Meta is not gonna buy Mastodon or any server, this is based on absolutely nothing and untrue.
Yes, some of us indeed got contacted by Meta/Insta because they are working on a new social platform (this was in the news) and they are looking into joining the Fediverse (Mark Zuckerberg also told this in the recent podcast)
SO.
This contact was about a "heads-up" for a potential big platform to join the network and not for a "take over".
@stux "Meta is not gab" yeah it only allows Nazis to propagate easily without fear of removal or ban, and allows data harvesting companies to collect so much that it has to investigated by Congress.
Sure it's not ran by Nazis but it allows without question them free admission and publication.
@queue@stux Facebook only facilitated the Rohyinga massacres in Myammar, 1/6 Capitol attack and propaganda that is killing trans people, but nothing to be concerned about here, folks.
@jamiestl @queue Yep. I did a poll about this a while ago and over 90% of the responses saw Meta/FB similar to Gab (although admiittedly I phrased as a bit of a leading question). Several different people said to me "At first I thought you were exaggerating about Meta but geez they really did do all those things!" #DefederateMeta
@kkarhan@queue@vantablack and egregiously, if you complain about Nazi content, nothing will be done. And if you punch back at any Nazis harassing you, you get put in Metajail with nothing happening to the harassers.
To make it extra insulting, :facebook: & :twitter: only #geoblock said contents but don't take them offline - regardless if tuese are literally illegal in several juristictions AND are universally bad.
@stux Meta has not behaved ethically in the past. They have a really poor track record when it comes to users privacy. I hope Mastodon does not become just another social media site ruined by Meta.
@stux I appreciate the update. I hope that your gut instincts are right.
Me? I don’t think Meta will ever be as evil as Gab.
I fear they will pull a bait and switch on us. Try to be magnanimous . Openness. No advertising. Easy move to another server.
Then once they are massively the most dominant player - they reverse all of that and lock down the server from cross posting, start bkmbadding with ads, make it harder to leave.
@stux hey Stux, thanks for finally posting something, I appreciate the clarity. I have a ton of concerns around Federating with Meta, and I think you should consider them. I know it's probably a big ask, but I wrote a blog post that I think would be useful to read, so at a minimum you can better understand folks concerns.
@andrewbriscoe Andrew - how can a company that has shown itself over & over again to be reckless of both user privacy and impact of false data- ever be considered maybe a good fit. I don’t get it.
@SCampbell I definitely don’t want an account on their server. I just think the more people we have in the fediverse the better chance we all have to succeed. In theory, what they do on their server shouldn’t affect us. I don’t use FB, insta, or whatsapp. I follow people on mastodon, calckey, pixelfed, and surprisingly nostr from my account and it’s amazing that all these services work together.
@stux thanks for making a thoughtful decision. Though, I would like to ask if you signed any NDA with them? But knowing how companies operate, even the fact whether you signed it might be non-disclosable. I understand why NDA wouldn't be too big of an issue, and even a necessity, but I feel uneasy about such conversations happening privately. Because they concern all of us.
@stux then I have nothing to fear being on this server, with such a principal admin ❤️ Or do I have more to fear since you are left out of the conversation... Well, anyway)
@stux are you familiar at all with what happened with XMPP, and if you are can explain why you are giving Meta, of all companies, the benefit of the doubt
@mike@stux XMPP allowed cross-protocol messaging, and Google wanted to integrate it into their messenger programs, so they were welcomed with open arms for the sweet sweet development money. then Google slowly aggregated all the users onto their particular client, integrated them into the GSuite, and then killed off XMPP support and made it proprietary. they built the whole thing to capture competition. it will repeat.
@PsyChuan@stux I completely get the skepticism, and I know I'll never use their software, but I think the key is Meta wants to reach Mastodon users, not ActivityPub users. Mastodon is already a "semi-mainstream" product, and the value is the network.
The way Google kills every unsuccessful product makes me doubt any plan. If other big chat networks like ICQ or MSN pushed XMPP, and XMPP addresses like email went mainstream, keeping interoperability would have been valuable. It was niche tho.
@mike@stux you can't separate the two. without activitypub, masto doesn't exist, without masto, activitypub isn't as popular as it is. even if they do want to go after masto on it's own, they want to go after it because it's the single biggest software on fedi. the value is the network yes but that network IS activitypub.
@stux But why do you think you are qualified to speak and act in the name of the fediverse? When will you be able to share what is being discussed with the rest of us instance admins and developers? Transparency IS important, IMHO.
@stux I'm with you. The call for instance block from mods/admins appears to me dared. It is good that everyone has the opportunity to resort to it for themselves - if you want to choose personal to limit Barcelona from your account, you can do that and it's good that, unlike Twitter, you don't have to block every user individually.
