Mastodawn

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)Jun 25, 2023

@quokka thanks for the detailed post describing your thinking! I'll add a link to it to https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/ the next time I do an edit pass

Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ!

Block Meta or "trust but verify"?

The Nexus Of Privacy

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)Jun 26, 2023

@quokka how does this look? It's at the end of the section "Wait a second. Why should anybody trust Facebook, Instagram, or Meta?"

https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/#wait-a-second

Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ!

Block Meta or "trust but verify"?

The Nexus Of Privacy

@jdp23 looks great! Thank-you for including our post in your article. You've written a very thorough analysis of the situation.

Meow.tar.gz

Jun 25, 2023

@quokka Thank you very much for reaching that conclusion! I agree wholeheartedly. #Meta has nefarious intentions in the #fediverse. We must make them go back to their corporate realm, tail between their legs.

M Jun 25, 2023

@quokka , thank you for the explanation, very sensible posture

Vote Green Jun 25, 2023

@quokka "Money is Meta's motivation and data harvesting is their operation" spot on

Tim Nolte Jun 25, 2023

@quokka so I wonder, are you also planning to block any other instances that don't block #Meta ? I'm seeing what I would consider some pretty hostile comments and posts to that effect.

Tim Nolte Jun 25, 2023

@quokka btw, thanks for taking the time to share your article on how your instance arrived at it's decision, and how you are managing things going forward. I appreciate how you articulated the potential negative impacts as well as some potential positives, but ultimately you put your instance users first based on what they expected. The way you are handling it, and have communicated it, feels like exactly the way the #Fediverse was intended to be.

Daniel Mlot Jun 26, 2023

@tim For an outreach-focused instance, preemptive blocking already involves a nontrivial tradeoff, as thoughtfully discussed in @quokka 's original post. I can only imagine transitive blocking of that kind would be a bitter pill to swallow. Though I suppose there might be a difference between instances that merely federate with Meta and those which actively cooperate with Meta and dance to their tune

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)Jun 26, 2023

My guess is that for many instances, this decision will depend a lot on the implementation, whatever legal agreements Meta puts in place with instances that federate with it, and how the software evolves. If things do result in a schism, oh well, there are already schisms in the fediverse and life goes on -- in fact I think that if it happpens, it'll probably be a good thing.

@duplode @tim @quokka

Daniel Mlot Jun 26, 2023

@jdp23 @tim Good point on the agreements -- I had momentarily forgotten about the rumours on Meta choosing which instances they're going to federate with, rather than the other way around

Jon (now at neuromatch.social)Jun 26, 2023

@duplode on the one hand it's evil and sinister ... on the other hand they may well have to for legitimate business considerations -- to comply with privacy laws for example. @tim

@tim we haven't made a decision about federation with Meta-associated instances, for the reasons outlined by @jdp23

This will be a case where wait-and-see is needed as we don't yet know which instances Meta has talked to or signed contracts with. We also don't yet know the conditions that Meta might impose on the connected instances. And as @duplode points out, an association with Meta may came in different flavours.

JRDMB Jun 25, 2023

@quokka

Thank you for your collaborative decision (which I fully support) and detailed write-up.

Also, it was good seeing the scicomm blog, which I had not seen before. I see that it uses DokuWiki, and I'd like to say that it's the most attractively styled DokuWiki instance I think I've ever seen. I don't know if the UI is an available template or something you and/or others here custom developed. Anyway, it's a great looking and very helpful blog with a lot of useful info.

https://www.dokuwiki.org/template:readthedokus

@jrdmb Thank you!

Yes, I am a long time #dokuwiki user :D

The About site uses a regular dokuwiki template called 'Read The Dokus' (styled after Read The Docs) with some changes to the colour scheme so it was more Masto-like.

Oh and DW are on Mastodon, hello @dokuwiki !

template:readthedokus [DokuWiki]

anitavondannen Jun 26, 2023

@quokka If Meta sets „foot“ on the fediverse I’m out of here.

stonedonkey 🕹️🎮👾Jun 26, 2023

@quokka I'm fairly certain I'll want to be on a platform that defederates to start.

