TLDR: This is a long post, so a shorter question you can respond to is:

What are some organizations you know that share some of the values the Fediverse has?

Big or small, it doesn’t matter :)

One of the problems right now is that smaller hobby instances come and go because of lack of funding, time, or expertise. Lemmy.film was a good one that was growing, and it could have been a great hub for all the TV show communities before it went away. I’m not going to touch on why that’s bad, I think we all get it.

It might be better to find larger existing organizations with similar values and goals. They would have the momentum to keep going for longer, and bring more legitimacy and trust for new users. If they’re already registered non-profits then that’s even better. Another big advantage is that they are less likely to implode with bad decision-making, since they’d be better about complying with existing laws (while upholding values), storing the data safely, moderating diplomatically, etc.

There are so many organizations that are trying to do good in the world, many of which have complained about the negative effects of modern social media. With some help, they could help themselves while helping improve the internet. If we got organized, the process might look like:

  1. Identify the organization that would be good to host, and what type of platform they are good for
  2. Figure out what they need which the Fediverse still lacks. That would give some focussed things to work on
  3. Reach out to someone from the organization and work with them to get them running (recommend providers, talk about what they need, etc.)
  4. If they don’t host, they might just make accounts for themselves on existing instances.

Some overlapping values that organizations might share (please share more that come to mind)

  • free access to information
  • supporting and advocating for people in their field
  • freedom from censorship / oppressive governments
  • advocating for better social media / moderation issues
  • digital autonomy / privacy (we have some of those already)
  • community development and empowerment

When I started this thought train, I was just brainstorming film related organizations before I realized I don’t know much about that world. I listed out some organizations that came to mind, please offer thoughts :)

Regional

  • I know mstdn.ca is working with the CIRA, and I like the idea of local instances (better latency, efficiency, storing data in the country, stronger local communities/identities). Some countries can’t do that because of oppressive governments, but would still benefit from instances with a shared identity.
  • Any local organizations come to mind from where you are?

Journalism

  • Having a trustworthy org in charge would give journalists confidence that their private information will be stored securely, and they would get better reach from having their profiles listed with other journalists.
  • Microblogging is what came to mind. While larger media outlets should really just host their own instances, independent journalists or those from smaller orgs could also use an instance they can trust.

Organizations that could host: Reporters Without Borders (RSF)?, Bellingcat?, Propublica?, Associated Press?, what else…

Film / TV:

  • I don’t know if there are organizations that would be good for this. I don’t think media studios should run them else they could remove criticism and just use it to advertise. Are there good organizations in this area? The acting/writers guilds perhaps?

Research

  • There are a lot of great organizations out there pushing for open access, improving journals, etc. Should they host the instances? Maybe organizations for a particular field? Affiliated universities?
  • HjalmarEnglish
    1·
    8 months ago

    Some organisation I think could run instances:

    • churches could run a Mastodon instance (maybe godwills.it, that domain is not in use)
    • some European science agency could run an instance. preferably this would be an Lemmy instance so that you could follow fields. That would probably demand some from of community nesting so that you could have things like an “math” community with the subcommunity “number theory” and a way of controlling who can post in the communities.
    • I feel like it would make sense for governments to run fediverse instances that could both be used as general purpose instances by the people of that country and a channel for news communication. Some governments could maybe take over the local instance for that country (I haven’t talked to the mods but I’m thinking of feddit.nu and feddit.dk)
    • the scouts should run some instance, either locally or globally. As a scout I would love that :)
    • libraries/book shops could run bookwyrm instances. This could also help them recommend books to customers based on data from there bookwyrm instance.

    Regarding film instances I think it’s best if that’s community run as I can’t see any organisation who wouldn’t bamboozle it and wants to run it. And community run instances can work if you have more then one moderator

    • Otter@lemmy.caOPEnglish
      2·
      8 months ago

      This is the kind of response I was hoping for, thank you :)

      Churches and religious organizations would be interesting! I hadn’t thought of that and it could lead to some cool discussions

      The science agencies would be cool too. We have mander.xyz, but I worry about if they run out of funding or have other issues down the road. If nesting isn’t possible, they could do something like BeeHaw where they create the communities themselves, and set aside a page to direct to each of them.

      I also didn’t think about the scouts and libraries, those would be cool too :)

      • HjalmarEnglish
        2·
        8 months ago

        Didn’t know of mander.xyz, thank you :)