QuokkaJun 25, 2023

Regarding the position of scicomm.xyz on #Meta and in the Fediverse, #FediPact etc.

After discussion between myself and the other mods and considering the views expressed by the people on our instance we have decided that pre-emptive blocking of Meta is warranted.

There is more detail on the background and explanation of this decision in a post on our companion site, here:
https://about.scicomm.xyz/doku.php?id=blog:2023:0625_meta_on_the_fediverse_to_block_or_not_to_block

Thanks to our people for their comments and suggestions to help us reach this decision.

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

Show threadNeal OnionsJun 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.

Show threadQuokkaJun 27, 2023

@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

Show threadQuokkaJun 27, 2023
@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
Show threadQuokka
@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
Jun 27, 2023 at 1:15pmWeb
Show threadNeal OnionsJun 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.