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"Decentralized access for everyone, unless it gets popular enough that somebody actually wants to interop with it" I understand the Meta hate, but joining a ve

"Decentralized access for everyone, unless it gets popular enough that somebody actually wants to interop with it" I understand the Meta hate, but joining a very explicitly public and intentionally republishable service and then being unhappy that your data is public and intentionally republishable is bizarre to me.

turnsout 3y ago
Yeah, this article reads more like a critique of the way ActivityPub and Mastodon work. None of this is particular to Meta.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  The odd thing is that even the biggest fedi promoters don't seem to get it. I thought "mastodon.social" was based in Germany, heart of GDPR country but there is no consent theater, no harassment by cookie popups, certainly no controls over data. I really don't mind, but there is some serious cognitive dissonance there.
  - Finnucane 3y ago
    There's no consent theatre because mastodon isn't doing anything that requires consent under the GDPR.
  - sunbum 3y ago
    Because almost none of that is actually required if you are not collecting data outside of the actual usage of the application.
    - PaulHoule 3y ago
      People are documenting their own personal lives without any protections. You can delete your account and the system will circulate a polite notification that other servers should delete that information. If you are a "sexworker" (sic) and you doxx yourself tough luck. If you reveal your mental illness through the things you write about and the language patterns you use tough luck. (Pro tip: machine learning algorithms can read your social media posts and psychodiagnose you better than the psychiatric nurse practitioner you'll struggle to get an appointment with.) People get these spams inviting them to play games where they ask questions trying to gather their answers to break into their bank account such as "What was the name of your first pet?" Even if you didn't have a tendency to be paranoid maybe you should.
      - chc 3y ago
        What does any of what you just said have to do with GDPR requirements?
        PaulHoule 3y ago
        If this is right https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/7280#issuecomment-385193030 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/7280#issuecommen... #1 is "consent theater" which I am not noticing, maybe I missed it. Even if I give consent to one server am I really giving consent to any other server? Can any other server be bound to my agreement with the first server? #2 is a "polite request" and not a guaranteed property of the platform. #3 seems to be satisfied.
  - numpad0 3y ago
    Fedi promoters are traumatized from Mastodon explosion of late 2010s that forced them into picking either of revolustionist-terrorist or anime-loli or trans-furry factions to support, of which the last one is the only less-than-seriously-considering-self-harm choice for most. It still must be full pain and giant source for self contradiction.
dnissley 3y ago
This reaction has shades of nimbyism: Yes we care about climate change + housing affordability + are in favor of increasing immigration. No we can't have those evil developers building big apartment buildings in my neighborhood! How dare you insinuate these things are related in any way!
- x3n0ph3n3 3y ago
  Just being pedantic, but none of that first sentence is requisite for NIMBYism. I know plenty of NIMBYs who disagree with the first sentence.
- ldehaan 3y ago
  [dead]
the_gipsy 3y ago
They're not unhappy about their data being intentionally republishable. C'mon. On the contrary, they are saying that when the product gets successful, they will pull the rug. Like facebook did before, and like twitter did with the API and now again.
- dahwolf 3y ago
  Pulling the rug is a daily event in the Fediverse itself.
- dnissley 3y ago
  Even if this happens it won't make any difference to how these instances operate, will it? It'll just reduce traffic to them, right?
  - chc 3y ago
    In the same sense that Google didn't largely kill off the RSS ecosystem with Google Reader and Microsoft didn't stagnate the browser ecosystem for a decade with Internet Explorer, sure.
    - dnissley 3y ago
      The death of RSS preceded the death of Google Reader, no? (Although it may have hastened the last act of it's death.) Not sure I understand the comparison to IE.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    People are complaining that facebook is, intentionally or otherwise, going to suffocate the baby in the crib, before it has a chance to grow. If you provide a way to see mastadon content without actually doing the work of joining mastadon, nobody will join mastadon except the people who have strong ideological reasons to join mastadon, which accelerates the problem. It's the same effect as any platform that tries "free speech" invariably becomes a nazi echo chamber, because the only people who WANT to use the less popular system are those that CAN'T or REALLY REALLY REALLY cling to their ideology.
GeekyBear 3y ago
> joining a very explicitly public and intentionally republishable service and then being unhappy that your data is public Comparing the sheer amount of data that Meta/Facebook vacuums up to the privacy practices of similar apps is instructive. https://www.wired.com/story/meta-twitter-threads-bluesky-spill-hive-mastodon-privacy-comparison/ https://www.wired.com/story/meta-twitter-threads-bluesky-spi...
- dmonitor 3y ago
  This feels like another instance of seeking a technical solution to a legal problem
  - pseudalopex 3y ago
    People seek mitigations to problems when solutions are not available.
- Nextgrid 3y ago
  IMO the problem with Facebook is the private data they vacuum. If you publicly post the data on an open network, I see no problem with them taking it. In practical terms, Facebook is actually quite tame compared to any other malicious actor who can get the same data. FB just wants it for ads and processes it in aggregate (most is never seen by a human), while other malicious actors might actually target you personally. The main issue is that you shouldn't post anything on a public, unauthenticated network that you wouldn't want random, potentially-hostile actors to see.
gonehome 3y ago
I think for a lot of mastodon users it's more about being part of a specific ideologically aligned in-group than it is about anything else (this post touches on a lot of stuff that makes overtures to that). The irony to me is that any chance of relevance for a protocol is obviously going to need big players like meta to sign up (and that's a good thing for the protocol). A weird set of circumstances might have aligned where meta sees an advantage in being part of a federated protocol to commoditize a threat to themselves (twitter, bluesky, etc.) and still hold a dominant position in quality of the end user clients (which is the only thing 99% of users care about). It's a little funny a lot of the mastodon hosts are up in arms about this, but not that surprising when considering what they're actually getting out of being part of it (the identity stuff that comes along with being a mastodon user). I'd guess similar stuff was said during the eternal september era of the web itself - simply being an internet user was no longer an identity that meant something culturally specific.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Thread users are today's aol users. Better to keep them out of areas where real conversations happen
  - dbfx 3y ago
    Then I fail to see the issue since "real conversations" aren't happening on the fediverse either.
    - nemo44x 3y ago
      There's dozens of real conversations happening. Dozens!
    - treyd 3y ago
      What do you mean by this? There's over a million active users including quite a few high profile people like Cory Doctorow.
  - turnsout 3y ago
    You are 100% right that Threads users are today's AOL users, and that's a good thing. If Threads actually federates, it will be another Eternal September [0], and we need that for ActivityPub to truly thrive. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September
mrguyorama 3y ago
"You didn't invent the perfect solution so you aren't allowed to complain about the faults of your imperfect reality"

