#zuckerverse — Public Fediverse posts

Sometimes Meta AI tries so hard to be helpful that I just gotta give it something to do. #ai #meta #zuckerverse #llama #agreeable

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

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

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

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

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

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

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