cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/73707647

From the servers that participated in the survey (over 400 servers that together represent a third of all known accounts on the fediverse) 65% of the fediverse servers operate at a loss every month, of the servers that reported this data, and all these servers collectively have €85k in monthly costs, against €37k in revenue. The majority of the work is unpaid, with 58% of the servers with over 10 accounts have moderation teams that are entirely voluntary. The legal environment continues to grow into a bigger challenge, and IFTAS notes how difficult it is for servers to to navigate rules like the EU’s Digital Services Act, the UK’s Online Safety Act and the US Take It Down Act, especially when you do not have a compliance team or legal counsel. The report calls for modular policies and practical guidance, and alongside that for regulatory carve-outs which recognise what small, non-commercial communities can realistically provide.

The personal cost is visible in the survey as well: over the preceding year, 27% of the respondents had felt like they were close to burnout, and another 14% experienced burn-out currently or in the past year. Notably the question asked for regarding mental health challenges “due to your community responsibilities in the past 12 months?” That 40% of operators, largely volunteers, experience the toll that managing community takes, shows the cost of running this network. In the qualitative responses, operators describe that being able to step away, and to trust that somebody else will take over, is a crucial protection for them. There is a strong demand for shared capacity and collaboration between server operators, with 67% of respondents want tools that allow people they trust from other server to have some form of moderator access, and 60% want to be able to delegate bot and spam defence to shared services. There is a strong preference for opt-in and federated moderation so the work can be shared, while allowing communities setting their own rules and stay independent.

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also interesting

Lula won Brazil’s presidential election over Bolsonaro, and the way that Lula came back to secure the victory in the second round of the elections gives a valuable perspective on political organising online. Garbage Day describes how André Janones had a WhatsApp channel called “Lula’s Army”, which turned Lula supporters into active distributors giving them concrete posting missions, instead of simply hoping theyd share the campaign material. Brazil is often at the fore-front of adoptions of digital networks, so I think its worth paying attention of how Brazilians are thinking about political organisation on commercial platforms. In that context, last month a group of Brazilian advocacy organisations (independent of the Lula campaign) published a Digital Contingency Plan, specifically about this dependency, and making sure organisations maintain control over their communications. Alquimídia, one of the driving organisations behind the plan, is an active promoter of the fediverse, and Thiago Skárnio, who helps to organise that outreach, says :”The strategy comes down to three movements: occupy closed platforms, preserve content in open media, and organise through secure networks. This means being present where the public is, but never depending exclusively on those spaces.” The fediverse is a practical part of that strategy, and Brazilian instance admins coordinated to temporarily open registration across four Brazilian instances of Comuna, Orgânica, Ursal and Bolha, to prevent all newcomes being concentrated on a single server alone.