A few days ago, I wrote a personal blurb about my experience with Return-to-Office, Forced Relocation, and top-down Corporate Bullshit. This was a departure from my usual fare in two ways:

1. I talked about myself rather than focusing on other people or ideas I find neat.
2. I didn’t bother to edit it for clarity before pressing Publish.

I had figured that quick write-up would fill the void while I work on the more ambitious technical blog posts I have planned for the rest of 2023 (although realistically some will spill over into 2024).

And then it made the front page of Hacker News. It ended up on the top of several subreddits soon after.

Credit: AJ

Since then, I’ve probably read about 2,000 comments across both websites. If you follow me on the fediverse, you’ve probably seen some of my commentary about the particularly bad takes I’ve encountered.

And while I’m not going to address each and every thing that came up in that mess, I did notice a few themes and trends that I find worthy of further examination. Hence, this post.

My Blog is a Furry Blog First

This blog, Dhole Moments, is a blog where I write about things for the furry fandom, as my fursona.

Yes, I do have other interests and hobbies besides just being a furry. I have a modicum of expertise in some areas within cryptography and information security.

Too many people saw fit to complain about the furry art. Some of the reasons cited were:

• “It won’t be taken seriously by anyone with any authority to change RTO policy at any serious org [because of the furry art].”
• Falsely insisting that furry is inherently sexual.
• Claiming that furry art is “distracting”.

So let’s be clear about something:

I wrote a personal blog post on a furry blog for my predominantly furry audience in my usual furry style.

Someone else saw fit to submit it to news aggregator websites. Thousands of other people upvoted it, which placed it across your feed.

Then a bunch of uninvited guests get upset at the furry art and decided it was appropriate to tell me how I should write my own blog posts in order for them to be able to share them with their boss? Get fucked.

Art: Sophie

Like, how is that even supposed to make a lick of sense?

If I was at all concerned with being taken “seriously” by a tech company’s management, maybe I wouldn’t have written it here. I probably would’ve dropped it as an open letter under my human name and solicited signatures from my former coworkers or something.

Half the fucking point of doing what I do is to not take anything too seriously. Especially myself.

You’re not reading a programming blog that has furry art. You’re reading a furry blog that has programming on it.

Every time a rando complains, I’m simply going to make it gayer.

Made by MarleyTanuki

What Do You Even Do Here?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4OvQIGDg4I

Most of the comments I read about my previous blog post can be sorted into two categories:

1. They never read past the title, and are therefore helpless
2. They fundamentally don’t understand what my job was

Normally, I’d be like, “OK cool, you don’t need to know what I even do for work”. Most of the time, everyone’s happier not knowing because they have their own problems to deal with.

The comments that spawned from this ignorance seemed to think I was just an easily replaceable cog soon to be obviated by “new grads”, or at risk of being obsoleted by the dreaded specter of “outsourcing”.

I can’t speak to a lot of the jobs the folks in the programming subreddit hold, but if anyone can do my job as well as I can, then they frankly deserve it–in part, because I was effectively on 3 different teams; each needing access to my cryptography and security expertise for different reasons.

Believe me when I say this: I hate bragging. I hate it because I can’t do it without writing about myself, which I also find grueling to do. I’ve missed out on speaking opportunities before because I blanked out on what to put down for the speaker bio. “I’m just me,” is the most I can eek out of my brain in most circumstances.

You cannot replace me with semgrep, or a small pizza party of haphazardly selected CompSci undergrads. I’ve looked at projects on the heels of major crypto/security consultancies and immediately found severe bugs they missed (although I usually just assume that’s due to timeboxing rather than skill). I have definite blind spots, even with cryptography, but the subjects I know, I’m damn good at.

When I was pushed out of my previous role by the RTO mandate, it caused visible pain for the teams I worked with, which rippled across the entire department. So many of my most senior colleagues told me they were thinking of leaving because of how I was treated.

And if it wasn’t clear from my previous post, I’m not happy with this outcome. These were people I respected and enjoyed working with. Everyone up to the vice president I reported through was excellent and tried everything to protect their remote employees.

Other Remarks

I had other things to talk about, but I already added an addendum to the original blog post to address the other misconceptions and weird reactions people had.

Header art by AJ.

https://soatok.blog/2023/10/04/i-dont-care-if-strangers-can-take-me-seriously/

#furry #FurryFandom #HackerNews #InternetCulture #meta #Reddit

Dhole Moments

2023-10-02 07:31:48

I quit my job towards the end of last month.

When I started this blog, I told myself, “Don’t talk about work.” Since my employment is in the rear view mirror, I’m going to bend that rule for once. And most likely, only this one time.

Why? Since I wrote a whole series about how to get into tech for as close to $0 as possible without prior experience, I feel that omitting my feelings would be, on some level, dishonest.

Refusing Forced Relocation

I had been hired in 2019 for the cryptography team at a large tech company. I was hired as a 100% remote employee, with the understanding that I would work from my home in Florida.

Then a pandemic started to happen (which continues to be a mass-disabling event despite what many politicians proclaim).

The COVID-19 pandemic forced a lot of people who preferred to work in an office setting to sink-or-swim in a remote work environment.

In early 2020, you could be forgiven for imagining that this new arrangement was a temporary safety measure that we would adopt for a time, and then one day return to normal. By mid 2022, only people that cannot let go of their habits and traditions continued to believe that we’d ever return to the “normal” they knew in 2019.

As someone who had been working remote since 2014, as soon as the shift happened, many of my peers reached out to me for advice on how to be productive at home. This was an uncomfortable experience for many of them, and as someone who was comfortable in a fully virtual environment, I was happy to help.

By early 2021, I was considered to not only be a top performer, but also a critical expert for the cryptography organization. My time ended up split across three different teams, and I was still knocking my projects out of the park. But more importantly, junior employees felt comfortable approaching me with questions and our most distinguished engineers sought my insight on security and cryptography topics.

It became an inside joke of the cryptography organization, not to let me ever look at someone else’s source code on a Friday, because I would inevitably find at least one security issue, which would inevitably ruin someone’s weekend. I suppose the reasoning was that, if the source code in question belonged to a foundational software package, it carried the risk of paging the entire company as we tried to figure out how to mitigate the issue and upstream the fix.

(I never once got earnestly reprimanded for finding security bugs, of course.)

I can’t really go into detail about the sort of work I did. I don’t really want to name names, either. But I will say that I woke up every day excited and motivated. The problems were interesting, the people were wonderful, and there was an atmosphere of respect and collaboration.

Despite the sudden change in working environment for most of the cryptography organization in response to COVID-19, we were doing great work and cultivating the same healthy and productive work environment that everyone fondly remembered pre-pandemic.

Art: CMYKat

And then the company’s CEO decided to make an unceremonious, unilateral, top-down decision (based entirely on vibes from talking to other CEOs, rather than anything resembling facts, data, or logic):

Everyone must return to the office, and virtual employees must relocate. Exceptions would be few, far between, and required a C-level to sign off on it. Good luck getting an exception before your relocation decision deadline.

