Rumors of a secret meeting under NDA between big Fediverse instance admins and Meta

Apparently there was a secret meeting between admins of big Fedi instances and Meta, closed under an NDA, and of course they're not saying anything.

https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/110548174843564104 (Now deleted even from Internet Archive)

https://mstdn.social/@rysiek/110548129223290575

https://universeodon.com/@supernovae/110521648872299829

Somebody already made a pact to publicly commit admins to block Meta

Now we see why concentrating users on big instances is a liability

Update: Supernaut directly stated that he hasn't been contacted or attended a meeting, and went further to set up a page to visualize instances entering the Anti-Meta Fedipact

JoYo,
@JoYo@lemmy.ml avatar

There seems to be a misunderstanding about NDAs.

Meta and twitter most certainly federate already.

Would you sign an NDA to learn how and where?

omnilynx,

Okay, but this is the problem the fediverse was created to solve. If someone starts doing dumb things, we just defederate from them. No need to freak out about it.

The only thing this does, IMO, is highlight the need for easy instance migration, just in case the one doing dumb things is your own instance owner.

maegul,
@maegul@lemmy.ml avatar

So, I don't think the NDA thing is really that bad. Corporations do that, and these admins have already decided that they are going to play nice, at least in the short term, so an NDA is the price of admission for learning more about what's going to happen.

There are deeper problems IMO.

  • The big one is leadership. All of these admins are showing that they are either not good leaders or deep down truly think that they own their instance's and their users in some way or another such that they don't need to lead users through this episode but instead simply act as a feudal lord.
    • Leadership here would have started an open discussion between admins and users on what this whole meta thing means, and, if admins had particular points of view, doing to work to try to convince the user base, and then providing safe meta-free instances for those that were not convinced and needed safe harbours. This should all have happened months ago. From what I've seen, close none of this happened, which indicates that the admins or "brass" of the fediverse just aren't good at this.
    • If it isn't competence but entitlement, it's a different but no better problem. The incident where mstdn.social defederated from mastodon.art over a tiff looks a lot like an admin that has gotten used to the power they have over many many users. I wouldn't be surprised if this is somewhat pervasive. And to be clear, it makes sense. If you're putting time and energy into something you'll eventually feel like it owes you something, least of all the sense of "ownership", especially if most of the users aren't donating. Though understandable, it's toxic and easily capable of leading to some bad behaviour.
    • IMO, once instances get to a certain size and stay that way for a while, they should develop a governmental structure like a co-op, so that there can be fresh blood, multiple eyes, layers of engagement from the user base etc. This isn't nearly as common as it should be over on mastodon, and it's a problem waiting to happen.
  • The other problem is that these admins were meeting with meta in the first place. It's a real sign about how they see the relationship ... meta have power and the admins are keen to "play nice" with it. Bottom line is that meta need or want what the fediverse has right now ... users ... they're necessary to kickstart their new platform. It would make perfect sense for the fediverse admins to get together and say "hey, you want to federate with us ... that could work ... here's what we need to know about how you're going to operate, and the series of lines that will result in defederation if you cross them more than once ... cool?"

All together, both this failure of leadership and obsequiousness, are reason enough for many to get iffy about how much they want these people as their admins.

By contrast, I've seen hachyderm (my mastodon instance) and fosstodon make relatively clear statements about how they're approaching the situation and how they're quite willing to defederate should dodgy behaviour arise. The admin of calckey.social is starting a notmeta.social instance (that's literally the domain) that will not federate.

Some of these other admins with their relatively bootlicker postures, however, seem like they want something out of this, and as a user, that's usually a sign that you're taken for granted.

Serinus,

Seems like a lot of overreaction. Maybe meta just wants to throw money this way to take down Reddit. There's not much harm in finding out.

Hopefully they insisted on an expiration of the NDA.

zkikiz,

This is a very "if Walmart wants to open a supercenter in our tiny little town there's not much harm in letting them, after all our local mom and pop shops will always be available if we need to kick them out!" -- Facebook has done this many times before, by the time the jig is up it's too late to undo.

