#ActivityPub, which is like the "language" that makes the #Fediverse work, doesn't have special rules to keep things private. It's more focused on helping different parts of the Fediverse talk to each other. ActivityPub doesn't have special rules to keep your messages private, so we need to be careful about what we share and who can hear us.
Imagine you have a sandcastle on the beach, and you want to keep it just for yourself and your friends. But sometimes, there are sneaky seagulls that come along and try to take your sandcastle when you're not looking. Even if you build a strong wall around your sandcastle (like ActivityPub), these sneaky seagulls (called scrapers) can still fly over the wall and take your sandcastle away. So, it's important to be careful with what you share, even if there are walls to protect your things.
And defederation doesn’t necessarily make your posts private either. You might think because you built another wall for your sandcastle that it will be safe. But sneaky seagulls can still fly over to your wall and see your sandcastle, even if you’ve created a barrier to entry (defederation) that you believe keeps them away.
So, just building a wall doesn't always keep your sandcastle (or your privacy) completely safe from the seagulls (or people who want to see your things). They have wings. They can fly over it.
Now, there's a seagull called Meta, and it's flying around, watching everything that's happening on the beach. Meta is like a company that wants to know what people are doing and talking about.
Now, when you're building your sandcastle, you can invite your friends to play with you. You all have a special way of talking to each other, using shells and rocks. This is like the Fediverse, a big group of people using different social media platforms that can talk to each other.
But here's the tricky part. Meta, the seagull, has created its own special sandcastle. It looks just like your sandcastle, but it's actually different. It has little hidden cameras inside it, so when people play near that sandcastle, Meta can watch and listen to everything they do. Meta's sandcastle represents their ActivityPub-enabled #Threads server, which is a technology they may use to track people's activities.
Now, you might think you can keep your sandcastle private by not playing near Meta's sandcastle. So you and your friends decide to go to a different part of the beach, far away from Meta. But here's the thing: Meta's seagull eyes can still see you, no matter where you go on the beach. It can fly up high in the sky and look down at everything happening on the beach, even if you're not near Meta's sandcastle anymore.
Similarly, Meta can still track your activities on the Fediverse, even if you decide to defederate from Meta's ActivityPub-enabled servers. They have other ways to collect information, just like the seagull can fly around and watch from a distance.
So, even if you try to protect your privacy by avoiding Meta's sandcastle, they can still see what you're doing because they have other methods of tracking you. That's why it's important to be aware of how your information is being collected and shared, and to make informed choices about what you share on the Fediverse.
So after wading into the debate yesterday based on an article written by @ploum (and posted by @dangillmor), and the larger #fedipact controversy, I decided to share a slightly more coherent version of my thoughts. I still think unnecessary #gatekeeping and preemptive #bans suck and will cause a helluva lot more damage to the protocol than Meta likely will, but as always, hope others who differ in their thoughts will engage in some healthy debate, and not just resort to calling me a troll for having a different opinion than them.
@onepict@privacat@ploum Great post! Yeah, I personally think people should choose what’s best for them.
I run 5 solo instances (well, 3 actually as the other two are blogs), & I do not intend to block #Threads (or whatever #Meta or #Instagram calls it) when it launches.
I am wondering is if people will end up blocking instances who do not block Threads. I think that is what people in the #Fediverse are worried about right now.
@onepict@privacat@ploum@nebulos Actually it is more or less just politics. Tech is merely a tool to create change. Politics are ideologies expressed publicly.
Communication is our superpower. This account will boost and report on reasoned discourse on all sides of #Meta#P92#Threads discussion. No position is taken at this time other than support for open social media and opposition to corporate domination of the Fediverse.
I piss off people who pander to #Meta and believe every server on the Fediverse should federate with #P92 (a.k.a., #Threads) since, you know, notmeta.social won’t be doing that.
And I piss off the HOA of the Fediverse by suggesting we should have lobby servers that help Meta users migrate off of Meta.
But it’s fine if some people get upset. Not everyone will be happy in this situation.
Honestly? #Mastodon really loves talking about Mastodon and it's underwhelming in a way that it makes you question why you are even there in the first place.
What does this place offer me other than connecting with complete strangers who happen to have used the same hashtags as me? It feels... pointless.
I was very keen on embracing this platform, I adore the idea of the #Fediverse but it's been a very lonely and frustrating experience because, I'll be straight:
I set up my own instance in anticipation of #Threads, so that I could free my social graph from #Meta. This was my whole strategy. "Why would you want to do that?" you may ask. Well, I actually know people in real life who also use the internet and I want to connect with them. That's the whole point of all of this!
About the question of "Meta forcing their moderation rules" onto the fediverse. (which would imply no NSFW). This is not an argument to defederate from them prehentively.
(this is speculation we DO NOT KNOW what meta is planning)
My advice would be: DO NOT change your moderation rules. If meta cannot block posts that are explicitly marked as NSFW that’s THEIR fault.
