tfardet

tfardet, 5 months ago

1. It's not about us

This one is both true and false, IMO.

Going for ActivityPub compatibility (broadly speaking) is definitely in the interest of Meta for two independent reasons:

• as a sign of goodwill towards regulators
• as a marketing strategy to steal people from its main competitors (X/Twitter and Bluesky)

In that sense, getting fedizen data is probably low on their agenda (I'll discuss this at the end).
However, I don't the choice of AP (rather than AT or nostr) is innocuous.

2/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

1. It's not totally about us (but it actually kind of is)

I believe another reason behind Meta's choice to go for AP is the nature of the Fediverse itself.

People at Meta are smart and don't make decisions lightly.
They decided going for AP was the best response to the existential threat (for them) of decentralized (and especially citizen-driven) social networks.

The truth is we are the weakest ecosystem against their standard strategies: multiple stakeholders, diverging interests, etc.

3/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

1. It is quite a bit about us

I think Meta has identified the Fediverse as the easiest prey for its "interoperability" move.

We are significantly under-prepared for dealing with their arrival on both technical and social fronts (though many people have done their best).
AP normalization is a work in progress at best and communities are as divided as they've ever been.

One hope I have comes from EU and state governments now having Mastodon instances, which might limit Meta's EEE game.

4/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

2. Thou shall not gatekeep!

There's an inherent problem with this framing, but we need to address the issue of cutting fedizen from people they may want to interact with (on threads.net).

First, let it be said that this is not gatekeeping. We're not merely talking about individuals, but about a behemoth with a well-known (and horrifying) track record.
It is perfectly reasonable for admin to feel they have a duty of protecting people on their instance from one of the web's worst actors.

5/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

Unfortunately, Masto and most of Fedi only provide crude ways of protecting people instance-wide. Two-way defederation (AKA suspension) of an instance is often the only way to prevent people's posts from ending up on Meta's servers by default.

Hopefully, some platforms will implement more fine-grained tools.
Maybe something based on the 1-way federation that Lemmy implements: people could follow others on threads.net but no data would be sent there unless the person explicitly requests it.

6/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

This brings me to the matter of enabling people to choose freely how they want to handle their data on Fedi.

I hope we can design systems were people can choose very precisely what threads.net can access and admin can set safe defaults without taking that choice away.

In the meantime, we need instances that block to protect their folks and other that enable their members to talk will people on threads.net, and both are compatible, so as for

3. block those who don't block...

please don't

7/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

3. Don't block instances federating with Meta

Unless I've really missed something (I don't think I have but correct me if it's the case), instances blocking Meta can use the authorized_fetch option to make sure that no content is sent to Meta even if they federate with instances that also federate with threads.net

So if your goal is to protect your people from Meta and your instance has that option, N+1 defederation is not necessary.

See e.g. https://hub.sunny.garden/2023/06/28/what-does-authorized_fetch-actually-do/ for Mastodon

8/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

This leads us to the last item is the following true?

4. Meta can already get our data!

Technically, they could scrape all public posts and profiles and (with more difficulty) unlisted posts. They cannot access followers-only posts if we don't federate with them.

Legally, they cannot do that for EU citizens, though, as they don't fulfill any of the 6 requirements to get what likely contains personal data.
Furthermore, it goes against many instances ToS.

So they could, but not legally.

9/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

4. Meta cannot legally get our data unless we federate

But if we do, then they can legally get all public posts and profiles (legitimate interest), plus all unlisted and followers-only posts as long as someone on threads.net is following the account, and any direct message to someone on threads.net, obviously.

That's quite a bit of a difference.
And it's probably data they don't have so much, given the local crowd, so it has value.

That's why it makes sense for admins to block Meta.

10/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

So please, don't say blocking Meta is nonsense, don't say it's gatekeeping. Don't harass or insult people who block, nor those who don't.

It does raise a lot of questions that we'll need to answer collectively.
We won't agree, but I don't see any technical for this to break the Fedi apart.

Ideally, I hope non-personal and official accounts will federate, as it will let people on threads.net see the alternatives (and maybe move over?)
But personal accounts that want it need safe spaces.

11/N

tfardet, 5 months ago

I've mentioned many issues, so let's end this thread with some proposals!

By order of importance:

1. Keep the officials on the non-corporate Fedi! We need them and their instances
2. (Fund/help) work on granular #federation so people can be protected by default and choose when they want something sent to threads.net
3. (Fund/help) work on what #Meta cannot provide: people-first tools to curate their feeds (e.g. customizable filters)

And to all those who already do, thank you, you're amazing!

tfardet, 5 months ago

I've mentioned many issues, so let's end this thread with some proposals!

