#defederatemeta — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #defederatemeta, aggregated by home.social.
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Social Web Foundation partner and ActivityPub working group member Meta has shut down the accounts of more than 50 mainstream advocacy organizations providing reproductive health information and LGBT support, across its Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp networks. Among the groups targeted are Women Help Women and Sex Talk Arabic, which provides Arabic-language content on sexual and reproductive health.
In response, SWF Research Director Evan Prodromou strongly condemned - nah just kidding, he's still collaborating with them
#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #Whatsapp #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG
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Everyone, meet the "partner" working with SWICG and Social Web Foundation on the next generation of ActivityPub:
> Meta internally projected late last year that it would earn about 10% of its overall annual revenue – or $16 billion – from running advertising for scams and banned goods, internal company documents show.
> …Meta’s own research suggests its products have become a pillar of the global fraud economy. A May 2025 presentation by its safety staff estimated that the company’s platforms were involved in a third of all successful scams in the U.S.
> According to a December 2024 presentation, Meta’s user base is exposed to 22 billion organic scam attempts every day. That’s on top of the 15 billion scam ads presented to users daily.
> Every six months, Meta earns $3.5 billion from just the portion of scam ads that “present higher legal risk” […] That figure almost certainly exceeds “the cost of any regulatory settlement involving scam ads.” Rather than voluntarily agreeing to do more to vet advertisers, the same document states, the company’s leadership decided to act only in response to impending regulatory action.
#MetaOutOfSWICG #DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG
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There is currently a rumor afoot that Zuckerberg is planning to expropriate the AT protocol for Threads. If true, the pattern is undeniable, suggesting that any remotely open social media protocol which finds its footing will be subjected to a Zuckerberg incursion. Accordingly, future protocol developments should insure Zuckerberg-resistant measures as early as possible in their life cycle.
🐸 Protocols should incorporate Zuckerberg-repellent technology into their foundational codebase
🐸 Protocol projects should exclude the participation of anyone who could later become a Zuckerberg collaborator (e.g. het cis white guys who want to "keep politics out of it")
🐸 Protocols should be oriented, both in developmental organization and in the emergent community topologies they engender, to horizontally distribute and diffuse power; power concentrations become throttle-points for corruption, primed for Zuckerberg exploitation (e.g. SWICG, SWF)
🐸 Protocols should be designed to encourage the kinds of communities in which Zuckerberg-hate is a prominent characteristic, and which will be quick to activate and organize a social opposition to Zuckerberg incursion (e.g. FediPact)
We can take our lessons from the current failures; ActivityPub was deficient in all of these requirements except the last, and if the rumors are true, there's no hope at all for AT. Put simply, the protocol that powers the decentralized social network of tomorrow will be the one with the most successful Zuckerberg-resistant adaptions
#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG #Bluesky
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Parents outraged as [Social Web Foundation partner] Meta uses photos of schoolgirls in ads targeting man - Instagram pictures of girls as young as 13 were posted to promote Threads site ‘as bait’
[SWICG member] Meta has used back-to-school pictures of schoolgirls to advertise one of its social media platforms to a 37-year-old man […] The man noticed that posts encouraging him to “get Threads” […] were being dropped into his Instagram feed featuring embedded posts of uniformed girls as young as 13 with their faces visible and, in most cases, their names.
The children’s images were used by [ActivityPub development participant] Meta after their parents had posted them on Instagram to mark their return to school. The parents were unaware that Meta’s settings permitted it to do this. One mother said her account was set to private […]
The father of a 13-year-old who appeared in one of the posts said it was “absolutely outrageous”. The images were all of schoolgirls in short skirts with either bare legs or stockings […] Meta […] said the images did not violate its policies.
#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG
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Social Web Foundation partner Meta is sticking its dirty fingers deeper into California politics
Meta to launch California super PAC backing pro-AI candidates: https://www.reuters.com/world/us/meta-launch-california-super-pac-backing-pro-ai-candidates-2025-08-26/
#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #CApol
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In his recent FediCon talk, Evan Prodromou implicitly rationalized his collaboration with Meta by proclaiming, "you don't negotiate with friends". Maybe not, but you don't hand enemies the keys to your kingdom either, which is exactly what he has done by giving Meta seats at the table of the ActivityPub working group. And for that matter, accepting a relatively significant sum of money from those enemies to fund your foundation goes rather beyond the negotiation phase as well, does it not?
As it stands, we have a hostile element enmeshed in the development process which undergirds the entire network, all the while systematically violating every last consent boundary the fedi has defined and defended over the course of its history. This is a power imbalance so egregious and amoral that it negates the raison d'etre of the fediverse altogether. Meta must be removed from SWICG
🧵 3/3 end
#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG
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The development process of the protocol is poisoned by the presence of Meta. Any significant revision the organization proposes will be perceived as an aspect of the Meta incursion, suspected and resisted, whatever its actual origin. The backlash to any perceived attempt by Meta to manipulate the backbone of the fedi could lead to an existential crisis.
