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 Chris Alemany🇺🇦🇨🇦🇪🇸 last edited by
@chris @evan From https://socialwebfoundation.org? I still see it there.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by [email protected]
@stefan @wendinoakland so, I think this is really important. I think everyone on the Fediverse should have the choice between connecting to their friends, family, colleagues and neighbours on commercial social networks from the platform they prefer, or staying isolated from those commercial providers and the people who use them. That autonomy is fundamental; nobody can force you to connect with anyone you don't want to.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland I also disagree that Meta can be a part of this network without influencing it. I don't think that's how social systems work. But I hope that we can take good things from Meta and leave the bad things.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland one example is reply control. Users on Threads can say who can reply to their posts; users on Mastodon can't. There have been some proposals in this area over the years, and they haven't stuck yet. I think this is a great feature for user safety, if it can be balanced with freedom of expression (I like UIs that emphasize approved replies, but still allow access to other replies).
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland In terms of people with high vulnerability, I absolutely recommend using the defederation feature and blocking early. It's better to play it safe. fedipact.online is a good resource for finding servers that block Threads.
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wendinoakland for Kamalareplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland I also think that lowering the social cost of moving to a Free Software service is key to increasing usage. If you move to a Mastodon server and you have zero connections to your existing friends and family, you are probably going to churn out. Starting a whole new set of social connections from zero is a skill that only a minority of humans have.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to wendinoakland for Kamala last edited by
@wendinoakland @stefan are you sure? I don't think Threads has features to do that yet.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland I want people who have Franklin Street Statement servers to be able to keep them for the long term.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
"disagree that Meta can be a part of this network without influencing it"
Right, to a certain degree, sure.
But, at least from my perspective, I can't help but wonder, how are the other companies and organizations comfortable with their logos and names appearing right next to Meta's, given their history.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@evan @wendinoakland But that's all I have to say on this topic. I've said on a few occasions that my single-user server is the last social media website I'll sign up for, and I'll stand by that.
Meta trying to co-opt it and subvert it was to be expected. I still believe we as a community can resist that. It's just disappointing to see so many not willing to even try.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland Stefan, I wonder for you what signals you might see a year from now, in terms of processes and programs, that would make you feel more or less concerned about the SWF?
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan @wendinoakland SWF has its problems covered in other threads discussing it, and to be honest, I'm less concerned about those.
My problem is specifically with Meta being welcome to directly influence the fediverse.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by [email protected]
@evan @wendinoakland I fully expect to see ad support on a protocol level, at some point, and perhaps that's even fine, depending on the implementation. If done right, this can help some servers keep up with the costs.
My concern is that that will not be where Meta's influence will end, and that's something that will take more than a year to fully reveal itself.
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@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] I'm more concerned about the triplet Meta, Automattic and Medium.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland you and I agree, mostly. I'm part of a cooperative instance, and I want our collective to thrive.
I also think it's great that companies have to engage with the Fediverse now. We have a powerful model and a powerful movement and they can't ignore us any more.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland also, I really hope this is *not* your last word on the topic. You have a valuable perspective that I really appreciate, and skill with communicating it. In particular, I think your writings on how new implementers should engage with the Fediverse are important.
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@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] Meta by itself is not a significant enough threat, but the fact is that Mastodon is also in this foundation. These are some pretty big names with a large amount of funding and influence on the web. I am fearful that their influence will sway the conversations on what fedi needs overall. If we go to one of their missions https://socialwebfoundation.org/long-form-text-on-the-fediverse/ this is a pretty low priority in my opinion.
for this project, the Social Web Foundation will convene implementers and other stakeholders for a long-form text workshop to discuss data structures, interactions, and page formats.
What does that mean? Are they going to go around asking instance software developers about this? Are they going to ask themselves about this? Why are we focusing on this when we have other issues to worry about. I am worried about the implication that these underlying issues will be drowned out with features that are niceties at best, and unwanted at worst. I've seen how tumblr was so successful at building a facade over their decaying infrastructure. How https://www.engadget.com/big-tech/meta-fined-102-million-for-storing-passwords-in-plain-text-110049679.html meta was storing things in plaintext pretending everything was okay. I don't want issues like forwarded reports to be swept under the rug and not given proper attention because the people up top are more focused on making it a content distribution platform for stakeholders.
RE: https://transfem.social/notes/9yq1pladclg00029 -
Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland this is such a good point. I think that ad-supported instances exist, and that is kind of between the users there and the service providers, as long as the users have the choice to leave and take their data and connections.
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@stefan @wendinoakland putting ads into the streams that go *between* instances is a much bigger deal.
My instinct is that it just shouldn't happen. However, I could imagine some people on the Fediverse might want the choice to follow an ad-supported account.