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this post was submitted on 20 Jun 2023
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Fediverse
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This magazine is dedicated to discussions on the federated social networking ecosystem, which includes decentralized and open-source social media platforms. Whether you are a user, developer, or simply interested in the concept of decentralized social media, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on topics such as the benefits and challenges of decentralized social media, new and existing federated platforms, and more. From the latest developments and trends to ethical considerations and the future of federated social media, this category covers a wide range of topics related to the Fediverse.
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I won't claim to defend Meta, but wouldn't at least give them the benefit of the doubt until there's details of the project a saner approach? We literally know nothing about it except it's in the works.
Give Meta an inch they’ll take a mile. No quarter. No wait and see. No half measures. We don’t literally know nothing; we know Meta is involved. That’s enough for me to say no.
They’ll follow the Microsoft route, pretending to be for open standards, then extending the standard for only their apps and sites, and with sheer numbers and money they’ll grab a bunch of users who will come to expect the features and implementations they provide and then bam. No more fediverse.
Not. One. Inch.
Well yeah, but there isn't any indication that they're modifying the standard at all. ActivityPub is still it's own thing that they will be presumably tapping into, what I get from the current info is they are just creating a kbin/Mastodon competitor which should be its own thing entirely.
There is an indication they are Meta.
Any other info is superfluous. Their being Meta is an adequate reason to preemptively shun them.
I understand and share the negative sentiment towards them, but again, what it looks like they're working on is a product that will connect to the Fediverse, it will not modify the ActivityPub protocol which is used for the open communication. From what I understand, any shenanigans they try to run would be limited to their instance, while we benefit from the added content they could provide.
I'm not saying let's welcome them with open arms, I'm just saying it would be good to wait until we know anything about the product before we rush any decision, in the name of growing the Fediverse.
They could well try to pull the classic "embrace, extend, extinguish" move. Appear to embrace an open standard, then start writing proprietary extensions for it, and then use their clout to get everyone to stay on their network and abandon the open source version (because everyone's on Meta's network)
Perhaps then we should all federate with Gab and Truth and whatever instance DeSantis ends up spinning up to organize his brownshirts?
...in the name of growing the Fediverse, of course.
If—as I believe you do—you disagree with that proposition, then perhaps you hold there are certain standards of behavior which once seen do not necessitate further waiting. I would question if that is indeed the case why you seemingly do not believe Meta has already crossed that line.
I understand your desire for "success", "acceptance". "More potential friends" on our these frothy FOSSy seas. I do. I get that.
You are not wrong to want more people to join up.
Letting in Meta is not how you do that.
If you had a house party, and you wanted it "more bumpin' " you might think the obvious answer is "More people = good so let in anyone who's willing to attend."
It is not.
Certain people—and specifically I'm thinking of Artie the Arsonist—need to be prevented from attending.
Not only should Artie and his shloshing gas can (which in fairness he has promised not to use) be turned away at the door, some of your trusted friends with guns should be stationed at either end of the street keeping Artie from coming anywhere near your party.
There should be a big giant, "ARTIES NOT ALLOWED" banner reassuring your guests (and future potential guests) that in addition to sweet tunes and chips, another reason to attend this party specifically is that they won't be burned as they have been so many times by Artie and his friends.
Meta wanting in is not a sign of FOSS success.
We do not gain anything as the "not twitter"s, "not facebook"s of the world by allowing ourselves to be co-opted back into the sinking systems we escaped.
This is an attack, and the very idea of waiting and seeing by itself is damaging to FOSS—the main selling point of which thus far has been an Artie-absent space. Even considering letting him get close enough to sniff because "...maybe he won't reek of gas" is offputting to many and damages the most valuable asset the fediverse has: having nothing to do with Those Fuckos Over There.
Assent of what FOSS is doing by the brokers/shakers it was designed in opposition to cannot change FOSS's value because THEY do not determine that.
