his bad take.

@paulfree14 @status

i am well aware of what he has posted on his site.

i have also described why what he has posted will fail, according to his rationale.

thank you for implying that i am an idiot, though.

@paulfree14 @status

we do not actually know jester's instance blocklist, unless this information has been recently published.

a bad take on what IP ranges he accepts users from is not nationalism, it is simply a bad take based on a complete and fundamental misunderstanding of how counterintelligence ops work on social media.

intelligence agencies use VPN and proxy services, making his entire strategy for preventing intelligence ops pointless, and he is naive about the west not doing it's own intelligence ops, of course.

but none of this is nationalist on it's own, and i'm not willing to throw that type of accusation around without having evidence.

in the immortal words of Jesus Quintana, "you might fool the fucks in the league office, but you don't
fool Jesus."

@status

i mean, if you want to ban counter.social, be honest about the real reason: wanting to ban jester and his social circle, because you don't like them.

because really his bad take on anti-abuse policies is not causing your instance any abuse.

and no, i am not *personally* a fan of the guy, but that's no reason to ban his instance.

@status

in case anyone didn't know, i am being sarcastic here.

a misinformed blocking policy, largely implemented through cloudflare, while unfortunate, is not really a good reason to block an instance, nor imply that they are fascists.

remember when you block instances, you are punishing *users* not the *owner*