Hey, tech workers, stop me if you’ve heard this one before.

To the credit of my former managers, they sprung this dilemma on me literally the day before I went to a hacker conference–a venue full of hiring managers and technical founders.

On Ultimatums

If I had to give only one bit of advice to anyone ever faced with an ultimatum from someone with power over them (be it an employer or abusive romantic partner), it would be:

Ultimately, never choose the one giving you an ultimatum.

Art: AJ_LovesDinos

If your employer tells you, “Move to an expensive city or resign,” your best move will be, in the end, to quit. Notice that I said, in the end.

It’s perfectly okay to pretend to comply to buy time while you line up a new gig somewhere else.

That’s what I did. Just don’t start selling your family home or looking at real estate listings, and definitely don’t accept any relocation assistance (since you’ll have to return it when you split).

Conversely, if you let these assholes exert their power over you, you dehumanize yourself in submission.

(Yes, you did just read those words on a blog written by a furry.)

If you take nothing else away from this post, always keep this in mind.

Art: MarleyTanuki

From Whence Was This Idiocy Inspired?

Nothing happens in a vacuum.

When more tech workers opted to earn their tech company salaries while living in cheaper cost-of-living houses, less tech worker money circulated to big city businesses.

This outflow of money does hurt the local economies of said cities, including the ones that big tech companies are headquartered in. In some cases, this pain has jeopardized a lot of the tax incentives that said companies enjoy.

That’s why we keep hearing about politicians praising the draconian way that the return-to-office policies are being enforced.

At the end of the day, incentives rule everything around us.

Companies have to kowtow to the government in order to reduce their tax bill (and continue pocketing record profits–which drive inflation–while their workers’ wages stagnate).

This outcome was incredibly obvious to everyone that was paying attention; it was just a matter of when, not if.

Signs of Things to Come

Do you know who was really paying attention? The top talent at most tech companies.

After I turned in my resignation, I received a much larger outpour of support from other very senior tech workers than I ever imagined.

Many of them admitted that they were actively looking for new roles; some of them for the first time in over a decade.

Many of them already have new gigs lined up, and were preparing to resign too. Some of those already have.

Others are preparing to refuse to comply with either demand, countering the companies’ ultimatums with one of their own: Shut up or fire me.

What I took from these messages is this: What tech companies are doing is complete bullshit, and everyone knows it, and nobody is happy about it.

With all this in mind, I’d like to issue a prediction for how this return-to-office with forced relocation will play out, should companies’ leaders double down on their draconian nature.

My Prediction

Every company that issued forced relocation ultimatums to their pre-pandemic remote workers will not only lose most (if not all) their top talent in the next year, but they will struggle to hire for at least the coming decade.

The bridge has been burnt, and the well has been poisoned.

Trust arrives on foot, but leaves on horseback.

Dutch proverb

The companies that issued these ultimatums are not stupid. They had to know that some percentage of their core staff would leave over their forced relocation mandates. Many described it as a “soft layoff” tactic.

But I don’t think they appreciate the breadth or depth of the burn they’ve inflicted. Even if they can keep their ships from sinking, the wound will fester and their culture will not easily recover. This will lead to even more brain drain.

Who could blame anyone for leaving when that happens?

Unfortunately, there is a class of people that work in tech that will bear the brunt of the ensuing corporate abuse: H-1B visa employees, whose immigration status is predicated on their ongoing employment. Their ability to hop from abusive companies onto lifeboats is, on the best of days, limited.

And that? Well, that’s going to get ugly.

There’s still time for these companies to slam the brakes on their unmitigated disaster of failed leadership before it collapses the whole enterprise.

If I were a betting dhole, I wouldn’t bet money on most of them doing that.

Their incentives aren’t aligned that way yet, and when they finally are, it will be far too late.

Toward New Opportunities

As for me, I’m enjoying some well-earned downtime before I start my new remote job.

I wasn’t foolish enough to uproot my life and everyone I love at some distant corporate asshole’s whims, but I also wasn’t impulsive enough to jump ship without a plan.

That’s as much as I feel comfortable saying about myself on here.

If you’re facing a similar dilemma, just know that you’re not alone. Savvy companies will be taking advantage of your current employer’s weakness to pan for gold, so to speak.

You are not trapped. Your life is your own to live. Choose wisely.

Addendum

After I posted this, it made the front page of Hacker News and was subsequently posted in quite a few places. After reading some of the comments, I realize a few subtleties in my word choice didn’t come across, so I’d like to clarify them.

When I say “RTO is bullshit”, I don’t mean “office work is bullshit” or anything negative about people that prefer in-person office work. I mean “the forced relocation implementation of transitioning a whole company to never-remote (a.k.a. RTO) is bullshit”.

If working in an office is better for you, rock on. I don’t have any issue with that. The bullshit is the actions taken by company’s leadership teams in absence of (or often in spite of) hard data on remote work versus in-person work. The bullshit is changing remote worker’s employment agreements without their consent and threatening “voluntary resignation” as the only alternative (even though that’s pretty obviously constructive dismissal).

When I discussed ultimatums above, I’m specifically referring to actual ultimatums, not colloquial understandings of the word. If you can talk with the person and negotiate with them, it’s not a goddamn ultimatum. What I was faced with was an actual ultimatum: Comply or suffer. I chose freedom.

Hope that helps.

CMYKat made this, I edited the text

Regarding some of the other comments, I come from the “I work to live” mindset, not the “I live to work” mindset. My opinions won’t resonate with everyone. That’s okay!

Update: I wrote a follow-up to this post to address a lot of bad comments I saw on HN and Reddit.

https://soatok.blog/2023/10/02/return-to-office-is-bullshit-and-everyone-knows-it/

#business #businessEthics #forcedRelocation #returnToOffice #Society #techIndustry #Technology #ultimatums #work

22.10.2024 Meta, Lobbyist Nr. 1 bei der EU

Macht der großen Internetkonzerne brechen

Erst vor wenigen Tagen hatten wir über die Probleme mit Meta, Facebook, Whats App, Instagram und natürlich auch den anderen GAFAM-Konzernen geschrieben. Diese Konzerne verfügen über Geldmengen, die mit denen europäischer Staaten vergleichbar sind. Sie sitzen Klagen gegen ihre Geschäftspraktiken einfach aus. Selbst wenn sie nach 10 Jahren erfolgreich verurteilt werden, nützt das nur wenig.

Selbstverständlich lieben diese Konzerne nicht verurteilt zu werden und versuchen deshalb alles, um die Gesetzgebung in ihrem Interesse zu beeinflussen. Dazu schreibt uns LobbyControl.de:

Aktuelle Zahlen zeigen: Meta (ehemals Facebook) ist die Nummer eins im Brüsseler Lobbyregister. Mit 9 Millionen Euro pro Jahr steckt Meta mehr Geld in Lobbyarbeit als jeder andere Konzern in der EU. Das
ist ein sprunghafter Anstieg: Vor 10 Jahren gab Meta nur 450.000 Euro für Lobbyarbeit in Brüssel aus. Und Meta ist nicht der einzige Tech-Konzern, der so viel Geld für Lobbyarbeit ausgibt: Unter den sechs größten Konzernlobbys in Brüssel sind fünf Tech-Unternehmen.

