No matter where you stand in the discussion around Meta and the fediverse, please do remember to contribute to the running of your current fediverse instance, if you at all has the possibility (and if you for some reason do not think it is worthy of support, move somewhere that is).
Maybe it’s due to being autistic but I have no idea how others perceive me.
For three years of my life on the Fediverse, I pretty much just talked to myself and was content with that. I would say whatever and it wouldn’t matter because nobody was reading anything anyway.
When someone responded to one of my posts, it was usually spam. When it was actually someone real talking to me, it was like speaking to a unicorn.
Then one day, people started talking back. And what’s more they gave a damn about my opinions. For what reason, I don’t know. They just did.
Because some people talked to me, more people started talking to me. And everything started carrying more weight.
The moment I realized that I crossed the precipice of influence was when, one day, I typed some Unicode into a post.
This got lots of accessibility advocates angry. They were specifically angry because I was deemed an “influential” account. So I cut it out and haven’t posted any Unicode that way ever since.
Because of this, I have become more and more careful about what I post on this account. For example, I used to talk about my personal life. Things that I thought were innocuous upset people. One particular time, I said that my daughter and I listen to vinyl every day. That post got lots of blowback, and so I’ve stopped sharing stuff like that.
Sometimes people assign motivations where there is none. Recently, people have suddenly assumed I have something against #FediPact. This is not the case, and though I have not joined FediPact, I sympathize—and have even set up notmeta.social as a #Calckey server that pre-emptively defederates Meta.
Constantly, I get messages asking if I have something against this person or that service. And almost always, it’s never. If you think I do, talk to me directly, and I’m happy to iron out any misunderstandings.
In my actual life, I do my best to avoid conflict—to the point it annoys people. If I genuinely don’t like someone, I don’t argue with them. I make it impossible for them to contact me.
If you can contact me, it means that I probably like you.
although this is unlikely to substantially and directly impact us and is a more immediate concern for Mastodon and similar fediverse software, we've signed the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact as a matter of principle. that pact pledges the following:...
John Gruber describes the Anti-Meta Pact as "petty and deliberately insular" and suggests that the whole point of ActivityPub is to turn social networking into something more akin to email, which he describes as "truly open."1
Tristan Louis says "The anti-Meta #Fedipact can only achieve one thing: make sure that #ActivityPub loses to the Bluesky protocol."2
Dan Gillmor suggests that "preemptively blocking them -- and the people already using them -- from your instance guarantees less relevance for the fediverse."
Even acknowledging the limited sample, that over two thirds of users are prepared to move to be on an instance that defederates from Meta is significant.
#Facebook as a site doesn't meet the standards of the Mastodon Server Covenant, due to hosting bigoted material it regularly deems acceptable.
Assuming a low standard of moderation of any #ActivityPub / #Fediverse engagement, until proven otherwise is a choice that mods can make.
An instance you don't block is an instance that costs you money. Standards apply.
I have closed my public instance, finecity.social, binned my account there and moved back to mastodon.social. My bots will keep running on calckey.bloonface.com but I won't use that site for anything else any more.
I have fallen out of love with #Mastodon and #fedi in a big way, I don't intend to use it much any more. The past couple of weeks has crystallised that this isn't really a platform I like much.
@InayaShujaat The good news is that many here share that worry -- look at how many signers are on the #FediPact -- so there will be more than enough critical mass for a non-Meta alternative. Of course that doesn't address all the other issues we're talking about in the other thread but it creates the opportunity for a reset. I talk about that some in the "In Chaos there is Opportunity" section of https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/
I love the criticism about the #antimeta#fedipact, stating how #ActivityPub or the #Fediverse will fail, if we decide not to federate with #Meta. This is a big LIE. Remember to Gab? Gab was a fork of #Mastodon and because it was basically the home of hate speech, the whole Fediverse defederated with it. Did ActivityPub or the Fediverse fail? I don't think so.
We just don't want the evil to come destroy what we've already built up.
Any instance that goes along with such a thing will be lost to surveillance capitalism. I don’t care how large they are or who they are, any instance that becomes Meta’s bitch should be defederated immediately by all others. Let the largest few get swallowed up whole by Silicon Valley if they’re dumb enough to do it. The rest of us will rebuild.
@aral I've already moved, since the admin of my previous instance didn't appear to have an opinion as to what they'd do regarding Facebook. Whereas the instance I'm on now came out very clearly in favour of not federating with them as per the #FediPact
Actually effective strategies against #Meta to prevent an #EmbraceExtendExtinguish are difficult, but they start from asking "what will actually help here."
