@FediTips I'm really confused now, because I feel like you're now turning the argument around: you are the one who posted one all-encompassing message about all servers being safe.
The water treatment of the fedivese is quite good, but there might be bad puddles around, that look just like clean water. Hence why I was (still am) arguing for a more nuanced message.

@FediTips I don't think it's a question of point of view. The point of view of your audience is that they don't know much about the Fediverse, and will tend to trust what you say. <insert Spiderman quote about power and responsability here>

@FediTips
But what you said was more akin to "Any water you can find is good to drink!"

It's might be seen as a subtle difference, but it makes *a lot* of difference.

@FediTips
Let's say I have two Border Collie dogs. That breed is known to be rather friendly, and rarely bites.
But, it'd be wrong for me to say "Border Collies DO NOT bite", because it might get someone who trusts what I say to get bit in the future by some random Border Collie.
But, if I meet you one day, you have a Border Collie, and you tell me "You can pet him, he doesn't bite"', I will probably pet the dog. Even though it's *possible* you might be lying.

@FediTips Ok, let's get back to this.

> "you don't know they are running Mastodon. I"
True. But here it wouldn't matter too much if they were lying, as they are not making any other claims about their "Mastodon" instance.

> "Why is it okay to take FOSS use on trust but not okay to take the other stuff on trust?"
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?

> "it seems important for you to stick to your own principles?"
It's only important for me to stick to reality, really.
(continued)

@FediTips Well if someone tells me "Hey look at this Mastodon instance, I'm running it for everyone!" I'm gonna say "Hey great! Thanks!", not "Meh, it's possible you changed the code to track us all". Even, if, it *could* be the case, objectively.

It's completely different than saying "All fediverse instances everywhere are free of AI, LLMs and algorithms".

@FediTips You can give them credit by saying how cool it is that they spend resources running free software for all of us to enjoy,

You can give them credit by making a great account dedicated to helping users find their way on these platforms (that's you, kudos to you!)

But, saying things that we cannot know are true is not helping them, or others at all! It's just a feel-good fluffy statement that does not hold water, sorry. But, don't beat yourself up, it happens to all of us.

@FediTips
> Are you suggesting some additional steps people should take to verify?
Sadly it's not possible to verify it 100%

> Or are you saying that if something cannot be verified, it must be assumed to be untrue?
I'm not saying it should be considered false (untrue), but that something that cannot be demonstrated (verified) shouldn't be considered true.

The only right answer is "We don't know if some fediverse-enabled servers are doing things that others don't/bad things/use LLMS/etc"

@FediTips But you can't be sure that the software runing has not been modified, or that some middleware is not doing something unusual with the data. I'm not saying it' would be bad. It's just that saying the Fediverse doesn't use AI or LLMS is just not verifiable.
Especially in "the wider Fediverse", as anyone can ActivityPub to anything!

@FediTips > Servers on Mastodon and the wider Fediverse DO NOT use AI, LLMs, blockchain, cryptocurrency, algorithms, trackers, ads or anything like that.

That's a bit of a blanket statement, how could we know that's true?