The people who would sell your eyeballs out your skull and plant He Gets Us chips into your brain need you. You do not need them.
What I'm saying is...
Heghlu'meh QaQ dajaj!
Qapla'!
You're comparing two different things though. Of course I do not want to federate with Gab or Truth, however that is because I do not want to federate with their users. You are saying we should not federate with Meta, but because of their admins, not their users.
Should we not federate with lemmy.ml because their admins are pro Russia? Or is there value in the interactions we can have with their users?
Is there not a tiny possibility that the users Meta brings have a net positive effect over the admins in their instance? As I said, we still don't know since we have literally no info about this product. You might be right in saying they will bring over hate speech and such, but I do not think every Booky McBookface will find their way to the Fediverse, and if they do THEN we can take a decision on federating with them or not.
That is flagrantly untrue. We know it is being made by Meta.
Not only is interacting with Meta qua interacting with Meta a harm to people who do it, a "wait and see" approach grants legitimacy to a known bad actor.
Are you of the opinion there is not a tiny possibility the heat given off by a fox might make the chickens in a hen house warmer?
You should still not even consider risking the death of all (or any) of your chickens.
Is there not a tiny possibility a tumor might make somebody's tits look bigger?
You still try to prevent people rubbing cobalt on your chest.
No. There is not. 0% chance.
They don't have to modify Activity Pub directly to cause chaos. The likely order of events that everyone is worried about it the 3E's.
From wikipedia's entry:
Give meta the benefit of the doubt? Are you joking? We literally know exactly how awful they are in every area they touch.
Exactly, I'm sorry Mr Jabroni, but I gotta agree here. They have burned every ounce of goodwill long ago. Don't give them an inch.
I avoid their services like the plague, but not everything Facebook does is inherently evil. For instance, they did zstd, React, and Ent (I'm not a dev, so I may be wrong about the last two being good, but React at least seems to be very popular). They're also in the top 10 of employers contributing to the Linux kernel from 5.16 to 6.1.
I know they're the worst of capitalism and break any law or agreement they can possibly get away with and many they cannot, but shouldn't we at least give them a chance
Fucking rubes.
I have the feeling they're planning to embrace, expand and extinguish. I wouldn't give them the benefit of the doubt after all they've done for years.
@Mr_Jabroni
Considering the well-known privacy violations and surveillance practices of Meta/Facebook, it's not hard to imagine that one of their future actions, possibly sooner rather than later, would involve cross-referencing accounts in the fediverse with their own platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp, Instagram, and others. In Mastodon, users have the option to block instances, ensuring that those instances cannot access their data. However, we don't even have that level of protection here.
@LollerCorleone
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe they can already do that since all of the info in the Fediverse is public, they do not need their product for it.
@Silejonu shared this link with the posture a Mastodon instance is taking, which is what makes the most sense to me: https://hub.fosstodon.org/facebook-fosstodon-fedi
@Mr_Jabroni they can get data without a context, what is a big problem for the integration. For instance, to coreference accounts in different platforms, they cannot do it based on the name, but they can do it building a graph of interactions and learning from it... just as an example. Of course everyone can do the same, the problem is that Meta has not only the skills and resources, but that it is a substantial part of their business model.
I don't claim that the Anti-Meta pact is a solution, I am far to know how is possible to go ahead with the situation. A first step is that the user should be allow to decide which instances cannot access her/his data, something that in Mastodon is already possible.
An additional problem is that after some representatives of big Mastodon servers took part in a meeting with Meta under NDA, I have a big problem of trust.
@LollerCorleone @Silejonu
There's nothing stopping them from setting up a stealth instance and doing this now, right? Who's to say any instance isn't already being run by Facebook for data mining?
Who's to say nazis aren't meeting in secret right now? You still punch them in their fashy faces when they try to hold rallies on the street.
There is a cost to being relegated to the shadows we should be eager to make them pay.
There is likewise a value to people seeing Meta shunned.
