Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Otherwise it's just some rumor.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2023
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it is a pretty extraordinary claim, but not unbelievable. regardless of whether there's evidence, we should still be on the lookout for suspicious behavior
How about you search for proof before spreading rumors?
Meta (Instagram) is building their Twitter competitor called "Threads". It's based on ActivityPub.
Why wouldn't they be talking to fedi-admins?
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/8/23754304/instagram-meta-twitter-competitor-threads-activitypub
Makes sense to collect feedback and talk about possible issues with people who have been doing this for a long time.
I'm not sure why anyone would be surprised by any of this. Or why this should be controversial.
I bloody well hope people got paid for their consultation. I hope they got paid well.
Anything else would be a scandal.
For those who don't know, many fediverse devs and activitypub projects are funded in part by NLnet NGIZero grants, which are in turn funded by nonprofits like FSF (Free software foundation), NixOS, and the European Commission (!). Projects include the likes of Gitea/forgejo/forgefed (federation aspect of selfhosted git services), pixelfed, both Lemmy AND kbin, their apps like pixeldroid and lemmur, Mastodon, Misskey, Owncast, peertube, funkwhale, ActivityPub for WordPress, hubzilla, gotosocial, Matrix chat (specifically E2EE improvements), Fractal Matrix client, as well as other non-fediverse oriented projects like F-droid, Briar chat, nextcloud, jitsi meet, cryptpad, searx. (https://nlnet.nl/project/current.html)
The fediverse is very community donation and nonprofit funded right now.
The great thing about an open source and federated platform: Meta buys off some of the instance admins? There are others! Meta somehow buys off ALL the instance admins? Start a new one! Meta buys off the devs? Fork it!
The whole point is that the many have more power over the platform than the few.
Facebook paying off admins? In my Lemmy? Impossible! Selling out is not the value I promote in my new movie, "Barbie", opening in theaters July 21st.
If an instance can defederate, then can't the federation either not allow a Meta instance to federate, or defederate them?
yeah, there's a whole pact going around with the goal of Gabbing any Meta-affiliated instances
What does ‘Gabbing’ mean in this context?
a mass defederation from a specific instance like what happened when Gab tried to join the Fediverse
I think meta will genuinely cannibalize the rest of the fediverse if they decide to pursue this matter further. Even with the best of intentions, meta being attached to the Fediverse in any way will cause it to consume the overall connotation and understanding to the layman of what the Fediverse is and - by extension - allow meta to reshape the concept however they'd like.
I realize the above is apocalyptic and hyperbolic language for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if they pursue the concept of an instance/server for it to balloon in size with registrations from people and lead to their server becoming the defacto one, which is what I'd personally be afraid of.
there's a pact going around that has admins promise to defederate from any Meta-affiliated instances. the Fediverse will survive even if Meta tries to cannibalize it
I hope so, I don't want to see this Facebook cancer infect the Fediverse.
This is bullshit.
Nobody is claiming that fedi admins are being "paid off" by Meta. The toot you post to also does not make such a claim.
...of course. i associate NDAs most with shady business deals involving money, so i misinterpreted the post as such. i'll edit my post title
Thanks.
Seems feasible considering every attempt to discuss using more Fediverse just gets ignored. Like Peertube is sitting right there, but everyone that joined Mastodon instances is sharing YouTube links.
But people are like this in general, so it might be just predictable behaviour.
Friendi.ca is a Facebook alternative, but I don't want to leave anonymity again.
Pixelfed is a good Instagram alternative.
Like Peertube is sitting right there, but everyone that joined Mastodon instances is sharing YouTube links.
Yeah, but often the stuff you want to share isn't on PeerTube. I think that's more the issue than people not wanting to use it/share from it.
I don't even use YT directly, always trough a privacy front-end. When I share however, I share the link to YT instead of to the front-end. There are multiple privacy front-ends, and for most devices there are ways to redirect those. By linking the original link, they can redirect to whichever they preffer.
A lot of stuff I follow is on Mastodon nowadays, and Lemmy isn't as much about following specific people but topics and conversations. But a lot of channels I like are not on PeerTube. Only if they switch, or a lot of new equally interesting ones take their place, will linking PeerTube become the norm. But whenever I check PeerTube now, it's just not that interesting.
every platform will shit the bed eventually. i'm just grateful we have these alternatives for when they do
People are still using YouTube because it still works for them. Once Google ships something that changes that, folks will start looking for alternatives. Same goes for Owncast and Twitch.
I feel like the problem with moving away from youtube is that the larger chanels making money off of it arent going to want to move because they wont get monitized if they do. If they do move it will probably be to another corperate platform.
I really dont like what youtube is planning on doing by restricting adblockers and adding more unskippable ads though. Hopefully that moves at least some people to peertube.
I think any channel that's able to get away with crowdfunded monetization like Ko-Fi or Patreon would be able to make the switch comfortably.
They could but there is still a loss of income if they do switch so they would be more inclined not to switch especialy if the channel is only just big enough for the creator to make a living from it
not saying it's impossible though if youtube really fucks things up.
Content creators aren't going to follow those users to another site just so they can continue to block ads.
Exactly
So what would be the end goal for Meta? Weaken reddit and twitter as platforms, but they don't believe that the fediverse is able to take off in the mass market, so people will finally post on Facebook again?
Edit: A word
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/8/23754304/instagram-meta-twitter-competitor-threads-activitypub
It's ActivityPub-based Twitter competitor.
no, i think that they do see the Fediverse as a threat. they may be trying some kind of embrace-extend-extinguish
True, although the "embrace" step is usually done out in the open. But yeah, if the rumers are true, you never know what they came up with.
I just feel like something nice is happening with the wider adoption of the fediverse, so could we please just let it happen and not fuck around in the background? Meta? Please? Thank you.
There will always be bad players out there. Key is to make the infrastructure so it is resistant to total domination. You know, like what's been happening with mega-corporate run monopoly entities.
Who got together and decided what it was "supposed to be"? Why does the fedi.tips account consistently behave as though they are some authority?
Either it's an open protocol or it isn't. If instances want to immediately defederate, that is their right of course. But to my mind it sort of demonstrates that they don't believe in what they preach, and they don't believe that they can offer a more compelling social offering, even with direct access to Meta's user base.
Literally every repeated talking point I've seen around this is all rumor and conjecture. At the end of the day we don't actually know how this will play out until Meta's offering is launched and we see how they do business.
Also unclear where the "paid off" aspect comes from. The linked post doesn't say anything about anybody being paid.