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Defederate Meta
Meta's upcoming 'P92' app is reported to have ActivityPub compatibility ([link](https://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/startup/meta-mulls-a-twitter-competitor-codenamed-p92-that-will-be-interoperable-with-mastodon-10223961.html)) Many users and admins are opposed to federating with Meta, due to concerns including, but not limited to: * user tracking, privacy violations, and data collection ([link 1,](https://www.vox.com/recode/23172691/meta-tracking-privacy-hospitals) [2,](https://www.techrepublic.com/article/facebook-data-privacy-scandal-a-cheat-sheet/) [3,](https://themarkup.org/pixel-hunt/2023/06/13/suicide-hotlines-promise-anonymity-dozens-of-their-websites-send-sensitive-data-to-facebook) [4](https://www.theverge.com/2018/4/11/17225482/facebook-shadow-profiles-zuckerberg-congress-data-privacy)) * embrace-extend-extinguish behaviour ([link](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish)) * poor moderation * corporate influence over the ActivityPub protocol * centralization of the userbase around a single server * psychological manipulation ([link](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/apr/12/facebook-loophole-state-backed-manipulation)) of users via algorithm * monopolistic behaviour ([link](https://www.theverge.com/2021/8/19/22627032/ftc-facebook-amended-antitrust-complaint-monopoly-instagram-whatsapp)) * intentionally allowing (and profiting from!) anti-Black racism ([link 1,](https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/11/21/facebook-algorithm-biased-race/) [2](https://www.propublica.org/article/facebook-advertising-discrimination-housing-race-sex-national-origin)) * poor treatment of workers [(link)](https://time.com/6175026/facebook-sama-kenya-lawsuit/) * facilitation of genocide on Facebook ([link](https://archive.is/6rZ77)) * failing to mitigate the distribution of CSAM on its platforms ([link](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/06/damning-probes-find-instagram-is-key-link-connecting-pedophile-rings/)) * *New, June 16th* allowing scams to proliferate on their platforms despite user attempts to file reports ([link](https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jun/16/victims-speak-out-over-fraud-on-instagram-facebook-and-whatsapp)) * *New, June 16th* rolling back COVID misinformation rules ([link](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/06/16/meta-rolls-back-covid-misinformation-rules/)) * a long history of breaching user trust ([link](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Facebook)) In order to continue to build a new kind of social media, which prioritizes users over profits, and openness over walled gardens, we need to stand together in opposition to Meta's digital colonization effort. What's making it difficult to form a consensus is that most admins haven't been communicating with users about what they plan to do (let alone asking the users what *they* want). So, one very easy thing we can do is ask our admins if they're planning to block Meta, and if they aren't, ask them to reconsider.
Decisions about who to federate with can be so much more interesting than just talking specifically about Meta. And from where I sit, this mag is dead due to ~~being so narrowly focused.~~ (edit: moving to another node… that explains it). Consider that there are many nodes that are centralised and go against many digital rights values. E.g. all Cloudflare nodes are centralised and expose us all to corporate greed, manipulation, exclusion, and privacy abuses. I propose renaming to something like “DefederateTechGiants” or “DefederateTechnoFeudalism”.
Don't know how many have seen this, but @vantablack@beach.city provided screen shots of a conversation with someone who claims to have friends at meta and knows something about their strategy and what's covered by the NDAs: See https://beach.city/@vantablack/110594120842443355 Short story: they want to buy out the big instances by "supporting them financially" in exchange for federation, influence over moderation, and, opt-in ads. Also, a thread from Aral Balkan on these rumours: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110598855375585873 If true ... 1. this totally makes sense and I'm surprised I hadn't seen someone cook up this as a hypothetical ... whatever motivations meta had they were of course going to wrest some control over the fediverse, and big instances plus a poor culture of garnering donations were a weakness. 2. the reason I haven't seen this as a hypothetical is because **it's fundamentally unfathomable that this is happening, already, less than a year after the twitter migration ... these admins signed NDAs and have been keeping this from us!!!** 3. This completely raises the stakes and highlights exactly what was wrong with those NDAs. 4. **A reasonable position right now would be to demand from the probable admins whether they're going to take money from Meta and for what, and that they either have to answer or step down because opacity on such an issue is fundamental.** 5. IMO, a campaign would make a lot of sense. Many will likely find this uncomfortable, and for good reason, these issues are "move the needle" big. If their admins aren't able to be clear on certain fundamentals like ads and taking money and giving meta a seat at the moderation table, that's also reason to be uncomfortable. 6. We could have a list of instances that are open for sign ups that have openly stated that they haven't signed an NDA and aren't going to do any of the above things with Meta. #DefederateMeta
ploum.net
How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) écrit par Ploum, Lionel Dricot, ingénieur, écrivain de science-fiction, développeur de logiciels libres.
