@miah As a fellow Internet Old (I remember when this debate was about Microsoft's approach to email!) I've been thinking about this a lot too. It seems reasonable to assume that Meta/Tumblr/Medium etc will break compatibility in the 2-10 year timeframe, and that they'll dominate AP standards bodies leading to "OG Fedi" being marginalized and/or forking AP. What I don't see is the scenario where 10^6 (maybe?) people defederate from Meta and this somehow changes Meta's long-term behavior.
@aphyr I agree! Defederation is only one thing we should be doing. We also can't prevent corporations from 'buying out' those with seats on the standards body.
@aphyr Email is the other thing that is... 'almost' dead to us. It hasn't been completely captured, but the antispam systems we've built make it very difficult to gain entry to SMTP, to such a degree that we have a few corporations that dominate the email system.
@miah Agreed--I still run my own mail server. On the other hand we've been defederated from Meta/Twitter/et al for six years and 95% of my friends are still there: they cannot be convinced to leave for Fedi. Some have no idea alternatives exist, but others know exactly what's here and don't want to be part of it--in part because Fedi has a reputation for doing exactly what we're doing now, lol. We're perceived as eccentric, prone to drama, and exhausting... and that's not entirely wrong 🤣
@miah do people not recall the origin of the term, “Eternal September?”
Usenet users used to show up in September (getting access at school). Every year the quality of discourse would dip until a new set of users learned to behave. Private Internet users started showing up randomly, but that was a slow trickle, compared to the deluge that was America Online connecting to Usenet.
It. Never. Stopped.
@miah I'm not upset against people pushing back against Facebook/Meta, but I am upset at the attacks, conspiracy theories, and down right abusive behaviour some people are directing at people who are trying to build the fediverse up and doing the best they can.
You can push back at Meta without attacking Fediverse admins or developers who happened to be invited to hear what they're working on.
@thisismissem@miah sorry but I disagree. Going into an NDA meeting with the monsters who fucked the world needs spelling out every single time.
These people are either incredibly stupid (they aren’t) or something very bad is happening. It is reasonable - in fact demanded - that we say so now.
Coming on the back of the changes which point new joiners to mastodon.social and the instant defed’ing of admins pointing this out and you have a side to choose. Now. #Meta
@JimmyB@miah the thing is though that people are attacking folks just for saying that they were invited, not that they accepted, not that they signed an NDA, just for being invited.
Even with changes you may disagree with, harassment and abuse are never okay. Otherwise we're as bad as the platforms we claim to be better than.
@thisismissem@miah and we were being told this week to ‘wait and see’ by someone who apparently attended the NDA meeting. Same person who defed’d Mastodon.Art apparently.
I mean - if there is NDA discussion with #Meta I’m delighted. If there was no auto-pointing new joiners to Mastodon.social I’m delighted. If there was no defederarion without notice of mastodon.art I’m delighted.
Just saying that if those things are true then let’s call it out
@JimmyB you seem to only be seeing things after they've happened / not why they've happened. fwiw, I'm involved in multiple groups were server admins are present due to my work on trust & safety, and what we saw the other night was not okay.
Meta aside, the way people were acting the other night was not okay, and shouldn't be accepted. Things got way too hot.
@thisismissem I am a big supporter - including financially - of our admins. They do a great job unpaid and it is sometimes shit. I understand and am behind them.
And I am sure I didn’t see everything that happened on this.
I have every sympathy with a bit of heat tho. There has been dishonesty from the admin concerned. And there is exceptionally legitimate concern about NDA contact with #Meta.
We all invest time, some money, to making this work. Extreme sensitivity is legit.
@thisismissem@jdp23 I’m sure I didn’t (and I hate that stupid internet aggression) but I was 100% right about the apologetics for NDA chats with #Meta I think?
Did you follow the conversation there? It was very revealing… and then the other party was suddenly too busy and important to engage and I was just some pleb who could be dismissed.
Ok then… I’ll just keep funding the admins and shut my mouth then.
@JimmyB I very much agree that signing an NDA in this situation was not a good move and deserves criticism. I didn't follow all the conversation but certainly saw examples where admins suddenly got too busy to respond to valid questions.
On the other hand, things got hot enough that even people like Dan from Pixelfed -- who didn't sign the NDA or go to the meeting -- were getting a lot of abuse. So that's what I was reacting to. Apologies if it seemed otherwise!
