panos

@panos@calckey.social

Living in Greece. Anticapitalist/anarchist/liberal communist. #Polyamorous. Active in the internets since the late 90s through IRC and forums. Currenty loving the #Fediverse and involved in the #Calckey project, helping with community management and project coordination. Member of the admin team of the greek-speaking calckey instance electricrequiem.com and moderator at calckey.social.
This is my main english-speaking account. Greek speakers can reach me at @panos.
​:fediverse:​

This profile is from a federated server and may be incomplete. Browse more on the original instance.

panos, to random

New release candidate, and our lead dev's 20th birthday!! Happy birthday @kainoa 🎉 ​:blobhaj_heart:​

RE: https://i.calckey.cloud/notes/9ge5p526kjoe64je

panos, to greece

10 days ago, a boat with migrants sank outside Pylos, Greece, drowning hundreds of people. Survivors reported that the boat sank as the greek coastguard was trying to pull the boat away from greek waters.

The greek state murders people. Illegal pushbacks are reported all the time. The European Union talks about human rights, but is responsible for the deaths of thousands of migrants in the mediterranean sea.

These are photos from a demonstration earlier today, in the refugee camp in Malakasa, where they keep the survivors detained. We went to show our support and solidarity, to demostrate against the murderous greek state, and to talk with them. There were people with missing relatives there who don't know if their family members and friends are alive or not.

Stop "Fortress Europe" and Frontex. Solidarity to the state's victims. Freedom of movement is everybody's right.
No borders-no nations-stop deportations

Marching towards the camp
Outside the camp. Behind the police and inside the camp there are survivors of the shipwreck.

panos, to internet

There's much talk about "Embrace - Extend - Extinguish" regarding , and I agree, it's a very real threat and something they will try to do sooner or later. However, I don't think that fediblocking their servers will stop that from happening - it could actually help them. Let me explain.

We can't stop Meta from using . We knew that when we adopted an open protocol. Even if every single server blocks them, they can still use ActivityPub if they want. They already have a huge userbase from Instagram, and they will also pay celebrities to use their service. They don't rely on content from the rest of the Fediverse for their plan to work. They're not aiming for the anti-centralization crowd.

So, one way this could play out is: Everyone blocks them, and then they have another reason to lock their users in. Those who use their platform and have friends and accounts they follow there, won't have anywhere to go if the rest of the blocks them. So they will instantly be the biggest ActivityPub platform, and they can do whatever they want without any competition or alternatives.

Or - their users could see in practice that they don't have to view their ads, they don't have to rely on them, they don't have to eat their sketchy algorithms and give them their data, because they can follow the same accounts from any fedi server. Of course they have the money and power to lock users in with various ways. But this way users will see they have choices.

I'm worried that the discussion these days revolves around the pattern: "Are you against Meta? Then you have to block them!". And if you don't intend to necessarily block them, then that means you are not so much against them, that you are willing to give them a chance to prove they have good intentions etc. That you think that, if Meta is on fedi, then they'll be cool.

I have absolutely no second thoughts about what Meta is. They are capitalist snakes and they will shit on everything you love for profit. I am not giving them any chance to prove otherwise, I know what they are. And I intend to keep saying that. If they use ActivityPub, I will be saying that directly to their users, on their platform, but from my server - not giving them anything. I will probably be saying to a lot of people "What the hell are you still doing there? Come over here!". The fact that I'll be able to tell them from another platform, will be proof that there is indeed no reason for them to stay on Meta. I've tried converting facebook users, most of them were never really interested because they want to stay in touch with certain people that are on Meta's platform. Let's see how it will be when they will actually be able to do just that.

The war for Meta's userbase is just around the corner. I do not intend to avoid it by blocking them. I won't move to Meta's platform anyway - I didn't leave facebook to go back to them on fedi. I hope you won't either.

We might lose. But we will fight. Screw Meta. Let's show their users they have options. Don't forget that most of us had or still have accounts on mainstream social. I can't wait to show what we've been building here to even more people. Bring it on!

panos,

@kisdra @mjf_pro @tchambers I'm not saying that everyone will jump ship, or that everyone shares our opinion of Meta. But some people do, and will, if they have a sufficient alternative. I know a lot of people who are definitely tech savvy enough to use fedi platforms and only stay on facebook/twitter etc because people they want to interact with are there. I think this is the main reason more people haven't come to the fediverse, and not how hard it is. I have non tech savvy friends on fedi and they're doing fine.

