this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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Fediverse

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This magazine is dedicated to discussions on the federated social networking ecosystem, which includes decentralized and open-source social media platforms. Whether you are a user, developer, or simply interested in the concept of decentralized social media, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on topics such as the benefits and challenges of decentralized social media, new and existing federated platforms, and more. From the latest developments and trends to ethical considerations and the future of federated social media, this category covers a wide range of topics related to the Fediverse.

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Check this out. Remember that Facebook isn't just the place where moms and aunts swap recipes:
https://mstdn.social/@feditips/111585534320522781

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (1 children)

im going to treat it like any other ~~email~~ instance server. trust until they give me a reason not to, and then known contingencies can be implemented.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Ok, since we already know they can't be trusted...

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

yeah thats not how protocols work, and 'we' dont really know what their implementation of this open protocol is going to look like.

but yeah, you can knee jerk yourself up all ya want. have fun. im not going to care about this issue until it becomes an issue.

you dont have people/world/fuckinganyone blocking facebooks email servers out of pure spite.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I mean, you know they aren't going to have adequate content moderation because they ALREADY don't. Lack of moderation is the #1, #2, and #3 best reasons to defederate.

Wanting to see proof before taking positive action is valid and sensible. But you can't pretend it isn't something you can already make reasonable inferences about. This is not a new unknown and pretending it is is ridiculous.

Email servers do not automatically feed content into and pull content out of your system. They only send and deliver to specific people at specific addresses. Federation is a firehose. You can close the hydrant before or after it gets hooked up to city water, but at the end of the day only people that chose to do things the sensible way will have dry socks and no water damage.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

Federation is a firehose.

this is just not true, sorry. instances only retrieve/pushed specified actions/actors. . pretending it is is ridiculous. this is now a new unknown, this is how the ap protocol works.

and your shit is already public, if they want to suck it all in there is literally nothing stopping them right now. federation or not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Like I linked in the OP post, the problem isn't their implementation of the protocol, but what FB is, and what it has done; and it probably would not stop doing it in the Fediverse. If Hannnibal Lecter moved in the neighbourhood I wouldn't answer his dinner invite, just to see what's on the menu.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

whatever. i hate facebook, i dont use their crap. but im not going out of my way to block their AP protocol any more than i would their SMTP protocol.

when their activity in a specific context demonstrably, negatively affects my system, ill take action as i would any negative impact from any protocol on any of my services.

when i get a spammer, i block them. but again, im not going out of my way to spite some big asshole company, and potentially lose out on coordinating an offramp for those trapped in its walls.

everyone here as proven one thing: there is no technical reason to block threads. its entirely political/moral/spite and a lot of 'maybes'.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

So, you care only if it affects you personally? Nice.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

yes this issue just black or white, there is zero nuance. blah blah blah. you sound like a teenager pulling absolutes out of your butthole

[–] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I've seen an argument that defederation would just hurt the fediverse, and that even an exploitative giant like Meta should therefore be welcomed.

I think that's like arguing that we should get rid of antitrust laws, which we have for good reason.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago

If a Mastodon instance was run by someone who allowed a genocide to be fuelled by their platform, and earn money from the advertising, I think we'd defederate in a heart beat. It just doesn't seem consistent to federate with them.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Why are people so horny for federating with fb/meta? If you want to see their shit just join them.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Like who are you talking about, exactly?

I've seen like 1 person and they weren't super enthusiastic, just said it was generally a good thing.

And some other people who are mostly just meh about it at most.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

As in you're using the service, but that doesn't mean you two are one and make the same decisions.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

But you support/validate the service by interacting with your contacts.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Let's put it this way: Just because they live under an oppressive regime doesn't mean we should be mean to them and keep them isolated in their evil bubble.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

It’s not being mean to them. Calling them names or something would be mean.

And they are not oppressed. Oppressed people don’t have choices.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Say, many would agree that Han people in China are oppressed. They have a ton of middle-class citizens who are free to leave the country, they just don't want to permanently due to not thinking it'd be better.

Same applies to Threads, though maybe a stronger case for leaving.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I’m not having a conversation that compares people signing up to their favourite social media channel with people who suffer systemic discrimination every day in their lives.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

Han people are the main ethnicity of China; they aren’t the Uyghurs, if that’s what you mean

[–] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

Also its Facebook. Fuck em.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago (2 children)

You are addressing a strawman.

This post doesn't address the main "pro-federation" point that I have seen. People who are support of federation aren't saying that Facebook is a great company, they have great morales or that they aren't supporting ActivityPub for their own gain. I think there is very little doubt that FB is a shit organization with no morales who thinks that this is a great move to get people back to their sites.

The most common reason that I see people supportive of Threads' federation is that they believe it will help people move off of Facebook and other proprietary platforms onto more user-friendly ones. If all of your friends use Instagram it is very hard to move to Mastodon. If you want to stay in touch you will at least need two accounts. You can move friends but it is hard because they each need to make that switch and it affects their interaction with others, or they need to manage multiple accounts until most of their friends have switched. If your friends use Threads (and it federates) then you can switch to Mastodon with very little friction, you can still interact with all of your existing friends in more or less the same way. Similarly each friend can easily move without managing multiple accounts during the transition. If all instances have blocked threads.net many people just won't move, they will stay with FB.

To make a good argument you need to either refute this perceived advantage or argue that it isn't worth the downsides. Making up a strawman doesn't convince anyone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago

is facebook real dystopia now

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I get what you're saying, I think most people fear that instead FB's septic tank will spill and spread in the Fediverse instead; I already had to deal with some "FREE SPEECH!" guy that wanted it to be a platform where people for example from Hamas and Israel could discuss and "agree to disagree".

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

I've checked it out, and I saw someone who couldn't deal with counterarguments.

@feditips What does Meta's history of human rights have to do with federation?

Are you under the impression that federation somehow supports these violations? And if so, how?

E: they've blocked me instead of answering.

https://fosstodon.org/@AudraTran/111585549506311164

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 months ago

I'm not at my computer, so please excuse any mobile issues. I'm in favor of the move, because it will help to simultaneously connect and decentralize communications across the platforms. Say what you will about Facebook (you're probably right), but if they're that bad, then it seems logical to me to connect to their federated service even more aggressively.

The more we push our content (and by extension the Fediverse content that kbin aggregates), the less impact their algorithm can have. The more we go out of the way to expose their content, the harder we make it them to curate/censor/suppress any voices. And if, when comparing two Fediverse instances or softwares, we find that what's been pushed to them is different, we the users can call it out to news organizations (or make it public ourselves).

And yes, I know I'm making the arguments for supporting private companies in adopting open-source. It's about being able to audit what companies we don't trust are doing.

In addition to that, I'm currently a Threads user. Anecdotally, there's a lot of wholesome content on there that I appreciate, and what limited advertising is there is nowhere near as obtrusive as Reddit or the main Facebook platform.