An instance ban should continue to be the last choice. Chosen with care. And to titulate FB users as 'Nazi', only helps Nazis to harmless their brutal ideology.
@stux History tells us Zuck doesn't work for the greater good or anything that doesn't eventually fill his fat wallet. He has already caused you to block one instance and he will continue to sow discord among us. It's the way of big tech. I want to be wrong.
Could be like the schism of the Southern Baptists...
Limiting federation with #ExtractiveSocialNetworks as a choice breaks the covenant and banishes the limiting servers. Allowing #actors to vote with their #resources by moving to servers that don't take extractive resources has a value equal to or greater than the choice of allowing federation with extractive social networks because the choice to move acts as an evolutionary force.
"Drinking" from the "sugar-water" of easy extractive-sourced money allows the #Ecosystem to develop a dependence on and organizing force around the sugar-water and quenches the #Evolutionary forces for creating the elements of an alternative #SocialEcosystems or #FederatedEcosystems that don't require "sugar-water" (#Extractive sources).
@stux Thanks, Stux. What I would like, though, whether Meta joins the fediverse or other similar corporate-owned social media platform does so, is to know that those platforms will NOT be able to use cookies, beacons, or other tracking technology to harvest personal data from fediverse users on non-corporate platforms.
How do we go about ensuring the fediverse remains protected from data harvesting without blocking the new corporate-owned fediverse entrants?
@femme_mal@stux The issue here is the installation of these technologies. All of those work because the platform owner wants them on their server. As long as your instance doesn’t install them they won’t be in your posts. However, if you follow people on Meta’s instance then they could be on those posts. Just like if you visit YouTube instead of PeerTube. I expect AdBlocker like tools will become available so an admin can strip out tracking on posts to their users.
@stux Good position, but I think that what worries users is that their accounts may be scrapped by Meta's social network, or that a publication deleted on the servers will not be deleted from Meta's servers, and so on.
@stux Unlike most of you, I am not an expert on internet policy issues. However, giving Meta the benefit of the doubt, while it might sound reasonable, would be like extending such benefit to Putin or ISIS. Meta will not grant anything that decreases their potential benefits, and if they do, soon enough they will modify their position. Meta does not deserve the benefit of the doubt.
You were smart. You should never sign an NDA without advice from your lawyer.
In particular, any NDA must very precisely define what is being disclosed in absolutely clear language, and be expressly limited to only that information. There must be a term for the NDA no longer than 3 years. Six months or one year for information that has immediate currency, but no lasting significance. The NDA should release if the info becomes public knowledge.
Even then, it is very risky business, and you must have legal advice. Getting into an NDA with a 100 billion dollar corporation is just something that you don't want to do unless absolutely necessary. Recognize you will never be able to afford to defend yourself against any claim they might bring.
One more thing. You should avoid NDAs, but any NDA you sign should be a "mutual NDA", that requires them to safeguard any information disclosed by you to them.
Depends on how blatant and ridiculous they are. Like non-compete clauses that are not limited in time and geographical extent for example. 😂 Silicon Valley GCs are strictly amateur hour.
@stux ... couldn't you also preblock and THEN re-federate if it doesn't go to hell in a handbasket? Idk man feels like the better option would be to go for the precautionary principle over the proactionary, here.
I really, really do not trust FB. This is making me antsy.
@stux This is exactly the right position to take…we have all the tools we need on the fedi to moderate p92 - and none of those is a pre-emotive fediblock. That done as a first strike would only be self defeating and Indieweb.social will have the same position as Stux. Monitor closely then use the tools we have appropriate to what we see. Like any other third party activitypub server ….
@tchambers@stux In the end, people who refuse to interact with Meta’s communities (their content, their choice!) will……set up accounts on AP servers that also don’t federate with them. Preblocking the entire project doesn’t solve anything — least of all keeping Meta from continuing to develop their own AP servers or bridging mechanisms.
@stux meta has had literally thousands of chances not to act in a profoundly unethical manner and you're giving them another one? This thread should be included in the dictionary definition of naivety.
@stux as far as they do not collect, store, profile, etc etc the information and/or branch the protocol, I am good with it. But there is always a risk.
@stux I agree with your decision. In fact, Meta's Threads will be much more vulnerable to lose users to other instances once they learn how the #fediverse works. Why would I choose to be on a comercial plataform like Meta's, where I am exposed to ads all the time, if I can migrate to an instance which is ad-free?
@serklarvel@stux
How would they know?
How would the average user, scrolling on a Meta-Fedi feed, seeing a flow of the usual FB screeds, IG pics, algorithmically tweaked correct amount of ads, and whatever post from the broader Fediverse that goes viral enough to squeak through the filter, be able to tell that things operate differently here?
