1. Meta/Facebook has a horrific track record on human rights:
- https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/ethiopia-facebook-algorithms-contributed-human-rights-abuses-against-tigrayans
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-so...
Meta just announced that they are trying to integrate Threads with ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, etc.). We need to defederate them if we want to avoid them pushing their crap into fediverse.
If you're a server admin, please defederate Meta's domain "threads.net"
If you don't run your own server, please ask your server admin to defederate "threads.net".
If you don't give a shit abount Facebook enabling genocide, amplifying white supremacism or, you know, selling milluons of users' private data to the Kremlin, then sure, why not.
This isn't about elitism, this is about a known bad actor threatening to harvest our conversations without our fucking permission, or using Microsoft's tactic of "embrace and extend" to destroy the competition.
Anyone can implement ActivityPub. We have no problem with that. Facebook is a corporation whose business strategy has consistently been about harvesting users' data and selling it to political advertisers.
threatening to harvest our conversations without our fucking permission,
Public posts on social media are well public. There's literally nothing that stops them from reading your posts without federation, and federation does very little to change that in a meaningful way.
or using Microsoft's tactic of "embrace and extend" to destroy the competition
By what, adding features to Threads that make users prefer it over other ActivityPub implementations? The worst case here is that Meta federates, then does something that breaks federation and their users don't jump ship to another instance but stick with the Meta product?
Anyone can implement ActivityPub. We have no problem with that.
So long as they aren't a giant corp you personally see as especially evil, then if they implement ActivityPub they need to be blocked as globally as possible?
You don't seem to understand the issue. Facebook IS the bad actor. They'll allow racists, nazis and all kinds of assholes just as long as they get their sweet advertising money.
Instance admins moderate according to community rules. Zuck moderates according to what's most profitable.
To put it another way, imagine reddit started federating with Lemmy, and suddenly all the users from TheDonald started harassing our political forums. If that sounds bad, remember how many fake accounts ran by shills and foreign states (read: Russia) appeated on Facebook between 2014 and 2017.
I never implied there's an evil master plan behind it.
I implied that when greed prevails, any other consideration, freedom included, get bulldozed. And at that point you can safely assume they are enemy of freedom - they don't have to promote authoritarianism, it's enough for them to benefit from a system that strips us from our freedoms, and happily keep operating.
Nope, I said Facebook is an enemy of freedom. And that doesn't mean their primary goal is to strip it away, it means the way they operate goes against freedom and they don't mind it.
If tomorrow aliens will militarily invade in search for resources, and will entirely disregard any human pain and suffering along the way as they destroy everything and everyone, will they stop being enemies of humanity simply due to the fact they're not here for genocide per se?
Elitism: the advocacy or existence of an elite as a dominating element in a system or society.
What you just described is exactly how elitism works. I understand the hate for Facebook and all of Meta's products. However, this is exactly how gate keeping starts. I don't want to see the fediverse go anywhere more than the next person but it becomes contradicting and hypocritical to the entire establishment of the fediverse if Lemmy or other federated apps begin to decide who can and can't be federated. That is the whole image right? To prevent gate keeping and to establish that not one person owns any one portion of Lemmy, Mastodon, etc. However, what happens when an entity on Lemmy does start deciding to defederate a Conglomerate starts making decisions just like Facebook? The does Lemmy not start fitting the bill of not being able to tolerate the intolerance as well? To me that becomes elitism the very thing Lemmy users swear is a perfect system.
I don't believe Meta is good for anyone or anything but Lemmy users need to understand that you can't say, "we are different." And then justifying the very contradiction of being exactly the same by just saying, "Facebook takes freedom." I don't like Facebook infact fuck them but either Lemmy users admit they need to play the game like Facebook and that someone controls who is a part of content and who isn't or they don't. Just stop trying to find ways that this would be "different" just fucking say, "we want to control the content that is on the platform and who can be a part of it." Because now you are playing the Meta game on their own terf. Just tired of Lemmy users thinking they are special.
This is not means for control seizure; in fact, barely any Lemmy admins can afford to exercise their powers against users, as everyone can effortlessly move to another instance.
This is a matter of protection, and you can't fight Meta without it.
It's like doing nothing with wolves attacking sheep, because "if you attack wolves, you won't be that different from them". No, you would be. We should do it and we have users' support - and the best admins can do is open a vote, which was conducted on many instances (and had pretty much one outcome: defederate).
I find it bizarre you think the mere possibility of users from a big corporate service being able to communicate with the fediverse is akin to wolves attacking sheep.
If you really need your echo chamber to be free of people who use Meta servers, you could just block them as a user without mandating everyone else do so too.
Single-user effort will only get you so far; blocking Threads individually will break user experience (as most interactions, not just posts, will originate from Threads), and embracing Threads will inevitably lead to downturn in Fedi-native communities, further drying what just began to grow.
I can block content from Threads, but I cannot block the influence Threads exert on fedi. This is why servers need to defederate - to protect and preserve the community from any influence Zuck can singlehandedly exert.
At the same time, I welcome all Threads users to register on Mastodon and become Fedi natives. This would be the best outcome possible.