ophiocephalic 🐍Aug 11, 2025

We already know that the Social Web Foundation and SWICG leadership will ignore the latest news of Meta's mass datacrime against the fediverse and continue enabling the parasitic Zuckerberg entity to influence the future of ActivityPub development by facilitating its presence on the W3C working group overseeing AP. This is not a sustainable arrangement.

There is absolutely no basis of trust whatsoever between the fediverse network of communities and Meta. The idea that representatives of this slimy fascist operation are insinuated into the organization shaping the next generation of the protocol underlying our network, while they simultaneously inflict nonconsenual predatory "AI" extractivism against us, is ludicrous and intolerable. This right here is the destruction of every single value the fediverse claims to stand for in one fell swoop.

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#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG

Show threadophiocephalic 🐍

The development process of the protocol is poisoned by the presence of Meta. Any significant revision the organization proposes will be perceived as an aspect of the Meta incursion, suspected and resisted, whatever its actual origin. The backlash to any perceived attempt by Meta to manipulate the backbone of the fedi could lead to an existential crisis.

Under these circumstances the only way to avoid such a backlash is to refrain from advancing protocol development at all, which is also unsustainable. The way out of this is the ejection of the Meta intruders from SWICG and any other working group which has an influence on the future of ActivityPub.

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#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG

Aug 11, 2025 at 5:10pmWeb
Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 11, 2025

In his recent FediCon talk, Evan Prodromou implicitly rationalized his collaboration with Meta by proclaiming, "you don't negotiate with friends". Maybe not, but you don't hand enemies the keys to your kingdom either, which is exactly what he has done by giving Meta seats at the table of the ActivityPub working group. And for that matter, accepting a relatively significant sum of money from those enemies to fund your foundation goes rather beyond the negotiation phase as well, does it not?

As it stands, we have a hostile element enmeshed in the development process which undergirds the entire network, all the while systematically violating every last consent boundary the fedi has defined and defended over the course of its history. This is a power imbalance so egregious and amoral that it negates the raison d'etre of the fediverse altogether. Meta must be removed from SWICG

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#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG

Show threadFinchHaven sfbaAug 11, 2025

@ophiocephalic

Ah yes...

Mr #EvanProdromou

Or Mr #MaxiFedi as I like to call him

Willing to concede anything to expand his universe infinitely, consequences be damned

#Mastodon #Meta #SWICG

Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 11, 2025
@FinchHaven
💯
Show threadChewieAug 11, 2025

@ophiocephalic Is this the video: https://pt.gogreenit.net/w/eg35Kne91oEHcgyfvQWMhM ?

Unfortunately he doesn't go though it in detail, but everyone should be highly suspicious of their involvement.
He mentions google and ADAM/RSS, but doesn't he mean Google and GTalk / XMPP?

Some people say it's a bad example, but it set back the open chat system years - the same could happen with Meta.

I bet the only reason they are interested is so that they don't get hammered by regulation.

Connecting the Social Web — Evan S. Prodromou — FediCon 2025

PeerTube
Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 11, 2025
@chewie
Yes indeed, that's the one. And yes, his language here is guarded, he's adept at skirting round the elephant in the room
Show threadpatatasAug 11, 2025

@ophiocephalic @chewie just watched this keynote, and it’s kinda telling that he doesn’t once say the words “surveillance” or “power”. The talk got close, when he mentioned privacy, but bizarrely his take was that big actors are somehow more trustworthy, which like, has he been following anything in the news for the past decade plus?

Then the snarky answer about ‘not getting popular so our hearts don’t get broken’ was also pretty shocking. He clearly has no desire to grapple with the contradiction between, on the one hand, wanting his protocol baby to rule the world, and on the other hand, the fact that he’s invited surveillance fascists into the room.

I suspect he’s after a big payday; he couldn’t even help himself from talking about Ethereum, whose Ethereum Foundation has already paid him and Tom Coates a pretty tidy sum to do what amounted to a book report on E2EE encryption.

Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 11, 2025

@patatas
I mean, there's so much to unpack in this speech. Could write a dozen more essays

@chewie

Show threadSpark Purcell (they/them)Aug 11, 2025
@ophiocephalic i commented on this the other day... https://scicomm.xyz/@ailurocrat/114975995704467930
Spark Purcell (they/them) (@[email protected])

Don't be #fediconned. Yes this is a subtoot

A community for scientists and science communicators.
Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 11, 2025
@ailurocrat
Yeah, this is corporate-fedi having a rave-up
Show threadSpark Purcell (they/them)Aug 11, 2025
@ophiocephalic all i need to know about the dude that organized fedicon is in his website bio. He actually called himself
" a pioneer in the online advertising space, having created the world's first online advertising network."
WE DON'T WANT THAT ON FEDI.
Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 11, 2025
@ailurocrat
Good catch. Yes, these are the people who want to commercialize the fedi, they're quite open about that. Yes, others of us have very different ideas about how the fedi should evolve
Show threadCyAug 11, 2025
The W3? Inviting corporations to dictate standards? Wow what an unprecedented and totally surprising event. Who could have guessed this would occur again?

Seriously, you're right shit's fucked. You didn't provide a way to remove Meta from SWICG though. Perhaps there's something else we can do?
Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 11, 2025
@cy
And yes you're right, far from novel problem in the W3C. I don't provide an explicit course of action because at this stage there isn't one to my knowledge. The point is to make some noise and get folks tuned into this. If there's a change it will come via informal popular resistance, feel free to join in!
Show threadCyAug 12, 2025
I'll do my best... detaching the Fediverse from the W3 might be the best call in the long run though.
Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 12, 2025
@cy
Agree that it's an unsettling connection. Future possibilities include a hard ActivityPub fork with no W3C ties, and next-gen protocols beyond AP altogether. But public pressure against Meta's involvement with SWICG at least chips away at the problem
Show threadCyAug 12, 2025
Without the W3 on us, we could use non-http protocols. Digital signatures! End to end encryption! Forward secrecy! UDP! Absolutely no websockets!
Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 12, 2025
@cy
Yep, all possibilities. One of the possible future-fedi protocols leaning somewhat in that direction is @VeilidNetwork
Show threadCyAug 12, 2025
I've messed with that a little, but it didn't seem to uh... do anything.

CC: @[email protected]
Show threadophiocephalic 🐍Aug 12, 2025

@cy
Work in progress!

@VeilidNetwork

Show threadCyAug 12, 2025
Not like I can help, since it's written in rust. But I do hope their program does something one day.

CC: @[email protected]