In fact, when even most Mastodon users aren't even aware of the existence of other Fediverse platforms, you can bet that Meta will make sure their users will be kept in obscurity as far and wide as possible.
@serklarvel@stux there's actually very little chance that a significant number of accounts will jump ship from Threads to the rest of the Fediverse. Keep in mind Meta controls their side of the connection and will make sure that (1) leaving will be hard (you can be your life they will NOT support one-click migration TO Mastodon, although they'll probably support it in reverse
(2) what they let through of the Fediverse will not be meanignful enough to even justify jumping over.
@stux I know. That's what I was saying. I get where you are coming from (although I don't agree). Especially running a large general instance like this. I'm not mad because I know I can block it when it comes out. Overall I've found you do a good job deciding which instances to block because every time I see one reported as being problematic, I try to go to it, but it has already been blocked by mstdn.
@stux I completely agree with you. The fact that they want to integrate into the #Fediverse is actually a good thing and a sign that the #fediverse is making momentum. Why block them before knowing how it is when the are connected. Give everything a second chance, I say.
@stux It clears up none. I hope everyone leaves your instance, mastodon.social, and universeodon for all of you conspiring with Facebook just to get rich.
Gab were just a bunch of reactionary amateur retards, who were easily scared shitless by “demon tranny hackers from hell” and a few FSE trolls.
Meta on the other hand is a constantly metastasising cancer filled with more cancer that gives you AIDS, backed up by a huge army of corporate lawyers and a gang of paid-off journos and politicians. They will just take over of what they want, threatening everyone in their path with patent and copyright infringement lawsuits and running smear campaigns to destroy people’s reputations. Good fucking luck fighting that!
@stux this is willful ignorance. The only reason meta would be interested in this move is to exploit the users and the fediverse. It is a corporation. Absolutely nothing they do, will do, or have ever done was for anything but to make them as much money as fast as possible. Letting them federate in any way will absolutey result in the same outcome. What could possibly be to gain from being open to this move? How much are you being offered to play ball?
@stux
"Going smooth" means that Meta isn't allowed to scrape our content. My content, words and all, belongs to me. All rights reserved. Such that it is, such as they are.
My mistrust and contempt for fb, meta...whatever...knows no bounds. Cambridge Analytica is why I fired facebook, and I would abandon Mastodon at the first whiff of fb infiltration of Mastodon.
Fb is poison. Please, please, please don't drink the poison.
@stux@The_Augusto we know they have a horrid track record on privacy, they have a horrid track record on moderation, and they have a horrid track record on “embracing” open protocols to kill them off. Each of this alone would be sufficient to preemptively defederate. All of them together even more so. Exactly what do you expect to be different this time?
At lest the last 2 out of 3, and 1st is made not any easier.
But again the question that the “wait and see” camp never replies to is: what information do you have to expect that it won't be a shitshow, given the company's track record?
@BenAveling@stux@The_Augusto deflection again! The question is very simple yet receives no answer: what information do you have that this time will be different than their abysmal track record on privacy, moderation, and open protocol busting, to justify a “wait and see” approach?
@oblomov@stux@The_Augusto If you want to block them, by all means, block them. Just don't kid yourself that it achieves any of the things you want it to achieve.
@oblomov@stux@The_Augusto I've answered the question to my own complete satisfaction. If the answer doesn't satisfy you, you know where the block button is.
@stux@The_Augusto "We know Dan is a repeated abuser, however Dan is now wearing a new leather jacket, so maybe he doesn't abuse people anymore, we should wait and see"
@swansinflight@stux@The_Augusto Meta has an appalling record of mishandling user data. We all stakeholders, so why does anyone need/accept an NDA?
No a good start.
@swansinflight
I do wonder what all this noise is about. Google Chat was on XMPP, and chose to block everybody else after a while. Likewise, after a whie, Meta might well block the fediverse (of which they are not going to be a good citizen of anyway). @stux@The_Augusto
@stux I don't understand why is this even a thing. The Fediverse was made to escape those propietary, dara-hoarding platforms, and people are happy and welcoming them into the Fediverse? What's wrong with you all?
@stux Certainly an unpopular decision, but I'll stick around and see how this all goes. While I might disagree (or at least have a very bad feeling about this), I trust that you folks know more than me.
From a user-viewpoint, it would be really nice with full transparency around this going forward: where are the meetings, what was discussed, were you unable to participate due to NDAs etc. I know that would make it easier for me to trust this process, and probably for many others too.
@stux Sounds great. Let's just wait and see what a multibillion-dollar corporate monster headed by a lizard-like glassy-eyed psychopath whose life's work is to manipulate the behavior of the masses can do.