Under these circumstances the only way to avoid such a backlash is to refrain from advancing protocol development at all, which is also unsustainable. The way out of this is the ejection of the Meta intruders from SWICG and any other working group which has an influence on the future of ActivityPub.
🧵 2/3
#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG
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We already know that the Social Web Foundation and SWICG leadership will ignore the latest news of Meta's mass datacrime against the fediverse and continue enabling the parasitic Zuckerberg entity to influence the future of ActivityPub development by facilitating its presence on the W3C working group overseeing AP. This is not a sustainable arrangement.
There is absolutely no basis of trust whatsoever between the fediverse network of communities and Meta. The idea that representatives of this slimy fascist operation are insinuated into the organization shaping the next generation of the protocol underlying our network, while they simultaneously inflict nonconsenual predatory "AI" extractivism against us, is ludicrous and intolerable. This right here is the destruction of every single value the fediverse claims to stand for in one fell swoop.
🧵 1/3
#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation #SWICG
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Social Web Foundation partner Meta is leaning in to war profiteering and genocide promotion.
> Meta is hosting ads on Facebook, Instagram and Threads from pro-Israel entities that are raising money for military equipment including drones and tactical gear for Israeli Defense Force battalions, seemingly a violation of the company’s stated advertising policies, new research shows.
Meta allows ads crowdfunding for IDF drones, consumer watchdog finds: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jul/21/meta-idf-drone-ads-israel
#DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SocialWebFoundation
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Meta is apparently intimidating Brazilian researchers to deter them from looking too deeply at ads and disinformation:
"This is an attack on scientific research work, and attempts at intimidation of researchers ... especially with regard to paid content that causes harm to consumers ... and that threaten the future of our democracy."
Also:
"In 2021 ... Meta disabled the accounts of researchers at NYU’s Ad Observatory Project... Those involved denounced the social network's account cutoff as an attempt to stifle legitimate research into disinformation."
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Happy to report that Kolektiva has activated authorized fetch, which will help to protect our instance's posts from surveillance and "AI" ingestion by Meta. Thank you to @subMedia @admin @moderation for defending the zone!
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A better vision for a near-future fedi requires an exercise of both the technical and social imagination, and another thing that Meta's collaborators appear to find elusive: a moral center.
Instead of a regression into another Zuckerberg-controlled nightmare of hate speech, harassment, "brand engagement" and dehumanizing surveillance, we can push forward into an intentional federation based on consent and community, which centers the non-negotiable requirement of safety for everyone who otherwise has the most to lose from the betrayal of this online space of refuge and resistance.
7/7
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #Democracy #Community #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Fedifam #AllowList #IntentionalFederation
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A note also on the gaslighting we face from Meta's colluders; the latest being the embarrassing spectacle of ActivityPub co-author Evan wagging around a "small fedi". @thenexusofprivacy has a good rebuttal to this cringe exhibitionism here: https://privacy.thenexus.today/the-annotated-case-for-a-big-fedi/
Evan has seen fit to misappropriate the "small fedi" idea, then build a blog post around warping it into a smear, with a long list of patronizing and fictional mischaracterizations. But what is truly small is the thinking that the fedi's future is surveillance, algorithmic ingestion, centralized servers too big to moderate, and huge psychotic corporations like Meta. In fact, that is social media's catastrophic past, the one we're all here to reject.
6/7
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #Democracy #Community #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Fedifam #AllowList #IntentionalFederation
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An intentional federation would be a more decentralized one, as we could fully affirm a collective choice to keep instances small. That's not just an abstract idea; a more decentralized fedi would be a more democratic one: https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110707707012210965
And it would also be a more community-centered one. Currently, the Mastodon network in particular is being driven by an approach which denies the prospect for a riotous polyculture of small and distinct communities in favor of a growth-oriented monoculture in which "servers are not... communities" ( https://mastodon.social/@Gargron/111628882009671820 ) and "it doesn't matter which one you use" ( https://www.theverge.com/23658648/mastodon-ceo-twitter-interview-elon-musk-twitter ), an outlook which Zuckerberg must find favorable.
5/7
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #Democracy #Community #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Fedifam #AllowList #IntentionalFederation
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We accept and support new spinups by fellow travelers were are already in community with. The servers which entirely come in from the cold are mostly those belonging to the creatures of the dark-fedi, which cause many of the moderation problems for those of us on proportionately-sized instances (and most of the other problems are caused by the disproportionately-sized ones, who will be joining the Zuckerverse).
By assuming agency for who we choose to federate with, rather than existing in a state of constant reaction against those who would try and force us to federate with them, we can defend our federation both from the fascists, racists, transphobes and pedos of the defediverse, and from the horrifying and corruptive threat of the Zuckerberg entity, and its collaborator instances.
4/7
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #Democracy #Community #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Fedifam #AllowList #IntentionalFederation
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Some worry that consent-based federation would lead to isolation, but this doesn't need to be true. For the end user, nothing at all would change; it would be just as easy or hard to join an instance as it is now, minus the funneling into a centralized, poorly-moderated vanilla flagship.
