So IMHO, as custodians I think it would be a good idea to define some basic principles to help guide us to nurture the Fediverse so that it becomes something that improves society instead of being just another media meat market.
I do not really believe there is a place for such generalized “custodians” in a decentralized network. I admire Fediverse enormous social and political potential, but it can only do any good to the people if it is rigorously people-driven.
As I wrote here, people migrate to Fediverse, carrying the burden of toxic social behaviours. And that includes “us geeks”, admins, devs, moderators and other privileged users. We are not immune to toxicity of state-supported surveillance capitalism. I may accept delegated moderation as a short-term solution, but I am definitely against accepting it as a long-term rule, ingrained in the core technology.
My strong belief is that we should go the way of social permaculture, “designing beneficial relationships” and creating an environment that nurtures them.
From the political perspective, which is crucial for me, moderation should be initiated by users themselves and an admin should be solely a tool of community, executing whatever decisions they take.
I just rediscovered my old piece on this topic. After three years I still believe this perspective is valid, so I am linking it here as my voice in this conversation.
We do not operate in vacuum
Let us be cold sober about the political situation. We all suffer from surveillance capitalism, and we believe our immediate adversary is cybermedia corporate complex, vacuuming our data, profiling us and selling it all to anyone, including state and interstate actors.
But there is no supply without demand. All state-ish bodies, EU included, are power hungry and are always happy to know more about their subjects – for their own good, safety and convenience. From one side we see growing interest in legal tools like #TERREG (let alone state-level attempts) and “irregular migration control” (I am close to the topic since 2015, and I consider it probably the dirtiest game EU ever played).
From the other side we see growing interest in “helping users keep quality of the news”, through projects like #EUnomia that I only started learning about (but I am already concerned a lot).
I believe these two aspects need clear, public and serious discussion within Fediverse circles, before implementing any tools that could support disempowerment of the people of fediverse. The internet got tamed once. Perhaps right now we have a chance to rewild a part of it, or at least not let the powers that be take control again. I would not be happy to see this opportunity missed.