panos,

@chiefgyk3d @publicvoit @cisacyber It's... true that Truth Social is basically mastodon, but I don't think they are even federated. And ok, Meta users are a different crowd that "Trump supporters", whom I'd also be in favor of blocking, obviously. But Meta's userbase is... everyone. My whole family is using Facebook. Why would I want to block them if they join Threads? I don't want to be on the same platform as them, but it would be great if I could message them through fedi from my servers, instead of having to use Meta's messenger to find them, as I currently do.

panos, to internet

The more I'm trying to understand the call to block 's , the less sense I think it makes. Let's see some of the arguments:

  • "Meta is evil": Yes they are. Don't sign up to their new service. I don't think all of their users are evil though. I still have my facebook account.

  • "There are privacy concerns". Yes there are - for their users, not ours. For us, as admins of communities that are willingly federated, what are the privacy concerns? Most of the stuff we do is public anyway. We're federated to hundreds/thousands of servers. Do we know who owns each of them, and what they do with whatever data they get from us? If you think there are privacy dangers from federating with servers that you don't know what they do with their data, then we should defederate from everyone we're not 100% sure about - so basically from everyone. Saying that federating with a Meta server is dangerous is like saying that an open federation was a bad idea all along.

  • "We have to protect our users". From what? I get defederating from nazi servers, and then we are actually protecting users. If Meta doesn't completely screw up moderation, I don't think we can seriously claim that interaction with Meta users in general will be abusive and harmful. If your users don't want any interaction with Meta users, they can block them at user level.

  • "We have to protect the Fediverse". From what? From being an open space for communication? From not being a walled garden? By pushing people to actually use Meta's platform, if they want to communicate with other Meta users? Do you realize that the biggest obstacle for mass adoption is that most users need social media to communicate with their friends, and if they can't do it from fedi, then they'll stick with Twitter or Meta? And if you don't want "mass adoption", then what are you even doing using an open protocol? Just set up a defederated instance or forum. I use an open protocol because I want users of the platform I provide to be able to communicate with more people on other platforms. I don't have to agree with the other platforms on everything - if we did, we'd just make one platform instead of thousands of different ones. I'll use fediblock to protect users from abuse and harassment, not from communicating with whoever decides to use a "free" platform (and "pay" by viewing ads and giving up their privacy). I think they're getting ripped off, but hey, it's their choice. It's definitely not the same as being a nazi.

  • "We have to stop Meta's plans". Sorry to break it to you buddy, but you can't do that by blocking them. ActivityPub is an open protocol and they have every right to use it. They will attract users for a number of reasons: They'll have celebrities on board, they have the money to provide a smooth service, and they can provide communication with their already enormous userbase on Facebook and Instagram - and with the fedi servers that will choose to federate with them. If you think that the current active fedi userbase of a few million people worldwide is such a selling point for Meta... it's not. It's not what will convince people to sign up. If someone wants access to the fedi userbase, they can already do that by just signing up on a Mastodon, Calckey etc server.

I'm all for blocking the new platform if it causes actual practical problems for us. But declaring you'll block them anyway because you don't like Meta (I don't like them either)... to be honest, this kinda feels like an admin power trip to me. It could be even perceived as an asshole move to your own users. You're not "protecting" them from Meta. If they want to be protected from Meta, they can just not sign up to Meta. If they don't want any communication with Meta users, they can block them on a user level.

I'll be discouraging anyone from using Meta's services, as I already do. But forbidding fedi users to interact with Meta users is not the same thing.

Chill down, fedi. ​:blobhaj_sunglasses:​

panos,

@matthieu_xyz we certainly have choices and solutions to problems! But we need to see the problems first. We don't even know what their implementation will be like or when it will be launched, how can we even know what problems it will (or will not) cause to federated servers?

If the problem that we're trying to address is Meta's existence in general, then while I agree that companies like Meta shouldn't even exist, this is more of a matter of being liberated as a society from capitalism. A fediblock will certainly not achieve that. Unionize, organize, devote yourself to class struggle and anticapitalism, by all means. We do need this. Meta and capitalism will not disappear with fediblock though, unfortunately.

panos, to internet

There is another reason I find the discussion about blocking 's project interesting:

I've been saying for a while now that the is a new and different beast, and whoever tries to understand it simply as a direct social media replacement misses the whole picture. We're also federated communities, just as much.

Today we see a lot of concern about "what will the do" with . Wanna know what we will do? Everything and nothing. Because the Fediverse is not one entity. This is the essence of its decentralized nature - and that's cool. If your server intends to block Meta servers completely - cool. If not, cool again.