And what about new instance spinups? Their prospects could actually improve from the current status quo, if an allow-list fediverse was structured into instance alliances as described in the fedifam concept. New intra-fam spinups would automatically federate: https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110793531238090472
Fedifams could then form trust-treaties with other fedifams, smoothing federation out from the fam into the broader fediverse in whatever manner of comfort or caution is preferred (such as limited or probationary federation): https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110985194948458666
3/7
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #Democracy #Community #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Fedifam #AllowList #IntentionalFederation
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While Authorized Fetch remains important to activate, it is clear that even it - which remember, provides better defense than that currently implemented on most of our home servers - is inadequate to the threats facing us as the Zuckerberg incursion progresses. If we're serious about protecting our communities and expressions from absorption into surveillance capitalism and the accelerating miseries of fascism, we need to talk about a stronger grade of defensive weaponry.
To this end, @are0h has fired a first volley: https://h-i.social/@are0h/111653850819592308 Every fedi community which serves as a refuge for those targeted and under siege should be thinking like this. True safety only awaits us in a transitive approach to defederation, and further on, in an intentional federation based on the allow-list.
2/7
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #Democracy #Community #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Fedifam #AuthorizedFetch #AllowList #IntentionalFederation
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The Intentional Federation
We have recently been advocating the activation of a function which is present but usually off in Mastodon and other fedi services called Authorized Fetch. As we plead with the major development projects to take safety more seriously and make it a default, we have learned that Meta itself didn't think twice about it and has activated it in their own ActivityPub implementation against *us*.
We know this because of news that a fascist has devised a way to evade it and force federation with Threads. They promise to then turn their technique upon us and coerce unblockable federation with fascist and cryptospam instances: https://soapbox.pub/blog/threads-server-blocking/
1/7
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #Democracy #Community #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Fedifam #AuthorizedFetch #AllowList
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Authorized Fetch will help keep our accounts safe from Meta data-mining. Participate in polls on the Authorized Fetch issue here:
by @tokyo_0: https://mas.to/@tokyo_0/111607524638174586
by @thenexusofprivacy: https://infosec.exchange/@thenexusofprivacy/111602607824043839
#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #AuthorizedFetch
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Did you know that, if you or your Mastodon instance is blocking Meta, your posts and account can still be data-mined by them? That is, unless your instance has Authorized Fetch activated. More info here: https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/111602259275182233
#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #AuthorizedFetch
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With the Zuckerberg takeover impending, there's a lot of confusion circulating about the use of user-level and instance-level blocks, and how our online expressions can be secured against Meta. Everyone who objects to their accounts being mined by the Zuckerberg entity for data collection, AI ingestion, monetization, and possible ghost-profile building needs to understand this problem. Here's information to clarify.
Neither a user-level block, or an instance-level block, will protect our posts from Meta data-mining by default on a Mastodon instance. Posts won't be delivered directly, but can be ingested by other means; if, for example, users on Meta-federated instances boost them.
However, both user and instance blocks will totally prevent post delivery in all cases IF your host instance has enabled the functionality called Authorized Fetch.
By default, Authorized Fetch is off on Mastodon instances and most haven't turned it on. If this concern is important to you, you might want to respectfully reach out to your admins and let them know. Remember that they are working hard to provide and sustain online community at no charge. It's likely they won't be very familiar with it and will need time to look into it.
For more information on Authorized Fetch, check out this blog post by @brook : https://hub.sunny.garden/2023/06/28/what-does-authorized_fetch-actually-do/ Please untag Brook from replies unless you specifically intend to address him
#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Instagram #AuthorizedFetch
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http://wok.oblomov.eu/tecnologia/credible-threat-1/
Since #Facebook/#Meta is apparently going to start testing #Fediverse/#Mastodon integration for their #P92/#Barcelona/#Threads “platform” soon, let's do another round of reminders of what this entails and why their instance and IPs should be blocked *now* with extreme prejudice.
#fediblock #defederateMeta #defederateBarcelona #defederateThreads
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http://wok.oblomov.eu/tecnologia/credible-threat-1/
Since #Facebook/#Meta is apparently going to start testing #Fediverse/#Mastodon integration for their #P92/#Barcelona/#Threads “platform” soon, let's do another round of reminders of what this entails and why their instance and IPs should be blocked *now* with extreme prejudice.
#fediblock #defederateMeta #defederateBarcelona #defederateThreads
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http://wok.oblomov.eu/tecnologia/credible-threat-1/
Since #Facebook/#Meta is apparently going to start testing #Fediverse/#Mastodon integration for their #P92/#Barcelona/#Threads “platform” soon, let's do another round of reminders of what this entails and why their instance and IPs should be blocked *now* with extreme prejudice.
#fediblock #defederateMeta #defederateBarcelona #defederateThreads
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http://wok.oblomov.eu/tecnologia/credible-threat-1/
Since #Facebook/#Meta is apparently going to start testing #Fediverse/#Mastodon integration for their #P92/#Barcelona/#Threads “platform” soon, let's do another round of reminders of what this entails and why their instance and IPs should be blocked *now* with extreme prejudice.
