I strongly encourage instance admins to defederate from Facebook/Threads/Meta.

They aren’t some new, bright-eyed group with no track record. They’re a borderline Machiavellian megacorporation with a long and continuing history of extremely hostile actions:

  • Helping enhance genocides in countries
  • Openly and willingly taking part in political manipulation (see Cambridge Analytica)
  • Actively have campaigned against net neutrality and attempted to make “facebook” most of the internet for members of countries with weaker internet infra - directly contributing to their amplification of genocide (see the genocide link for info)
  • Using their users as non-consenting subjects to psychological experiments.
  • Absolutely ludicrous invasions of privacy - even if they aren’t able to do this directly to the Fediverse, it illustrates their attitude.
  • Even now, they’re on-record of attempting to get instance admins to do backdoor discussions and sign NDAs.

Yes, I know one of the Mastodon folks have said they’re not worried. Frankly, I think they’re being laughably naive >.<. Facebook/Meta - and Instagram’s CEO - might say pretty words - but words are cheap and from a known-hostile entity like Meta/Facebook they are almost certainly just a manipulation strategy.

In my view, they should be discarded as entirely irrelevant, or viewed as deliberate lies, given their continued atrocious behaviour and open manipulation of vast swathes of the population.

Facebook have large amounts of experience on how to attack and astroturf social media communities - hell I would be very unsurprised if they are already doing it, but it’s difficult to say without solid evidence ^.^

Why should we believe anything they say, ever? Why should we believe they aren’t just trying to destroy a competitor before it gets going properly, or worse, turn it into yet another arm of their sprawling network of services, via Embrace, Extend, Extinguish - or perhaps Embrace, Extend, Consume would be a better term in this case?

When will we ever learn that openly-manipulative, openly-assimilationist corporations need to be shoved out before they can gain any foothold and subsume our network and relegate it to the annals of history?

I’ve seen plenty of arguments claiming that it’s “anti-open-source” to defederate, or that it means we aren’t “resilient”, which is wrong ^.^:

  • Open source isn’t about blindly trusting every organisation that participates in a network, especially not one which is known-hostile. Threads can start their own ActivityPub network if they really want or implement the protocol for themselves. It doesn’t mean we lose the right to kick them out of most - or all - of our instances ^.^.
  • Defederation is part of how the fediverse is resilient. It is the immune system of the network against hostile actors (it can be used in other ways, too, of course). Facebook, I think, is a textbook example of a hostile actor, and has such an unimaginably bad record that anything they say should be treated as a form of manipulation.

Edit 1 - Some More Arguments

In this thread, I’ve seen some more arguments about Meta/FB federation:

  • Defederation doesn’t stop them from receiving our public content:
    • This is true, but very incomplete. The content you post is public, but what Meta/Facebook is really after is having their users interact with content. Defederation prevents this.
  • Federation will attract more users:
    • Only if Threads makes it trivial to move/make accounts on other instances, and makes the fact it’s a federation clear to the users, and doesn’t end up hosting most communities by sheer mass or outright manipulation.
    • Given that Threads as a platform is not open source - you can’t host your own “Threads Server” instance - and presumably their app only works with the Threads Server that they run - this is very unlikely. Unless they also make Threads a Mastodon/Calckey/KBin/etc. client.
    • Therefore, their app is probably intending to make itself their user’s primary interaction method for the Fediverse, while also making sure that any attempt to migrate off is met with unfamiliar interfaces because no-one else can host a server that can interface with it.
    • Ergo, they want to strongly incentivize people to stay within their walled garden version of the Fediverse by ensuring the rest remains unfamiliar - breaking the momentum of the current movement towards it. ^.^
  • We just need to create “better” front ends:
    • This is a good long-term strategy, because of the cycle of enshittification.
    • Facebook/Meta has far more resources than us to improve the “slickness” of their clients at this time. Until the fediverse grows more, and while they aren’t yet under immediate pressure to make their app profitable via enshittification and advertising, we won’t manage >.<
    • This also assumes that Facebook/Meta won’t engage in efforts to make this harder e.g. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish/Consume, or social manipulation attempts.
    • Therefore we should defederate and still keep working on making improvements. This strategy of “better clients” is only viable in combination with defederation.

PART 2 (post got too long!)

  • Terrasque@infosec.pub
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    1 year ago

    Microsoft? Like how they destroyed Linux? Oh wait, they’re now one of the biggest Linux kernel contributors and use it extensively internally.

    Likewise, Facebook have now also a solid track record of open sourcing tech: https://github.com/facebook

    • The Grunkler@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      My understanding is that they contribute to the Linux kernel for the same reason Google funds Firefox. If you have competition, you can’t be a monopoly

      • Terrasque@infosec.pub
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        1 year ago

        So they shifted large parts of azure to Linux, use it internally for many systems, made WSL Linux layer for Windows, spent tons of resources to improve it and support it and made it a first rate development and server system for their solutions like .Net - just so they can say “we’re not a monopoly”?

        In truth their attempts at EEE failed miserably and hurt them, and Linux is actually a very good match for what they’re doing in server space and development space.

        • pentobarbital@vlemmy.net
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          1 year ago

          just because Microsoft isn’t extinguishing linux doesn’t mean that they want it to grow for the average user. If anything WSL is an attempt to stop windows from leaking users to linux distros. “Look, you can use your favorite linux tools on windows too! Why use linux as an OS when you can use it as an app in windows, where we’ll spy on you on every possible moment and show you ads on your start menu?”

        • spader312@lemmy.world
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          1 year ago

          Could be because linux is so good for server infrastructure. It’s more reliable than windows and it’s far more consistent of an environment. Why wouldn’t Microsoft want to bring .Net to Linux? So devs can embrace it. Windows ends up being more for the end user

          • Terrasque@infosec.pub
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            1 year ago

            Exactly. Linux ended up being a boon for Microsoft. But still people here insist that it must only be for monopoly legality. And that no big company can benefit from and contribute to open source.

    • TeoTwawki@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yes lets go right to pointing how linux lives and just completely ingore decades of history and the whole 1998 netscape mess.

      https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/browser-wars/

      https://www.theringer.com/tech/2018/5/18/17362452/microsoft-antitrust-lawsuit-netscape-internet-explorer-20-years

      Its not about simply being open source, its about the fediverse being the next to play the role of a forgotten company named spyglass in another round of the same old story. People are rightly worried that history will repeat and the 800lb gorrila that is big giant company here will use its bulk to screw over everyone else in the space.

    • Helluin@feddit.de
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      1 year ago

      isnt this mostly so they cant get targeted for being monopolies? same goes for google supporting mozilla.