Quicksilver Giant #6
✨ Mia’s Simulacrum 🏳️⚧️✨I have a few polls about #meta #project92 in the fediverse for you.
A Thread: 
Do you think that Meta is a threat to the fediverse?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Do you think that admins should block a Meta instance?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Do you think that blocking meta would protect your data?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Do you think admins should block Mastodon instances that federate with Meta?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Have you been aware, before reading this, that blocking Meta would also prevent users from migrating from the Meta instance to another Mastodon instance that has blocked Meta? (assuming that Meta implements this feature)
Note: i had to clarify this question on edit time 28% yes 62% no 26ppl
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Do you think that Meta is legally obligated to protect your data?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Do you think meta is able to show you ads even though you are on another instance?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Do you think that there is an effective way to mitigate the threat of Meta instead of blocking it?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Are you concerned that Meta's entry may result in Mastodon losing its identity?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Do you think Meta's presence on Mastodon might attract more users to smaller instances?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Do you think that Metas's entry could potentially lead to a monopolization of decentralized social networks?
yes
no
Poll ended at .
Thank you for you time. 
Maybe consider boosting this thread so we can get a more representative result. 
Angle🖇@m Here we see the problem with polls - I wanted to cite specific reasons, disclaimers, or additions for pretty much every one of these. :/
@m No, but only because we won't give them a chance to pull any shit.
@m No, but only because we won't give them a chance to pull any shit.
radioactivestardust@m Why Mastodon and not Fediverse?
@m I'm sure they'll try. Might even manage it, now and then, at least until people get wise and just block them.
Rairii@m i voted yes here because it's technically possible depending on how they implement that
like if ads are just normal posts forced into people feeds on their own client
those ads could get boosted onto remote timelines
Daniel Bohrer@Rairii @m I could also imagine that they insert ads on the profiles of their users. Or if someone follows users on their servers, they could probably send ad posts along with the posts of the followed users. (maybe even under the name of their users? I guess? I'm not sure how Fedi works exactly on a technical level)
Linebyline→mastoart.social@m They should be, but no, not in any way that really matters.
Nick Kelly@m Just wanted to chime in that this question could probably be worded a little different.
I can't tell if we mean
"Do I think they are?" or
"Do I think they should be" or
"Do I think they'll respect it whether they are or are not?"
Because no (depending on the specifics or data and what we mean by 'protect'), yes, and no
Simon Brooke@m I don't think it CURRENTLY IS, in most jurisdictions, to the degree that we would like. I do think that it COULD BE, with appropriate legislation; and I think the EU, at least, would be prepared to enact that legislation, given enough pressure from citizens.
I'd like to see a 'No, but it could be' option on that poll!
Digital Mark λ ☕️ 🕹 👽@m Legally obligated, yes. Will they comply with legal requirements? Certainly not, they never have so far.
Kyaa, free-use scratching toy@m Are they technically legally obligated? Yes.
Have they demonstrated repeatedly that they don't care about such laws? Also yes.
Do they have their lawyers working on finding new loopholes and writing defenses and fine print to allow them to ignore the laws with minimal risk again? Most likely also yes.
alternative_be✅🖖🏻@m That would depend on which country you live in. But I wouldn’t trust them to do so.
kolkrabe@m Do we even have proper account migration? So far as I can tell, the most we have is account redirection, which isn't nearly as big a deal.
Eris Renée@m it would only prevent them from migrating to an instance that blocks meta (if meta implements this feature, which I doubt they would)
Users could still migrate to any instances that don’t block meta. And they could, of course, simply create a new account without the redirect/follower migration that migration comes with.
Pusher Of Pixels (old account)@m I mean don't we *want* FB users to migrate *away* from FB? to i.e. de-centralize? That's a 'good' thing.
clacke: exhausted pixie dream boy 🇸🇪🇭🇰💙💛@pixelpusher220 @m People? Yes. Meta? No.
Why Not Zoidberg? 🦑@m as far as I understand it the Meta Twitter clone we are talking about will require an Instagram account to use, so migration will probably be a no-go anyway.
@m Eh, maybe. We'll see how it goes - but if they behave poorly enough, then quite possibly.
Christo@m
I need more info
I need more info
@m Eh, data is the least of my concerns... But, sure. Can only help.
@m Yes. Nothing but trouble. Show them the door.
Claudius (legacy account)@m
Underspecified question.
Pre-emptively: usually, no.