@stux "We would never ever sell out on you" - we won't sell you out but give you out away for free - in the form of, for example, all the fediverse content - the posts of millions of people, which Meta will get for FREE and will certainly help them to better profile (= get more profit) those who don't have accounts on their platform.
@stux A query - Could Meta just scrape all of the Masterdon servers/accounts without telling anyone until it was done? And/or could ChatGPT do the same? After all the majority of our info is public
@stux - I don't have a problem as long as #facebook#meta makes its federated codebase FOSS open source.
Otherwise, they will flood a billion people in a single instance safeguarded by proprietary software, monopolize the fediverse and defeat the entire point of the federation.
We should be ultra careful and not let it slide like what happened to #reddit in 2017 when got closed source.
@Spellbind0127@stux Thanks for the update. Now I wonder if stux is really that dense. Trusting Facebook - the company - after every single thing they've done.
stux, you know they were the ones responsible for Trump getting elected, don't you? By selling US citizens' data to Cambridge Analytica, Facebook allowed a massive pro Trump campaign to take place - and the resurgence of nazism in the US.
"But we don't know for sure they can't be trusted!! Let's give them a chance!"
stux, you are so privileged that you disgust me.
I TRUSTED YOU, DAMMIT!
You HAVE to pick a side here. Do you side with Facebook or do you side with the public?
You CAN'T act neutral in here. Facebook is in for the money and we KNOW they don't give a shit about the public.
Who cares if it's a new project, who cares if it's a different platform? You are letting a despicable company with horrid treatment of their employees (google what their content moderators had to go through) and zero respect for privacy get in here.
Are you really that disconnected from world events? Do you think it's just a tech project with zero relevancy? Open your eyes, dammit!
@stux@BlakeL not local to your instance, just wanted to point out that Meta will engage in boundary testing behavior, so it's more a matter of when and whether they can talk you out of a one strike policy.
Were willing and hoping to re-federate in the case that their suspicions were false or unfounded.
Both are true here. This feels incredibly risky. FB needs to prove legitemacy to investors and this looks like it's an atrempt to capture usage from Mastodon and then cut off ActivityPub once they reach critical mass. I don't want to indirectly support that.
@scirave@stux you aren't supporting it indirectly or directly. they are existing as their own separate entity that you happen to be able to interact with.
You misunderstand the problem here. This is precisely out of Microsoft's ye old "Embrace. Extend. Extinguish" playbook. FB needs to cough up something for investors. They need to show results. They're going to use Mastodon to springboard their new platform with users and content. Then they'll offer a better service, aggressive onboarding, and then eventually cutoff the federation. Finally, enshittification will begin.
I don't want to be a part of that. Or provide content to it.
@avrin@stux Once upon a time, they did this with XMPP.
This is not new, this is not unsubstantiated, this is what they've been doing for YEARS. They have the resources to pull it off, the will, the motivation, and a history of it. This isn't vague reactionary bullshit that I'm pulling out of my ass. This is a likely risk and known factor.
Oh, if only. You misunderstand yet again. They will provide a better service that ye old FOSS contributor will not be able to provide. They will extend the software, improve it. It'll be great. It'll be amazing. Until they reach market dominance and then start strangling their users for cash. They'll aggressively choke out Mastodon and steal potential adoption numbers. This is the game plan. It always has been.
@avrin@stux You say it won't harm us, but it will. People who are on here, or would've been on here, will instead be on there. It'll be an opportunity cost, at the very least.
And who was to say that I don't care about the people on that platform anyways? It's amoral to me to be complacent in that.
@scirave@stux for one, they made an account there. it is what is. two, having an easier, more recognizable process to getting into the fediverse will only make people realize they should be elsewhere more.
anyone that won't move wouldn't have had it never existed. people that are already here aren't gonna move to meta's instance, it's a non issue.
@stux I thought the whole point of federation was that you just didn't all use one huge server. because as soon as a service with exposure to (potentionally) over a billion user becomes available, original mastodon users will (probably) turn into a rounding error
that's not the type of community I would want to be in.
here are the larger instances so far (5000+ users):
piaille.fr
mastodon.art
pixelfed.social
(1000+ users):
tech.lgbt
botsin.space
mastodon.nz
eldritch.cafe
urbanists.social
mastodon.radio
octodon.social
(500+ users):
queer.party
discuss.systems
We will block any Meta instances as soon as they pop up. Meta has never once shown that they can be trusted, or deserve the benefit of the doubt. If you prefer an instance that allows Meta, emigrating is advised.
@stux there is a lot of room between "blocking everything by default" and blocking a particular entity preemptively because they have a well-established track record spanning many years of being more than willing, happy even, to harm individuals, businesses, and the internet itself as long as they can derive profit or in some way boost Zuckerberg's (or whichever billionaire's) ego
@stux Thanks for that clarification and sharing from your expert position that you see the Fediverse as having the tools to protect itself. My concern would be about the dominating, "own the world," dishonest and manipulative and mass-profit-centric way that zuck works - so would hope that folks have done enough scenario-planning to envision all possibilities/contingencies. Don't understand why he'd want to do this if there was no way to profit/surveil.
