We, the moderation and administration of tech.lgbt, are signing the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact in fellowship with our peer communities. (https://vantaa.black/pact)
There is over a decade of precedent that Facebook will not have users' best interests as their guiding principle but rather profit margins, if it joins the Fediverse.
We at tech.lgbt have long held the belief that corporation owned instances are a threat to the core of the Fediverse: freedom for users to be themselves and to be a part of their communities. The 2010s saw the loss of online freedom when the majority of the Web was consolidated into a few destinations, and Facebook entering here could lead us back to centralization. Furthermore, NDAs for server admins will constrain our sovereignty online by binding us legally from disrupting their business.
We are not products. We are people, and we do not welcome Facebook in this space.
@mods Isn't it a good thing that companies are getting into federation? I get choosing to block corporate instances if you don't want to be associated with it. But I'd rather have platforms all use a protocol that allows for cross-communication than vendor lock in on chat apps.
There's definitely the danger of them introducing features that won't be open sourced, but I feel like there should be pushback against that, but not against the first step to a company announcing federation. Where is anything related to the mentioned NDAs said?
Of course, fuck Meta and all huge corporate entities. But to me an internet where at least the big sites can federate with each other sounds a whole lot better than the walled gardens we've got right now. I see it as a small step in the right direction, it'll have downsides for now, but I feel it's a necessary step to bringing back the decentralised internet.
@DiaDemiEmi @mods There are already plenty of companies on Mastodon/the Fediverse.
I can recall Raspberry Pi, which even has their own Mastodon server, off the cuff, but I'm sure there are plenty of others.
The issue is... There are companies, and then there are companies that are SO huge and yield SO much power that them joining the federation would cause such an imbalance of power that they alone would be able to in essence take over the whole federation and effectively make it a single-entity federation (i.e., exactly what the Fediverse is trying to avoid).
Meta is one of those companies. As are Amazon, Google, Tencent, Microsoft, Twitter, etc..
Hence the need for this pact, IMO.
Though apparently with the biggest instance on the Fediverse potentially compromised, it might be a moot point already...
@nanianmichaels @mods I don't think it's feasible in the near future to achieve a fully decentralised internet. But I think this is at least a good step. If that platform is federated that at least means you have the choice to still contact people on it without using the platform.
It's like if Protonmail blocked all Gmail addresses. Sure that's an act of protest against the very centralised email. But at the end of the day it doesn't change anything, most people are going to use what's popular, whether that's good or not. No one is going to not use Meta's new app because some Mastodon instances decided to block federation.
All it does is block the instance off from a large amount of people that will use the app. I feel like that's not a positive thing. There will definitely be issues with a large corporate owned instance like that, but it's a step towards more corporate platforms being federated. And when everyone is federated, the opportunity for equal ground for every instance will arise again
@nanianmichaels @mods I just think instead of immediately promising to block it it's better to work around it. It's a fact it will federate, we should make the best of that to try to build the decentralised internet. In my opinion this just feels like putting your head in the sand and pretending outside influences don't exist. Blocking that potential instance won't solve the core problem of the internet being too centralised, it'll make it worse by alienating users.
You're free to disagree and maybe I'm too optimistic in this, but I think it's better to approach this with an open mind until definitive proof comes that this will cause damage to the fediverse, but I see this as a potentially good thing. If companies want to join the fediverse that means they see profit in it. That's not necessarily a bad thing, it could also mean that they notice how they can't forever keep up the walled gardens of their current platforms.
@DiaDemiEmi @nanianmichaels @mods I've been wondering why people on Meta's Threads will stay on that instance once they learn how #fediverse works. When you are on Instagram, you are shown ads every 3-4 posts and this should be the same on Threads. Why would anyone prefer to be on their instance if they can experience the fediverse free of ads?
@DiaDemiEmi @nanianmichaels @mods
From a @stux post, there appears to be some potential for funding from federation with extractive social networks. I could be misunderstanding. A non-extractive social network will need to respond to evolutionary forces to develop ecosystem services that allow it to thrive. If the extractive funding removes that evolutionary force and replaces it with a dependency for that funding, then the non-extractive social ecosystem won't develop beyond that dependency.
An example might be as I interpret from "Ministry for the Future". The non-extractive social network develops an ecosystem service that allows actors to opt-in for obtaining the value of their privacy and attention as a commodity that the actor gets the value for, instead of an extractive social network "owning" the actor's content and extracting the value.
The damage to the Fediverse would come from removal of evolutionary force for development of ecosystem services if funding comes from extractive networks.
@DiaDemiEmi @mods While I appreciate your optimism, and honestly hope I am wrong, do keep in mind that on one side we already are completely cut off from everyone using Meta products, so nothing will change on that part. The only real problem is what to do with the big instance, which would probably still be able to remain in the federation, which effectively would mean nothing would change.
And on the other hand, Meta has already shown time and time again they will ONLY act in a way that provides them growth, at the expense of everyone caught in their gravity field. Expecting otherwise is very likely to be wishful thinking.
So yeah, sadly we're going to agree to disagree on this one.
Again, though, I honestly hope you're right. Life probably has already made me too much of a pessimist.
@nanianmichaels @mods You're right and I think it's a matter of time before they do fuck it up. I just think doing so when it's still in the rumour phase is a bit early.
Like what message (if any) is being sent here? That we don't like corporations is clear, of course. But that's not gonna put any pressure on Meta. If instances start defederating when they make a mess of it then at least that shows there's something more specific that they could act on to resolve.
I'm probably being way too optimistic here yeah. But I do think that if companies see profit in this there's probably *something* there that might make my optimism a little warranted. But I could be dead wrong and this is a plot to disrupt the fediverse.
The fact that this isn't the first time it's said by a company leads me to believe it's more than just a plot and might be the result of market research or something telling them they need to respond to the many cases of social medias ruining their credibility.
But I'm probably wrong lol
@DiaDemiEmi @nanianmichaels @mods I think you're giving meta too much credit with your optimism. Giving large corporate entities the benefit of the doubt here requires not knowing how they operate. It's not a "plot" so much as an established strategy that's been used by giant corporations to consolidate and gain monopoly for decades. They get their foot in the door then run at a loss to make themselves the most attractive option while undermining the competition. It's how things get centralized