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@panos@calckey.social on the Fediverse & Meta's Threads (calckey.social)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by kalanggam@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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For those who don't want to click through, this is the content of the post:

There is another reason I find the discussion about blocking #Meta's #ActivityPub project #Threads interesting:

I've been saying for a while now that the #Fediverse is a new and different beast, and whoever tries to understand it simply as a direct social media replacement misses the whole picture. We're also federated communities, just as much.

Today we see a lot of concern about "what will the #Fediverse do" with #Meta. Wanna know what we will do? Everything and nothing. Because the Fediverse is not one entity. This is the essence of its decentralized nature - and that's cool. If your server intends to block Meta servers completely - cool. If not, cool again.

But if you expect a unified response on something like that, you're in for a disappointment.

This is not a "schism", a "problem", something to "solve". This is just decentralization in practice. We don't need to have the same blocklists, and that's ok. Open protocols are not something you can control, so chill. When the time comes for this subject, choose a server with a policy that you agree with. But if you're worried that we won't all have one unified stance... are you sure you actually like #decentralization?

Edit: It looks like the post got copied by Lemmy anyway, but I'll leave it for now just in case it doesn't show up on Mlem or Jerboa (or if it gets deleted)

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[–] polygon@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Sure, but you can't get investors interested in a bot. You can sell them a platform though. Meta will make the flashiest UI the fediverse has ever seen and sell that to investors, while harvesting and selling everything on the fediverse whether you use their platform or not. The only possible way to keep your data out of Meta's hands is to defederate anyone and everything associated with them. I know it sounds tinfoil hat, but honestly evaluate how Facebook does business and then imagine how ripe ActivityPub is for that sort of exploitation. If I used Facebook I have agreed to allow myself to be data mined, but if I use kbin I have not agreed, and yet, Meta can still do it if even one mutual server has agreed (been paid) to federate to both platforms.

[–] Kaldo@kbin.social 0 points 1 year ago

Ah, I thought you meant more as in selling user data for ML training purposes or advertising.

Meta can still do it if even one mutual server has agreed (been paid) to federate to both platforms.

I dunno, maybe I'm too pessimistic but I don't see a way this ever works out in our favor, there will always be someone who doesn't care and just wants all the content. Just look at people being unable to get off reddit or twitter right now. When faced with a choice between sticking with 10% of the fediverse blocking meta, or 90% federating with them (since meta is probably going to be huge just by merit of being backed by billions of dollars), all their friends and companies and communities being on meta sites, there is no way they will choose to isolate themselves. It's how sites like reddit gained a monopoly in the first place, people just look for convenience and everything being in one place.