But if you expect a unified response on something like that, you're in for a disappointment.

This is not a "schism", a "problem", something to "solve". This is just decentralization in practice. We don't need to have the same blocklists, and that's ok. Open protocols are not something you can control, so chill. When the time comes for this subject, choose a server with a policy that you agree with. But if you're worried that we won't all have one unified stance... are you sure you actually like ?

panos,

@aral @luthien1126 If you truly believe that "it's inevitable that they will take over this space given its design", then there's something wrong with this space's design. If we can only delay it, then the whole issue is an exercise in futility anyway.

I'm not afraid of the two fedi servers I use being "taken over", though. Users could jump ship and use Meta's platform instead, if it's that much better. But we always have the danger of users leaving fedi completely (on greek fedi for example, I certainly see less active users compared to 6 months ago). If users are gonna leave, I'd rather see them leave for Meta's federated platform, than for Meta's (or Musk's) centralized platforms - so that I can at least still follow them if I want. It would be great if Meta or similar companies didn't exist at all, but this is something for the fall of capitalism. Which I'm afraid will need much bigger struggle than fediblocking a server.

panos,

@aral @luthien1126 Perhaps you are right. However, "we need to save ActivityPub from big companies, although we can't" doesn't sound very convincing. If it's inevitable, then we need to focus on what you call "the small web" ASAP. And then there's the question: Is the small web also inevitable? Is the "federated" web inevitable? Because right now we're not even close to a point where ActivityPub-type federation is mainstream, and we're looking at ways to move further from that. The Fediverse could fail. The Small Web could never go mainstream. If you think that we can't avoid the centralization of ActivityPub but for now we need to delay big companies from joining it so that we have more time to prepare for the Small Web, how can you be sure that something like this won't accelerate things? That this isn't exactly what's needed right now, so that we see the design flaws of AP in action and move on? But the idea that we need to collectively leave the Fediverse behind but not right now is just an idea, just an opinion. I'm far from convinced that things will play out like you expect, and in expected timeframes.

panos, to Futurology

A few thoughts about 's project (and whether we should instantly block it).

Personally, I don't see much point in declaring something like that in advance. I'd like to see what they do in action, and then decide if it's needed. I'm not against interacting with Meta users, as long as it's on my terms, through the software I choose, on a server I know doesn't exploit my data.

Don't misunderstand me, I think Meta is among the worst. I have no hope that a federated Meta platform will be any less greedy and expoitative than what we've already seen from them. I would advise anyone against using their platform. However, I myself have been a daily facebook user for over a decade. A lot of people I know -and enjoy interacting with- are still there and never got interested in the Fediverse. What can you do? We are only responsible for our own decisions. But I'd still like to read their thoughts.

I am sure Meta's AP implementation will give us a lot of reasons to be against it. My guess is that they will combine ActivityPub for plain posts with closed-source, unfederated features, so that they lock users in (and give them reasons to put up with their ads or whatever they do). I think it's very probable that we may need to block them anyway, for whatever reasons - they might be a source of spam, for example. But I want to wait and see what happens in practice first.

My main point is: What if we all declare that we will indeed block them? Do we gain something? Does Meta lose something? At this point in time, I doubt it. I mean, do you think that Meta depends on the existing fediverse for content? In the first week after they open registrations, they will probably have more active users than all other fedi platforms combined. If we say we'll block them, will it stop any users from signing up to their platform? I'm afraid not.

People who consciously don't want to use a Meta platform, are probably already in the . Federation with ActivityPub is not Meta's main selling point. Sure, there is a buzz around decentralized services at the moment, and that won't hurt Meta's attempt, but the people who'll try it will probably try it mostly because they'll be curious about "Meta's anti-Twitter" or because of advertisement, and less because it will be "decentralized". They already have such options.

Even if we all decided to block them, then practically we'd just end up with yet another centralized Meta social media platform, with its users only interacting with each other. But even though I'm against using Meta's services, I'm not against interacting with Meta users in general, just like I have no problem emailing gmail addresses. On the contrary, I'd like their users to see, once they arrive, that they could do more or less the same things without depending on Meta. I'd like to see interaction with other fedi users becoming such an essential part of Meta's new platform, to the extent that they will be forced to play well with the rest of the Fediverse, so that their users will have a smooth experience with all of their friends/followers. And I'd like to see some of their users leaving them for other platforms if they fail to do so.