Going, betrayed, subverted, going. Just outraged at this awful stupid action. Whatever instance I join will be deferederated from this instance -> mstdn.social.
@toriver@kevinrns@stux It has not happened yet but Meta/FB’s track record is not exactly great or prone to giving the benefit of the doubt. That is why the nonchalant attitude of several admins is a bit perplexing to a lot of users.
@stux We are here because of corporate greed and malfeasance. That has not changed. The fox is coming to the hen house. How many times must we be subjected to the outright manipulation and aggressive abuse of these shareholder run organizations? This isn't about the users. They can be blocked. Please stop defending the corporations' platforms whose sole purpose is to make money off of their users, especially in light of the Reddit debacle. Federation doesn't change the philosophy of a company.
@stux f you’re talking to them about a good integration, there are two things you should tell them.
We don’t want you to connect to the Fediverse until the application is fully integrated into the Integrity content review system, and the reviewers are trained and staffed in the appropriate languages.
If they don’t have moderation integrated on day one, this will be a disaster, because they’ll end up getting blocked right and left.
We need to know that the moderation interaction from other Fediverse systems to Meta is implemented and staffed.
I assume they also know that Fediverse standards on hate speech on most servers are probably higher than current Facebook/Instagram standards, and that Fediverse standards on obscene speech are probably lower, and they’d better be prepared to deal with that properly. But really, those two items are the important ones.
@stux Thank you, The calls for Pre-blocking or even de-federating Corperate owned servers kind of ruins the idea of "decentralization" and isn't any better than
if you don't like a company, you can block it on an individual basis, do not block it for everyone else.
@stux I'm regularly amazed by how many people look at a tool for facilitating communication and then become only interested in blocking, defederating and hindering communication.
@PCOWandre@stux This isn't about blanket open communication. It is about allowing a corporation that allowed absolute vitriol to proliferate their platform in the name of "communication" and free speech. Do you have an active Facebook account? Does anyone who is participating in this narrative have an active Facebook account? And if you don't, why is it that you don't?
@stux For some folks, needing to be cautious and remove them ahead of time is vital.
The disability community knows how much "Meta" aka Facebook has coordinated with the Federal government in the US to get people kicked off of their disability benefits. We cannot risk having this massive company mine our toots or whatever else to do this through the Fediverse.
People need to be WAY more concerned with just how much surveillance this could result in.
@dekkzz76 These corporations tend to require NDAs for anything and everything and probably in this case because they want to keep the project under wraps before official announcement.
I think it is still a bad and thoughtless move from them because they are not considering at all how it is going to look to us and the overuse of NDAs is not a great thing either.
You're kidding yourself if you think P92 won't have mostly Instagram users.
I'm not saying to block them out of the gate, but be aware that a lot of their users are probably going to have little in common with Fedizens. And also Meta is dogshit and I think everyone can agree with that.
@stux I’m just a random person who migrated here after having left FB /Twitter both. Not a nerd, just found good stuff here. I left the destructive life of FB/ Twitter. I don’t really understand this whole thing but if Meta is trying in any way to “join” Mastodon then it’s for nefarious reasons. They are driven purely by profit. Where are folks supposed to go ?Anyway still confused about what is going on but just the word Meta in the same sentence as Mastodon is scary.
@stux Well, this is a disaster waiting to happen. I understand your argument, but you're applying it to a known social arsonist here. They've already proven their malicious intent a bazillion times, it is foolish to even assume it might be different this time.
@stux yeah, innocent until proven guilty sounds like the way to go. This is a new avenue for Meta and they should be given the chance to be good citizens despite their past.
@stux from what I've read though, P92, or Barcelona or Threads or whatever you call it, is going to be connected to your Instagram account so you get the same name and even the verified check. so kind of like Instagram joining, really.
@stux what would be their long term business plan? Ads? selling user data? ..of course, they could have their own instances ad supported, but doubt they will leave it at that. They must be getting something else (except "content") out of it.
Also, combine their algorithms driving "engagement" (i.e. hate) with the fediverse: admins/mods will be overburdened with a constant stream of issues.. Which would originally not even be seen by most people without these algos.
@stux a lot seem to think that Meta gains instant access to "your data". This isn't true. The stuff that is floating around public may be scraped but the rest is entirely push and not pull.
As for the EEE: So what if they some day decide to brew their own protocol that does no longer work with the rest of the Fediverse. What changes for the Fedi? It'll be back to right where it is now and where it will stay if everyone defederates pre-emptive. Nothing lost. In fact it's imho what Bluesky did.