By order of importance:

1. Keep the officials on the non-corporate Fedi! We need them and their instances
2. (Fund/help) work on granular #federation so people can be protected by default and choose when they want something sent to threads.net
3. (Fund/help) work on what #Meta cannot provide: people-first tools to curate their feeds (e.g. customizable filters)

And to all those who already do, thank you, you're amazing!

tfardet, 5 months ago

And as promised, here are other people's thoughts on the matter:

• https://reb00ted.org/tech/20231208-meta-threads-data-dialogue/
• https://merveilles.town/@lrhodes/111585317442029971
• https://about.scicomm.xyz/doku.php?id=blog:2023:0625_meta_on_the_fediverse_to_block_or_not_to_block
• https://mastodonapp.uk/@ArtBear/111597497339529973
• https://fedipact.online/why

Conclusion: I think Meta's move is well calculated, but not without dangers for them too, this could indeed be an opportunity for citizen social networks to shine, but it won't be easy and we need to ensure people who are at risk from Meta are indeed protected.

The end.

tfardet, 6 months ago

@jaztrophysicist @sundogplanets I'm not sure I'm convinced by

> a civilization's growth will cease—either because cosmic expansion is no longer viable or because it is no longer an imperative

I see cosmic expansion as an imperative for any civilization to survive planetary destruction in the long run (via its sun, an asteroid, a gamma burst...)

Avoiding burnout is necessary and requires accounting for planetary boundaries but I doubt it precludes a paced transition to cosmic expansion.

1/2

tfardet, 6 months ago

@jaztrophysicist @sundogplanets it makes it lightly that such civilizations would be hard to detect, though, because they would be more likely to be mindful of their environment and so would interact with it in less destructive ways that could prove hard to detect.

So it might explain the Fermi paradox, but I doubt it's because type III civilization would not occur.

2∕2

tfardet, 6 months ago

@jaztrophysicist @sundogplanets the thing is, supposing hypothesis H: we reach a level of technological advancement sufficient to protect ourselves from a gamma burst while powering our tech from the sun (is that even possible?), I'm pretty sure we'd easily manage interplanetary travel, so I find it extremely difficult to imagine that no single group of human would do it, given that it is possible.
And if H is impossible, I expect we would disseminate to protect ourselves from gamma bursts.

tfardet, 6 months ago

@jaztrophysicist @sundogplanets I'm not sure I follow: going for interstellar travel at our current socio-technological level is completely nonsensical, I agree, but I don't see why it would not be a reasonable possibility in a thousand year, provided we manage to regulate ourselves and not burn out.
Basically, take problems as they come: first avoid burning the planet, then worry about deflecting asteroids, then if you manage to do both at the same time, start thinking about gamma bursts.

tfardet, 6 months ago

@jaztrophysicist @sundogplanets I'm completely in line with that and I think not destroying your local environment while providing decent living conditions for everyone should always be the top priority.
However, as long as you manage to do that, I don't see what's preventing you to look at other issues. And once you're playing the long game, things like gamma bursts are no longer just a problem for tomorrow.
But again, definitely not now, Musk is a lunatic, and billionaires should not exist ;)

tfardet, 6 months ago

@jaztrophysicist @sundogplanets we'll have to agree to disagree, here.
I see "progress" as the ability to provide good living conditions for humans and that means improving our ability to deal with harmful natural events. I think in some domains, science has provided significant progress, and I do think further progress is possible while preserving a liveable planet if we manage to get out of capitalism and generalized exploitative "relationships".
At least physics does not seem to preclude it.

tfardet, 6 months ago

@jaztrophysicist @sundogplanets that's my point: for gamma bursts, the only solution I see at the moment is to move away from the blast zone, hence the need for space travel if you're playing the long game ;)
It may turn out to be impractical or fail for a variety of reasons, mind you, but I think it's one of the rare cases (the only one?) where trying to work out a technological solution (viable and fast enough space travel) is the only way to solve the problem.

tfardet, 6 months ago

@jaztrophysicist
Coyld you elaborate on what makes you say that?
AFAIK, viable (in the sense of "at least part of the people aboard reach the destination alive") space travel is not a physical impossibility, nor is the detection of a star that would generate a GRB in our direction early enough to move out of the radiation path, even at relatively low fractions of the speed of light, is it? (You're the astrophysicist, so correct me if I'm wrong)
@sundogplanets

tfardet, 6 months ago

@manlius from what I see there are 4 states : the naive/resting one in grey, a very brief blue state (exposed?) followed by a transition to an orange state (infectious?), then a green state (recovered?), going back to the initial naive (susceptible?) state.

So a SEIR-like model would be my guess.

tfardet, 7 months ago

@dynamic I've tried Firefish and have been unconvinced but it will probably appeal to many people as it provides quote posts and reactions, as well as rich text markup.

On my side, I'm eagerly waiting for @bonfire to develop, though I did not try it yet.

tfardet, 7 months ago

@dynamic there are great things about Firefish: they make migrating more complete and useful, with posts and cross-platform migration, which is amazing.
But the interface feels very in-your-face and messy to me (though I'm sure other people will like it a lot), with in-browser windows, etc.
Plus, it feelt like a very gamified experience, with reactions and boosts being very prominently displayed.
I'm glad a project beside Mastodon is getting traction, it's just not what I'm looking for.