[Mastodon]

Mastodon's legal updates are an important way to support different kinds of communities. It's great to see the Mastodon team grow to support these features. I'd love to see CC-licensed terms of service for communities to use.

Those features:

• "Mastodon servers already have Server Rules and a Privacy Policy, that owners need to define when they create their instance. There will also now be an optional Terms of Service. To help you get started, we’re providing a generator (based on a template from our own law firm). The effective change date of the Terms of Service will be included, to allow users to review them before taking any action."
• "We’re providing the ability for server rules to be translated into multiple languages. This means that the rules which apply to everyone that uses your Mastodon instance, will now be able to be read in different languages, as appropriate for your community."
• "We are introducing a new option for server administrators to set a minimum age requirement for user sign-up. When the option is enabled, the Mastodon instance will require a date of birth to be provided when a new account is created. This value will be validated against the minimum age setting, and then discarded."

These aren't necessarily the sexiest features, but they protect community owners. Increasingly, as requirements for running sites with user generated content get tighter around the world, these will allow online communities to continue to exist.

#Fediverse

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