@stux Is there a license agreement to join the fediverse? Ex. restrictions on how you can use data from other servers, how to use content licenses attached to posts?
> You won't be happy if your admin starts blocking things without even checking them first.
First, as already mentioned, you can do a check right now. This check may or may not lead into anyone deciding that it's a good idea to block Meta or not, as evidenced by the replies. You may want to give them a chance, others don't.
That's exactly what federation is for. A lot of people disagreeing in this thread want precisely what you insinuate as "not checking": An admin who, based on already available information, would decide to block Meta. And that's totally fine, that's what the Fedi is for! Honestly, I'm baffled we're having this discussion even and calling one side "cold headed" and the other "power tripping" (not you, other thread). It's absolutely the opposite of that, it's acting based on different sets of values with – surprise – different outcomes.
I respect your decision to "wait and see", as well as any other Admins decision to do so. But please refrain from framing your approach as the one we all should take.
Ontop: I think we'd be well-served if we don't have "big servers", regardless of the owners. This can also be a valid reason never to federate with them.
@stux The entire point of federated networks and ActiviyPub is to allow for interoperability. Preemtively blocking a new platform, based solely on the corporation behind it, is completely against that spirit in my opinion.
Observe first, then decide. No need to fearmonger, everyone...
@stux It's really not blocking everything by default. We know Meta's motivation. It's money. They have proven that they are evil over and over and over again.
In my opinion our message to Meta should be clear: Fuck off, we don't want you here.
@stux Stux, you are being seriously naive right now, I have the right to criticise you this time. What you're doing here is letting your guard down, you are letting a malicious privacy-invasive Big Tech corporation to potentially embrace, extend, extinguish on the Fediverse and eventually drive it into near obscurity just like what has happened to XMPP. Gargron and other people like you are being absolute fools for trying to talk with Facebook into agreement.
You should definitely take back your words and reconsider your decision cause you are really not gonna like what comes next once you allow them in.
People need to stop treating this as a centralised network. Not everyone is going to agree on this matter, so different instances will make different decisions here. That's how the Fediverse works by nature. People who want to see corpirate stuff blocked can join an instance that blocks that. We can of course express our opinions, but people going all out harassing instance admins with insults and toxic sarcasm is uncalled for.q
@stux Hope is a beautiful sentiment in us humans, specially im good people. But it’s so obvious that what they are planning is a trojan horse.
Even if they don’t know how to right now, it’s certain they don’t want the fediverse to thrive, it’s bad for their bottom line, and they’ll do anything to stop it.
@stux yeah - that’s lovely n’all but history tells us block them now. You seem to have forgotten that Meta does not play by any rules. Apologetics for corporate totalitarian billionaires aren’t great news to the #Fediverse.
@stux From what I read the platform is based (Threads) is based on Instagram, which would probably mean that all the Instagram social graph will land up in Fediverse.
@stux the concern I've been hearing is that they're going to "scrape and sell" content on the fediverse. That also doesn't make sense to me as they can already do that by creating accounts on instances and just sitting there. They don't need this new platform to do it.
@stux Framing this as "people being afraid Meta will buy Mastodon" is a bit dishonest. While I can accept people with such fears exist that's not what a lot of discussions on mastoadmin were about. Especially since EEE is so much cleaner and cheaper than buying Mastodon from Eugen or a set of instances from admins.
@stux
Wow, this thread. Some people seem to be really concerned about their privacy on a public forum where they are literally shouting into the void where 10 million accounts could be listening. I agree that big companies are usually psychopaths, but I am glad to see knee jerk defederation is not the default path for the instance I am on. Thanks for the openness and clarification, and trying to get ahead of the rumours.
@stux If you really insist on giving them a chance, please name one example of a big corporation joining an existing federated network, and it not ending badly for the network.
@stux LOL, guess you haven't been paying attention to what, exactly, Meta/FB has been up to. They're arguably WORSE than Gab. They are not to be trusted and folks thinking they can just sit down with them and skate away without consequences are deluding themselves.
@stux
Best comparison I've seen is saying Meta joining the metaverse is the equivalent of when AOL joined the internet (for those of us who can remember that)
@stux@JoeGrowling I'm just an ordinary person in the Fediverse, but I would think blocking Meta from your server would take away the opportunity for your users to be eonnected with a lot of new Fediverse users.
@stux@JoeGrowling I think you're cool Stux but I will burn down anything that touches those capitalist douchebags who, I should remind you, are the exact reason why we had to create this place to begin with. If they weren't vile, we'd all be using corporate social media right now.
@jose@stux
Lots of things are technically possible. All this hyperventilation over the "possible" is silly.
