"Meta's fediverses", federating with Meta to allow communications, potentially using services from Meta such as automated moderation or ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta's behalf.
"free fediverses" that reject Meta – and surveillance capitalism more generally
The free fediverses have a lot of advantages over Meta and Meta's fediverses, some of which will be very hard to counter, and clearly have enough critical mass that they'll be just fine.
Here's a set of strategies for the free fediverses to provide a viable alternative to surveillance capitalism. They build on the strengths of today's fediverse at its best – including natural advantages the free fediverses have that Threads and Meta's fediverses will having a very hard time countering – but also are hopefully candid about weaknesses that need to be addressed. It's a long list, so I'll be spreading out over multiple posts; this post currently goes into detail on the first two.
Opposition to Meta and surveillance capitalism is an appealing position. Highlight it!
Focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety
Emphasize "networked communities"
Support concentric federations of instances and communities
Consider "transitively defederating" Meta's fediverses (as well as defederating Threads)
Consider working with people and instances in Meta's fediverses (and Bluesky, Dreamwidth, and other social networks) whose goals and values align with the free fediverses'
Build a sustainable ecosystem
Prepare for Meta's (and their allies') attempts to paint the free fediverses in a bad light
Reduce the dependency on Mastodon
Prioritize accessibility, which is a huge opportunity
Commit to anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and pro-LGBTQIA2S+ principles, policies, practices, and norms for the free fediverses
Thank you for the optimistic PoV on the entrance of others to the #DeSoc of the Fediverse. It is an optimism that I share - especially with Matthias' announcement just an hour ago that his team behind the development of the #WordPress ActivityPub plugin has just released version 2.0.0 - considering the enormous footprint of WordPress installations across the entire Internet belonging to both common, everyday individuals and companies alike, of every shape and size, this is HUGE news.
It instantly, overnight, positions common folks and businesses to leap into the freedoms afforded them by the existing, privacy respecting, #FOSS based Fediverse that hitherto was... well, a bit of a leap for them psychologically. But now they have a familiar platform with which to begin a journey through the minefields of the deprecated, privacy mining, monolithic silos; its proprietors programming their masses of #subjugated_chattel into livestock holding pens, where they are weighed, measured, packaged, placed into inventory, and sold.
That does raise the issue of an error in your assertions however. You mentioned, "instances in Meta's fediverses and on Bluesky".
The truth however, the reality, is that each are merely a single instance - One big monolithic silo, as described above, with the same incentives of monetization through privacy mining techniques that have made them the dreadnoughts that they are; at least in the case of #Meta (Threads).
Bluesky is of that vertically scaling market as well, but much smaller than the #Faceplant and #InstaSPAM engines operated by Meta, and now their new spearhead into the DeSoc space occupied by ActivityPub and other decentralized or federated protocol based, horizontally scaling instances.
#Bluesky hasn't actually shown their hand yet to the general public, but already, they've disenfranchised (fired) much of their talent; some, actually principal architects of their monolith who were frustrated and disillusioned with the direction Jay has been taking the company - moving further and further away from the disowned public community they spawned, organized, and abandoned following the initial trials and tests of the open source preview version of what became #ATP protocol (ATX).
Even Jack has moved on and embraced yet another horizontally scaling protocol in the DeSoc space, #nostr, and it's already bridged and interoperating flawlessly with the ActivityPub powered portion of the Fediverse, which in turn interoperates with instances running other protocols such as #Nomad, #OStatus, #Streams, #Diaspora, and #ZOT... all of them part of the Fediverse.
Many of the extant #ActivityPub powered instances in the Fediverse merely need to install these capabilities with a couple of clicks to enable this interoperability, while others bridge the divide through infrastructure developed and deployed over the past year or so.
What will be Meta's use case here for their business product?
That's the main question I think folks need to address - not punish the good people on the so-called evil side of the divide, the hitherto subjugated chattel that populate Marks so-called Metaverse or whatever he thinks he can compel people to adopt and endure. The point is, childish, domain level blocking by juvenile minds operating ActivityPub powered #Fediverse server instances only serves to paint themselves (and the users who have to date trusted those admins with being told what they can and cannot see and do) into a corner where they effectively cancel themselves, and find that their users have migrated to other spaces... maybe WordPress, where they truly control their own destiny in the DeSoc space and can now fully participate and engage with others - but on their own terms, not someone else's.
And that, I believe, is what the whole thing has always been about, going back as far as #AngelFire and #GeoCities :)
I do agree with you that we should indeed embrace these common, everyday individuals who, through their programmed ignorance, are mostly clueless as to exactly what the Fediverse is, and more importantly, has always promised for them. This is an opportunity, like Steve Austin, (the Six Million Dollar Man): "We can rebuild them, we have the technology, we can make them better, stronger, faster..."
One more thing I should correct you on, the Fediverse is an internetwork of networks, on the Internet - there are no fediverses, Fediverse is itself a plurality, but your intent wasn't lost on me.
Great article, I enjoyed the read and most of all, your optimistically tempered intent. Thanks for sharing and I hope to see much more from you in the future!