#fediblock #defederateMeta #defederateBarcelona #defederateThreads
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http://wok.oblomov.eu/tecnologia/credible-threat-1/
Since #Facebook/#Meta is apparently going to start testing #Fediverse/#Mastodon integration for their #P92/#Barcelona/#Threads “platform” soon, let's do another round of reminders of what this entails and why their instance and IPs should be blocked *now* with extreme prejudice.
#fediblock #defederateMeta #defederateBarcelona #defederateThreads
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Trying to imagine what it will be like for the part of the fediverse that federates with Threads and is subjected to a censorship regime that includes blocklisting terms like "covid" and "long covid". So much of the discourse here is in free and open defiance of pro-disease necropolitics. People in the Facebook Fediverse will need to fall back on the old corporate-social-media protocol of using code words or deliberate misspellings to covertly talk about subjects they know the algorithms will tank
#FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse #Zuckerverse
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Those of us interested in the prospect of fediverse communalization within the FediPact context should convene a broader conversation, inclusive of admins, developers and engaged community members - particularly those from marginalized or targeted backgrounds. And considering that there will be many who will want to bail out of the megaservers before they are absorbed into the Zuckerverse, the sooner a clearly defined alternative presents itself, the better.
Also, the Free Fediverse wiki continues to be updated. Among the offerings are links to:
🐸 FediPact and alternative fediverse development info
🐸 News articles and essays on Threads and the Zuckerberg takeover gambit
🐸 A ballooning selection of stories on Meta's many crimes against humanityFeel free to hop on over to https://freefediverse.org
20/20 /end
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism
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So too, gender-based harassment has not only endured in the fediverse, it has been perpetuated by some of its most privileged participants, as observed in a recent controversy involving a stream of abuse perpetuated by a very visible megaserver admin. Who moderates the moderators?
Building a Free Fediverse comprises an opportunity to chart a course away from the predominating influence of amoral techbros who have no capacity for understanding these problems, and see the fedi primarily as an opportunity for financial investment. This piece reframes the "gatekeeping" smear aimed at FediPact advocates through a lens of envisioning the online community as a ZAD - a Zone To Defend.
https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110680030293653277
19/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #Horizontalism #ZAD
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Finally, the Free Fediverse must prioritize centering the concerns and perspectives of those from marginalized and targeted communities. This need is more acute than ever, as we arrive at a moment in which the short-term prospects for the continuity of "democracy" in countries such as the "USA" and Germany are very much in question.
These essays by @jdp23 on the history of Mastodon development makes clear the paradoxical nature of a project innovated by a vibrant community of trans and queer folk as a refuge from the fascistic tendencies of the major capitalist networks, which eventually stratified into a hierarchical, growth-oriented Twitter me-too controlled by a single person.
https://privacy.thenexus.today/mastodon-a-partial-history/
https://privacy.thenexus.today/here-queer-and-federated-on-mastodon-and-the-fediverse/
This analysis makes clear that the abject failure of Mastodon to provide a welcoming alternative to Black Twitter, as identified by @shengokai , was in fact inevitable.
https://techpolicy.press/the-whiteness-of-mastodon
18/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism
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Tech adaptations would be necessary in any case, especially considering that well-informed observers believe switching from blocklist-based moderation to allow-list-based federation is the only way to definitively disconnect from Meta and its collaborator instances. The communal structure would make this viable. Fedifams could federate allow-lists amongst themselves, and trust-treaty caracoles could pave the way for new instances which spin up from within fams to federate in the greater network.
It could also change the nature of the instance itself. Fedifam support for internal spinups would make it easier for instances to become the initiatives of communities rather than individuals, who currently must re-invent the wheel and take on the technical and moderation burdens entirely of their own accord. Community-activated servers would be naturally inclined to a more democratic internal culture. The problems of admin burnout and micro-tyranny could be significantly lessened. And allow-list federation would slam the door shut on interlopers scheming to fabricate moral panics.
The horizontal redistribution of agency, across community members, admins, and developers, would change the game and fulfill the democratic promise of the fediverse.
17/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #DirectDemocracy
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Enabling, sustaining and coordinating more creative and forward-thinking tech development would be a necessity for the Free Fediverse. The ActivityPub protocol itself is in the process of being enclosed by Zuckerberg and his assets right now.
Fortunately there are alternative possibilities, not least among them the next-generation Spritely Goblins protocol of another AP co-author, @cwebber . More on Spritely Goblins here:
https://spritely.institute/goblins/
Supporting this effort, and combining the efforts of the numerous Masto forks into a definitive Free Fedi microblogging replacement, could be the way to build our ark and render our resolve tangible.
16/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #SpritelyGoblins
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Meanwhile, more creative technological approaches remain obstructed or ignored. This proposal from @supakaity offers the enticing and empowering prospect of granular control of all search and visibility parameters for each post: https://blahaj.zone/notes/9ev0kge0aj
The fedifam construct could be extended to developer alliances as well. This would enable a shared, stable source for crowdfunding, and the coordination of efforts toward complimentary and interoperable results.