@JimmyB I don't think that signing the NDAs was necessarily bad intent, it could easily have been people who weren't thinking about the implications and don't have good advisors who could say "whoa! red flag here!". That said there's a general problem that admins haven't been seeking input from members about what they should do -- this poll by @smallpatatas is very revealing! https://mstdn.patatas.ca/@smallpatatas/110533043724390295
@jdp23@JimmyB@smallpatatas
Seems not realizing the implications of signing the NDA is probably what happened. Mastodon system admins are amazing people and what they are accomplishing for little or no financial remuneration is astounding. But they are also not necessarily as experienced in business.
Years and years of cutthroat business speaking here. Never ever sign an NDA without expert advice from a very good attorney, and then don't do it. Period.
@mastodonmigration@jdp23@JimmyB@smallpatatas
The reasons why the NDAs are fatal is not just because they happened, it's because they destroy trust permanently. They may have just been about having a look at it and keeping quiet, or they may have been about a business deal. Maybe Meta is paying them. Maybe advertising or data collection is involved. We don't know, and we'll never know because there's no way to be sure what the NDA prevents them from communicating. Trust is gone and can't be recovered, exactly because of the NDA
Trust isn't all-or-nothing. They screwed up, and in at least some cases there was already a lack of trust. But it's recoverable. It wouldn't violate NDA to say "I really screwed up, I won't have any more NDA meetings, and I won't do any deals with them before consulting with instance members first."
@jdp23@mastodonmigration@JimmyB@smallpatatas
Which they haven't done, and show no signs of doing. Meanwhile, the federation has burned for days. Major defederations are occurring and friendships are ending. I did a post on this leadership failure.
@mastodonmigration@jdp23@ophiocephalic@smallpatatas yes. I think that’s true. And the passive-aggressive (from a safety expert apparently!) ‘what do you know, you weren’t there’ posts back at those of us who are concerned don’t alleviate that broken trust.
@JimmyB@mastodonmigration@jdp23@smallpatatas
Exactly as you say, the tone from them since the disclosure has made things infinitely worse. The silence worsens speculation and the "that settles it" tone angers those who might otherwise give the benefit of the doubt
Under 3 those precise things need to be reasonable for the purpose of the engagement.
And add: 6. You must be able to honestly answer whether you're under NDA, and whether a particular topic is in the scope of NDA that you're refraining from talking about because you're bound, vs ignorant about or voluntarily not commenting.
This is another reason why you really should never sign a contract (...and an NDA is a contract!) without a very good lawyer you trust looking at it first.
It’s an interesting question: I remain unconvinced in my jurisdiction that NDAs used like this are in fact, contractual. They lack the key element of consideration - payment - and therefore aren’t enforceable. End of employment NDAs can be different as they do include consideration
@JimmyB@jdp23@dalias@smallpatatas
You are probably right. The problem is that they can not afford to defend themselves against any claims, so it really doesn't matter whether the NDA is enforceable or not, they simply cannot risk violating its terms.
@jdp23 it’s difficult! I really do hate the abuse. It’s just unnecessary.
And the admins are unpaid! So they get a bigger cut of slack than they would otherwise. I have so much time for them. They do a job I can’t and value enormously.
Hopefully we can get some clarity about what is going on.
But also I think the view that any contact with #Meta other than to tell them to fuck off is just unacceptable.
@JimmyB@thisismissem For some context on the threats at least I saw, I saw multiple people suggesting to commit terror attacks and corporate espionage in general against Meta.
There were death threats sent to admins that people guessed could have attended / been invites, there were threats to kill family / pets and one individual was told they should go drink bleach.
I'm all for challenging people when you're concerned they're doing something wrong but a lot of people were out of line.
@wild1145@thisismissem oh - you’ve replied to me again here even tho you are busy today, the conversation is going nowhere, I’m not an instance admin (imagine conversing with someone of my lowly status!) and you are an online “safety expert”?
@thisismissem@miah I’m definitely not into harassment or ‘attacks’. I’ve seen neither personally.
But calling out attendance at an NDA meeting with Meta isn’t intrinsically either of those things. And the individual I saw being called did defed a large server of without notice (!) for calling it out. Seriously.
Are you sure your focus is on the right people here? After all Meta is toxic and the calls for us to ‘wait and see’ could hardly be more disgraceful.
@gotofritz exactly! Now we message each other through Facebook, insta, or sms. XMPP still exists but few use it as the federation failed soon after Google started doing XMPP..
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