Instant message apps just got replaced with Whatsapp, Signal, etc.

Alternately, Whatsapp, Signal, etc… are instant message apps. I’m a little surprised none of the messaging apps that had been popular on PCs managed to stay popular on mobile.

It seems like there are some good ideas in there. Are there third parties out there running servers for each component that are open to the public yet?

Even if somebody wanted to make an unmoderated ATProto app, I guess they could? Good luck with the app stores and regulators and users

ActivityPub provides the option to do just that. Anybody can spin up a server running Mastodon, Lemmy, Pleroma, etc… and moderate it however they like. There are a multitude of clients in app stores and an unmoderated server won’t affect that because they’re generic clients like web browsers. There are countries such a server could be hosted in with minimal regulations.

As for users… you’ll probably get some and they’ll probably be horrible. Most people will probably block your server.

I want to say research on the subject has been inconclusive overall. I’d certainly update my view given convincing evidence that fictional images lead to abuse of real children.

Of course, none of that has anything to do with the non-explicit video linked elsewhere in this thread of an adult woman using the toilet.

This may be controversial, but I don’t care what kind of AI-generated images people create as long as it’s obvious they’re not reality. Where I worry is the creation of believable false narratives, from explicit deepfakes of real people to completely fictional newsworthy events.