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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Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan so far? No. They've been great, super helpful, the Policy team has held consultations with hundreds of people in the Fediverse. I and others have spent time answering questions and providing support to their technical team. They come to events like Fediforum.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@evan And yes, for the sake of simplicity, let's focus on their potential influence of the ActivityPub spec itself.
Again, surely they'll push for ads, and I'm sure many will be okay with that.
What next, data collection?
I don't necessarily have the knowledge of determining the damage they can cause if everyone goes along with what they'll suggest. So I'd rather just be safe and not chance it.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan Right, let me rephrase.
None of Meta's actions listed in Erin's article were deal breakers preventing Meta from joining SWF. Perhaps it's because the technical expertise of the engineers who are directly involved is more important than decisions taken by the company's leadership, who are not. Maybe they even stood up against the leadership, unsuccessfully.
Fair.
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@puppygirlhornypost2 @stefan no, it's "*they* might choose not to federate with *you*, or anyone except a small set of allowlisted servers, and then you're cut off from the network and you also don't have a voice in how the network grows."
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@evan What if, to use an absurd example to make a point, what if Meta starts to allow CSAM on Threads? Would they be kicked off SWF?
I just wonder, going back to my example with the Olympics, why not accept contributions from trustworthy individuals without *seemingly* condoning actions of their employer?
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Stefan Bohacek last edited by
@stefan I don't think it makes sense to truck in hypotheticals.
I appreciate this conversation with you, and I hope you feel free to contact me again in the future.
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@anildash @evan @wendinoakland Right, and I am definitely more open to the idea of maybe some day federating with Threads, or even Bluesky, and don't judge people who already do that now.
But that shouldn't be tied to Meta being a member of SWF or any other group or organization that can influence ActivityPub.
Maybe when I said influence *fediverse*, I was being a bit too vague, but as I had a chance to explain myself more clearly, this is what the issue is for me.
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Stefan Bohacekreplied to Evan Prodromou last edited by
@evan Fair enough! I appreciate you engaging with critical voices in the community, and I look forward to reconnecting again.
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I see it slightly differently: there's a continuum between non-engagement and embracing vendors profiting from fascism. Different people and organizations have different constraints and priorities so make different choices.
Given the players involved, of course SWF's going to be friendly with Meta, and that in turn leads to funding and partnerships that wouldn't be possible otherwise. On the one hand that creates opportunities; on the other hand, it's also easy to imagine SWFs benefits being directed primarily to people and organizations who are also willing to be friendly with vendors who profit from fascism. Time will tell.
In terms of SWF pursuing harm reduction, @[email protected] also mentioned this in her newsletter, and it's a place where SWF could potentially have an impact -- especially partnering with @[email protected]. That said when I look at SWF's program (attached) I don't see anything related to this.
Also, harm reduction for who? Anti-Blackness is a huge problem in the fediverse, and so are equity problems in general. Mallory also highlighted the importance of making progress on equity in her newsletter, and SWF could have a big impact here -- including directing funding to BIPOC people, women of color, and others who have historically been very marginalized in the fediverse's power structures. That said haven't seen anything in their statements so far that implies they see this as important (and the long list of supportive quotes from white people on their launch announcement doesn't allay my concerns on this front; neither does listing an advisor whose recently been called out for anti-Blackness). Similarly queer and trans communities in the fediverse have been very outspoken about the threats from Meta, what if anything is SWF doing to involve and fund people from those communities to ensure that it's not just "harm reduction for cis people"?
@[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] @[email protected] -
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Evan Prodromoureplied to Gavin last edited by [email protected]
@gavin57 @stefan I'm here to let people connect with full autonomy. It's of critical importance as humanity faces a century of crisis.
Having one perfectly pure tiny network is not interesting to me. I want the whole world to be able to connect safely to anyone else via ActivityPub using the platform of their choice.
If you want to be isolated, I will always support that. You should absolutely have the tools to do it -- block lists or allowlist networking.
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Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:replied to Evan Prodromou last edited by [email protected]
@evan @puppygirlhornypost2 @stefan
Threads has already chosen not to federate with the Fediverse so far: they keep saying they're going to, but it's been a year and a half, and all we have is that some accounts are visible but we aren't visible to them. It's really not a two-way street in terms of communication: outside of the fact that so many servers have blocked them, they get the reach of broadcasting to the fediverse, while we don't get to broadcast back.Like, even on TechHub, where we're not blocking them, or really many other servers, we don't really consider them "federated", we just have the minor convenience of not having to go through relays, like we have to do with Twitter or BlueSky or Nostr.
At the end of the day though, I do want to point out, I don't think anyone here has an issue with Flipboard, which IS federated, nor do I think Threads really has the valuable user base that people sometimes claim they do: I mostly see "influencers" or bot accounts.
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Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon:replied to Raccoon at TechHub :mastodon: last edited by
@evan @puppygirlhornypost2 @stefan
IDK, new features are new features, and I'd always be happy for those, but I don't see the use of bringing in Threads as if they are a full part of this network, and giving them a say in how it's operated, when they haven't even taken the step of actually federating.There's just a lot of mistrust with them, and I think it's very well placed.
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@anildash @stefan @evan @wendinoakland
Well put, Anil.