For the moment kbin doesn't offer the possibility of blocking an instance. The only possibility if offers is to "silence" it, that means, the user don't see the posts from this instance, but the instance (Meta in this case) can access the data posted by the user. Kbin is a quite young project, and it is still in development, then for sure the implementation of a real block/defederation feature will take a lot of time. I was wondering whether some of the new kbin instances have decide to defederate from Meta. I was not able to find the information. In other case I will need to delete all my posts, find new moderators for the two magazines I started, and delete my account without to have another alternative.
www.theguardian.com
Experts say it underscores the importance of encryption and minimizing the amount of user data tech companies can store
I wrote an article outlining some of the reasons why I think we should defederate Meta.
We, the moderation and administration of tech.lgbt, are signing the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact in fellowship with our peer communities. ([https://vantaa.black/pact](https://vantaa.black/pact)) There is over a decade of precedent that Facebook will not have users' best interests as their guiding principle but rather profit margins, if it joins the Fediverse. We at tech.lgbt have long held the belief that corporation owned instances are a threat to the core of the Fediverse: freedom for users to be themselves and to be a part of their communities. The 2010s saw the loss of online freedom when the majority of the Web was consolidated into a few destinations, and Facebook entering here could lead us back to centralization. Furthermore, NDAs for server admins will constrain our sovereignty online by binding us legally from disrupting their business. We are not products. We are people, and we do not welcome Facebook in this space. [\#meta](https://fedia.io/tag/meta) [#FediPact](https://fedia.io/tag/FediPact) [#facebook](https://fedia.io/tag/facebook) [#project92](https://fedia.io/tag/project92) [#mastodon](https://fedia.io/tag/mastodon) [#fediverse](https://fedia.io/tag/fediverse) [#FediBlockMeta](https://fedia.io/tag/FediBlockMeta) [#FediAdmin](https://fedia.io/tag/FediAdmin) [#p92](https://fedia.io/tag/p92) [#MastoAdmin](https://fedia.io/tag/MastoAdmin)
It would be the cruelest of ironies if folks who are falling out of Reddit and trying to build a new community here on a community-controlled, non-corporate network were to find themselves getting sucked right back into invasive techbro-capitalism through a backdoor. But that's exactly what might happen. For those new to the fediverse, Zuckerberg is transplanting the userbase of Instagram into a new Twitter-type social network (currently labeled P92, possibly branded "Threads") which apparently federates through ActivityPub. This service will be online soon, possibly within weeks. When and if this happens, the scrappy little communities of the fediverse will be invaded by a single, centralized "instance" of millions, even hundreds of millions, all conversing under Zuckerberg's draconian rule. But it gets worse, because we're all connected in the ActivityPub network. Lemmy and kbin are federating. Both of these networks are federating with Mastodon to at least some degree. The data - our expressions and relationships - are moving around, as intended. When Zuckerberg federates, all of this data will then be moving to him. He will ingest it into his data-mining system for surveillance and monetization. Those expressions and relationships will again be enclosed as "free labor" for a psychopathic techbro billionaire. We've all got a stake in avoiding this. Feel free to help spread the word; subscribe to the DefederateMeta magazine, and the [#DefederateMeta](https://fedia.io/tag/DefederateMeta) hashtag is handy. Instance admins are particularly and respectfully invited to consider the issue and clearly state their intentions on the question of federating with Meta. We're trying to help organize [#FreeFediverse](https://fedia.io/tag/FreeFediverse) admins into a united front, ping me or magazine mod smallpatatas if you're interested in tying in.
I plead my case to Mastodon's lead dev [@Gargron](https://fedia.io/u/@Gargron) here: [https://mstdn.patatas.ca/@smallpatatas/110516124221635618](https://mstdn.patatas.ca/@smallpatatas/110516124221635618) tl;dr - Meta will suck the Fediverse into its algorithmic orbit based on sheer size alone, unless we organize a large-scale Fediblock / defederation. Curious to hear what people think.
www.theguardian.com
Exclusive: Calls for Meta to curb rise in scams on its platforms, which will cost UK households £250m this year
archived 6 May 2023 13:48:40 UTC
themarkup.org
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