Die Macht der Digitalkonzerne wächst rasant, doch wir bleiben nicht tatenlos! In Rekordzeit haben wir ein starkes Netzwerk in Deutschland und Europa mit aufgebaut, um die Konzerne in die Schranken zu weisen. ... Die Tech-Konzerne nutzen viele verschiedene Lobby-Methoden: Mitarbeitende wechseln von der Politik in die Privatwirtschaft und umgekehrt, sie schalten teure Kampagnen in den Sozialen Medien und der Presse, und sie treffen wichtige Politikerinnen und Politiker, um ihre
Standpunkte näherzubringen. Außerdem verfügen die Tech-Konzerne gerade in Europa über ein breites Lobby-Netzwerk aus Verbänden, Lobby-Agenturen, Denkfabriken und Anwaltskanzleien, die sich für die Interessen von Google, Amazon & Co einsetzen.

Eines ist immer gleich: Sie verfolgen nur ihre eigenen Gewinninteressen – die Belange der Bürgerinnen und Bürger spielen keine Rolle. Deshalb ist es wichtig, dass sich dem jemand entgegenstellt. Das tun wir – und wollen Sie ebenfalls dafür gewinnen, an unserer Seite zu stehen!

Die EU will die Macht der großen Tech-Konzerne einschränken. Doch der starke Widerstand der Branche macht es für die Politik schwierig. Deshalb braucht es Unterstützung. Wir alle werden uns mit dieser gewaltigen Lobbypower auseinandersetzen müssen. Gemeinsam können wir dafür sorgen, dass die bereits guten Regeln für Lobbyismus in Brüssel nachgeschärft und dann auch konsequent durchgesetzt werden.

Mehr dazu bei https://www.lobbycontrol.de
Kategorie[21]: Unsere Themen in der Presse Short-Link dieser Seite: a-fsa.de/d/3Dq
Link zu dieser Seite: https://www.aktion-freiheitstattangst.org/de/articles/8941-20241022-meta-lobbyist-nr-1-bei-der-eu.html
Link im Tor-Netzwerk: http://a6pdp5vmmw4zm5tifrc3qo2pyz7mvnk4zzimpesnckvzinubzmioddad.onion/de/articles/8941-20241022-meta-lobbyist-nr-1-bei-der-eu.html
Tags: #Meta #Lobbyist #EU #GAFAM #Facebook #LobbyControl #Zensur #Transparenz #Informationsfreiheit #Anonymisierung #Meinungsmonopol #Meinungsfreiheit #Verbraucherdatenschutz #Videoüberwachung #Lauschangriff #Überwachung #Diskriminierung #Persönlichkeitsrecht #Privatsphäre

App Store wymaga od firm opublikowania informacji na temat tego, jak one wykorzystują dane pozyskane od nas i o nas. Oto porównanie tych informacji od Mastodona, Twittera i Threads.

Mastodon

Twitter

Threads

https://imagazine.pl/2023/07/06/mastodon-vs-twitter-vs-threads-ile-oddajesz-swoich-danych-czyli-prywatnosc-zobrazowana/

#Facebook #mediaSpołecznościowe #Meta #prywatność #socialMedia #Threads #Twitter

Wojtek Pietrusiewicz

2023-07-06 07:54:02

App Store wymaga od firm opublikowania informacji na temat tego, jak one wykorzystują dane pozyskane od nas i o nas. Oto porównanie tych informacji od Mastodona, Twittera i Threads.

Mastodon

Twitter

Threads

https://imagazine.pl/2023/07/06/mastodon-vs-twitter-vs-threads-ile-oddajesz-swoich-danych-czyli-prywatnosc-zobrazowana/

#Facebook #mediaSpołecznościowe #Meta #prywatność #socialMedia #Threads #Twitter

Pod koniec 2023 r. badaczka społeczności i redaktorka Erin Kissane (@kissane[@]mas.to) opublikowała na swojej stronie serię artykułów na temat roli Facebooka w wydarzeniach w Mjanmie (Birmie) oraz wniosków, jakie powinniśmy z tego wyciągnąć.

Kilka miesięcy później mogę w końcu oddać Wam 🇵🇱 polskie tłumaczenie tej serii.

Można pobrać EPUB / PDF i czytać na raty. Nawet warto, bo lektura jest długa i momentami nieprzyjemna.

Z jakiegoś powodu czułem potrzebę, żeby ten kawałek historii był lepiej znany również nam, tutaj, w Polsce. Wiele problemów, jakie Mjanma miała z Facebookiem, dotyka także nas.

A zatem - oto kawałek historii, o którym Meta chciałaby pewnie zapomnieć.

🔁 ❤️

🔗 https://blog.lukaszwojcik.net/pl/meta-w-mjanmie/

#facebook #meta #fediwersum #socialMedia #polska

More than a few Meta employees showed up at FediForum earlier this week, doubling down on their commitment to open protocols and “being a good neighbor on the Fediverse”. While there were some demos and fruitful conversations, one public concern flew under the radar.

An eagle-eyed Threads user noticed that their status giving Pixelfed a positive mention was seemingly hidden from the tree of a public conversation. From there, coverage picked up across the network, and even made it back to Daniel Supernault, Pixelfed’s creator.

“Meta is free to do whatever they want on their platforms,” the developer mentioned, “and I hope this is a bug.”

For now, no one’s quite sure. Various people have tried to recreate the same situation with their Threads accounts, and their comments are still publicly available. We have yet to see a statement from the Threads team on the situation.

Bug or not, a vocal part of the network is apprehensive about Meta’s true intentions with the platform, ranging from pessimism on how much effort Threads is really putting in to the Fediverse, to accusations of hostile behavior. Dropping the ball like this can hurt user confidence, especially when building community goodwill is so crucial.

Prior History

Pixelfed has something of an established history with being at odds with Meta. Some of that points to Pixelfed’s form factor, which bears more than a passing resemblance to Instagram.
Left: my Pixelfed, Right: my Instagram
In the past, the project was warned by a Meta employee about using the same filter names and styles for images, citing a potential violation of Meta’s intellectual property. Pixelfed complied, and changed their image filters and styles in hopes of sidestepping the issue. It never came up again.

Pixelfed filters

Additionally, there have been situations in the past where both Twitter and Facebook have censored posts linking to open source Fediverse alternatives. Even if Threads is an effort to right wrongs of the past, these situations don’t reflect well on Threads or its parent company.

When is a bug just a bug?

For all we know right now, this is very likely an unfortunate bug. However, it’s important for the Threads team to nip this in the bud, if they really want to establish good vibes about their efforts.