I left Facebook/Instagram and heavily blocked them via PiHole/Ublock etc for a very good reason.

Nothing they've done since me leaving brings me to believe they bring anything of substance to the table and it feels like the writing is on the wall for them.. embrace federated platforms so as to control them before losing the audience to them.

I want no part of that user base or the company controlling them.

Aral Balkan Jun 26, 2023

@quokka Thank you 💕

maloki 🍍

Jun 26, 2023

@quokka thank you. ❤️

Roman/the bioinformatics chat Jun 26, 2023

@quokka
> The onus is then on Meta to demonstrate its value and positive potential.
> With regards to the FediPact petition, the terms do not specify the duration of any defederation action. It is implied that defederation should be a more permanent gesture than what we are prepared to commit to at the present time. Therefore, we do not feel it is appropriate to sign the FediPact petition at this moment.

This is a very reasonable and well-articulated position, thank you!

Jeff Bamberger Jun 26, 2023

@quokka Sooooo....

"The onus is then on Meta to demonstrate its value and positive potential. If Meta can show their platform is well moderated and our people are respected then we may have confidence in restoring federation to their instance(s), albeit on parole. If this is not forthcoming then we will have protected our instance from the outset."

Things I see Meta as being unable or unwilling to really do...

1) "Demonstrate it's value..." - They won't bother...it's really about the $$$ for them.

2) " If Meta can show their platform is well moderated and our people are respected...." - Jury is out...If they continue based on past actions, I just don't see how they get to "well moderated"..at least in the long rung. They may appear to moderate well at first but then they will likely move to saving more $$$ and ratcheting down moderation.

I applaud the prudently defensive decision. I'm totally fine with Meta being blocked. It's now been years since I dropped the thumbs site and I haven't missed it at all.

My $.02

@robspodcastmug I agree with both your points! I don't expect Meta to change itself for something as irrelevant (to them) as the 'spirit of the Fediverse'. I expect our Meta block will endure after Threads launches.

It seem that the whole venture is mainly about Meta sticking it to Twitter and trying to hoover up their users. ActivityPub has a positive vibe and it markets well, so they'll take that too. If the Fediverse gets squashed in the process, well that's just a nice added bonus for Meta.

BB Jun 26, 2023

@quokka
Brilliant write-up. Thank you! ❤️

Mad Sci ∴Jun 26, 2023

@quokka

Meta operates a few orders of magnitudes above anything else currently using ActivityPub.
They will send most instances into the red if only 5% of their user base adopts their twitter clone.

John Refior Jun 26, 2023

@quokka
I appreciate the good, concise writeup of what Meta is at the beginning

Neal Onions Jun 26, 2023

@quokka I understand some of this reasoning. What I don’t quite get is what implications federating or not has for Meta’s ability to harvest data. My understanding is that the Fediverse is generally pretty open unlike FB or Twitter and my data is already out there in the public domain and free to be harvested?

As a secondary question, if Meta does launch a product using ActivityPub does that mean the product will have an open API or will it largely be read only or in some other way inhibited eg with financial charges like Reddit. Will a Mastodon client on a server that does not defederate end up getting Facebook’s targered advertising in something like a private toot?

Oh and please forgive me if my terminology is wrong. I hope my intended meaning is clear.

@ngo things are more open here than Twitter of FB but there are ways to lock it down from the defaults, both at the server level but also at your account level.