In general: depends.
Specific instances depending on their rules: maybe even pre-emptively.
MikeZilla Minus Onei have no idea what this means
@m No, but not for lack of trying. We'll slap them silly before they even see it coming, metaphorically.
PhilipKing@m I think it’s worthwhile to remember that Meta’s stated aim is to challenge Twitter not the fediverse.
Kevin Karhan 
Jeff Moe
Brian Grinter@m is the fediverse a threat to Meta?
Need more options
Matthieu@m
Detailing my answers a bit:
1. Meta is certainly an adversary to the community-led fediverse. Both for privacy issues and lack of efficient moderation.
But I don’t think it’s a serious threat. The fediverse is more resilient than we think.
(I voted no)
2. I think every admin should do as they like/want. I personally don’t want my server to block meta entirely (and I’ll migrate to a server that doesn’t block meta). But ultimately it should be an individual choice either admin by admin or even user by user (user can block domains too, no need to wait for an admin to tell us what to do).
(I voted no)
3. Blocking meta (even at the user level) should be enough to never send your posts directly to them. But they can still scrap everything public, there is no real protection. Realistically though, I don’t think they’ll do that.
(I voted yes, could be no honestly)
4. CERTAINLY NOT. This is both impossible do to in practice and useless. The main fear is transitive boosting (boosting a post from A to B to C to Meta). Blocking two levels of federation with Meta will not help you. With 22 000 servers there is an infinite number of path from server to server that leads to Meta.
What DOES solve this issue however is Authorized Fetch, it’s one option to enable on mastodon and once it’s on, you cannot boost a post to a defederated server without the approval from the server the post was from.
(I voted no)
5. yes
6. I didn’t sign up to Meta, I didn’t accept the ToS. There is no way Meta can do anything with my data other than storing it to show to their local users. By using a federated service I implicitely accepted my posts to be federated even if I didn’t sign any ToS, but there is no way they’re allowed to datamine data from remote users who didn’t sign any ToS.
They’ll do it anyway, but I think it’s calling for a nice class-action suit.
(I voted yes)
7. Any user with a large following can post sponsored post. There is no agreement about how to tag sponsored posts in ActivityPub (yet), but it’s a legal obligation to at least state somewhere in the post that it is advertisement.
Of course Meta can send us this kind of post because they’re just normal posts.
But no, I don’t think there is any way they could serve us ads other than that.
(I voted no)
8. Yes. Limiting/Silencing. Mastodon (and other softwares) have very good moderation tools that doesn’t necessarily involves defederation. With approval required for follows from meta, hiding posts from the federated timeline and other limiting features it is absolutely possible to follow and interact with your friends and family over at Meta.
(I voted yes)
9. No. Masto is masto. lemmy is lemmy. Calckey is calckey. This space is already very diverse a new actor in the game won’t change our identity. (Personal opinion: identity which isn’t always great BTW)
(I voted no)
10. Yes. I don’t know if the big nodes will grow faster than the small nodes. I don’t know if the fedi will go toward more centralization or more decentralization. But the network as a whole is going to skyrocket. Which means new users to both big and small instances. And of course a ton of new servers. Everything is growing.
(I voted yes)
11. No. Unless you mean monopolisation of protocols (ActivityPub being the leader and At protocol, Nostr, Diaspora, streams, Zot, etc. being small underdogs). The ActivityPub is on a good path to be heavily adopted, but this place is still existing right here. I don’t see mastodon and the rest of the fediverse disappearing any time soon.
Also the very nature of ActivityPub means that Tumblr, Google or Microsoft can do the same as Meta, any actor private or open-source can compete with Meta they cannot create a monopole while using ActivityPub. (I think that’s what Meta actually want, they want to escape antitrust laws by being open to competition).
"B-but gmail", gmail is only managing 15% of all emails. It’s big, but not a monopole.
(I voted no)
Detailing my answers a bit:
1. Meta is certainly an adversary to the community-led fediverse. Both for privacy issues and lack of efficient moderation.
But I don’t think it’s a serious threat. The fediverse is more resilient than we think.
(I voted no)
2. I think every admin should do as they like/want. I personally don’t want my server to block meta entirely (and I’ll migrate to a server that doesn’t block meta). But ultimately it should be an individual choice either admin by admin or even user by user (user can block domains too, no need to wait for an admin to tell us what to do).
