We, the moderation and administration of tech.lgbt, are signing the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact in fellowship with our peer communities. (https://vantaa.black/pact)
There is over a decade of precedent that Facebook will not have users' best interests as their guiding principle but rather profit margins, if it joins the Fediverse.
We at tech.lgbt have long held the belief that corporation owned instances are a threat to the core of the Fediverse: freedom for users to be themselves and to be a part of their communities. The 2010s saw the loss of online freedom when the majority of the Web was consolidated into a few destinations, and Facebook entering here could lead us back to centralization. Furthermore, NDAs for server admins will constrain our sovereignty online by binding us legally from disrupting their business.
We are not products. We are people, and we do not welcome Facebook in this space.
@mods@david Thank you so very much for commiting to helping protect the Fediverse from Meta's malicious influence, greed, and control. :blobfoxfloofcute:
@GhostOnTheHalfShell
Well, I haven't watched it, because Youtube is one of those shops that I navigate to only if I have a particular and relevant need. (and most of the time its disappointing then btw) But if it has a similar statement as what you wrote here, it can only be a very sarcastic joke to have it there, or what am I missing? That's the most incredible contradiction I've seen for years, and I see a lot of them. @mods
@GhostOnTheHalfShell@mods I'd watch it once you find a platform for it that is not one of the biggest symbols for the complete opposite of what you wrote. ;)
@runarcn@mods@stux
mstdn.social decided to "Give them a chance". Clearly not paying attention to what's been going on the last 5-15 years with meta. Or perhaps "paying" is involved in some other way.
@mods Isn't it a good thing that companies are getting into federation? I get choosing to block corporate instances if you don't want to be associated with it. But I'd rather have platforms all use a protocol that allows for cross-communication than vendor lock in on chat apps.
There's definitely the danger of them introducing features that won't be open sourced, but I feel like there should be pushback against that, but not against the first step to a company announcing federation. Where is anything related to the mentioned NDAs said?
Of course, fuck Meta and all huge corporate entities. But to me an internet where at least the big sites can federate with each other sounds a whole lot better than the walled gardens we've got right now. I see it as a small step in the right direction, it'll have downsides for now, but I feel it's a necessary step to bringing back the decentralised internet.
@DiaDemiEmi@mods There are already plenty of companies on Mastodon/the Fediverse.
I can recall Raspberry Pi, which even has their own Mastodon server, off the cuff, but I'm sure there are plenty of others.
The issue is... There are companies, and then there are companies that are SO huge and yield SO much power that them joining the federation would cause such an imbalance of power that they alone would be able to in essence take over the whole federation and effectively make it a single-entity federation (i.e., exactly what the Fediverse is trying to avoid).
Meta is one of those companies. As are Amazon, Google, Tencent, Microsoft, Twitter, etc..
Hence the need for this pact, IMO.
Though apparently with the biggest instance on the Fediverse potentially compromised, it might be a moot point already...
@nanianmichaels@mods I don't think it's feasible in the near future to achieve a fully decentralised internet. But I think this is at least a good step. If that platform is federated that at least means you have the choice to still contact people on it without using the platform.
It's like if Protonmail blocked all Gmail addresses. Sure that's an act of protest against the very centralised email. But at the end of the day it doesn't change anything, most people are going to use what's popular, whether that's good or not. No one is going to not use Meta's new app because some Mastodon instances decided to block federation.
All it does is block the instance off from a large amount of people that will use the app. I feel like that's not a positive thing. There will definitely be issues with a large corporate owned instance like that, but it's a step towards more corporate platforms being federated. And when everyone is federated, the opportunity for equal ground for every instance will arise again
@nanianmichaels@mods I just think instead of immediately promising to block it it's better to work around it. It's a fact it will federate, we should make the best of that to try to build the decentralised internet. In my opinion this just feels like putting your head in the sand and pretending outside influences don't exist. Blocking that potential instance won't solve the core problem of the internet being too centralised, it'll make it worse by alienating users.
You're free to disagree and maybe I'm too optimistic in this, but I think it's better to approach this with an open mind until definitive proof comes that this will cause damage to the fediverse, but I see this as a potentially good thing. If companies want to join the fediverse that means they see profit in it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it could also mean that they notice how they can't forever keep up the walled gardens of their current platforms.
@DiaDemiEmi@nanianmichaels@mods I've been wondering why people on Meta's Threads will stay on that instance once they learn how #fediverse works. When you are on Instagram, you are shown ads every 3-4 posts and this should be the same on Threads. Why would anyone prefer to be on their instance if they can experience the fediverse free of ads?
@serklarvel@DiaDemiEmi@nanianmichaels@mods I gladly pay to my instance admin more than any company using ads on FB ever received from me due to those ads (which is 0, since I basically scroll quickly away from them)
@DiaDemiEmi@mods it's facebook. they'll do what they did with XMPP. participate long enough to bring most users over to the comfort of their platform, then shut off federation, forcing the small percentage to move over to them or lose their contacts.
i literally am forced to stay on facebook because it is the only way to keep in touch with my family after they shut down XMPP. I don't want to see the same happening to the fediverse.
the big email providers do something similar currently. fuck.
@Beiz@DiaDemiEmi@mods yeah exactly this. we have PRECEDENT for facebook “joining” federated protocols. they aren’t planning to join. they are planning to dominate and take over.
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