Gregory's Server
 60 comments
 @gubi @ThePlant On the other hand there is a real trend of people doing just that: retreating into private chats, private spaces and leaving the open net. I don't blame them. But I also increasingly think we're giving up on something fundamentally important. And I increasingly feel we really need to fight to keep it and restore it, not give up. @jannem @ThePlant this is not true. A website can be set up using open protocols and free software for non-profit activities, #Threads is a private company using closed source, undisclosed filtering algorithms and uncontrolled metadata harvesting, monetizing also hate speech for profit. We are not retreating, we are still open to the #Fediverse, but closed to evil companies. Nobody could force me to pay storage for federation data of a company used as a tool for genocide according to UN reports. @gubi @ThePlant Again, I'm not blaming anyone give up on the open web. There's lots of very good reasons to do so. I'm a little sad that it's happening, and I also feel we are losing something important. Obviously a lot of people disagree @jannem @ThePlant the protocol is open but the source code is closed. That's why #Mastodon users are owners of their data, and can migrate their account on another #Mastodon istance keeping all the followers, but #Threads users won't be allowed to do the same. Besides the technical limitations, though, there should be also ethical considerations because of the bad record of misbehaviours of the company, supporting from white supremacy to genocide. But everyone has a different ethics. @gubi @ThePlant But I still create and promote open source software. The benefit to humanity at large far outweighs the damage from those entities also getting access. The overall benefits of being open is worth my loss of control over who gets to use it. @jannem @ThePlant first of all, there is a difference from open source and free software, where the free is the one of freedom. Second, putting blocks on a Mastodon server to keep out evil companies and their monetization of hate speech will not make the fediverse less open, just like putting antispam blocks on Postfix mail server to keep out evil companies and their monetization of spam will not make the internet less open. It's so open that you can stop antispam filters and federate with Meta. @gubi @ThePlant You disagree with me. That is fine. Reasonable, well informed people disagree with each other all the time. I understand and sympathize with your standpoint even if I don't agree with the conclusion. @jannem @ThePlant the GPL cannot be compared to Activitypub because if you are using GPL code you are forced to release any modification with the same freedom, while Activitypub doesn't oblige companies using it to disclose malicious proprietary code for harvesting metadata, filtering contents and monetizing hate speech. My conclusion is that we should not support companies that made the world a worse place, but you are free to come to the opposite conclusion, we're in the Fediverse after all 🙂 Yes Meta has issues, yes they’ve done some shitty things. I am aware of that. But so have Apple, Google, Microsoft and almost every *insert company here*. Mastodon also had a reported issue with people using instances for child porn. The internet is often a shitty place, filled with shitty people. But we have a real genuine chance here to push social into the open like it should always have been. @ThePlant When the only relevance we could get is to go directly to the extinguish phase... we are better off without it. The ghosts of XMPP haunts us all. But of course nobody wants to remember when google/aol/yahoo/fb agreed upon using it, just to try and capture users and leave the protocol in shambles @hardpenguin13 @ThePlant I really am surprised people really insist on not seeing this as a do-over of what they did. FB will take al the users, close the door behind them, move away from ActivityPub and leave the standard littered with dead platforms, and unbaked abandoned software ( good luck setting anything XMPP these days ). It happened before, we are still feeling the damage from that, and it's gonna happen again.  @thomholwerda Yeah, like none of my friends and family moving away from Meta and 99% of the people I want to follow will never be on here. Threads basically solves that issue for me and a lot of people. @ThePlant That's entirely fine, of course, but that doesn't mean everyone running their own instance with their own time and money is obliged to acquiesce. You don't get to demand this from anyone. @thomholwerda not "demanding" anything, more suggesting, just voicing my own opinion on it like everyone else is   @ThePlant Criticisms and concerns of Meta aside, there's a lot of people on fedi that see this place as their corner of the internet, where no normal people are allowed in. Then they wonder why not even their online friends are joining this area and going for Bluesky. Whining about Threads or Bluesky won't bring people here, it just makes