IFTAS - Independent Federated Trust & Safety

An important read to anyone who cares about the health of the #opensocialweb.

OUT NOW: 2026 Social Web Operations & Needs Assessment Report! We surveyed operators on ATProto, ActivityPub and legacy social. Read the full report & help safeguard the open social web: about.iftas.org/2026/10/15/2...

At the beginning of this year, Kevin Roose, @caseynewton.bsky.social and PJ Vogt launched a fediverse instance, The Forkiverse. Now, they're shutting it down. Here's PJ's conversation with @mmccue.bsky.social for #DotSocial about the experiment. dot-social.simplecast.com/episodes/pj-...

To help with the Forkiverse experiment, the Search Engine/Hard Fork teams talked to two experts: @evan.cosocial.ca.ap.brid.gy and @iftas.org's Jaz-Michael King. Listen to @mmccue.bsky.social's chats with them here: dot-social.simplecast.com/episodes/sam... dot-social.simplecast.com/episodes/eva...

The scale, speed and coordination of AI-assisted disinformation are outpacing the mechanisms designed to counter them. Pei-Chi Jao writes that Taiwan's year-end elections make that gap more urgent to close.

JUST RELEASED: Innovating for the Public Good & Dewey Square Group released a report for candidates, campaign staff, advocacy groups & others who run political and issue-based campaigns, giving them tools to inoculate themselves against disinformation. www.psgconsulting.com/research-pub...

Very proud of the work my team did with @ifpg.bsky.social here... There is still time - even with just weeks to go, for organizations to put inoculation to work fighting against the disinformation we know is coming as we head to the polls this midterm. And time to start planning for beyond.

⚠️ #SW_ISAC_ADVISORY There is a spate of #AccountTakeover underway. Service providers may receive reports for accounts that have a display name beginning with "Hacked -" or linking to "t[.]me/HomeFucker5" These accounts may be longstanding valid […] [Original post on mastodon.iftas.org]

This was such a special podcast to be a part of with @yoyoel.com and @benwhitelaw.bsky.social. I hope that our stories can be valuable for other T&S professionals thinking about how to share their hard-won knowledge and expertise more widely.

For what I imagine are predictable and sensible reasons, I cannot recreate the Trust & Safety feed in Attie...

🔥 The Blacksky mobile app is here. Today we're opening up our public beta on both iOS and Android. If you've been waiting for a native mobile experience, now's your chance to try it before our full public launch and help us make it even better. 🧵👇

"The Next Information War Is Already Here" - check out this article I co-wrote with @willrobinson1776.bsky.social ... we work to frame very big changes coming to the political digital landscape faster than most think. Up for any thoughts, notes, and appreciate all... substack.com/@willrobinso...

Day 1 #TrustCon #TrustCon2026 - I'm here to advocate for the Social Web, find out what resources and research are available to help service providers, moderators, community builders... and meet with the people already supporting decentral social.

TrustCon day 1. Our ROOST team is in SF! T&S tooling research meets reality (1:30) and our panel on what open source means for your safety stack (4:10). Find us! @annebdh.bsky.social @cassidyjames.com @julietshen.bsky.social www.tspa.org/event/trustc...

IFTAS has now observed and reported over 4,000 inauthentic accounts created by the Portal Kombat/Matryoshka disinfo #FIMI team. This number is just the accounts manually observed and verified by humans. Could be there's twice as many, ten times as many […] [Original post on mastodon.iftas.org]

In this week’s Ctrl-Alt-Speech, @masnick.com and I discuss why Meta has little incentive to improve its ads T&S plus, for Patreon supporters, the closing in of who gets to use the big AI models. Have a listen! www.patreon.com/CtrlAltSpeec...

- Automated spam is on the rise. - Our digital communities are at risk from increasing regulation. - AI bots are overwhelming service providers. But we can prevail! Our annual assessment asks what tools and resources you need most to fight back. Whether you're a community builder, platform […]

It’s here! Today, we’re announcing the launch of Blacksky-Only Posts! Now, anyone with a blacksky.app handle or anyone on the Blacksky feed can make a private post on blacksky.community. This marks a significant step forward in advancing permissioned data on the open social web.

𝗡𝗘𝗪 𝗥𝗘𝗣𝗢𝗥𝗧 🌉 𝗥𝗼𝘀𝗸𝗮 𝗕𝗿𝗶𝗱𝗴𝗲: how a pro-Russian IMS exploits vulnerabilities of decentralised platforms to spread propaganda 🔗 checkfirst.network/roska-bridge...

The threat landscape is changing. Our last assessment showed that automated #spam and coordinated #disinformation have overtaken other issues as the top daily drain for app admins and moderators. Tell us what you're facing today in the annual #SocialWeb Operations survey: ➡️ tally.so/r/81MW6k

🧵 This is new in how Matryoshka works. They are emailing fact checkers impersonating us, @Antibot4Navalny team: asking to "verify" Matryoshka's daily set of fake videos / front covers *on our behalf*.

Our 2025 needs assessment showed that 45% of online community admins handle three or more distinct roles with little support. If you're building on the Atmosphere and wearing too many hats, tell us how it affects your day-to-day in our 2026 Social Web Survey: ➡️ tally.so/r/81MW6k

Our 2025 needs assessment showed that 45% of online community admins handle three or more distinct roles with little support. If you're building on the Atmosphere and wearing too many hats, tell us how it affects your day-to-day in our 2026 Social Web Survey: ➡️ tally.so/r/81MW6k

If you're a platform admin managing compliance or a moderator handling reports, the 2026 Social Web Operations Survey is for you. It's mobile-ready and takes under 10 mins. Your feedback turns into advocacy, tools, and resources. Any platform, any protocol. Take the survey here: tally.so/r/81MW6k

The 2026 Social Web Operations Survey is open. If you're operating a platform, managing a community, or moderating content, this needs assessment is designed for you. Your feedback helps protect every independent social web community builder. Take part here: ➡️ tally.so/r/81MW6k

The Annual Social Web Operations Survey (formerly our annual Moderator Needs Assessment) is now open! If you're a platform/app admin, community manager, or frontline moderator, your experience and needs are what drives our work. Take ten minutes to complete the survey today: tally.so/r/81MW6k

Testing a post from the Blacksky iOS app.

🏆 Congratulations to @newsmastfoundation.org, @sill.social, and @blackskyweb.xyz, the winners of the first ever Open Social Awards! 👏👏👏 New_ Public, @publicspaces.net, and @waag.org are proud to award them in recognition of their excellence and innovation on the open social web. newpublic.org/OSA

We're the Grand Prize Winners at the inaugural #OpenSocialAwards 🥳🍾🥂 @newpublic.org @publicspaces.net

Fighting back against coordinated spam networks takes real infrastructure. IFTAS keeps its safety tools open and free for the Social Web, but we need to pay our bills. Can you give just 1 a month (£/€/$) to help? Be one of 500: givebutter.com/iftas-power-of-one

Fighting back against coordinated spam networks takes real infrastructure. IFTAS keeps its safety tools open and free for the Social Web, but we need to pay our bills. Can you give just 1 a month (£/€/$) to help? Be one of 500: givebutter.com/iftas-power-of-one