Darnell (Seize The Day)

There was an incident in the Fediverse (upon Mastodon) where a person needed financial assistance & requested help from the Fediverse community. Long story short the Admin allegedly (I legally have to add that word here) asked for identification (seriously‽) & the person declined to provide identification, resulting in their account being terminated.

My free legal advice to Fediverse Admins (especially those using Mastodon & Pixelfed software) is to NEVER ask for real world identification, unless you operate in financial services, law enforcement, security or doing a credit check in a regulated industry.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC), the European Union Commission & even Canada will look at this unfavorably.

The FTC fined Twitter $150 million & fined Facebook $5 billion for violating user privacy, & they can potentially go after your site for doing the same.

The last thing the Fediverse needs is to risk the international wrath of international governments who could increase the costs of running a site by demanding expensive, bureaucratic legal requirements be met in order to maintain an instance upon the Fediverse.

For Those In Need

Also, for folks asking for donations or assistance, please verify if your instance allows this (many do but also many do not), & if so, put your requests behind a content warning as a courtesy.

I do not mind people asking for assistance without content warnings, but some people do get annoyed by this, & a content warning seems to be the acceptable practice amongst many who do request help.

Also, checkout local options nearby that might be available to help (governmental, religious charities & secular charities), as you may receive help faster (especially when it comes to shelter & food).

Use well established financial sites like PayPal, Patreaon, OpenCollective (if applicable), & GoFundMe. If these options are not available or preferred, I suggest message banking details over a secure line so people on sites like WorldRemit & Sendwave can send you funds.

I have volunteered at food banks in the past (these were run by churches) & some churches I had worked with would actually put people in a motel for a month (they would cover the financial & food costs) to help people out in desperate situations.

Yes, there are scammers out there (Grrrr!!!), but before casting digital stones, chat with the people seeking help & if possible, help them or please direct them towards someone who can provide assistance.

👨🏾‍💻 by @darnell@darnellclayton.com 🔛 @darnell@darnell.day 📧 darnell@darnell.day

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