If they inject ads into posts or feeds, then we all block them. We don't need to preemptively act against something that hasn't happened yet. We don't lose the ability because we didn't act soon enough.
If your aunt boosts ads, don't follow her. She doesn't know what the fediverse is. Simply don't tell her you have an account. Engagement is optional.
@solarbear@jose@stux “We know that this pipeline is supposed to go through our land, but it hasn’t leaked oil all over everything and contaminated the water table yet. We can be prepared to clean it up if they do end up leaking oil and contaminating the water table. We should give them a chance to let the oil leak and contaminate the water table because we gain nothing but the possibility of a leak and contaminated water table and they can get richer.”
@samothtiger @jose@stux A leaking pipeline causes immense environmental damage that requires years of cleanup and has long lasting impact. Meta acting goofy requires us to press a couple of buttons to completely block them and the worst impact is that you might see one ad before your server admin nukes them. They are not comparable in the slightest.
This is what I mean, y'all act like if we don't preemptively act we'll suffer some great harm or limit our ability to act later. It's a button.
@solarbear@jose@stux the biggest point is that there is nothing to gain from them. They’re an evil corporation that is coming into a space specifically designed to get away from evil corporations and you’re wanting to invite them in with open arms. There is nothing to gain from them and everything to lose.
The Scorpion is asking the Frog to let it ride on his back, and this particular Frog is all too happy to help.
The Frog never learns that the Scorpion will always sting and kill it, because that is the nature of the Scorpion.
#Meta has spent the past 20 years buying up and destroying smaller companies, and just pushing them out of business. Why would they be any different this time?
"WHEN SOMEONE SHOWS YOU WHO THEY ARE, BELIEVE THEM THE FIRST TIME." (Maya Angelou)
@AnneTheWriter1@samothtiger@solarbear@jose@stux it's even worse, because the scorpion can swim, and the frog has already seen it trick another frog, but somehow it thinks it can “trust and verify”.
Our of metaphor, this isn't going to be a buyout, the medium term play is to just implode the Fediverse by sucking out all growth momentum. Much cheaper.
My main working theory right now is that #Meta could be paying at least some of the admins of larger instances for user and activity data (to mine). At the very least, they are doing market research on their competition.
@AnneTheWriter1@samothtiger@solarbear@jose@stux
I really don't think they have any need to actually pay anyone, there's plenty of people more than happy to campaign in their favor for free, in name of cancer growth on the complete disregard for the safety of their users
@oblomov@AnneTheWriter1@solarbear@jose@stux I agree that average users may promote this move because they’ve been swept up in misinformation and propaganda, but someone who runs an instance, especially a larger one, should 100% know better and likely is being paid if they’re agreeing with allowing meta to move in.
@jose The funny thing is though, friendica initially was perfectly able to interact even with facebook and twitter posts...... until those APIs got killed....
So nowadays, it's not like they just wanna join the fediverse but they actually open up again to possibly get federated...
And no ... there will be no ads, because ad serving instances - i'm talking about actually sending ads to other instances, will for sure get blocked pretty soon.
So .... i don't see the outlook that pessimistic. ;)
@hackbyte@jose the fact that they blocked interoperability for Facebook tells you all you need to know about how much they actually care about it. They have not changed their mind, they're out to exploit the Fediverse for their own gains and then throw it away when they can safely do it knowing they've extinguished it from the general public's awareness
Some attempts have been made, mastodon.social sure does have that potential, but others too in a smaller scale. There is also RSS feeds. The issue is when a large majority of users are in one instance, unless you are OK with just interacting with a niche, you will be forced to live with it.
Wouldn’t that concern be as valid if multiple smaller instances ousted all instances that didn’t oust Instagram?
I am unsure if I am a typical user. I joined mastodon.social because it had a large number of users, and figured my chance of engagements with people would be maximal. As I stayed, I found the moderation quite reasonable.
So high engagement and good moderation do it for me. Decentralization, for e.g. is secondary.
@staidwinnow@jose@stux@JoeGrowling I think you've just espoused a central problem about Meta (and other big instances). There will be several newcomers to the Fediverse on Barecelona/Threads who I already follow on Insta and who I'd like to connect with here. (Just as I have many connections on mastodon.social and mstdn.social.)
But Meta has an appalling track record, and there's valid "face-eating leopards" fears about how it will operate.
The users might be fine, but it's the corporation we need to worry about.
I don't have an issue with admins talking to Meta as long as they understand that they're dealing with a face-eating leopard that won't change its spots.
I have no illusions about Meta/Instagram. I also want to see the Fediverse (or at least mastodon.social) succeed. So what does success mean? It isn’t going to do ads, or accept a corporate largesse.
So what then?
Maybe persuade Instagram users to join? Or switch, even.
