So the new Instagram text thing is reported to have ActivityPub support and instead of being happy at all the new labor that could potentially be coming to the standard, Mastodon people are now actively encouraging instances to not federate with any of that stuff. K.
Look, instance admins can block whatever they want for any reason they want. It hurts your users but do you. And I'm not trying to argue that Facebook isn't a fucked up company. But actively working to discourage extremely skilled participants (and love them for hate them, FB engineers are VERY good) from contributing or associating with your open source protocol or community is just peak stupidity for people who claim in the same breath to want to remake and reset the social web.

@film_girl Facebook: *enables Trump, Rohingya genocide, etc.*

Mastodon admins: "Some of us would like to not associate with this company."

US tech media: "Won't someone think of the poor Facebook engineers!"

I fucking hate this timeline.

@thomholwerda so don't federate them if you want -- fine! But then don't bitch and moan that no one uses your protocol or services.

@film_girl I think the point that a lot of - especially Americans, for some reason - don't seem to get is that a lot of people would rather have a smaller social network but with fewer horrible people than a bigger social network but with way more horrible people.

We let the corporations try social media, and they all fucked up. Every single one of them. Why are so many of you so desperate to keep repeating the same mistakes?

@thomholwerda I think that is completely and totally fine. But then don't call it an open standard, one, if you're going to gatekeep and pitch fits over anyone who uses it (and this goes for all OSS btw, it's open or it isn’t, things. Things like the ethical source movement are not open and I wish they'd at least lean into that), and two, if you want it small, don't complain when it is small.
@thomholwerda I have zero problem with any administrator or user choosing who they want to federate with or not. I have zero problem with anyone wanting to have smaller, more controlled, more moderated social networks. But I do have a problem with preaching the virtues of openness (but then controlling who can use something and how) and bitching that the rest of the world won't come over to your worldview, when you're deliberately trying to keep people out.
@thomholwerda And yes, Americans absolutely tend to be more about growth and laissez-faire and small “l” libertarianism. It's part of our young country's culture and is embedded in many of us, even if we have our own issues with capitalism an the republic. The same way the strong social safety net of their culture has led many Europeans to being very pro-government regulation, even if they their own issues with bureaucracy and cronyism.