To recap: I'm also very, very suspicious of Meta and I know they don't have good intentions - I'm not suggesting that maybe they've changed and they will do things differently, to "give them a chance" first. I just don't think that declaring to block them makes much sense at this point in time. Maybe they will give us real reasons to block them once they launch their platform. But I'm not by principle against interacting with Meta users, as long as I can avoid Meta's ads, black box algorithm and data mining.

Perhaps, after all, this could make us build even better fedi platforms. Let's see things get more serious - we actually need it. And since they can't force stuff down our throats, I'm not afraid of Meta on ActivityPub. Bring it on!

panos,

@jdp23 in general, I agree with all three points you raise. I just think that these are reasons for someone to not use Meta's platform(s), not to block them.

Would you be in favor of your email provider blocking all communication to all gmail users? There's a vast difference between being on gmail, and interacting with gmail users.

panos,

@jdp23 I also keep my facebook account. I am in the fediverse looking for a replacement, not just for "an alternative", alongside my facebook account. So if I can one day interact with Meta accounts through my Fediverse account and only that, this will be great. I don't want to use Meta's services.

Saying that we should block Meta servers from fedi, while keeping an actual Meta account, doesn't seem like really consistent with the values you described earlier. I prefer communicating with meta users from my fedi account, than having to maintain a meta account myself to communicate with meta users, because we chose to not communicate with meta users through activitypub. This sounds a lot like shooting our own feet.

panos,

@jdp23 @cstross that's a legit approach as well. However, this solution means a) you will only be able to talk with friends who are on (non-Meta) activitypub and b) you will actively maintain a Meta account.

Personally, I don't "advertise" things on facebook. But I still have friends there, and although I no longer use my account publicly/add new content to not support Meta, I still use messenger to communicate with them. I would like to be able to never log in to my facebook account again, if I could communicate with everyone through my fedi account. I don't think I can be convinced that maintaining an actual Meta account is more "anti-Meta" than not maintaining one, and using a non-Meta account for all communications instead. Also, another thing to notice is that not everyone has the time/will to maintain several social media accounts in parallel.

panos,

@emmaaum That's my understanding as well. The discussion about FB here is more about our stance towards Meta users. It turns out that both me and @jdp23 maintain a FB account to connect with Meta users. Which means that we're not by principle against it. I mean, I'm all for blocking nazi servers from the Fediverse, but I don't go to Gab or Truth social or whatever to make a separate account to talk to nazis. If we want to interact with Meta users and we'll have the chance to do it with the new platform, then cool. It doesn't necessarily mean I can close my FB account anytime soon, I mean I have 15 years of contacts there, but who knows, maybe some of them move to Threads too. Being able to keep in touch from fedi sounds great to me.

panos, to random

My home until Monday

The beach at Epidaurus, Greece

panos,

@MariaTheMartian it is! There are more free campers by the beach but I prefer to set up ny tent on a small hill between two beaches for more privacy and peace. But it's still early in the summer so not many campers in the area yet!

maikelthedev, to random

@panos @kainoa Wondering about this. First I do like how they look now, thank you. Partyyy! 🥳🎉

Second. Why is replies always shown when there might be zero replies and yet boosts counter is hidden when there are no boosts?

panos,

@maikelthedev You're right, it's not ideal, my suggestion was to at least not show "Replies" when there are no replies/boosts/reactions etc, so no need for tabs.
However, when there are boosts but no replies, I think we need an empty/default tab, because if the only tab was Boosts for example, it would be a little confusing, as users expect to see any replies there. As @kainoa said, the default view has always been showing replies under a post, and we should keep it this way. Perhaps it should say "0 Replies" or we could add a "No replies" under the tab, where the replies would normally appear. Let me also bring @freeplay into this, who had the idea for the tabs and implemented it =)

panos,

@kainoa @freeplay it's not "0 Replies" though rn, it's just "Replies". I understood that it's tricky to add "No" instead of a number, but since we already show a number, I guess it could show "0 Replies" instead of "Replies". Not the best solution, but I still think it could be a quick fix for the confusion @maikelthedev describes.

choyer, to fediverse German

To the experts: what’s the expected time of arrival for version 14? I have spent 2 full days to get to accept my SMTP settings, with very little success … I am ready for trying something else ;). Is version 14 coming soon or should I go with the latest stable 13.x version? Want to avoid unnecessary update work… @fediversenews

panos,

@choyer We should be doing an RC2 for v14 soon, and if everything is fine, we'll release v14 a few days later. However, we're in the process of rebranding, so this might affect new releases a little. @atomicpoet @crossgolf_rebel

MariaTheMartian, to random

I am spoiled with calckey and refuse to read long Mastodon threads.

