@jadedfox

If there is a threat to all the users of #Mastodon that would be posed by #Meta merely being in the #Fediverse, then what is protecting those users from the numerous unknown instances that are already here from doing whatever it is Meta is going to do?

The campaign to preemptively block #Threads seems to me to imply there is some fundamental architectural flaw in the #ActivityPub protocol that admins are currently relying on security by obscurity to mitigate. If so, then the actual problem is Mastodon itself, and federation should be abandoned entirely until this flaw can be corrected, rather than using band-aids like blocking one big instance and then relying on the goodwill of individual admins to keep the system safe.

@StormyDragon You ask:

what is protecting those users from the numerous unknown instances that are already here from doing whatever it is Meta is going to do?

Batshit. Insane. Gobs. Of. Wealth.

Facebook is scale at scales the mind simply boggles at.

• 3 billion monthly average users (MAU).

• 5 billion items posted per day. That's about 60,000 per second.

• A market capitalisation (after a couple of bad years, I'll add), of three quarters of a trillion dollars.

Compared to its home state of California, that's a wealth of $19,000 per person in the state which Facebook can leverage to do its bidding. Facebook bought WhatsApp, then making a loss on $10m in sales, for $19 billion, largely cash. Keep in mind that the typical US household would struggle to meet an unexpected $400 expense. Facebook's price was more than $400 per resident of California, which is to say, Facebook's buying power is comparable to that of the wealthiest state in the United States.

Yes, there are threats that small instances may pose to the Fediverse. Yes, there are privacy and surveillance issues I've long been aware of and have warned against, as have others (see @alex particularly, who ... has greater pedigree than I do in this space). But those instances don't have access to Facebook's resources, combined with Facebook's nearly-twenty-year record of abusing its dumb fucks, excuse me, users, and violating condition after condition after condition regulators have imposed upon it.

#Facebook #Meta #Metablock #ItsTheMotherfuckingScaleStupid #Scale #FuckZuck #FuckFacebook #P92 #Project92 #BarcelonaProject

@jadedfox

@JustusWingert I've not yet reached the point of blocking Facebook / Zuckerberg apologists on sight.

But I'm getting much closer to that.

Answering your question: Solid proof would require demonstration, which is to say, precisely the harms you are describing.

I've repeated myself twice now on how FB have long since proved themselves untrustworthy against far more capable entities than the Fediverse. If you're going to refuse to see or admit that ... well, that's your problem.

Preemptive blocking and defederation of both Meta and instances federating with it seems the prudent path to self preservation which entails the least harms. At the very least, it's a maintenance of the status quo (FB and the Fediverse are separate). It does nothing to prevent FB members from joining the Fediverse. And it gives FB ample time (a few decades, as I've suggested previously) to demonstrate itself a good-faith actor. Decades it desperately needs in order to do so.

With that, please don't reply or tag me further, thanks.

@StormyDragon @alex @jadedfox