(I voted no)
3. Blocking meta (even at the user level) should be enough to never send your posts directly to them. But they can still scrap everything public, there is no real protection. Realistically though, I don’t think they’ll do that.
(I voted yes, could be no honestly)
4. CERTAINLY NOT. This is both impossible do to in practice and useless. The main fear is transitive boosting (boosting a post from A to B to C to Meta). Blocking two levels of federation with Meta will not help you. With 22 000 servers there is an infinite number of path from server to server that leads to Meta.
What DOES solve this issue however is Authorized Fetch, it’s one option to enable on mastodon and once it’s on, you cannot boost a post to a defederated server without the approval from the server the post was from.
(I voted no)
5. yes
6. I didn’t sign up to Meta, I didn’t accept the ToS. There is no way Meta can do anything with my data other than storing it to show to their local users. By using a federated service I implicitely accepted my posts to be federated even if I didn’t sign any ToS, but there is no way they’re allowed to datamine data from remote users who didn’t sign any ToS.
They’ll do it anyway, but I think it’s calling for a nice class-action suit.
(I voted yes)
7. Any user with a large following can post sponsored post. There is no agreement about how to tag sponsored posts in ActivityPub (yet), but it’s a legal obligation to at least state somewhere in the post that it is advertisement.
Of course Meta can send us this kind of post because they’re just normal posts.
But no, I don’t think there is any way they could serve us ads other than that.
(I voted no)
8. Yes. Limiting/Silencing. Mastodon (and other softwares) have very good moderation tools that doesn’t necessarily involves defederation. With approval required for follows from meta, hiding posts from the federated timeline and other limiting features it is absolutely possible to follow and interact with your friends and family over at Meta.
(I voted yes)
9. No. Masto is masto. lemmy is lemmy. Calckey is calckey. This space is already very diverse a new actor in the game won’t change our identity. (Personal opinion: identity which isn’t always great BTW)
(I voted no)
10. Yes. I don’t know if the big nodes will grow faster than the small nodes. I don’t know if the fedi will go toward more centralization or more decentralization. But the network as a whole is going to skyrocket. Which means new users to both big and small instances. And of course a ton of new servers. Everything is growing.
(I voted yes)
11. No. Unless you mean monopolisation of protocols (ActivityPub being the leader and At protocol, Nostr, Diaspora, streams, Zot, etc. being small underdogs). The ActivityPub is on a good path to be heavily adopted, but this place is still existing right here. I don’t see mastodon and the rest of the fediverse disappearing any time soon.
Also the very nature of ActivityPub means that Tumblr, Google or Microsoft can do the same as Meta, any actor private or open-source can compete with Meta they cannot create a monopole while using ActivityPub. (I think that’s what Meta actually want, they want to escape antitrust laws by being open to competition).
"B-but gmail", gmail is only managing 15% of all emails. It’s big, but not a monopole.
(I voted no)
LeeFromVT 🌎🌌🐈♂️♏🏳️🌈 🇺🇦I will say i left Meta years ago because the people, left twitter for same reason.
The few i would like to see join here say its too difficult to learn (basic stuff). They are not use to looking at/for content that is not shoved in their face.
Even if not banned prior, The current user base will not last long in an place that actually wants to be "hate free".
I will follow up with stating the preemptive banning of meta or federated instances that are willing to try to gain the last few good people from these places is also a form of discrimination.
Some may be persuaded to leave the controlling billionaire platform when they see what Mastodon has to offer.
They can "Jump from the sinking ship" of right-wing hate filled social media outlets to Mastodon before the rest of those hateful communities get removed...
beforewisdom 
@m You might want to edit your post to fix a confusing typo.
Grampa@m Lots of loaded questions in here. I think Meta will:
- do everything they can to keep Facebook users on Facebook, so it won’t be a gateway for people to leave
- show Facebook users a filtered, modified version of the activity they ingest
- publish a filtered, modified version of Facebook activity, including injecting ads and prioritizing brand accounts
- use our data for advertising and training ML models, even if they say they won’t and don’t have a legal way to do so
- do everything they can to keep Facebook users on Facebook, so it won’t be a gateway for people to leave
- show Facebook users a filtered, modified version of the activity they ingest
- publish a filtered, modified version of Facebook activity, including injecting ads and prioritizing brand accounts
- use our data for advertising and training ML models, even if they say they won’t and don’t have a legal way to do so
mirabilos@m threads don’t federate though 😿