archchanHow do we feel about Meta joining the Fediverse?
SingletonaI view them embracing federation as a good thing.
I also view it as important for the instances I wish to follow to never federate with them.
But is it even possible for a mega corporation to embrace federation? Isn't that essentially a contradiction in terms?
DreamerOfImprobableDreamsGoogle runs gmail, which like all email service providers is basically federated with all other email service providers. Hasn't stopped smaller email providers from continuing to chug along just fine.
To be clear, though, that's a best case scenario. It's definitely possible Meta could try to warp the Fediverse so that it kills all instances other than their own. We'll have to be vigilant and proactive to make sure that doesn't happen here.
It's definitely possible Meta could try to warp the Fediverse so that it kills all instances other than their own.
This is my primary concern; if smaller instances say "we will block them on sight and anyone who federates with them as traitors" then it's a matter of getting the largest instances to go along with it and suddenly you've blocked a large chunk of users due to the fracture of smaller ones trying to defederate their way out of the problem and into a different issue.
I think @JakeBacon has a reasonable take, there are some upsides, and some downsides. I don't think there is anything that is gained by pre-emptively doing anything though. If they run their own instance, see what it does and then decide accordingly.
KarsicKarlExactly. Absolutely anyone can set up an instance.
Want your own Instagram type system? Roll out a Pixelfed server. Want your own Lemmy.
The #Fediverse is big. Very big. Probably up into tens of thousands of servers. No company could take it over, which is by design.
fearIt's the kind of embrace a boa constrictor wants to have with a rabbit. The answer always needs to be no.
Can you personally block content from specified instances, for your own user? That would do it for me just fine.
themadcodgerYeah as a user you can block a person or a domain, which was the intended first step, not pre-emptive defederating.
I thought the domain block was the domain of linked content? There's other reasons I would want to individuall block instances: for example, those which are primarily languages I do not speak. Nothing against the content, it just isn't useful to me.