The person at the top of the Mastodon development hierarchy actually refers to himself as a "benevolent dictator for life" - but there's no such thing as a benevolent dictator. Dictators, of any nature, do not facilitate democratic outcomes. We didn't let Vladimir Lenin get away with that "benevolent dictatorship" shit and we shouldn't let John Mastodon do so either!
15/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #DirectDemocracy
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The need for self-governance and the democratization of fedi culture is clearly indicated by the current democracy deficit of the status quo. The controversies resulting from the upcoming Mastodon feature upgrades tell the tale.
The initial and unilateral introduction of the upcoming search capability - rumored to have been a demand of Meta - took the form of a single all-or-nothing toggle which would actually have removed existing functionality for users who opted out. The sensibilities and consent concerns of fedi-folk from smaller instances and marginalized communities were only considered after an outcry.
Though a more amenable alternative was provided, there are still serious concerns about the performance toll of these new functionalities on small and self-hosted servers. They are now mainly being beta-tested on megaservers, which means negative impacts both technical and cultural may only become apparent when it's too late to reverse course.
14/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #DirectDemocracy
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It would be a mistake to interpret the current lull in interest, and the odd nature of the Threads launch, as reasons to relax. On the contrary, this is the perfect moment to act on the protective impulses that engendered the FediPact.
Moreover, the push towards centralization, surveillance and algorithmic harvesting by Facebook-linked authoritarians, which is meeting no resistance from those at the top of the development and administrative hierarchy, makes urgent action nothing less than a necessity for everyone of a marginalized or targeted identity, all true believers in FLOSS, and radicals of every stripe.
This is the time to convene, prefigure, and build a Free Fediverse.
8/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #FacebookFediverse #Zuckerverse #FacebookMafia
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Meta will federate for the same reason that Google pays Mozilla tens of millions a year to keep Firefox alive. But that comparison only takes us so far, because in this case, it's more like Google dishing out the money only on the condition that Firefox disables ad-blocking and sends telemetry to Google.
So, we have multiple, recent and ongoing indicators. We have motives and strategies which fit a type. Every signal beams in the same direction, and there are none which contradict it. Meta is coming.
And the ActivityPub protocol and major fediverse development projects are firmly under the control of facilitators who are smoothing the way. This is a blog post by one of the primary Mastodon developers, with a proposal to add in backend hooks for the algorithmic surveillance and telemetry collection demanded by the Facebook Mafia.
https://renchap.com/blog/post/evolving_mastodon_trust_and_safety/
7/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #FacebookFediverse #Zuckerverse #FacebookMafia #Openwashing
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A recent paper by @Mer__edith , @davidthewid and Sarah Myers West discusses the openwashing ploy utilized by Meta and other tech giants, in which "AI" and other exploitative technologies are obfuscated by a thin veneer of democratization.
Paper: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4543807
Fedi thread: https://mastodon.world/@Mer__edith/110905980596068726@pluralistic riffs further on the openwashing concept: https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means
Meta currently has a big problem with regulators - particularly in the EU - demanding more interoperability from their social media operations. ActivityPub federation with their throwaway Threads side-project buys them a low-cost, low-risk figleaf. Perhaps we can term this particular variant "interop-washing"?
6/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #FacebookFediverse #Zuckerverse #Openwashing
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Now to the question of motives. This has also been called into question. Why, after an early July Threads launch with over 100 million "signups" (all of which carried over from existing Instagram accounts), would Meta care about our puny little nothing of a network?
According to one analytics firm, that usage number had dwindled to 576,000 by early August.
https://www.similarweb.com/blog/insights/social-media-news/threads-first-month/
Suddenly the fedi, with an estimated DAU of 1.8 million, doesn't seem so puny. But beyond any question of numbers, there is a crystal clear benefit to federation, one which would fit a well-worn pattern for the Zuckerberg entity - openwashing.
5/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #FacebookFediverse #Zuckerverse #Openwashing
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At this link, you can read the transcript, or listen to an audio recording, of an early August meeting attended by the Stanford operatives, a co-author of the ActivityPub standard, and a prominent fediverse developer, as they discuss their plans to impose centralized algorithmic surveillance onto the network.
https://github.com/swicg/meetings/tree/main/2023-08-04
Here's more on one of the surveillance systems under consideration, a technology controlled by Microsoft, which detects and auto-reports both CSAM and political subversion: https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110782738969976772
4/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #FacebookFediverse #Zuckerverse #PhotoDNA #FacebookMafia
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Next, this post on Threads, by a Meta engineer, indicates a team of at least four working on "fediverse workstream from Threads".
https://www.threads.net/@0xjessel/post/Cv3Jxs0P84d
An additional confirmation of intent is the fraudulent "CSAM-scare" influence operation fronted by Facebook's ex-"Chief Security Officer" and another "Security and Safety" bigwig previously at Facebook. Resources are being expended to mold the network into a semi-centralized, surveilled and shovel-ready data mine suitable for ingestion into the Zuckerverse.
More on the Facebook Mafia behind the influence operation here: https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110772380949893619
But fedi-folk are smart, and the July disinformation attack was met with a critical eye. It would be tempting to assume that the community's general dismissal would have been the end of it. That is not the case.