Hyperi0n,
@Hyperi0n@lemm.ee avatar

What the fuck happened with Supernovae?! Is this trolling? How the hell can he not see that he's selling everyone down the damn river. Meta is not to be trusted! We all left cesspools like Facebook to escape the Zuck. Why in the mf is Supernovae even considering this much less actually doing it? Can someone please tell me he's just trolling, please?

jherazob,
@jherazob@beehaw.org avatar

Apparently he has a history of behavior that led to mastodon.art defederating from Universeodon, seems to be a true techbro (P92 is the Meta thing, he seems to have dollar signs in his eyes at the mention of it)

https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/fde117a5-8538-4f2a-a37c-1562d13ace88.jpeg

zkikiz,

Ah yes, when capitalists infect free open source software.

ozoned,
@ozoned@beehaw.org avatar

Knee jerk reaction oh hell no.

When I calm my emotions and think about it, they're talking to the founders of the software of the Fediverse. They aren't talking to the maintainers of ActivityPub. In either case the software can be forked and people can move.

However, NDAs are complete bullshit. You gain nothing, so even the benefit of the doubt can be used against you. They're completely against what the Fediverse is about. And now we can legally NEVER know what was discussed else a few devs doing this for fun and are single devs can be sued into oblivion by one of the most powerful and toxic companies on the planet.

I already am not on Mastodon and I don't really use PixelFed, but this is classic FB and already sets the precedent of how they want to act within the open set of communities. Anything they touch should instantly be defederated imo.

They have shown time and time again their true colors and they come to us, not with open arms, but behind lawyers and courts. Fuck you Facebook and the toxic money driven bullshit you bring with you.

And anyone that works at Facebook, you're in the same boat. There's no turning that ship, you will never chnge it from the inside or out, you will NEVER be able to do the right thing, you do it for money. You are an accomplice, you will NEVER be the moral compass that makes it right, because it's built on lies for MONEY and nothing else.

Facebook is a detriment to mankind.

UnkTheUnk,

I could understand an NDA if you're talking about the particulars of the backend, but the fact that we don't know what the NDA contains, AND the author of the entire protocol hasn't been approached doesn't bode well (https://octodon.social/@cwebber/110567421460454488)

norztech,

@UnkTheUnk
Reread the post you quoted, it’s not a fact.

UnkTheUnk,

I don’t know what you mean here

ozoned,
@ozoned@beehaw.org avatar

Yeah I like CWeber. Probably would have laugh while telling them to shove it.

I agree. Shady shit imo. Just like FB.

fruitywelsh,

NDAs can't legally last for ever but can last long enough to make the info useless by the time you can legally see it. That said I see why a company who's ownership sticks on speculative market would want to control its image and prevent speculation about this deal.

EponymousBosh,

Is this the toot that the first link was supposed to go to? https://433.world/@Yuvalne/110566872225488614

jherazob,
@jherazob@beehaw.org avatar

Seems like it, the fact that Rochko deleted the message AND purged it from Internet Archive is concerning, saved here.

https://beehaw.org/pictrs/image/6c6c24b2-4a3d-446a-a61c-5ff18dc81e0f.jpeg

Cloak,
@Cloak@lemmy.ml avatar

Here's the webcache on archive.org https://web.archive.org/web/20230622040809/http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/110548174843564104&strip=0&vwsrc=1

oppai420,

Oh yes, just the priviledged few knowing. That is SOOO much better than just meta knowing.

UngodlyAudrey,
@UngodlyAudrey@beehaw.org avatar

I make it a point to completely stay away from Meta's platforms. I don't want them anywhere near the Fediverse.

XLRV,
@XLRV@lemmy.ml avatar

Yeah, Facebook is a cancer and I hope they don't infect the Fediverse.

aka_oscar,

why cant we have nice things. fucks sake, leave us alone

iso,

just defederate. We'll just have our own Fediverse with blackjack and hookers lol

valvin,

If we look at the positive aspect of this: it means Meta looks at Fediverse as a competitor and tries to do something around it. Unfortunately things could only be ugly. Meta running an instance won't appear I think because it could be blocked. But taking control of big instances thanks its money might happened. And maybe has already happened and we don't know it. Meta or another big tech company.

bazpoint,

It would be extremely funny if Meta spent a shit load of money buying a bunch of large fediverse instances then everyone just immidiately migrated to other instances and defederated them.

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