So discussions engaged in by the major instances seem reasonable. @stux seems pragmatic and as long as reconsideration is mere two clicks away, I am curious.
My view of Fediverse success is not about massive adhesion through for profit companies. That's a recipe for enshitification.
If Meta is smart enough, they will seem harmless and actually offer awesome feats until they are in a position of dominance and they'll make the fediverse niche.
Fediverse privacy wise is awful, and it is only acceptable because it's decentralized. When that goes away it's just awful period. That's where Meta comes in.
@stuxIf US and EU antitrust / competitiveness authorities cannot secure compliance from Facebook and Zuckerberg for existing and longstanding orders, what makes you think a rag-tag bunch of Fediverse admins will fare better?
Facebook are manifestly bad-faith and untrustworthy actors. Preblock, now.
Facebook is a repeat violator at the FTC. There was a consent decree that goes back close to a decade, which the FTC in 2019 found that they violated. The recent news suggests that they may have also been in violation of this latest consent order. And that is really prompting a step back and a close look at: What does it take to make sure that firms across the board are actually complying with the law? ... I think when you have companies that are repeatedly before a law-enforcement agency, you need to ask serious questions about whether these companies are recidivist and whether they have a challenge in abiding by existing laws.
-- Lina Khan, Chair of the US Federal Trade Commission, interviewed by Kara Swischer,15 May 2023
At the very least, a precondition for any cooperation would be full compliance with existing antitrust actions, sanctions, consent orders, and the like, for a period at least as long as noncompliance (so, four years in the case of the 2019 order).
@dredmorbius Yeah really. I've talked with several admins who have described their position with Meta as "trust but verify". First of all why would you trust them? Secondly how on earth do you think you'll verify their bad behavior? smh.
@jdp23 I would challenge anyone with a "trust but verify" stance towards Meta to give three examples of when Meta has delivered on their promises to users (when those promises did not align with "shareholder value"). I can give many examples of the contrary.
@dredmorbius it's both! In 2019 FB settled charges that they had violated the 2012 consent order, paid a $5B fine (without admitting guilt), and signed another consent order. Now the FTC's saying they violated the 2019 consent order as well.
@stux Kudos to you for recognizing that while Meta itself isn't great, there are still people on Meta who aren't evil and horrible, and that by not preemptively blocking Meta, we can reach more people who might not otherwise think to join the Fediverse. And again, as you've said, bad actors can be dealt with easily from your end. Personally, I like the idea of being able to connect with my friends who are still there.
@stux appreciate your rationality on this. Preblocking them makes no sense to me. I stopped used FB years ago but turning off a spigot of 1B users is bananas when we are trying to get more people to join the Fediverse.
@stux people need to educate themselves on the concept of decentralized. no one can prevent someone from joining the fediverse. whether anyone chooses to partake in Meta's instance(s), that's up to them, but admins can certainly block meta's instances.
@stux
You have to wonder if he's got a plan to enshittify mastodon or if he's just making another boneheaded decision like the metaverse.
Idk what the privacy protections for masto are but I imagine his goals are largely to mine it for data, I guess if somebody else pays for the servers that's just a plus.
The strategy "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" works like this: Big company acts nice and worms its way in. A year later they start adding 'features' to their instances that go beyond the original platform specs. Their users equate the new features to the overall platform and through adoption lock themselves into it; the original platform is eventually dismissed as old and limited. Defederation then would simply remove a thorn from their paw.
This contact was about a “heads-up” for a potential big platform to join the network and not for a “take over”.
No contact needed for that. Release notes/post and a server setup is all you need to get into the Fediverse, as we all did with ours. And since Meta already is a bad actor blocking them rideaway is the preemptiv move, before they get more data for analytics.
Again, there’s no need for a head-up, even for bigger instances, since they just need to make the server federate and be done with it.
@stux There can be a lot of benefits from Meta doing this. First, they’ll likely contribute code back to the community that will benefit the project overall. Second, having a company the size of Meta embrace open protocols is a huge step in the right direction for the future of the web
@stux Thank you for this. It's really frustrating to see the number of instances pre-emptively blocking an instance that represents a potentially huge moment for the Fediverse. A wait and see approach is totally reasonable and leaves room to act if Meta does anything that hurts your users.
@stux Thank you. I really don't understand the fear that they will take over. I don't think it's possible. That's the point of a federated protocol. If people are afraid, then they don't understand federation. And If they do understand and have legitimate fears, then maybe mastodon/lemmy/kbin are flawed and need to be truly federated.
My point is that I don't think there's much to worry about.
@stux looking forward to the "#fediverse causes genocide" headlines soon after because everything the #fuckingcapitalists touch leads to death and disaster. Would be nice to be wrong though.
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