3/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #FacebookFediverse #Zuckerverse #FacebookMafia
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The threat of absorption into the Zuckerberg surveillance entity is a menace, but also an opportunity. However, the prospect itself needs to be reviewed. Opinions are being voiced that Meta will not, in fact, federate at all.
Some of these claims are good-faith efforts to critically regard the well-established propensity of the corporation to lie through its teeth at every opportunity. While true, there are clear and ongoing indications that Meta has both the intention and the motive to proceed.
First, Meta has planted an engineer in the W3C ActivityPub working group. This may be a precursor to custom additions to the spec which could facilitate advertising and behavioral surveillance protocols.
https://thenewstack.io/threads-adopting-activitypub-makes-sense-but-wont-be-easy/ (pro-Meta propaganda)
2/20
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #Prefiguration #DualPower #Fedifam #Communalism #FacebookFediverse
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Followup to the PhotoDNA post: @dansup has reached out and confirmed that @pixelfed will NOT be enabling PhotoDNA. Thank you Daniel for your communication and your regard for privacy on the fediverse.
There are ideas circulating on decentralized, privacy-respecting ways to better keep everyone safe, ease burdens and liabilities for admins, and keep harmful material out of our timelines. These prospects would require more collective effort than simply signing up for a third-party service, but it's worth it. Our communities are overwhelmingly comprised of good people who aren't hurting anyone. We don't deserve to have algorithmic corporate surveillance inflicted on us.
Viva Pixelfed! :pixelfed:
https://mastodon.social/@dansup/110802145007075499
#FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse #PhotoDNA #Surveillance #Pixelfed
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Both of these news stories, issued in the last two days, are effectively propaganda plants pushing pro-Facebook narratives based on "studies" they commissioned. However, both reveal another truth - Meta is continuing to secretly and non-consensually alter the feeds of a sampling of their users, then monitor behavioral changes.
Coming soon to a megaserver near you???
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/27/meta-facebook-algorithm-2020-election
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-just-proved-people-hate-chronological-feeds/
(h/t @sinbad)
#FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse
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Those considering the use of the PhotoDNA surveillance process in the fediverse are advised to inform themselves on it first. It doesn't just detect "positives", it can also auto-report them to authorities. Implementing it could turn this network into an automated police-state snitching system. Admins who do not choose auto-reporting may be legally obligated to manually report positives.
Also (independently verified and officially contradicted), PhotoDNA is utilized not just to detect CSAM, but also "terrorist and violent extremist content". So who decides what constitutes this content? Why, the private unaccountable black box which is Microsoft Corporation, that shining beacon of privacy-respect to which a hash of every image uploaded to and federated across enabled instances would be sent. Microsoft indicates the data can be utilized for facial recognition and "AI" ingestion as well.
Do they - or will they - rate advocacy of Palestinian equality and Kurdish feminism as extremist, as governments they do business with would demand? Do they or will they accept the inputs of oil and pipeline corporations in determining what constitutes terrorism? How will they expand the parameters of disallowed sexual deviance if Trump wins the election next year?
Understand that this is already happening. Elements are in the Mastodon Github Issues calling for the addition of PhotoDNA right now. The Pixelfed project may also be adding it very soon. If that is true, antiauthoritarian instances should consider the feasibility of defederation from Pixelfed altogether. [edit: Pixelfed is no longer considering the addition of PhotoDNA, confirmed in replies below.]
For all those considering this: Stop. Please. All the "report" issued by the Facebook-mafia describes is the fediverse - and in fact, mostly its evil twin, the defediverse - just as it existed last month, last year, years before most on here had ever heard of it. The purpose of their influence operation is scare everyone into turning the fediverse into the kind of policed and surveilled space suitable to Mark Zuckerberg.
Microsoft FAQ on PhotoDNA:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/PhotoDNA/FAQMicrosoft Digital Safety Content Report, indicating use of PhotoDNA to detect extremism:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/digital-safety-content-reportTechnical analysis of the PhotoDNA process:
https://hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?archives/931-PhotoDNA-and-Limitations.htmlUN report referencing use of PhotoDNA to detect terrorism:
https://www.un.org/counterterrorism/sites/www.un.org.counterterrorism/files/countering-terrorism-online-with-ai-uncct-unicri-report-web.pdfTranscript of 2018 US Senate hearing on terrorism and social media, referencing use of PhotoDNA:
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-115shrg31316/html/CHRG-115shrg31316.htmJournalism indicating use of PhotoDNA to detect extremism:
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2016/06/a-tool-to-delete-beheading-videos-before-they-even-appear-online/488105/
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/when-hatred-goes-viral-inside-social-medias-efforts-to-combat-terrorism/Wikipedia pages:
PhotoDNA https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PhotoDNA
Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Internet_Forum_to_Counter_Terrorism#FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse #PhotoDNA #Surveillance
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Between the Google gambit to end the open web, the Twitter takeover, and the fraudulent moral panic being fabricated both at Stanford and in Congress, it suggests the neoreactionary authoritarians of Silicon Valley are making their move - just in time for the 2024 US election.
