CEO of Meta, which recently joined the newly founded #SocialWebFoundation, suggests that there is "no causal connection" between social media and teen mental health.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@evan @wendinoakland But for me, the bottom line is, welcoming Meta is a huge mistake given their impact on the world, and disrespectful to all those who want the fediverse to succeed.
When Threads were announced, I was on the fence about whether to federate with them. I understood the benefits. With memories of their deeds slowly fading, I was willing to "see and wait".
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by [email protected]
@evan @wendinoakland I highly recommend reading this article, if you haven't yet. After putting everything in context, I just could not justify being anywhere near that company.
Untangling Threads - Erin Kissane's small internet website
Meta's Threads service is joining the Fediverse, and I think there are some things about Meta—and about Fediverse mechanics—that it's important to include in that conversation.
(erinkissane.com)
And just to add, --
"great that companies have to engage with the Fediverse"
Absolutely, this probably feels like a huge validation of your work, and those of everyone involved.
I just want it done on our community's terms.
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@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Some software allow for "allowlist" defederation too, which means that by default users are not allowed to federate unless they've explicitly been allowed. Only some software supports this (I believe akkoma? I'd have to look). It's my opinion that in order to began the building blocks of making an inclusive platform for everyone we need to look at how instances do defederation, suspension (deactivation and activation of actors) along with "silencing" which is the fedi equivalent of shadow bans. Things like markdown can come later (I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I hate the inconsistency between misskey's mfm and how mastodon, akkoma, pleroma has markdown) I'm just saying that out of the priorities you're gonna want to have the tools necessary to protect the network before some of the cosmetics.
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@puppygirlhornypost2 @stefan @wendinoakland that's not *entirely* the case -- we mention blocking incoming content in the non-normative appendix -- but I get your point.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@evan @wendinoakland One more "last thing" to add. It would be nearly impossible to make a list of companies everyone here would agree on to steer the fediverse the right way.
But Meta is in a whole other league, see this pair of polls:
https://mastodon.social/@mcc/110663712542031369
https://mastodon.social/@mcc/110663714020414745(Note that this was conducted before Matt Mullenweg went off the rails, definitely would be interesting to re-run this.)
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland I think the Fediverse is worth fighting for. I'm glad that so many other people do, too.
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@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Honestly, how I would start off with this is by making a list of instance softwares. Looking at their strong suits. It’d be easy to go from there into a sort of “compatibility matrix" listing what other software has to offer. Consider some of the various moderation tooling in order to find "gaps". So, an example inconsistency I can point out here is how actor deactivations are handled. In misskey, I can deactivate an actor (it’s part of the suspension process) but I can reactivate it by unsuspension. The problem is that akkoma does not actually see that as a reactivation? It ignores it and the actor in question is still considered deactivated to the remote akkoma instance unless there’s manual intervention. Some of these things may not be possible to fully encompass within spec, but making a general guideline for software to follow is a step in the right direction. What kind of actions should someone starting off making instance software look into? There’s a shocking gap in coverage between what the specification defines and how instances are expected to behave.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland yes, I have read this many times.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by [email protected]
@evan @wendinoakland Right. And that means that you didn't feel that this behavior should exclude a company or an organization from participating in SWF?
To me, doing so would be on the same level as excluding a country from the Olympics, while allowing that country's athletes to compete as "neutrals".
I understand wanting everyone to have their say, but this looks like condoning their actions.
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@puppygirlhornypost2 @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected]
The compatibility matrix will only be visible as a message in matrix. -
Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland I mean, did *you* read it?
I think she pretty clearly recapitulates my point, that coming to the Fediverse and starting a brand new social graph is something only a few people are going to do.
Changing the way social platforms work is of utmost urgency, for all the reasons Erin points out. I don't think keeping the Fediverse small and pure accomplishes that.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan @wendinoakland Just to clarify, I see "should we federate with Threads" and "should Meta have a direct influence on the fediverse" as two separate questions.
Given the ongoing issues of harassment mainly towards Black people, women, and independent creators, I am actually willing to consider starting to federate with Threads, if that's where enough folks end up. (If they enable federation, that is.)
That's a personal choice that will only affect me, as I run my own server.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@evan @wendinoakland Now, having Meta influence the direction of the fediverse, that's something that will affect all of us. And I am, personally, not willing to take a chance with that.
But like I said, any impact of that level would likely take a while to materialize, so we just have to wait and see.
(And, well, continue to oppose it.)
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by [email protected]
@stefan so, I think what you're saying is that you think some people and instances will federate, and that's kind of up to them, but influence of Meta on the Fediverse is a red line.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@stefan so, let's flip this idea around. With hundreds of millions of users each, Threads and Flipboard represent the vast majority of Fediverse users. The rest of us are a rounding error in that calculation.
Maintaining a connection to that big network is not guaranteed. There's no reason a group of ActivityPub implementers couldn't go to allowlist mode and just federate with the handful of services that make up the majority of user accounts on the network.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@stefan keeping that majority of the network available to all who want to connect means enshrining Fediverse values of openness into institutions that influence the network -- like, say, a nonprofit.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan Yes, this is precisely my stance.
And I really can't think of much that they could do at this point, as a company, for me to ever trust their intentions with the fediverse.
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@stefan @evan @wendinoakland fwiw I don’t think there’s a credible path of non-engagement as long as hundreds of millions of well-intentioned users are involved. We have to pursue harm reduction for them even as we push to hold meta accountable; if we follow the analogy of email or podcasts, there are absolutely vendors in both those spaces profiteering grom fascism. Yet we need those formats to be open.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan Sorry if I'm misunderstanding, but are you suggesting that not allowing Meta to be part of SWF or being allowed to influence the ActivityPub spec, and other parts of the fediverse, might result in them either giving up on integrating AP in Threads, or not federating with certain servers in retaliation?
If so, that would be a fair point, but then that also suggests that they're free to do whatever they want, with our community not standing up.
Then they already won.
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@[email protected] @[email protected] I read this more of "You can choose not to federate with them but you'll be isolated from the rest of the network".