FediPact is an Organized Effort to Block Meta’s ActivityPub Platform

https://wedistribute.org/2023/06/fedipact-blocking-meta/embed/#?secret=7cLoHjF70r#?secret=2YsFyid9V9

On the other hand, it’s important to acknowledge that there’s a segment of the network that won’t be satisfied with an explanation, no matter how much evidence is presented. Some people will block Meta no matter what, and that’s their choice.

Regardless, we’ll keep you posted if we learn anything more.

https://wedistribute.org/2024/03/is-threads-hiding-pixelfed/

#Meta

We Distribute

2023-06-20 01:00:43

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is looking to launch their own fediverse platform. Some people are already advocating to block it en masse.

FediPact is an Organized Effort to Block Meta’s ActivityPub Platform

The fediverse has been aware of Meta’s intention to build an ActivityPub app for some time now. Purportedly called Threads, this “Project92” looks like it will be a Twitter competitor, and will be compatible with Mastodon instances. Rumors have spread that Project92 is courting the Dalai Lama and Oprah Winfrey, to overtake Elon Musk’s dumpster fire.

The infamous linked screenshot of “Threads” / “Barcelona” / “Project 92” being presented.

To begin with, Project92’s existence was always going to bring some unease to the network. A growing number of instance admins have signed FediPact, an agreement to block Meta from connecting with them. The effort, organized by one Vanta Black, opened up a passionate discussion about the network’s future. Admins and users alike have given passionate statements about the possibilities.

I will do everything I can to stop them from burning down the beautiful community we’ve spent over seven years cultivating here.

Vanta Black, creator of FediPact

For many, the reaction makes sense. The walled gardens that so many users have migrated from were vectors for abuse, poor moderation, and data harvesting. That’s a big part of why so many people want nothing to do with it.

Reasons for the Ban

Throughout the discourse, people have cited some of the ills that Facebook has inflicted on the world. The company is responsible for poor working conditions for third-party moderators, presenting itself as the entire internet to some populations, embrace and abandonment of open protocols, and algorithms contributing to genocide in Myanmar. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

They will absolutely not moderate their shit properly, and it will make the areas of the fediverse that choose to federate with them actively unsafe.

Vanta Black

Whether FediPact is an effective way to stop value extraction out of an independently-run network is up for debate. Rumors are swirling, with accusations that some admins have signed NDAs to have private discussions with Meta.

#Barcelona #fediverse #Meta #P92 #Threads

https://wedistribute.org/2023/06/fedipact-blocking-meta/

'It's digital colonialism': how Facebook's free internet service has failed its users

Free Basics, built for developing markets, focuses on ‘western corporate content’ and violates net neutrality principles, researchers say

^{Olivia Solon (The Guardian)}

Reminder to anyone who said "Meta wouldn't do anything to Fediverse, we should let them join!"

Meta is now automatically muting all posts that mention PixelFed, so it's users can't read about any alternatives to its services.

https://mastodon.social/@dansup/112126250737482807

Just remember, *Every time advocacy groups warn about tech/capitalism, believe them.* We don't make shit up, we use history of actions and facts to state our reasons to be against it.

If your instance isn't part of @FediPact please urge your admins to join or move to another instance who is.

And if you want proof, ask the general public what Jabber/XMPP was, and then ask what Google how they killed it.

EDIT: *Please* send support to the creator of the FediPact, @vantablack as she is homeless. This is possible because of them.

EDIT #2: Some peppe are saying it doesn't happen anymore, but since it *only* happened to competitors to Facebook and only *after* people noticed, I don't think it was a "bug" that only impacted FOSS replacements, but a feature for Facebook removed. Don't give these Zuckers gaslight and think they remain innocent.

#fedipact #meta #pixelfed #eff

dansup

2024-03-20 05:00:08

Threads hiding @pixelfed mentions, not a good look Meta 🙄

If you had told me as recently as two years ago that Meta was going to create a microblogging platform, I would have scoffed. If you had told me that same network would federate over ActivityPub, I would’ve laughed in your face.

But here we are. It’s happening. We’re no longer at a point where people can laugh and shrug it off. Meta is coming, and people are collectively losing their minds over it.

The question is, are they overreacting? Is there something to it? I’ve had to do a lot of reflection on the subject, and I’d like to break things down my thoughts. I think a lot of people are worried about how the Fediverse might ultimately change, but I think the transformation could alter the entire Internet for the better.

What are people worried about?

Generally speaking, most of the feedback I’ve been seeing boils down to about four different responses:

1. Meta is going to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish the Fediverse

This is the most common response I’ve seen, and a lot of people that support this view point to XMPP’s dwindling support between Facebook and Google.

The theory goes like this: a company decides to support an open standard, because it’s a popular thing that people expect support for. Then, when that company’s offering hits a critical mass of users, they quietly kill off support for that standard and keep the people on their platforms.

This kind of thing isn’t completely unheard of, and dates back to the Microsoft playbook of the 1990’s, but the XMPP situation that many people refer to is a misrepresentation of what actually happened. While XMPP was open for anyone to implement, there’s little evidence to suggest that it was ever particularly popular, or that people were demanding it.

I am not open to your ahistorical take on Google Chat and XMPP.

Google didn't do anything wrong by using an open standard.

They didn't do anything wrong by building a good interface that people liked to use.

And they didn't do anything wrong by disconnecting from the network when the spam and harassment outweighed the benefit to their users.

We, the XMPP community, failed to capitalize on success by diversifying the network. It's our own fault not enough nodes were there.

— Evan Prodromou (@evan)2023-07-09T19:10:35.220Z

The idea that XMPP had its thunder stolen by conniving businessmen is completely detached from reality. If anything, these businesses built an integration, saw that only a handful of its users actually took advantage of it, had to deal with an increasing amount of spam, and quietly killed it off with little fanfare.

After seven years, it’s evident that the rest of the industry is not moving to embrace this open system. If at some point in the future, the industry shows interest, we would then be open to discussions about developing an interface that’s designed for modern needs.

Google Spokesperson on dropping XMPP, PCWorld article

Threads could still decide that the juice isn’t worth the squeeze with ActivityPub, and reverse course at any time. Take a second to consider, however: it’s already bad enough when two instances sever user connections. People literally can’t follow their friends in the process. Even if the connection is later restored, those user connections may remain broken. It’s an action with huge consequences.

Verdict: Unlikely

The Fediverse is in a much different place now, compared to where XMPP was in the early 2000’s. Millions of people use it every day, and there’s a vibrant ecosystem of apps and platforms that empower hundreds of distinct communities all over the web.

https://videopress.com/embed/5HP1DAaq?cover=1&autoPlay=0&controls=1&loop=0&muted=0&persistVolume=1&playsinline=1&preloadContent=metadata&useAverageColor=1&posterUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fvideos.files.wordpress.com%2F5HP1DAaq%2Fgicwmacpotj66_mmang6wbaxabdqbkylaaaf_mp4.scrubthumb.jpg&hd=0

If anything, it may be that Threads is looking to be a major player in the space, and hopes to benefit from an ecosystem shift by being the biggest project out there. Maybe that situation looks like developing a better API and clients than what Mastodon has, and getting other platforms to use it over MastoAPI.