It's just so cringey, thread 3/7, etc...

If you're going to write long posts a lot you should migrate to a calckey server.

That's what's up.

panos,

@MariaTheMartian I know, right? I never understood threads. If you think that posts should be up to a specific amount of characters, well, practice what you chose =) Because they don't even need to come to Calckey, there are Mastodon servers that allow for 10K characters or more. Especially with account migration, it's easy to move to another server, which means you more or less consciously choose to be on a platform with that limit. Seeing a thread makes me think: "Hello from my server of choice where the character limit is xxx, because that's how long a post should be! Now let me spam you with 18 consecutive posts because I can't write everything in one post with that character limit..." 🥴

SrRochardBunson, to fediverse

Anyone interested in a instance with a SE USA focus and lens?

The Channels and group chats function will really help to keep track of and discuss that’s important to and the country.

https://universeodon.com/@SrRochardBunson/110392523978874558

panos,

@SrRochardBunson We very, very much approve the use of for antifascist coordination! Good luck with that!

panos, to fediverse

These will be remembered as the early days of calckey.social. I think that most people who make an account for "testing " reasons, mostly know what's going on, so they are ensuring they can participate in discussions like this in the future:

  • Remember when calckey.social first started?
  • Oh sure, I was a member back when it had less than 2000 users. Many people back then didn't even know other platforms existed, can you imagine? But we knew better. Heheh.

You should know that we're onto your plan and you're not fooling anybody! "Testing Calckey"... yeah right. ​:blobbonesmoke:​

maegul, (edited ) to fediversenews
@maegul@hachyderm.io avatar

Looked up someone who used to be on here (@vicki, basically stopped posting in March) and went back to their Twitter, and found this exchange. Don’t know how representative it is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it is for a number of “lost” fediverse users. I know vicki tried for a while. Don’t really know how I feel about this.

Full Twitter thread if you’re interested: https://twitter.com/vboykis/status/1651236034628186113

@fediversenews

panos,

@eshep @vicki @maegul I agree with you. I think there has been some pressure, for some reason, to make the a direct replacement for centralized social media, and mostly Twitter. But if you're trying to convince people this is just like centralized social, then you will try behaving more and more like them. So first you may start talking only about your platform, for a more consistent experience and to not confuse users. Then you find out that having to choose a server also confuses users who want an experience just like Twitter, so you make one server the default for onboarding. Is it so hard to see that this leads to some kind of centralization, which is futile because it just goes against the very nature of this place? If you want a centralized experience, look for (or start) a centralized platform.

So many people have been trying to prove that this is better than centralized social media, which implies that they are directly comparable. This is not how I perceive this place. I mean I prefer it from centralized social a million times, but not because it's the same but better - because it's different, and I personally like the ways in which it is different.

People seem to forget that the decentralization of the occurs because we're essentially federated communities. We are both a wider interconnecting network, but we're also local communities. If you try to interpret the as only the first or only the second, you're totally missing the point, you don't see complete picture:

A centralized, "universal" network means mainstream social media: Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok.
Local communities are things like forums.
The is both and neither.

It's dialectics: first we had forums, then we had big social. The Fediverse combines and surpasses them. This is why this is the next level. We come from the future. ​:blobbonedealwithit:​

panos, to fediverse

My mentality for 's relationship with other platforms is this:

Our "enemies" are the big, centralized, mainstream social. Corporations that do not respect your data and only care about making a profit from your communication. They will take everything you do, analyze it, sell it, push personalized ads to you. To them you are not even a "customer"; you are a product. Screw these guys.

Our "competitors" are other decentralized services, like BlueSky and Nostr. Parts of what they do can be interesting, although I'm not always convinced about the intentions of companies pushing them. I think we've got a great thing going on here on ActivityPub, and I'm not sure why we need to reinvent the wheel.

And, lastly, other platforms on are the people we live together, our flatmates, our neighbours. The relationship among different platforms can make or break the experience in this place. Every platform can contribute things to make the experience here more pleasant - and it's open source, so we can all benefit from what others are doing with AP! The can thrive if we focus on interoperability and working together. "Platform wars" are only interesting to a few; most people are here to connect, to communicate, to discuss, to stay informed - and to have fun!

Let's make this a fun and pleasant place for all . The best is yet to come!

panos,

@ivan18rod Why would we mind? For sure come on! =)

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