turnsout 3y ago

Yeah, this article reads more like a critique of the way ActivityPub and Mastodon work. None of this is particular to Meta.

PaulHoule 3y ago
The odd thing is that even the biggest fedi promoters don't seem to get it. I thought "mastodon.social" was based in Germany, heart of GDPR country but there is no consent theater, no harassment by cookie popups, certainly no controls over data. I really don't mind, but there is some serious cognitive dissonance there.
- Finnucane 3y ago
  There's no consent theatre because mastodon isn't doing anything that requires consent under the GDPR.
- sunbum 3y ago
  Because almost none of that is actually required if you are not collecting data outside of the actual usage of the application.
  - PaulHoule 3y ago
    People are documenting their own personal lives without any protections. You can delete your account and the system will circulate a polite notification that other servers should delete that information. If you are a "sexworker" (sic) and you doxx yourself tough luck. If you reveal your mental illness through the things you write about and the language patterns you use tough luck. (Pro tip: machine learning algorithms can read your social media posts and psychodiagnose you better than the psychiatric nurse practitioner you'll struggle to get an appointment with.) People get these spams inviting them to play games where they ask questions trying to gather their answers to break into their bank account such as "What was the name of your first pet?" Even if you didn't have a tendency to be paranoid maybe you should.
    - chc 3y ago
      What does any of what you just said have to do with GDPR requirements?
      - PaulHoule 3y ago
        If this is right https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/7280#issuecomment-385193030 https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/7280#issuecommen... #1 is "consent theater" which I am not noticing, maybe I missed it. Even if I give consent to one server am I really giving consent to any other server? Can any other server be bound to my agreement with the first server? #2 is a "polite request" and not a guaranteed property of the platform. #3 seems to be satisfied.
- numpad0 3y ago
  Fedi promoters are traumatized from Mastodon explosion of late 2010s that forced them into picking either of revolustionist-terrorist or anime-loli or trans-furry factions to support, of which the last one is the only less-than-seriously-considering-self-harm choice for most. It still must be full pain and giant source for self contradiction.