Your instance admin will likely already have enabled settings to make it harder to scrape data (e.g. robots.txt, firewalls) or tightened up federation rules through selective defederation of toxic instances or enabling 'authorized_fetch'. 1/3

@ngo You can also take action from your account. In the web version of Mastodon, in Profile > Appearance you can enable 'Require follow requests' so that you can choose if someone follows you or not. In the Preferences > Other you can 'Opt-out of search indexing' and set 'Posting privacy' from 'Public' to 'Unlisted' or 'Followers only'
It is safe to assume that nothing you put online will ever be private forever but that doesn't mean you should give up on using the tools that are available. 2/3

@ngo For the other question, we just don't know yet. The rumour is that Threads will federate only with instances which have signed Meta's contracts. This is ripe to put Meta in the driving seat for how Mastodon should evolve -- they might not change ActivityPub but they could spin it off into their own proprietary protocol. How instances which did or did-not sign up to Meta's demands then communicate with Meta's servers is yet to be seen. Rumour also suggests Threads will be closed source. 3/3

Neal Onions Jun 27, 2023

@quokka

Well thank you. A very thoughtful set of replies. My immediate reaction is that it’s the ‘signed Meta contracts’ bit that is the complete unknown and potentially the big issue. I guess everyone is conditional upon seeing this.

I’m mindful that beyond the FB Ap itself Meta usually buys the platforms it now owns that are successful. No guarantee that it will be dominant with something it develops itself. I’d caution fighting a war you don’t need to.

As always I’m torn between one side of my head wanting my nice safe happy Mastodon and please don’t change it with the other side screaming don’t put yourself in an exclusive echo chamber. For sure I don’t want advertising and I don’t want prevalent impolite/abusive/aggressive messages everywhere.

I don’t use FB unless I *have* to for access to say government or businesses without a website. Unless my old Twitter follows migrate to FB it does not otherwise obviously effect me.

BogDrakonov Jun 26, 2023

@phil will cryptodon.lol join the #FediPact and refuse to federate with any Facebook/Meta servers?
https://fedipact.online/

🖤 ANTI-META FEDI PACT 🖤

Life is Tetris Jun 26, 2023

@BogDrakonov @phil what is cryptodon's policy in general?

Most instances have policies on what kind they wouldn't federate with. Meta's instance likely would run afoul of those policies anyway. Yet, there is a special discussion. And some of those instances are making an exception for Meta?

More than "fedi might splinter", it looks like Meta has identified some splinters already! Transitive defederation might ensure less splintering.

Michael Jun 26, 2023

@quokka Great summary of Meta's Modus Operandi, and more in the link: https://about.scicomm.xyz/doku.php?id=blog:2023:0625_meta_on_the_fediverse_to_block_or_not_to_block

blog:2023:0625_meta_on_the_fediverse_to_block_or_not_to_block [About scicomm.xyz]

David Binkowski Jun 26, 2023

@quokka every instance should take this approach IMO. When a company shows you who they are, believe them.

The Linux Fraud Jun 26, 2023

@quokka Is there anyway to know which instances are signing these NDA's and having these "off the record" meetings? It would just suck for the people who aren't really on top of the whole Meta thing (kinda like me) to all of a sudden be apart of an instance who is working with Meta.

@thelinuxfraud I am not aware of any list like that yet. Presumably the NDA also says that they can't talk about signing an NDA.

However, about the only thing we know for sure is that mastodon.social is at the heart of the plans with Meta.

Fortunately it is easy to migrate your account from one instance to another: https://fedi.tips/transferring-your-mastodon-account-to-another-server/

If you find one that suits your interests, you could DM their admin and ask what their plans are re: Meta federation before you make the move.

Transferring your Mastodon account to another server | Fedi.Tips – An Unofficial Guide to Mastodon and the Fediverse

An unofficial guide to using Mastodon and the Fediverse

The Linux Fraud Jun 26, 2023

@quokka Yeah, no. That makes complete sense seeing that they're signing NDA's.

I appreciate you letting me know that about mastodon.social. That was one of the main reasons that I asked. I signed up to this instance on a whim before I had an idea on what Mastodon really was. I appreciate you and the others that I've seen on here being super transparent in sharing all the information that you all have. A lot of people like myself may have not found out before it was too late. 🙌

extradreams Jun 26, 2023

@quokka this is the post that got me to switch servers