And every time we see someone here talking about something like PhotoDNA, it seems like it could actually be working on this particular front, and the Thiel Foundation will succeed at turning the fediverse into surveilled space
#FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse
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Interesting to note that the Stanford "report" references detecting what it calls CG-CSAM - abuse-porn generated by "AI". It's a tidy little racket this mafia runs. First, get rich on "AI" tech that turns all of human culture into a sewer. Then, get richer on the surveillance and censorship tech that their own "reports" proclaim as the only possible corrective to the problems their other tech has caused.
We don't need a control-state of surveillance and algorithmic governance. What we need is to rid ourselves of the dehumanizing technologies forced on us by these parasitic Silicon Valley authoritarians
#FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse
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When considering the ask to not believe your lyin' eyes, and instead accept that the entire fediverse is a festering cesspit of child abuse, a suggestion to look at *who* is trying to manufacture consent here, and what else is happening in and to the network in this moment.
The "report" is issued by something called the Stanford Internet Observatory, which is not in fact a telescope on a hill, but rather an operation by the guy who, from 2015-2018, was the "Chief Security Officer" of Facebook - an ironic title, considering that this was the period of the Cambridge Analytica machination, the Rohingya genocide, and the Russian influence operation that exposed 128 million Facebook users to pro-Trump disinformation.
However, belonging to the fail-upwards meritocracy of Silicon Valley means never having to say sorry. He is now an influential voice in a circle advocating the addition of third party data collection and algorithmic analysis into the backend of mainline Mastodon. These developments appear to be progressing rapidly towards implementation.
And by the way, did you notice the name of the "report's" lead author? In fact, this is another influence operation - but one that is being run from Palo Alto rather than Moscow.
#FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse
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Zuckerberg is not just absorbing certain of the fediverse's communities, but also certain of its technologies. We'll need replacements, but that's an opportunity to break the current state of developmental stagnation in the predominant microblogging service and ActivityPub. And more important still than protocols and apps are those who create them. Essentially, the Facebook Fediverse gets the techbros, but the Free Fediverse gets the catgirls - which means we win!
more here: https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/110707704222855712
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse
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CW: Long post - The Free Fediverse, Decentralization and Democracy - the mega-servers and the Kolektiva calamity - Part the Second
*Democracy*
Another worthy value to socially and technically encode in the ties that could consensually bind the Free Fediverse is direct democracy. Here too, smaller instances scale democracy better, and have proven themselves the trailblazers in giving their users a voice in the decision to protect themselves against Meta, while the mega-server admins have merely decreed unilateral pro-federate proclamations and gestured to the exits for those in their userbase who disagree.
But even for those who affirm it, the cards are stacked against them because there is little in the way of technical aid built in to the apps or the protocol to assist in a democratic process. This again, is a failure of imagination, not of technical capacity. Sure, there are polls; but this function only provides a drive-by snapshot.
A couple of baby steps in the right direction would be local-only posts, and the capacity for groups, including private groups. Both of these are available in certain of the forks or alternative microblogging services, but attempts to incorporate them into mainline Mastodon have been met with obstruction (although some movement toward group functionality was recently announced for the project).
But these capabilities wouldn't directly address the democracy problem in and of themselves. The suggestion offered here is to bake "democracy as a protocol" into whatever replaces ActivityPub in the Free Fediverse. What follows is a speculative scenario. Consider it only a random brainstorm, and one not informed by a developer's knowledge.
One day, a dismissible and retrievable pinned toot appears at the top of every user's feed, issued by that instance's admins. Attention, a proposal is offered to abolish Meta from the face of the Earth, launch Zuckerberg into the sun and turn all of humanity gay. There will be two general assemblies to discuss, one in the daytime on date A and one in the evening on date B. Click here to join the assembly group, or, to chime in as they occur, comment with local-hashtag xxx.
The final proposal will be available to read at this link. The vote will activate for one week, from this to that date. To vote, click on the dancing queercat icon which appears at the top of your feed during that period.
Perhaps this dashed-off exercise gets the gears turning? There would be many other good or better ideas on how to implement a prospect like this. In a Free Fediverse beyond the pathology of growth-at-all-costs, the only limit is the exercise of our collective imagination.
*Decentralized Direct Democracy*
So, decentralization and democracy can enable one another, and a deficit of one degrades the other's viability. As a final example for modeling these principles, let's turn again to the issue of Kolektiva.
As an anti-corporate, online space for anarchists to hang out and shoot the shit, Kolektiva has been a smash. That said, so far it remains an incomplete opportunity for real prefiguration. The centralization of our kind on a single instance is not only ideologically contradictory, it has proven to be an error for the community, as proven by the database compromise.
But there's still potential here, in response to the two crises, to reconstitute into a digital democratic-confederalism within the greater federation. A collective of instances, sharing knowledge and resources. A pooling of infrastructure, a common crowdfunding mechanism and open-source platform for administrative communication (which is not Discord).
And a common charter by which to organize the admin and mod teams horizontally and distribute agency across to users who are inclined to get involved. All of this configured informally and accessible to fellow-travelling servers of any size, to reduce the costs and technical burden of even very small communities firing up and planting their own (black) flag.