Maybe Threads will develop some high-end infrastructure projects, to handle a vast amount of users. Who knows? It’s possible that Meta might make the GraphQL or React of Fediverse technologies at some point.

2. Threads will poison Fediverse culture

The idea goes like this: in addition to the sheer amount of brands and influencers chasing engagement, Threads allows hate speech, and is poorly moderated, to boot. Content is going to become more hostile, more aggressive, and more centered around chasing engagement.

I think instance admins wanting to protect their communities, and community members not wanting to see anything from Threads, is a totally fair position. The promise of the Fediverse is that individuals ought to be in charge of who and what they see on the network.

Stop Using Threads consumes a list of users and tells you which of those users interact with Threads. You can use it to remove Threads participants from your timeline.

You can find out the tool's opinion on you by entering your own name, or you can just Submit with default settings to find out about Gargron.

https://stop-using-threads.net/

Data practices, anti-abuse and opt-in/out are behind the link. If you didn't opt into search, you're not visible here either.

#threads #fediblock

— Pyrex, nightsworn alchemist (@pyrex)2023-12-15T18:00:32.881Z

The problem is that there’s a movement of people who want to block anything and anyone that doesn’t choose to block Threads themselves. This kind of thing has been going on for a while, where a group of admins will choose to cut off connections to another server, because its federation policies allow connections that their own policies forbid.

A lot of people worry that this hysteria could lead to a massive fragmentation of the Fediverse, effectively doing Meta’s job for free. Either we’re all going to drown in the noise produced by Threads, or the networks will become increasingly isolated.

Verdict: Maybe

The Fediverse has been through a significant amount of cultural shifts over time, and people tend to forget how exactly the network has changed. Meta has dropped the ball on moderation several times over, and their decisions of what’s acceptable on their instance could end up establishing norms that didn’t exist before. It’s going to be up to users and admins over whether they want to deal with any of it.

Meta is going to harvest all of our data

It’s hard not to see this one, given Meta’s reputation with Facebook and Instagram. Even when the Threads app came out, people were quick to highlight the egregious data collection the app was doing.
This still blows my mind. Left: Mastodon, Right: Threads
Look, Meta is no doubt going to collect data from their own users, and use it for a variety of purposes. That’s covered by their EULA. But scraping public statuses to perform analytics, track people, sell data, and serve ads? Legally, that’s a sticky situation, when it comes to people who never signed a EULA with Threads or Meta.

Verdict: Maybe

Look, there’s nothing really stopping anybody from scraping public posts in the network and doing something with the resulting data. It’s not a great situation, and will likely be a sticking point when it comes to user consent.

On the other hand, though, Meta might find itself in legal hot water if it gets caught doing this. A class-action lawsuit might emerge, or a smaller network like Tumblr might give Meta grief over harvesting Tumblr data. Given the regulatory scrutiny Meta is facing from the EU, it might not be an action worth taking.

4. Threads is going to overrun us

This point is the least talked about, but the most concerning to me. It’s actually deeply worrying, because we don’t really have any good workaround yet.

Here’s the thing: Threads will bring over 100 million users to the Fediverse. Maybe not all at once, but it’s going to be the biggest instance, with the biggest footprint. We’re talking millions, maybe even billions of statuses federating out every day. It’s going to be bigger than all of Mastodon put together. The entire ecosystem and culture could shift.

One really big side effect stems from this: smaller servers could get hit hard. We’ve never been at a point where so many activities stemming from one place could pass through so much of the network. It could put many members on the network at a severe disadvantage, even if they blocked Threads entirely.

Verdict: Highly Probable

Look, the network’s been growing larger, at a faster rate, over the past 15 years of its existence. When it was initially built, nobody anticipated millions of concurrent connections passing data back and forth.

Source: FediDB

Even within the last few years, the size of the network has become unfathomable. Every time that a new migration from Reddit or Twitter or another popular app happens, the network strains and struggles to grow as tens of thousands of people pour into servers that originally only expected a few hundred inhabitants at most. The network scales, but we’re really bad at it.

What are the upsides?

There’s a lot of gloom and doom talk right now, but let’s focus on some positive changes that are happening right now: the network is vibrant, growing in variety, and becoming more mainstream and more available to the general population.

Everything, all at once

Going on the Fediverse right now, I can follow news publications, public companies, government officials, activist organizations, and collaborative projects. I can follow ESPN, the BBC, George Takei, and Indivisible. This is all in addition to the people I regularly talk to and interact with on the network.

As someone that joined Identica back in 2008, words cannot express how crazy this is to me. These aren’t just fake accounts or Twitter mirror bots. There’s journalists and celebrities and game developers and musicians and all sorts of other people actively using the network now.

Changing the Face of the Internet

But, it goes way further than just accounts on servers: Flipboard is incorporating ActivityPub into their platform directly. WordPress has a plugin, and Automattic made every WordPress.com blog capable of opting in. Medium has been testing the waters with their own Mastodon instance.

If Meta ends up becoming a part of the Fediverse, this development might just tip the scales, and inspire dozens of other platforms to participate. Suddenly, it makes more sense for Tumblr and Flickr to enter the fold, and dozens of entirely new platforms will emerge, too. Beyond just being a W3C standard, ActivityPub could crystalize into a de facto standard for social platforms.

What should we do?

Despite all of the gloom and doom talk, I’m cautiously optimistic. This situation might just be the push the Fediverse needs to step up on several of the shortcomings we inherited from Mastodon.

Build more resilient infrastructure

The massive success of Mastodon has brought the Fediverse to a whole new level, when it comes to the ecosystem and the amount of users taking part in it. Unfortunately, relying primarily on one dominant platform has introduced a lot of technical debt to how the Fediverse is currently built.

A very common trend I’ve seen with Fedi development personally is that a lot of important architectural decisions are made after their necessity becomes justified. GNU Social didn’t care about private statuses, because it was originally meant for public microblogging. Mastodon didn’t really care too much about scaling, until servers started experiencing large migrations of users. PeerTube didn’t really think about moderation tools, until users pointed out the need to mitigate online harassment.

We’re about to arrive at a point where hundreds of millions of people might be part of the network. Nobody optimized any architectural pieces, because nobody really thought it was going to happen anytime soon. But if Meta comes, other networks inevitably will, too. We need to figure out how to handle the load without pricing small server operators out of the equation.

Let users choose what they connect with

For some time, admins have been the deciding factor of which servers their users can federate with. From a protective stance, it makes sense: hard blocking can minimize interactions coming from bad servers. But, there’s sometimes disagreements on what constitutes “bad”, and who should get to make that call.

After some careful consideration, I have decided to block threads.net on pixelfed.social and .art by default

However, users will have the ability to unblock the domain

Soon we will be selectively enforcing authorized fetch for accounts with domain blocks so as to provide the best of both worlds.