dnissley 3y ago

This reaction has shades of nimbyism: Yes we care about climate change + housing affordability + are in favor of increasing immigration. No we can't have those evil developers building big apartment buildings in my neighborhood! How dare you insinuate these things are related in any way!

x3n0ph3n3 3y ago
Just being pedantic, but none of that first sentence is requisite for NIMBYism. I know plenty of NIMBYs who disagree with the first sentence.
ldehaan 3y ago
[dead]

the_gipsy 3y ago

They're not unhappy about their data being intentionally republishable. C'mon. On the contrary, they are saying that when the product gets successful, they will pull the rug. Like facebook did before, and like twitter did with the API and now again.

dahwolf 3y ago
Pulling the rug is a daily event in the Fediverse itself.
dnissley 3y ago
Even if this happens it won't make any difference to how these instances operate, will it? It'll just reduce traffic to them, right?
- chc 3y ago
  In the same sense that Google didn't largely kill off the RSS ecosystem with Google Reader and Microsoft didn't stagnate the browser ecosystem for a decade with Internet Explorer, sure.
  - dnissley 3y ago
    The death of RSS preceded the death of Google Reader, no? (Although it may have hastened the last act of it's death.) Not sure I understand the comparison to IE.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  People are complaining that facebook is, intentionally or otherwise, going to suffocate the baby in the crib, before it has a chance to grow. If you provide a way to see mastadon content without actually doing the work of joining mastadon, nobody will join mastadon except the people who have strong ideological reasons to join mastadon, which accelerates the problem. It's the same effect as any platform that tries "free speech" invariably becomes a nazi echo chamber, because the only people who WANT to use the less popular system are those that CAN'T or REALLY REALLY REALLY cling to their ideology.

GeekyBear 3y ago

> joining a very explicitly public and intentionally republishable service and then being unhappy that your data is public Comparing the sheer amount of data that Meta/Facebook vacuums up to the privacy practices of similar apps is instructive. https://www.wired.com/story/meta-twitter-threads-bluesky-spill-hive-mastodon-privacy-comparison/ https://www.wired.com/story/meta-twitter-threads-bluesky-spi...

dmonitor 3y ago
This feels like another instance of seeking a technical solution to a legal problem
- pseudalopex 3y ago
  People seek mitigations to problems when solutions are not available.
Nextgrid 3y ago
IMO the problem with Facebook is the private data they vacuum. If you publicly post the data on an open network, I see no problem with them taking it. In practical terms, Facebook is actually quite tame compared to any other malicious actor who can get the same data. FB just wants it for ads and processes it in aggregate (most is never seen by a human), while other malicious actors might actually target you personally. The main issue is that you shouldn't post anything on a public, unauthenticated network that you wouldn't want random, potentially-hostile actors to see.

gonehome 3y ago

I think for a lot of mastodon users it's more about being part of a specific ideologically aligned in-group than it is about anything else (this post touches on a lot of stuff that makes overtures to that). The irony to me is that any chance of relevance for a protocol is obviously going to need big players like meta to sign up (and that's a good thing for the protocol). A weird set of circumstances might have aligned where meta sees an advantage in being part of a federated protocol to commoditize a threat to themselves (twitter, bluesky, etc.) and still hold a dominant position in quality of the end user clients (which is the only thing 99% of users care about). It's a little funny a lot of the mastodon hosts are up in arms about this, but not that surprising when considering what they're actually getting out of being part of it (the identity stuff that comes along with being a mastodon user). I'd guess similar stuff was said during the eternal september era of the web itself - simply being an internet user was no longer an identity that meant something culturally specific.

ipaddr 3y ago
Thread users are today's aol users. Better to keep them out of areas where real conversations happen
- dbfx 3y ago
  Then I fail to see the issue since "real conversations" aren't happening on the fediverse either.
  - nemo44x 3y ago
    There's dozens of real conversations happening. Dozens!
  - treyd 3y ago
    What do you mean by this? There's over a million active users including quite a few high profile people like Cory Doctorow.
- turnsout 3y ago
  You are 100% right that Threads users are today's AOL users, and that's a good thing. If Threads actually federates, it will be another Eternal September [0], and we need that for ActivityPub to truly thrive. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

mrguyorama 3y ago

"You didn't invent the perfect solution so you aren't allowed to complain about the faults of your imperfect reality"