The main flaw i see with #fedipact logic is: if meta was really more of a threat to Fedi then Fedi is to #Meta, why wouldnt “Project92” or whatever just start a covert instance runnin mastodon on a random domain name unaffiliated with meta (at least on the surface level) and just harvest all the data they want that way?

I just don’t see that much of a harmful impact in harvesting data that is already public, i get sending a message that we dont want corpos on #fediverse, but maybe we should start considering the harm Fedi can do to meta by using the ole “embrace, extend, extinguish” route as a sort of uno reverse card and out extend the corporations for once.

@levi I already know about shadow dragon, that doesnt change my mind, in fact its why I think something like the fedipact is relatively useless in terms of actually preventing any data harvesting.

Not federating with threads doesnt stop law enforcement from contracting a company to make their own mastodon instance that just doesnt announce who is behind it. It doesn’t make Mastodon admins immune from jail if they go against a gag order saying they have to monitor and NOT announce they are monitoring users.

The idea that you can just de-federate from bad actors, implies that you KNOW who the bad actors are, and that is most certainly not something that can be 100% known. Bad actors don’t normally announce they are going to do bad things ahead of time, they just setup an instance quietly and start harvesting data.

Do you honestly believe that fediverse services are not already being actively monitored by law enforcement in every way imaginable? Do you think the people who host instances would refuse to comply with a court order to hand over records, or that they would risk jail time to go against a gag order informing users they’ve been ordered to monitor them?

It just seems naive to me to think that threads is an actual threat to the fediverse in and of itself more so then the fediverse is to Meta/X/Amazon/etc.

@levi I just think we have more to gain from federating then they do.

The UI on the threads app actually does make it clear what server someone is on, but they also don’t allow reposting of anything from fedi, and people you “follow” from fedi don’t show up in the normal threads feed. You also can’t share or reply to posts from fedi, all you can do is like posts, which you will only see if they @ mention your threads account.

I do think you’re mostly correct it’d be very hard to reverse things on them with things being how they are currently stacked way in meta’s favor, but it’s not impossible. I guess I’m just thinking we could try to better strategize around it. I dont think its impossible to beat them, at least not to have their same content without them making money of it in a way that costs them more then it “costs” the fediverse, which I would consider a win.

Like I think Meta would not be very happy if a fedi site popped up and just mirrored any meta account you pointed it at… they actively do things to prevent this like no longer allowing third party apps and restricting API access, but there are ways around that similar to how a lot of reddit content is mirrored onto lemmy, much to the dismay of the Reddit share holders who want that content to only be viewed on their site with their advertising/tracking attached to make them more money.

Its just something to think about: What if instead of ignoring them, we embraced the idea to an extent that makes their content visible to our users without giving meta the clicks/views they use to get advertisers money. Especially when you consider how much worse advertising gets on their sites year after year, if we offered just an ad free alternative with the same content, they probably wouldn’t be very happy, but it’d be too late to put the genie back into the bottle.

@tokyo_0

1. how? Could you give me an example of how you’d expect a data harvesting instance to be noticed, can you point to any examples of already existing ones (of which there are several) that the community has noticed?

2. Illegal where? And do you realize we’re talking about a multinational billion dollar corporations that does “AI”. I don’t know if you noticed, but they aren’t exactly that concerned about “legality” these days when it comes to harvesting data. At best they’d pay a fine if the got caught, then lobby governments to make what they did legal.

I despise meta and everything they do, but for my fellow humans, you have to meet people where they are sometimes, not everyone has the same interests or concerns, not everyone is as educated about the issues with meta as you are.

#Fedipact Is just gate keeping. Now maybe there are other justifications you have for wanting to gate keep, but its not stopping anyone from data harvesting off the fediverse.

@tokyo_0 I understand you disagree with letting meta do it, but my point is that they, and many other unknown actors are actively going to harvest everything they can, Fedi Posts are public, you can run a mastodon instance that doesnt even interact except to harvest data and it would not be noticed. Meta and other companies actively ignore the law and have the money and lawyers they need to not face any consequences for doing so… THe threat is not to just the fediverse but the entire internet and its not from just Meta its from Google, Amazon, Microsoft and other mega-corps that are LIERALLY above the law (as demonstrated by them constantly breaking laws and paying fines… do they even actually pay these fines? I dont honestly know how to check, maybe they just endlessly appeal and delay things).

I was hoping you’d have more then just a vague “Data harvesting is quickly spotted by admins who monitor traffic. “, I’m an admin and I follow many other admins, I have not seen any major discussion or posting along the lines of “mastodon instance XYZ is harvesting data and should be defederated” or “the instance of ABC is full of nothing but bots and should be blocked”

I have seen instances that are openly okay with AI Art an AI posts NOT being being objected to sigmoid.social for example, is full of bots and AI garbage, but its not really a well known instance so no one cares.

I’m not saying we should welcome them with open arms, I’m just saying the idea of #fedipact is not overall going to solve the problems it purports to solve, at least not so long as its hyper focused on just blacklisting a single company’s single public fedi-connection… what about BlueSky and bridgySky, why isnt everyone as hostile to them I wonder?

I think there are better ways to fight this battle, the current method of just ignorning them will not hinder Meta or the others in the slightest.

@tokyo_0 You aren’t even making sense bro, what “pro meta talking points” are you talking about, Im not pro meta so maybe work on your reading comprehension a bit before you go engaging with people on topics you know next to nothing about.

“No one is obliged to answer you more fully”

Translation: “I’m not able to give a real answer so i’ll just use a cop out excuse instead”

Maybe just let the adults speak next time, since you aren’t an admin and you seem to have no idea how any of this stuff actually works. Your vibes based assessment isn’t needed.

If anyone who actually admins a fedi instance has more info about how #fedipact applies to instances and how we can better recognize AI/Spam and other problematic instances, I’m all ears.

@tokyo_0 Okay bro, so why are you not linking me to anything? My instance is for me alone because that’s how i ensure what little control i do have on my data and if i want to stop having it be public I can literally just push a button.

My Instance is barely a month old, so I guess I’ll just have to keep an eye on the #fedipact and #fediblock threads and try to figure for myself out how its different from just #gatekeeping low info/ non tech savvy folks out of the fediverse.

@tokyo_0 #Fedipact just going to start with these directly

1. PROJECT92 WILL BE A MODERATION NIGHTMARE

So is moderating any online community or fedi instance with only volunteers. You sometimes end up with fascist sypathizers as mods for example , Generally speaking “decentalized” and “well moderated” don’t co-exist… I mean, one can hope for a good balance, but if people want to misbehave they have ways of getting around moderation even on very strict platforms.

@benroyce @tokyo_0

Not only did you clearly not read anything of what i posted or you would know that I’m not in favor of meta. You are posting from a mastodon instance that still FEDERATES WITH THREADS

So GTFO with your gatekeeping BS already. Go move to Gab or Parlor if you want a walled garden.