(I'm also shipping a command for 😛ixelfed: admins to easily add user domain blocks for all local users)

I'm eager to hear your feedback!

PR: https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed/pull/4834

#pixelfed #userDomainBlocks

— dansup 🚀 (@dansup)2023-12-21T09:29:47.413Z

Pixelfed is leading the way with the development of a new feature: users can opt in to connecting to a domain, even if most of the instance doesn’t receive anything. Not only is this a great way forward, but it puts choice in the hands of users while still holding a general policy.

Build a proper ActivityPub Test Suite

The current situation with ActivityPub compatibility is not great: because Mastodon is the biggest platform in the space, everybody just does whatever Mastodon does. Devs literally just test against it, and hope for the best when it comes to being compatible with other platforms.

What do you think is going to happen when the de facto standard is going to be surpassed by something with a hundred times more users? Does it even make sense for developers to care about Mastodon’s API, if the user base is only a fraction of the size?

The ideal situation is for a platform-agnostic ActivityPub testing suite that everybody can test against to fix bugs, make sure federation works, and establish standard behavior. If we can get the main platforms of the Fediverse to test against this, we could probably get Meta to do it, too.

This is something a handful of members from the W3C SocialCG are currently demoing and talking about, and an NLNet grant currently points to one such attempt.

Develop better controls for privacy and security

As I stated in my Mastodon Myths article, Mastodon’s security and privacy provisions are paper thin, lack granularity, and in some cases are easily subverted.

We can play whack-a-mole with blocklists, and pretend that there aren’t any problems, but developing user controls around consent are absolutely critical, especially if the network is about to grow nearly 100 times bigger.
Bonfire’s concept designs for circles and boundaries. Check it out.
Mastodon can look to platforms like Hubzilla and Bonfire with ideas on how to implement controls like this. Who can look at a status? Who can respond, or share it around? Who can message me directly? We need to empower users, and standardize those conventions.

Conclusion

Change is scary, especially when so many details appear to shift in direction and polarity. Threads being a part of this place feels like a paradox to some, and sacrilege to others. None of us want to see the Fediverse turn into a toxic dumping ground for the worst that social media has to offer. Nobody wants the Googles of the world to hijack an Internet standard.

A part of me remains incredibly optimistic: the Fediverse might actually hit an inflection point that transforms the entire Internet for billions of people. In our battle against social siloes and surveillance capitalism, we might find that the Fediverse won.

https://wedistribute.org/2023/12/tangled-up-threads/

#Meta

Evan Prodromou

2023-07-09 19:10:35

I am not open to your ahistorical take on Google Chat and XMPP.

Google didn't do anything wrong by using an open standard.

They didn't do anything wrong by building a good interface that people liked to use.

And they didn't do anything wrong by disconnecting from the network when the spam and harassment outweighed the benefit to their users.

We, the XMPP community, failed to capitalize on success by diversifying the network. It's our own fault not enough nodes were there.

I created a new #Instagram account just to access #Threads and for testing later. But guess what?

The first thing I saw after joining Instagram's Threads using a new account were:
* big boobs
* big butts
* women making their big butts dance
* girls (hopefully they are not underage) showcasing their boobs
* and on and on and on

Seriously? Where's the #CONTENT? Did I join a #Dating app or something?

Why is the majority of the content I'm seeing are women? I only saw 2 nature posts, 1 cooking post, 4 funny posts (not even a meme).

To be clear: This is a reaction to the type of content, a new account I created, Threads threw at me. This is NOT about women.

I don't know if they're using an algorithm. If they are, since it is a new account, there is no data for their algorithm to use, so it more likely chose the “most popular” and/or “most active” posts.

That's fine.

However, for people not searching for someone to date, they will immediately delete Threads if this is what you show to new accounts.

=== BGN: aside ===
* I had to create a new account because Instagram banned my official account for no particular reason.
* I even confirmed my identity 3 times (they forced me).
* They won't talk to me at all.
* Absolutely no violations, I rarely upload and leave comments.
* If I will take my best guess, they banned my official account because I'm #ActuallyAutistic. While my personal account, where I did not reveal I'm #Autistic, is still fine to this day.
* I have Two-Factor Authentication on, I have a verified phone number and email.
=== END: aside ===

I think #Meta / #Facebook doesn't have to worry about #Fediverse content violating their “community guidelines”. Based from this shocking experience, it is the fediverse that should be worried of the content Threads will be bringing over.

P.S. I am 100% for #BringingDownTheWalls. This is NOT an anti-Meta post; even though they unfairly and unjustly banned my official, and old, account last year.

☣️ Posted today: Video overview of massive moderation failure across all #Meta networks filled with criminal activity and abuse.

Yet somehow countless #MastoAdmin folks still think we need to "give them the benefit of the doubt" and "wait and see".

We have seen more than enough abuse to exclude them. For nearly two decades.

📺 Watch "Facebook is a Cesspool of Fraud, Fake Accounts, Scams and Worse":

https://peertube.lon.tv/w/tAGPi2sdbVyT6cZLVzfzEW

#Threads #Facebook #Instagram #FediPact

lonseidman

2023-12-19 02:35:14

Facebook is a Cesspool of Fraud, Fake Accounts, Scams and Worse..

See more videos like this one: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCZHp4d1HnIsJJ0Gy1ENvGjbCp7PslRyz - Facebook is totally overrun by fake accounts scamming people. Why aren't they doing anything about it? In this video we take a look at some examples that I've directly experienced and how Facebook did nothing to put a stop to it. Subscribe for more! http://lon.tv/s

VIDEO INDEX:
00:00 - Intro
00:20 - Fake accounts swarming a friend
01:33 - My "honeypot" post nets dozens of scammers
02:05 - Why So Many Scammers?
05:10 - Facebook takes no action
06:12 - Fake home improvement scams in groups
07:36 - Human trafficking?
08:30 - Identity verification?
11:48 - Education resources
13:32 - Conclusion

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Lon.TV Commentary & Analysis

Lon Seidman's commentary and analysis series on various tech topics.

^YouTube

Threads, Meta’s new microblogging platform, is updating its terms to focus on data collection from “Third Party Users”.

Threads’ New Terms & Conditions Affects the Fediverse

Threads, Meta’s new microblogging project that piggybacks off of Instagram, has updated their Terms & Conditions to include new provisions regarding “Third Party Users”.

The new Supplemental Privacy Policy lays out what new data to collect, and from whom:

Threads will also integrate with third-party services (“Third Party Services”) via an interoperable protocol, which will allow Threads users to share content with, view and interact with content from, follow, and be followed by people outside of Threads who use such services (“Third Party Users”). This integration with Third Party Services is not available at launch, but will be coming to Threads soon.

Supplemental Privacy Policy

Provided that a Third Party User is followed by or following a Threads account, Meta will ingest these pieces of data specifically:

• Username
• Profile Picture
• IP Address
• Name of Third Party Service
• Posts from profile
• Post interactions (Follow, Like, Reshare, Mentions)

Granted, these sound like basic table stakes for federation to work well within the Fediverse. Most Mastodon servers collect roughly about the same amount of data for basic features to work correctly. But again, Meta is first and foremost an advertising and data harvesting company, and many people aren’t happy at the idea of being subjected to this treatment from the vantage point of their own servers.

