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On the internet, everyone knows you're a cat — and that's totally okay.

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FBI Seizure of Mastodon Server Data is a Wakeup Call to Fediverse Users and Hosts to Protect their Users (2023)

In May [2023], Mastodon server Kolektiva.social was compromised when one of the server’s admins had their home raided by the FBI for unrelated charges. All of their electronics, including a backup of the instance database, were seized.

It’s a chillingly familiar story which should serve as a reminder for the hosts, users, and developers of decentralized platforms: if you care about privacy, you have to do the work to protect it. We have a chance to do better from the start in the fediverse, so let’s take it. ...

eff.org/deeplinks/2023/07/fbi-

HN discussion: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4

This is an issue that's troubled me since joining the Fediverse in 2016, and as one of the people heavily involved in the "Plexodus" diaspora from the late unlamented . Whilst large commercial providers have their failure points concerning privacy and law enforcement, they've also often stood up to over-broad attempts to surveil peoples' online activity. Small instances on distributed systems often run as hobbies or very small-scale subscription / donation-based operations might avoid the roving eye of such efforts, but also lack resources, knowledge, and procedures for how to respond when such seizures occur. As the EFF notes, Kolektiva failed to alert its members (and remote contacts) until months after the FBI raid.

The EFF does have a promising guide to legal rights and considerations specifically tailored at the Fediverse:

"User Generated Content and the Fediverse: A Legal Primer"
eff.org/deeplinks/2022/12/user

Edit: This is a 2023 story.

Electronic Frontier Foundation · FBI Seizure of Mastodon Server Data is a Wakeup Call to Fediverse Users and Hosts to Protect their UsersWe’re in an exciting time for users who want to take back control from major platforms like Twitter and Facebook. However, this new environment comes with challenges and risks for user privacy, so we need to get it right and make sure networks like the Fediverse and Bluesky are mindful of past...
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