I maintain that preemptive #DefederateMeta is ineffective for this and that defederating from those who won't defederate from meta does more harm than good.
But what will help is thinking about the roadmap and getting there first. What will help is building a robust and thriving community around #ActivityPub and other fediverse protocols.
Here's an excerpt from "Why the Anti-Meta #FediPact is good strategy for people who want the #fediverse to be an alternative to surveillance capitalism"
You've made some very good points about the limits of a defederate-only strategy, and other tactics that are also useful, but dismissing defederation from #Meta as ineffective (or performative, as you did in another post) isn't helpful.
You make some strong arguments here. It's great to see you laying out your reasoning in detail and with passion. :heart: That's the spirit.
What I have learned, however, is that Meta will only federate with select larger instances from the beginning. There will be contracts which also provide for financial compensation for the instance owners. Meta positions itself as a "savior", because especially the big instances have a very strong financial pressure. Users take it for granted that someone else is paying for everything.
In these contracts, Meta also specifies the rules regarding the moderation. Instances will have the option of allowing ads from Meta or not (with the benefit of additional compensation).
Smaller instances will have the possibility to register for a federation with Meta in a second step, but there will be no financial compensation and Meta decides if they will grant access based on their reputation.
In summary, there will be instances with the "plus Facebook" feature and those that do not belong to the illustrious circle. No #FediPact will be able to change that (btw. these are the same people that will silence and defederate from you if you don't play by "their" rules).
At the turn of the year there was a proposal from @freemo, where he proposed the creation of a "United Federation of Instances" (https://ufoi.org - ssl cert is expired). However, people associated the idea with one person and made fun of it because of his "reputation". If we had such a foundation today we would be in a much stronger position against Meta. It is the human condition not to be able to think outside our own bias.
Whatever Meta will do, the Fediverse will not go down because of Meta's decisions but because of the actions of its admins and users. When I follow the daily arguments on #MastoAdmin or (#)Fediblock, I quickly realize where the journey is headed. Silcening and public shaming instead of mutual respect and cooperaton is the motto.
What worries me about the #FediPact is that those joining might be pressured to defederate from every server that did not sign the Pact, as data from Meta-blocking instances that goes through Meta-neutral servers might be exfiltrated to them anyways. And that would lead to a major balkanization of the #Fediverse, potentially splitting it in roughly two halves. Either scenario would be great for Meta: one half might be functionally absorbed by corporate, while the other half becomes its own echo chamber that slowly but surely dwindles in numbers. The privacy aware servers end up being functionally non-federating any longer, and to be fair many users would rather have it that way as their own carved safe space on the Internet, but barely anyone will even care about it existing and thus financial support will most likely suffer.
@pieselpriemel We have to wait and see. The #FediPact signers are currently a minority, willing to take an oath of hermitage. Which is precisely why I expect the movement to eventually fail unfortunately.
@Shachihoko You're far from the only one! That's one of the reasons hundreds of instances have already signed up for the #FediPact.
@alexeheath at most it means that #Meta's racist anti-LGBTQIAS+ content moderatrion policies will be standard for instances that work with them. Many won't. I agree it'll be interesting but don't oversimplfy the dynamics. "Should the fediverse welcome surveillance capitalism? Opinions differ!" has more
All this conversation about #Meta on #Fedi feels like the worst parts of geek culture. So technical, without understanding context or what strikes can actually do. My thoughts:
Meta will make a great app for Fedi because it has more money to throw at the task. People will start using that because it's better. It will have QTs and an algorithm. People they want to follow will be there.
@loshmi here's how I worked it in. The first one's in the section on "The case for 'trust but verify'", the second one's in "Why the Anti-Meta #FediPact is good strategy"
So if you look at it from the perspective of wanting to create a fediverse – or at least a region of the fediverse – that's free of surveillance capitalism, the #FediPact is a great strategy on many levels: It's a good first step in organizing a broad "Meta-free" zone in the fediverse. As Miloš Jovanović says, it's a "virtual picket" that can "stake a claim and build a common consciousness."
@protecttruth Here's a round up of perpsectives on #Meta, including a section on why the Anti-Meta #FediPact is a good strategy. Also there's a footnote with some thoughts about to Gruber's earlier posts, I haven't seen the latest one yet.
non-stickied PSA: Beehaw has signed the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact
although this is unlikely to substantially and directly impact us and is a more immediate concern for Mastodon and similar fediverse software, we've signed the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact as a matter of principle. that pact pledges the following:...