FediPact is an Organized Effort to Block Meta’s ActivityPub Platform
Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is looking to launch their own fediverse platform. Some people are already advocating to block it en masse.
Read More
wedistribute.org

Mike Macgirvin, former dev lead on Friendica and Hubzilla, is taking a proactive stance on the new changes with an update to his new project, Streams.

Fresh release from the streams repository. Available now.

Includes some enhancements to our defenses against Meta/Threads after reviewing their updated ToS.
Also includes access to protected content via OpenWebAuth over Opensearch.
And some other stuff.

You will want this update regardless of your stance regarding Meta.

If you are uncomfortable with Meta and their business practises, visit ‘admin/security’ and add ‘threads.net’ to ‘Block communications from these sites’ — and also set ‘Require signed fetch requests’.

Mike Macgirvin

The new enhancement examines remote fetch requests against a list of who should be allowed to access a resource. It may prove to be a viable protection against excessive data harvesting.

#Instagram #Meta

https://wedistribute.org/2023/08/threads-new-terms-affects-the-fediverse/

We Distribute

2023-06-20 01:00:43

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is looking to launch their own fediverse platform. Some people are already advocating to block it en masse.

FediPact is an Organized Effort to Block Meta’s ActivityPub Platform

The fediverse has been aware of Meta’s intention to build an ActivityPub app for some time now. Purportedly called Threads, this “Project92” looks like it will be a Twitter competitor, and will be compatible with Mastodon instances. Rumors have spread that Project92 is courting the Dalai Lama and Oprah Winfrey, to overtake Elon Musk’s dumpster fire.

The infamous linked screenshot of “Threads” / “Barcelona” / “Project 92” being presented.

To begin with, Project92’s existence was always going to bring some unease to the network. A growing number of instance admins have signed FediPact, an agreement to block Meta from connecting with them. The effort, organized by one Vanta Black, opened up a passionate discussion about the network’s future. Admins and users alike have given passionate statements about the possibilities.

I will do everything I can to stop them from burning down the beautiful community we’ve spent over seven years cultivating here.

Vanta Black, creator of FediPact

For many, the reaction makes sense. The walled gardens that so many users have migrated from were vectors for abuse, poor moderation, and data harvesting. That’s a big part of why so many people want nothing to do with it.

Reasons for the Ban

Throughout the discourse, people have cited some of the ills that Facebook has inflicted on the world. The company is responsible for poor working conditions for third-party moderators, presenting itself as the entire internet to some populations, embrace and abandonment of open protocols, and algorithms contributing to genocide in Myanmar. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

They will absolutely not moderate their shit properly, and it will make the areas of the fediverse that choose to federate with them actively unsafe.

Vanta Black

Whether FediPact is an effective way to stop value extraction out of an independently-run network is up for debate. Rumors are swirling, with accusations that some admins have signed NDAs to have private discussions with Meta.

#Barcelona #fediverse #Meta #P92 #Threads

https://wedistribute.org/2023/06/fedipact-blocking-meta/

'It's digital colonialism': how Facebook's free internet service has failed its users

Free Basics, built for developing markets, focuses on ‘western corporate content’ and violates net neutrality principles, researchers say

^{Olivia Solon (The Guardian)}

Meta, Facebook’s parent company, is looking to launch their own fediverse platform. Some people are already advocating to block it en masse.

FediPact is an Organized Effort to Block Meta’s ActivityPub Platform

The fediverse has been aware of Meta’s intention to build an ActivityPub app for some time now. Purportedly called Threads, this “Project92” looks like it will be a Twitter competitor, and will be compatible with Mastodon instances. Rumors have spread that Project92 is courting the Dalai Lama and Oprah Winfrey, to overtake Elon Musk’s dumpster fire.

The infamous linked screenshot of “Threads” / “Barcelona” / “Project 92” being presented.

To begin with, Project92’s existence was always going to bring some unease to the network. A growing number of instance admins have signed FediPact, an agreement to block Meta from connecting with them. The effort, organized by one Vanta Black, opened up a passionate discussion about the network’s future. Admins and users alike have given passionate statements about the possibilities.

I will do everything I can to stop them from burning down the beautiful community we’ve spent over seven years cultivating here.

Vanta Black, creator of FediPact

For many, the reaction makes sense. The walled gardens that so many users have migrated from were vectors for abuse, poor moderation, and data harvesting. That’s a big part of why so many people want nothing to do with it.

Reasons for the Ban

Throughout the discourse, people have cited some of the ills that Facebook has inflicted on the world. The company is responsible for poor working conditions for third-party moderators, presenting itself as the entire internet to some populations, embrace and abandonment of open protocols, and algorithms contributing to genocide in Myanmar. And that’s just the tip of the iceberg.

They will absolutely not moderate their shit properly, and it will make the areas of the fediverse that choose to federate with them actively unsafe.

Vanta Black

Whether FediPact is an effective way to stop value extraction out of an independently-run network is up for debate. Rumors are swirling, with accusations that some admins have signed NDAs to have private discussions with Meta.

#Barcelona #fediverse #Meta #P92 #Threads

https://wedistribute.org/2023/06/fedipact-blocking-meta/

Sean Tilley

2023-06-21 08:57:46

Note: This entry is part of our new Opinion section, which exists to offer different perspectives from various voices on the network. Members of the community are absolutely encouraged to submit their own pieces for publication.

John Gruber, legendary Mac enthusiast and operator of the widely known blog Daring Fireball, certainly has some strong opinions about the negative reactions within the Fediverse regarding Meta’s entry into the space. He’s so passionate about the subject that he’s already written a second piece.

I’d like to try to address some of his points, because I believe he’s gotten a lot of things wrong. John, I don’t think you’re a bad guy, and I don’t hate you. I just think you haven’t been in the space long enough to really know much about it.

From his first entry:

…the idea that administrators of Mastodon/Fediverse instances should pledge to preemptively block Facebook’s imminent Twitter-like ActivityPub service (purportedly named Threads) strikes me as petty and deliberately insular…

John Gruber

This is something of a false dilemma. If some random developer with no track record tried to build an app, and was viciously shunned because he wasn’t a part of the in-group, that would absolutely qualify as petty and deliberately insular.

Meta is not a person, it’s a corporation. No amount of chanting “corporations are people, my friend” is going to change that. Facebook alone has a noxious track record a mile long, has repeatedly abused open standards for its own benefit, and their negligence and poor decisions have spread misinformation, genocide, and hatred over and over again.

They can’t even moderate their own platforms properly, let alone treat their contracted moderators well.

The Fediverse was started, aided, and cultivated by many different people over a considerable amount of time. Many of those who are here did so to be free of the kind of things that Facebook/Twitter/Reddit were doing to their respective communities. For-profit corporate walled gardens are already problematic enough.