Wer Erfahrung mit #Diaspora hat + einen weiteren Account, der mit Lemmy föderiert, kann ja mal da antworten 👇 "Diaspora* - is it any good?"
♲ lemmy.ml/post/4494431
#BlackFriday#BlackMastofon#BlackTwitter#diaspora#MusicFromTheMotherland@blackmastodon
I've been on the road this week so haven't been able to jump on to much. Here's a quick link to Viviane Chidid, one of the pop Queens of Senegal, and sister-in-law to Youssou N'Dour. In the video she starts off in more village type attire with an elaborate headdress that looks fulani. It has coins and amber pieces embedded. She then moves to more modern attire. Enjoy. https://youtu.be/aIsaaSHhdXY Ed: sp
#diaspora-fr était hors ligne dû à un problème de paiement avec #kimsufi, le fournisseur du serveur. Le problème a été réglé et le service est à nouveau opérationnel. Désolé pour la gène.
Just a quick post today. In light of the news yesterday that Mdou Moctar aand. his band are stuck in the US because of the coup in Niger, I'm posting another song from them. I remember when the Malian artists got stuck all over the world and it makes my heart sick. Two links below: to video TALA TANNAM and second to his GoFundMe page. Help if you can. https://youtu.be/u51HJcN1Dp8 https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-mdou-moctar-while-they-cannot-return-home
"In the week that Ireland turns everything green and celebrates its diaspora, a new online archive has given voice to the human cost paid by generations of emigrants.
More than 7,000 letters from emigrants to North America spanning four centuries have been collected and digitised, giving poignant insight into the homesickness, tribulations, and occasional triumphs, of those who crossed the Atlantic."
ActivityPub was not invented in 2018, in fact it has a history of multiple protocol iterations since 2008 including OpenMicroBlogging and OStatus.
2010 another company named diaspora raised $200k to create another federated protocol. In 2018 #diaspora peaked at 1 Mio. users with 200 federated servers. Then the core dev decided to ignore #ActivityPub. That was the end.
Lets see how #Bluesky and #Nostr inventing the wheel again.
"14-Year-Old Named 'America's Top Young Scientist' For Inventing Soap That Treats Cancer"
Skin cancer is no joke.
Heman Bekele made this from compassion. "I was devastated by the idea of people having to choose between treatment and putting food on the table for their families. There are so many preventable deaths.”
The diversity of network and UX types across the fediverse/social web that my little Friendica server sees is astounding. This is just Diaspora and ActivityPub federated content since Bluesky is integrated through a client API not AT. #fediverse#SocialWeb#ActivityPub#diaspora#Bluesky#friendica
#BlackFriday#BlackMastodon#BlackTwitter#MusicFromTheMotherland#diaspora@BlackMastodon I've been to three East African countries in my travels, but unlike West Africa, I don’t know the music on the other side of the continent. I saw a documentary recently on Zanzibar and it featured a music called "Taarab," which was created in the 1880’s. It blends Omani, Indian, and African cultures together. Thought to be dying old as “old people’s” music, it seems to be making a comeback. ½
Hi, I'm Sean. 👋 I'm a long-time grizzled veteran of the #Fediverse. Fedi '08, I think? I was here when Identi.ca was a twinkle in Evan's eye. I did Community Management for #Diaspora, and now I spend my time writing and podcasting about the space.
Queer as a 3-dollar bill. I love making games, creating music, and singing karaoke. A suicide attempt survivor, I have fought a lifelong battle with depression and anxiety. I am still leaning to love myself.
Despite appearing Very Serious, humor is my lifeblood. I am constantly saying weird, funny things, twisting sentences and relentlessly pursuing goofy ideas.
"The Conference of European #Rabbis explained that Jewish communities in Europe were raising their level of preparedness given the history of #Iranian proxies attacking #Jewish targets around the world.
"We are closely monitoring the Iranian attack on #Israel and its implications for the security of #Jews in the #diaspora," said conference president Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt. 'We are in contact with all the leaders of the Jewish communities and security officials across the continent. I call on all Jews across Europe to remain vigilant in community institutions and to act responsibly in the public sphere."
#Introduction: Hello, I am #new here! I was on #Diaspora for quite a few years but it was a very small community. Mastodon seems larger and more dynamic.
I'm mainly here to chat about #RPG games. I have been playing #DnD since the #1980s, starting with Moldvay #Basic and Keep on the Borderlands. These days I am mostly playing #DCC, but also enjoy Call of #Cthulhu, Traveller and #OSR games.
Besides #RPGs, I like British comics, especially #2000AD and its spin-offs. And #cycling.
Ich finde es immer wieder bemerkenswert, wenn ein Fedi-Projekt, das keine nennenswerte Weiterentwicklung erfährt, noch immer auf wenigstens 97 Server mindestens 724.627 Accounts führt.
An Untold Past: Chinese in the Caribbean (youtu.be)
Interesting to see the Southeast Asian connection: as transit (Vietnam & Thailand), and of course like us, mainly from the south of China