And if they block you, let them block you. It tells a VERY different story to the press and observers if Meta blocks half of the fediverse because of NSFW content VS Half of the fediverse blocking Meta for no apparent reasons. (I now your reasons, but the journalists don’t)
Never stop posting NSFW. That’s one of the things that make us better than scared-of-a-single-nipple-on-artistic-photography instagram.
Imagine the story from the viewpoint of instagram users: "So you mean that there is NSFW stuff out there and meta is blocking it from me? Then I can just create a mastodon account and enjoy NSFW stuff there". VS "what a bunch of unwelcoming folks blocking Threads before it even launch"
People always tell you that evil turns upon itself.
That always seemed like some Disney movie shit.
Ever since my father went to war in Iraq in 1991 and I didn't know if I'd ever see him again for nine months--where my Mom physically wasted away in stress and grief--let's just say I take war very personally.
To me, the children of soldiers aren't invisible. The crying spouses as they leave aren't just good theater.
They are me.
They were my family.
So anyone that would voluntarily start a war of aggression, earns my greatest contempt.
(And yes, that includes my own country, and why George W. Bush gets to live out his live making paintings instead of apologizing for the rest of his miserable life to all the war orphans--but I digress)
@oliphant my 13 year old and I just watched #Threads and I had to explain a lot to him (I'm 57), so, yeah, I feel you and #gwb can asolutely burn in hell for his war mongering existence.
@alexeheath Very interesting. This will raise more concerns in the #Fediverse. #Threads will initially only import posts but it won't let anything out — that's hardly "federating". They just equipped the thing with an #ActivityPub ingester, that's it. Thanks for the detailed reporting!
Also, from what I read Threads (assuming Facebook calls it that) will be decentralized, as in other companies will be able to install the software upon their own servers. The only requirement is an Instagram login account (I do not think the software will be open source).
This is one of the reasons why blocking will be futile in the long run. It’s why I believe engaging with people on Threads & convincing them to join the greater Fediverse is a better long term strategy.
I plan on using this opportunity to convince many of my friends & family to consider options like Misskey & Pixelfed (Mastodon too, but some have tried that & were not happy—I will reintroduce Mastodon to them again).
I believe the reason most large instances will not block is that their community will not be thrilled that they can not communicate with their relatives on Threads. Most people have great relations with their family & many in the Fediverse (myself included) are on big social platforms because our friends & family are on there.
But in the end we will have to wait & see when Instagram launches Threads.
This blog post by Ploum, who was part of the original XMPP efforts long ago, describes how Google killed one great federated service, which shows why the Fediverse must not give Meta the chance
@jherazob I care more about the effects than intent in this case.
#Meta's #Threads / #Barcelona / #Project92 doesn't have the ability to do anything actually negative to the #Fediverse except potentially overload small instances with a flood of traffic.
I don't get the fearmongering; lots of talk about "breaking the #Fediverse" coming from people who aren't really doing a good job of articulating how exactly a new #Fediverse software--because that's all this is at the end of the day--will break an entire network of software that already works with each other.
> Lemmy is small so it gets more feature requests than it can code up.
Why? From who? Are a lot of #Meta users who are on #Project92 / #Barcelona / #Threadsreally going to be submitting feature requests for a software that they don't use?
> Meta comes in and looks at the most requested feature that’s been put on lemmy's backlog. Let’s say it’s some mod tool. Maybe even AI mod tool that sorts comments based on sentiment analysis.
What are the chances that this is something so significant that people would be willing to switch software over it?
> use lemmy and face flood of trolls in their communities
Where are these users coming from? This is already a problem on the #Fediverse, and we already know how to deal with it.
This scenario you're pitching seems wildly implausible.
That said, the good thing about Meta joining the #Fediverse is that it might inspire other major players (#Facebook, #Instagram, #Youtube, #Tiktok, maybe #Twitter) to join (albeit partially—as in allow people to follow accounts but not interact).
I was hesitant to add anything to all the Meta talk because honestly this place is just people complaining about Twitter and complaining about Meta
BUT I have one important thing to add that no-one seems to be saying?
If your instance decides not to block Meta straight away, ** you are free to block Meta’s instance yourself, so you can stay where you are and Meta won’t ever bother you **
Do people not know this? Why all the harassing of instance owners when the power is in your hands?!
I've read that some users are vowing to leave the #Fediverse because they are on a server that has agreed to federate with #Meta's #Threads app, or they're on a server that has not made their position clear on whether they'll federate with Meta.
I'd recommend reading https://fedipact.online to find 418 servers that have pledged to block Meta you can migrate to, though not all are open for registration. Among the biggest are pixelfed.social, mastodon.nl, mastodon.art, pixelfed.de, and others!
How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) (ploum.net)
This blog post by Ploum, who was part of the original XMPP efforts long ago, describes how Google killed one great federated service, which shows why the Fediverse must not give Meta the chance