Now imagine further, a Free Fediverse comprised of numerous of these confederations, aligning efforts to render cooperation and mutual aid in the task of building and sustaining online community in safety and solidarity. We can nurture whatever kind of network we want to, by routing out of the dead-ends of "monetization" and the growth pathology.
The corporate recuperation of the mega-servers is perhaps a blessing in disguise. With them will go not only the defacto hierarchy of influence which resulted in a small handful of admins and protocol specialists dragging the rest of the network along behind them, but the hierarchical thinking they imposed upon the spectrum of possibilities for what the fediverse could or should be. Towards a decentralized and democratic Free Fediverse beyond capitalist enclosure!
2/2
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse #Democracy #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Kolektiva
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CW: Long post - The Free Fediverse, Decentralization and Democracy - the mega-servers and the Kolektiva calamity - Part the First
*Decentralization*
Prominent voices advocating for collaboration with the Zuckerberg surveillance entity sure do talk up decentralization a lot, when they're not advocating the subjugation of the fediverse to a single vertical silo of 100 million users. The irony, of course, is that they tend to be admins of instances with tens or even hundreds of thousands. And two of the most prominent control *multiple* mega-servers, which means they're not just overseeing centralized instances, they're hoarding them.
In contrast, by default Pixelfed servers are limited to a maximum of 1000 users. Though a deep dive into the parameters can override this, its status as a default is an affirmation of the decentralizing ethos. "Thou shalt keep thy instance small."
The microblogging space of the fediverse hasn't been allowed to develop an equivalent consciousness, as the agenda has been set by mega-server admins who drove the conversation around topics like "smooth onboarding". But these aren't evil people; the problem is that they have no real vision.
A comment circulated recently - receipt unfortunately not saved - suggesting that the development of fediverse tools useful to organizing community would be an effective alternative to the "how to funnel in granny" mentality, because then there would be incentives for entire communities to migrate in together; surely a more holistic view of "onboarding" than fretting over how to pick up confused and wandering individuals one at a time. *That* is the kind of exercise of technical *and* social imagination we need.
To become viable, the Free Fediverse will need to define itself by not just what it stands against - corporate enclosure by the Meta monstrosity - but by what it stands for. Real and actual decentralization - not just shallow lip service towards it - can be one of those foundational values.
This value can then be encoded into the technology, as it was with Pixelfed; because, let there be no doubt, Zuckerberg is not just absorbing certain of the fediverse's communities, but also certain of its technologies. We'll need replacements, but that's an opportunity to break the current state of developmental stagnation in the predominant microblogging service and ActivityPub. And more important still than protocols and apps are those who create them. Essentially, the Facebook Fediverse gets the techbros, but the Free Fediverse gets the catgirls - which means we win!
Real decentralization - lots and lots and lots of quite small communities, distinct yet federated - has already proven itself to be a better facilitator of good moderation, and will enable another important value to be addressed shortly. But on the moderation issue, a timely real-world example of why decentralization matters is instructive.
There has recently been a calamity visited upon our instance, Kolektiva. Among all of the discussion following its disclosure, there was not a full analysis of its chain of causality. Let's take a flyover of the recent timeline.
April - A massive spambot wave first hits mastodon-dot-social, then spreads quickly through the entire fediverse. Kolektiva, and many other servers, temporarily limit dot-social until the invasion is under control.
Early May - Another spambot attack hits masto-dot-social, and of course, everyone else. This time, an error is made, and a Kolektiva admin defederates rather than limits dot-social. All Kolektiva users irrecoverably lose their follows and followers from dot-social. There is disquiet.
Mid-May - In an attempt to restore the lost follow-follower data, a Kolektiva admin recovers a snapshot backup of the database from before the defederation, an operation which occurs with what turns out to be "spectacularly bad timing".
Receipt: https://kolektiva.social/@admin/110641928258590367
Yes, there was a fuckup; in fact, a fuckup compounded by another fuckup. But - beyond noting that both mistakes were attempts to do right by the users of the instance - the wellspring of the disaster actually wasn't Kolektiva, but mastodon-dot-social, that mega-server with hundreds of thousands of silo'ed users, open registration and next-to-no-moderation; that irresistible honeypot for spammers and scammers, that 500-pound gorilla with a bullseye painted on its ass.
The mother of all instances has repeatedly proven itself to be a problem for the rest of the fediverse, as in the examples above, when the admins of literally every other server federated with it were put in the position of having to locally address a crisis not of their origination, each an opportunity to make mistakes they would not otherwise have needed to risk.
Smaller instances are easier to moderate, larger instances more difficult. And if masto-dot-social is any indication, a large enough instance becomes a lost cause - take a look at dot-social's local feed and see if you agree. Decentralization distributes moderation agency more effectively, both to admins and even to users. And by scattering targets, it creates network resiliency against threats like spambots and crypto scams. Decentralization isn't just a foss-nerd buzzword, it yields tangible benefits for those seeking safer community online.
(edit - minor typo)
1/2
#FreeFediverse #FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse #Democracy #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Kolektiva