Meta's Twitter Alternative Will Probably Be Called 'Threads'

cendawanita, 11 months ago

ruminating about what is the fediverse

the two philosophies: instances as nodes or instances as networks

https://merveilles.town/@lrhodes/110555014534253768
One you could call Just Nodes: Instances are just how you connect to the larger network, and how they're run matters for sustainability but not much else.

The other is Networked Communities: Instances are valuable for the relations and interactions they facilitate locally AND for their ability to connect you to other parts of the network.

fedi isn't really decentralized

https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110570546668916348
Since I have my own instance, surely I decide who I follow and anyone can follow me, right?

Wrong.

For ~1M accounts, Eugen decides. If he blocks my instance, a large number of people who follow me today will no longer be able to.

So I may as well be on his server.

jabgoe2089, 11 months ago

really .. if you do not like the way these fictitious problems are handled by mastodon, why do you use it then?

cendawanita, 11 months ago

@jabgoe2089 well, who said I'm on mastodon? :) Tech journalism not getting their facts straight on fediverse software is definitely a them problem. But since you've already considered these problems fictional then you need not worry about my concern, as it will be surely fictional too.

cendawanita, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

the privacy angle and political implications

FB already builds shadow profiles even if you don't have an account: https://www.howtogeek.com/768652/what-are-facebook-shadow-profiles-and-should-you-be-worried/

Reminder that their standard policy is to encourage usage of your real life identity: https://universeodon.com/@siderea/110569254638518971

Implications of both points above, spelled out: https://cutie.city/@reina/110571228749515208

FB as a political agent of chaos in the Global South: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/dec/14/facebook-profits-rohingya-lives-courts-myanmar

Post that spells out this was possible through their EEE strategy of offering Facebook Basic in many markets: https://snowdin.town/objects/5447d3f9-de3b-45b7-a6ef-5001d3f766de (and further down the comments)

Not to mention they will cooperate with the authorities, even for things like finding justification to deny disability benefits: https://sakurajima.moe/@literalgrill/110568521169718225

Do you really want to trust a serial offender in antitrust regulations across more than one jurisdiction? https://toot.cat/@dredmorbius/110567869250237510 plus some fun technical thinking-out-loud: https://spookygirl.boo/notes/9g5qwi47m986fc7h

Also:

If you really have to meet a corporation, for the love of Montressor, DON'T SIGN THE NDA (or have it mutually binding

https://social.tchncs.de/@mxrn/110570248528708043
Picking some people as leaders (regardless whether they really are or not ) and giving them privileged access to information, platforms, resources is a standard adversarial tactic to break community organizing.

Put in organizing terms: If you're invited to the boss's office, de-brief afterwards. If you can't de-brief, don't go.

https://mas.to/@ncrav/110570328255954717
Sign an NDA with Meta and complain people are angry? With the same company that has had billions in GDPR fines?

So now we have a bunch of people suspecting their admins, because of course no one knows who was present probably due to the idiotic NDA.

Congratulations you have now helped meta spread the seeds of distrust on the platform just like they wanted, bet you're feeling so happy and smart about it.

Why are you signing NDAs with known bad actors? With a point about how small artists were eventually screwed by FB algorithm https://g33ks.coffee/@tiesselune/110569596742983089

cendawanita, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

Now I'm just posting takes that I vibe with. There are MANY but for this thread I'm picking what I feel is representative to the points that are being made repeatedly across fedi:

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish
https://sociale.network/@oblomov/110522409703366548 talks about why a preemptive block/ban/defed from a FBmeta enterprise is necessary:
1. it'll be huge and extremely poorly moderated;
2. it will be a #privacy nightmare, allowing Meta to extensively profile #Fediverse users with greater ease;
3. it will be used to #EEE the Fediverse in the same way their “support” for #RSS and #XMPP was used to wipe them out from the general consciousness with a rug-pull (my full thoughts on this:http://wok.oblomov.eu/tecnologia/credible-threat-1/)

(Oh! Found the post I lost: https://mstdn.social/@rysiek/110548129223290575)

On point no. 3, in addition to his post, some more references:
https://takebackourtech.org/xmpp-comeback/

He didn't mention email but he should: https://cfenollosa.com/blog/after-self-hosting-my-email-for-twenty-three-years-i-have-thrown-in-the-towel-the-oligopoly-has-won.html

cendawanita, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

I lost the chain that exactly talked about it but this is a good screenshot of an exchange sometime when I was sleeping: https://hachyderm.io/@scottgal/110570795228086973

TLDR the big instance mods (and not just Eugen representing Masto but also Dan for Pixelfed and possibly the Calckey(.social) guys gave a cautious optimism to FB/Meta being on the fediverse. The thread i lost was talking about this hypothetical meeting where NDAs are necessary and asking who attended, for real? ETA: Dan posted that he never took any meeting and he will not work with FBmeta https://mastodon.social/@dansup/110567561923047973

A post from Byron of Universeodon enters the fray (why? later), dated June 11 about attending a meeting with Meta this week: https://universeodon.com/@supernovae/110521648872299829

In response to this (here's the why) mastodon.art (who does have a reputation for being zealous with who they federate) announced a week-long silence (not a full defed but you don't see activity if you're not already following an account from that instance) followed by defederation: https://dotart.blog/dotart-blog/defederating-from-universeodon. Among reasons cited alongside this: instituting full-text search on their instance as well as having a growth mindset (that can be susceptible to FAANG overtures)

With immediate retaliation, the mod of mstdn.social, stux, offended on behalf of a pal, defederated from mastodon.art. please note the difference in behaviour, and the irresponsibility to his instance members. About 5 hours ago at the time of this post, they walked back on this decision: https://mstdn.social/@stux/110570709034574825 (this is a pretty well-liked mod. Mastodon.art's mod team otoh aren't as nearly as well-liked, owing to their defed habit. That stux couldn't get enough popular backing for their objectively foolish behaviour as well as as the desire to play wait-and-see with FB may be why for the reversal).

cendawanita, 11 months ago (edited 11 months ago)

These are the known instances for Project 92, codenamed Barcelona: https://beach.city/@vantablack/110568234213838195
via the account that will eventually moot the pact to block all Meta instances: https://fedipact.online/ - the current list of instances: https://fedidb.org/current-events/anti-meta-fedi-pact (dominated by microblogging and non-threadiverse instances for now)

If you're an admin, you might want to look into the Authorized Fetch settings on your server (this relates to how boosts travel the fediverse and the kind of metadata mining FB does): https://old.mermaid.town/@futzle/110567687244649351