you (er, royal you) look hostile and makes those on those platforms a lot less inclined to join. @Flaky @ThePlant I agree with this, but the concerns about Meta, at least in my opinion, are valid. Now, if people federate themselves via Threads, it shpuldn't be very hard then to convince thwm to join FOSS platforms... @aliteral @ThePlant I'd honestly go for followers-only federation, which I believe Mastodon and Pleroma already support. If Threads joins the federated timeline that could be an actual burden for moderators, given the size of Threads probably eclipses that of the instances run by Vivaldi and Mozilla. @ThePlant I don't need to support evil companies responsible for genocide acts to feel relevant. I just need the relevance of a meaningful digital life, free from ads, profiling and private interests of big companies. @ThePlant 13 millions of users scattered in 20k communities federated in the fediverse are not "a little corner", but a "community of communities" deserving respect. I will continue to interact with more people than I can deal with in a "Big Corner" made of 20k platforms, and I won't feel excluded if they won't be 20001, or if my ego won't be able to count to a fake exposition to a big audience, filtered by monetization algorithms and private interests. Enjoy your corporate heaven, @ThePlant I guess that's the thing. A lot of us on here don't care about growth or being big. We don't want to be associated with Facebook, Twitter, etc because a lot of us came to Mastodon specifically to get away from other social media. @ThePlant If I was an admin, and were to judge threads as if it were any other instance, I would very quickly be in favour of blocking. Simply because moderation on threads is terrible. @ThePlant "Oh no shitty people run instances too!" yeah that's nothing new. What do you MEAN "a reported issue"? That doesn't even make any sense. And as if that excuses Facebook's data vacuuming and everything else they do? Could you please not blatantly fearmonger? "What do you MEAN "a reported issue"? That doesn't even make any sense." Look it up. Not hard. It was widely reported. "Could you please not blatantly fearmonger?" Lmao. I'm literally doing the opposite against the people doing it. @ThePlant There's a bunch of Nazis and transphobes too! But you never see them because all the normal servers that run into them tend to block them on sight. Decentralization is pretty neat. @ThePlant and tell me one thing, how were dealt the "issue with people using instances for child porn", if not blocking the instances used for child porn? Who is deciding that monetization of hate speech, support to the violence of white suprematism, tolerance of extremist organization, bad moderation and the support to genocide are less despicable and more tolerable than child porn? @ThePlant But Meta is actively dismantling the open web. All of their properties are opaque and foreign to it. Facebook uses its own webview to keep you in the app and Instagram even makes it impossible to click links on mobile.  @ThePlant I try to avoid those companies too, it's not exactly a case of inconsistency. I'm going to wait and see how Threads interacts with the fedi, but like, this is facebook, a company known for having the barest fucking minimum moderation possible. Their reputation as people who run a so called instance is untrustworthy. So we'll see, but I have really low expectations. @ThePlant I have blocked Threads in my instances as soon as their domain was known. I don't believe Meta to have any good intentions - they have proven numerous times Zuck is poison. I don't need Meta harvesting content of my instances or pushing their ad infused content to me. Thanks, but no. After Cambridge Analytica these shitheads don't deserve any more second chances ⛔️ @ThePlant @vama85 I just don't understand why they've released it in this state. They could install a local mastodon instance to do any kind of tests before going live with the integration. This "one-way only" really damages their reputation with the rest of the instances the longer it goes on. It's exactly what people wary of them feared would happen. I do understand where you’re coming from but the fact that moderation is necessary wont change. We have harmful people and content out there which we keep from our users. Otherwise there would be no moderation features on mastodon, lemmy, matrix and co. One of those harmful actors is called meta and I wont stand by while they poison the well. @ThePlant Still trying to understand how Meta is supposedly going to be extinguishing a protocol people are already using by doing... ??? Meta is a crock of shit and I want nothing to do with them, but my friendships are more important and they use Meta platforms because they don't think about this stuff, or feel they "need" to. @ThePlant You are certainly allowed to be wrong and post wrong things on the internet.  |
@ThePlant if you're a #Mastodon admin and you're going to welcome #Threads: you don't care about genocide in Burma.
I said what I said.