Can you imagine what the #Fediverse would look like now if the response to Gab had been "Admins don't need to block these instances, individual users can just choose whether or not to apply a user-level block (mute) themselves"?
And #Meta is even more corrosive than Gab. Gab users just posted a barrage of hate and unpleasantness. Meta is commercially incentivised to destroy what some people are inviting it into.
"Meta's fediverses", federating with Meta to allow communications, potentially using services from Meta such as automated moderation or ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta's behalf.
"free fediverses" that reject Meta – and surveillance capitalism more generally
The free fediverses have a lot of advantages over Meta and Meta's fediverses, some of which will be very hard to counter, and clearly have enough critical mass that they'll be just fine.
Here's a set of strategies for the free fediverses to provide a viable alternative to surveillance capitalism. They build on the strengths of today's fediverse at its best – including natural advantages the free fediverses have that Threads and Meta's fediverses will having a very hard time countering – but also are hopefully candid about weaknesses that need to be addressed. It's a long list, so I'll be spreading out over multiple posts; this post currently goes into detail on the first two.
Opposition to Meta and surveillance capitalism is an appealing position. Highlight it!
Focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety
Emphasize "networked communities"
Support concentric federations of instances and communities
Consider "transitively defederating" Meta's fediverses (as well as defederating Threads)
Consider working with people and instances in Meta's fediverses (and Bluesky, Dreamwidth, and other social networks) whose goals and values align with the free fediverses'
Build a sustainable ecosystem
Prepare for Meta's (and their allies') attempts to paint the free fediverses in a bad light
Reduce the dependency on Mastodon
Prioritize accessibility, which is a huge opportunity
Commit to anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and pro-LGBTQIA2S+ principles, policies, practices, and norms for the free fediverses
"instances are valuable for the relations and interactions they facilitate locally AND for their ability to connect you to other parts of the network."
By contrast, @evanprodromou notes that "Big Fedi" advocates typically see instances as typically see the instance as "mostly a dumb pipe." But The Networked Communities view aligns much better with the free fediverses' values – as does the "Social Archipelago" view @noracodes sketches in The Fediverse is Already Dead. Not only that, it's good strategy!
Here's how @zkat describes caracoles: "you essentially ask to join concentric federations of instances ... with smaller caracoles able to vote to federate with entire other caracoles."
And @ophiocephalic's "fedifams" are a similar idea: "Communities could align into fedifams based on whatever conditions of identity, philosophy or interest are relevant to them. Instances allied into fedifams could share resources and mutually support each other in many way"
The idea's a natural match for community-focused, anti-surveillance capitalism free fediverses, fits in well with the Networked Communities model discussed in part 3, and helps address scalability of consent-based federation discussed in Part 2.
There's likely to be a lot of moving between instances as people and instances sort themselves out into the free fediverses and Meta's fediverses -- and today, moving accounts on the fediverse today. There are lots of straightforward ways to improve it, many of which don't even require improvements to the software. And there are also opportunities to make creating, customizing, and connecting instances easier.
Transitive defederation -- defederating from instances that federate with Threads as well as defederating from Threads -- isn't likely to be an all-or-nothing thing in the free fediverses. Tradeoffs are different for different people and instances. This is one of the strengths of the fediverse, so however much transitive defederation there winds up being, I see it as overall as a positive thing -- although also messy and complicated.
So the recommendation here is for instances to consider#TransitiveDefederation: discuss, and decide what to do. I've also got some thoughts on how to have the discussion -- and the strategic aspects.
Anyone over the age of 30 who has spend any time in tech-adjacent spaces still cheering for #BigTech "joining" the #Fediverse is fucking deluding themselves. We've been through so many cycles of this shit over the past twenty years, how some people can still trust #facebook to do anything remotely ethical is beyond me.
They're not here to join, they're here to destroy. This is just the most cost-effective, PR-friendly way of doing it.
I understand it's hard to emotionally deal with a barrage of criticism for administrative decisions, but this is just a display of childishness I did not expect from him. Especially when he announced that he changed his mind after initially signing #FediPact he had to expect reactions from many disheartened users.
Just in case some fools are still wondering how the #Fediverse might change #Meta, here's what their Android app betrays: "APK appears to contain […] data models indicating #advertisements in the feed […] The sheer amount of telemetry #Threads appears to collect is massive, far more than any other fediverse platform or application client. Why does Threads need #Health & #Fitness data, or #Financial info? Why do they need your #purchases and #search#history?"
Main point: The Meta/FB [Thread app/site] "P92 app will be carefully crafted as a one way bridge that is permeable for content in direction of Meta, but not so much for P92 users in direction of the Fediverse."
I still haven't made up my mind about blocking Meta's #Threads, codenamed #Project92 or #P92, supposedly supporting #ActivityPub, should it actually launch. As far as I can see, it's basically "keeping the evil surveillance corp. out" vs "avoiding nerdy self-marginalization".
Both are fair points. I guess, it depends. But on what? For me, the key point is if Threads (or whatever its name) supports easy migration (as Mastodon does). If that's the case, I would prefer not to block it, as it could be an offramp from the walled garden. If this feature is omitted, then I would be much more open to blocking.
But in the end, this should not be a decision by the admins, but a collective one by the users of the instance. #fedipact#Project92
Meta joining the Fediverse is like AOL joining the internet: something that will bring a mass amount of people in, create some friction, but ultimately make the net better as more people federating on #Mastodon, #kbin, #lemmy, #pixelfed and other parts of the Fediverse make open protocols that much stronger.