Just because, "they could do it anyway" doesn't mean we should resign ourselves to them doing it openly much less collaborate with their doing it.
No. Meta is a known bad actor. They have a history of not being good for protocols and communities. They are already guilty. Just not here yet. Preemptive banning is appropriate. There is no reason to give them the benefit of the doubt.
After they roll out their project, then it can be assessed to see how much harm, if any, it will bring. At that point let them in or not, as evidence dictates. It is entirely possible that they will be a good fedi citizen, if the reason for doing this isn't profit. And that is actually possible in this case. Because having some services that use Activity Pub is a way to get get certain regulators off their backs. I wouldn't hold my breath, but it is possible.
I want big money out of my community regardless of what their intentions are, which are probably not good anyway
No. We know how Facebook is and what their intentions are.
*meta
No. Facebook. For me it will always be Facebook (company, not platform).
"Meta" is nothing more than an attempt to clean their image.
This is actually a really good point. And extend their reach into any sector they deem profit worthy. Google/Alphabet did it too
Unfortunately Meta has proven itself to be untrustworthy. Over their entire lifespan they've shown through their actions, and their statements by the CEO time and time again, that their main objective is to make the most money possible by exploiting their user base by any means available.
They've long ago lost the credibility to be given the benefit of the doubt. They're terrible, they know it, and they like it that way.
You are appealing to reason, the people that are in favor of defederation are doing so based on emotion (because they simply can't have enough information, because no one has that right now).
I'm not saying either approach is inferior, sometimes it's better to use reason, sometimes it's better to use emotion, I don't know what is better in this case (there's a component of future prediction to it, how you can even do that properly, I don't know).
But I don't think appealing to reason works in this particular case. People that are willing to act on emotions aren't going to change that for rational reasons, they'll change it for emotional reasons. You'll have to give them emotional messages instead.
I think the people in favor of defederation are looking at how Meta has handled similar situations in the past, and inferring from past behavior how they are likely to act in the future.
No, they're in favor of defederation because they know Meta's history, and I suspect that you don't. Read up on Facebook and XMPP, then comment.
Consider that three common core values of the Fediverse, and open software in general, are a propensity towards transparency, privacy, and decentralization. Literally everything Meta stands for is in opposition to that, including their lackadaisical approach towards moderation. If you look at our value profile, Meta is a threat actor in that regard.
We aren't trying to find out what something new is going to do. A cancer that metastasizes in every host it's ever had is likely to keep doing so, you don't take a wait and see approach. You excise the malignance.
In this case, you surround it with walls until it dies on it's own.
I agree in general, although I really don't understand the “Fediverse is good for privacy” argument. This is a public forum. Everything I post here can be trivially scraped by anyone and everyone, including Meta. There is no privacy here because there is nothing private here.
Privacy vs Privacy. In this case I'm talking less about the accessibility of the information by masses and more about the acquisition of that data and the monetization thereof. I believe firmly in the right of the individual to control the relevant secure aspects of data (Confidentiality and Availability, integrity gets a back seat for a rare case). When an organization takes that data and utilizes it, it's a breach of the desired confidentiality of the data. It doesn't matter if the data is read it matters who is doing so and for what purpose.
Something akin to a non-commercial open source license. I don't care much what individuals know my stuff, I do care what organizations know and do with it.
Amusingly enough, your assertion here is functionally identical to the one you're criticizing.
Your assertion is that it's not worth engaging with those who advocate for preemptive defederation because their fundamental nature makes it such that you cannot legitimately expect a positive outcome.
And that's EXACTLY the position that those in favor of preemptive defederation have taken regarding Meta.
Wait, are you saying there's a chance Meta isn't Meta?
Because I'm at least 99.9% sure of that information, and if accurate there is no need for any further information.
If you have reason to suspect that Meta somehow aren't themselves, but candy unicorns, please tell me. That kind of intel would be pertinent.