Those who advocate for the surrender of the fediverse to the Zuckerberg surveillance entity have been busy mischaracterizing adherents of the FediPact alliance in various ways. More needs to be said about this, but for the moment, let's unpack one of their more persistent slurs, the claim that we are "gatekeeping".
The term itself is one they have inherited from Silicon Valley crypto-fascist propertarians who, themselves, have seized power by overseeing the construction of a number of rigidly gatekept "walled gardens"; and the corporation they are so eager to collaborate with and invite in to colonize the fediverse is one of the most draconian of those gatekeepers.
But why accept this metaphorical territory on which to battle? Beyond the "walled gardens" and "marketplace of ideas" of neoliberalism, anarchist thought provides an alternative lens for viewing the predicament - the ZAD.
Within the Zone To Defend - the acronym derives from the French equivalent - there is safety, autonomy, solidarity, and yes, real freedom - freedom to express and freedom from the poisoned expressions of those who seek to weaponize speech to declare others inferior, excluded, and unworthy of existence.
However, as often when ideal meets reality, a contradiction is encountered. The presence of a "zone" infers the dialectical presence of space which is not the zone. Ultimately, our autonomous zone is one we would like to see grow to be boundless, which would be the fulfillment of its natural condition.
But provisionally at least, our zone is situated in the world as it currently is; a world in which we are surrounded by enemies on all sides. We do not ourselves choose the boundaries, but we acknowledge them, as we must. Unhappily, the Zone To Defend is bounded, and at the boundaries, we make our stand.
The defense of the zone is necessary, not just to guard the terrain, but more importantly, to defend the souls who have taken refuge and find community within it. This is a conviction the Meta collaborators don't appear to be able to grasp. They hunker down in the topography of protocols and MAU analytics, unable to catch sight of the actual people nestled in its hills and valleys.
In fact, the boundaries of the ZAD are not calculated, but rather emerge spontaneously from the defensive needs of those within. Their struggles, traumas, defeats and victories form the positions, shapes and composition of the barricades. Those who point this out are sneered at; as in, for example, the recent blog post of a prominent mega-instance admin and pro-Meta activist, who rolled his eyes at the "almost religious overtones" of our argument. Speak of people rather than protocols, and one will be waved off as a woo-dazed fanatic.
The communards of the Zone To Defend don't want to live in a bounded world, but they have to. And certainly, there is no interest in swinging open the gate now, as they observe the approach of perhaps the most dangerous of enemies - a totalitarian empire which has claimed its power by enabling and profiting from exactly those elements and forces which the ZAD exists to shelter them against.
Sorry Zuckerbros, but we will be keeping our gates.
Fediverse friends @alexis and @jo have documented the presence of vile fascist kill-list compiler accounts Moms for Liberty, Libs of Tiktok, Gays Against Groomers and PragerU on Threads. In the attached screenshot, Jo is dogpiled for harassment.
There will be many, many more like them. These accounts won't be banned from Threads, because they produce engagement. And engagement - of any kind, the more negative the better - is all the psychopaths who run Meta care about.
Now we see exactly what we're being pulled into. Facebook hasn't launched a big Mastodon. Instead, the fediverse instances that federate with it will become little Facebooks