But there are literally billions of good people who use their services. Why cut them off from the open ActivityPub social world?

Confusing users with a service is disingenuous, at best. No one is stopping anyone that uses Facebook from joining the Fediverse. We just want to stop the company itself from bending the network to its own ends.

What’s actually kind of crazy is that people have created a number of services to assist with user migration from Twitter, like FediFinder. But, wouldn’t you know it, those platforms tend to shoot down the lifeboats when that affects their bottom line.

We’re fine with building new user communities and growing the network. It’s the corporate end that we have a problem with.

Large swaths of Mastodon seem to relish the fact that it’s confusing how to get started, and that this confusion is keeping Mastodon small.

First of all: the notion of relishing keeping the network small isn’t a thing. Most people on the network are thrilled to see it grow and evolve – which it has been doing organically, without any kind of commercial advertising, for over 15 years.

The pushback that people have is towards growth for its own sake, a numbers-chasing game where over-simplified sign-up tools trend towards centralization. Some Mastodon instances, for example, are possibly massive, with hundreds of thousands of users, and like a team of six moderators. It’s not a sustainable situation, and it creates a lot of social problems on the network.

The whole point of ActivityPub as an open protocol is to turn Twitter/Instagram-like social networking into something more akin to email: truly open.

This might blow your mind, but the scope is way more ambitious than just making federated clones of popular services: it’s a framework to connect separate spaces of the Internet together.

Federation might work in a manner similar to email, but the goal was always to bring social capabilities to the rest of the web, and providing interoperability. From my Mastodon, I can follow a band on Funkwhale, comment on a video from PeerTube, send a link with a paragraph of text to a group on Lemmy, and then comment on a WordPress blog. And that’s only the beginning.

The true power of ActivityPub has yet to be fully realized, but it brings an opportunity to do some things with servers and clients that have never been seen before. We can break out of walled gardens and use the interoperability across the web as platforms for all of our apps.

Maybe I’m wrong! I certainly don’t think the “let’s pledge to block Facebook before their Fediverse thing even starts” people are nuts. But to me this feels like convicting Facebook of a pre-crime.

This isn’t Minority Report. While people are judging what Meta might do in the future, those notions are informed on how Facebook has acted globally in the past. Giving them a chance in the first place here could actually be considered giving them a second chance for the long list of crap they’ve already done.

From his second article:

I don’t think most Instagram users will even try Threads…“just sign in using your existing Instagram identity” is a powerful enticement. If you already have an Instagram account, you’ll be able to jump right in.

The thing with Threads is that it’s likely not going to be open source, and people won’t be able to self-host it. It will be a singular node on the network, tied into infrastructure that Meta explicitly controls. So yeah, of course they have easy integration and a way for people to try it out in Meta’s sandbox.

How to get started with Mastodon (or any of the other ActivityPub “Fediverse” platforms) has been an enormous obstacle to adoption

I’d be lying if I said that we’ve managed to crack this nut. Discovery in peer-networked systems is notoriously hard. There are a lot of nuances to how different servers interact, and the complex politics behind who will talk to who can be absolutely irksome. But I don’t think users are stricken with absolute analysis paralysis like some suggest.

How do I join in fun discussions? Who is worth following? Where is all the good stuff at? These kind of questions take a lot ingenuity in design, in a system where you can’t just throw a few billion people’s data at it.

The thing is, at the end of the day, you just have to pick a place and see if you like it. You can always try a different space, or be part of multiple spaces, until you’ve really found a place you’re comfortable in. Most of my friends on the network aren’t even on my server, and we manage to communicate anyway. The process is just organic for now, rather than automatic.

I cited email as an example yesterday of big companies running big instances and not extinguishing the openness that made the platform great.

Actually, email is probably not a great example to use. 30 years ago, your analogy might be apt, but the ecosystem of email has largely been dominated by a few major players that successfully gatekeep it these days.

I recommend trying to run your own email server in 2023, and see how many of your emails ultimately go through to your peers, to people operating services, or to support desks. Better yet, try running an independent newsletter with it. You’ll likely end up in people’s Spam folders, if your message gets delivered at all.

I don’t take podcasting’s future for granted, but 20 years in, it’s still thriving as an open medium, despite the presence of titanic players like Apple, Amazon, YouTube, and Spotify.

If podcasts have continued to thrive, it is only in spite of those companies efforts to build walled gardens around it. Despite companies like Spotify trying to make certain podcasts exclusive to their platforms, or Google killing off feed readers, no one has actually succeeded at killing off a simple feed anybody can subscribe to.

And there are some roles that we need big centralized players to play even on an open platform. Apple’s iTunes podcast directory, for example. Facebook’s Threads app could be something akin to Apple Podcasts for Mastodon.

I dunno, John, this is a weird metaphor. I get that you’re trying to say “a simplified, popular thing that everyone knows could be a powerful way for everyone to interface with the network”, but this is also kind of a maximalist stance towards everyone federating with one very big corporate node.

Does the network really need this? Is crawling our entire network for the purposes of discovery and entertainment on Meta’s corporate node, and maybe even monetizing our public data along the way, a price worth paying for their presence here?

Kbin and Lemmy are to Reddit what Mastodon is to Twitter. Unsurprisingly, they’ve both seeing an infusion of new users this month, but are both still tiny compared to Reddit.

And many of those people might go back, or they might stick around. Still, the network will grow. This doesn’t have to be a “line go up” dick measuring contest, where the network with the biggest number is the winner. We just have to be around longer than they are.

The idea that NDAs are inherently nefarious is just conspirational tinfoil-hat nonsense.

I think this is an oversimplification. NDAs can be incredibly binding – let’s say that Meta did this with a fediverse developer, and then showed that developer several features they plan to implement. The developer working on their own version for compatability may well be in violation of the NDA, and can cause some real legal headaches for some guy that’s just building his own thing.

I’ll close this post with the same question I did yesterday: Is the goal of the Fediverse to be anti-corporate/anti-commercial, or to be pro-openness? I think openness is the answer.

The idea of forming this question as a binary “this or that” is ridiculous, and predicated on a nebulous idea that open source communities should just roll over and be grateful that some insanely profitable entity wants to do real estate development right outside of our digital homes.

The Fediverse is developed by many people, building many different projects, over the course of many years. It has a long history of being cultivated by geeks and queers and marginalized folks who had no other space to go to. It is open to those who are willing to follow a social contract, to not tear down a beautiful forest to replace it with a shopping mall, dump toxic waste in our streams, or exert influence over the ecosystem we have been building.

If I had to ascribe a goal to the Fediverse, it’s to transform the Open Web into something so powerful, that it renders all of the corporate social silos of the world redundant and unnecessary.

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https://wedistribute.org/2023/06/john-gruber-no-understand/

John Gruber Doesn’t Know What He’s Talking About

Note: This entry is part of our new Opinion section, which exists to offer different perspectives from various voices on the network. Members of the community are absolutely encouraged to submit their

^{Sean Tilley (We Distribute)}