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

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

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

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.

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/FAQ

Microsoft Digital Safety Content Report, indicating use of PhotoDNA to detect extremism:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/corporate-responsibility/digital-safety-content-report

Technical analysis of the PhotoDNA process:
https://hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?archives/931-PhotoDNA-and-Limitations.html

UN 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.pdf

Transcript 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.htm

Journalism 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

@ophiocephalic

[remembers to go look up and read about "#PhotoDNA"]

Crap...

#FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse

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

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

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

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

*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

*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 to 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.

1/2

#FreeFediverse #FediPact #FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta #Meta #Facebook #Threads #FacebookFediverse #Democracy #Decentralization #Prefiguration #Kolektiva

Now we know the intended scale of what's about to hit #FacebookFediverse instances. Quote:

“I’ve always thought that Twitter should have a billion people using it,” Zuckerberg said during a recent podcast interview with Lex Fridman.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/21/23769263/mark-zuckerberg-elon-musk-fight-cage-match-worldstar

#DefederateMeta #FediblockMeta #Meta #P92

@malin
Your apparently see only developers as being useful to the community. The rest of us should just clam up and do what you tell us to. That's the exact problem I address in this post. We're done being led around by the noses. I will also point out that other developers, with a broader outlook, are leading the charge of the fedipact. Enjoy the #FacebookFediverse

One thing to love about the Fedipact is all the wild names of the instances signing up. The #FreeFediverse which survives will be the freaky and beautiful fediverse. The HOA? Enjoy the #FacebookFediverse

#DefederateMeta #FediblockMeta

https://fedipact.online/

Are you ready for the #FacebookFediverse ?

#FediblockMeta #DefederateMeta

@atomicpoet
"So Barcelona is coming. We need to brace for impact. And we need to be strategic in our response."

In that case, what is also coming is a schism. Then there will be a #FreeFediverse which carries on the banner of independence and decentralization, and a #FacebookFediverse which acquiesces to being recentralized and data-mined.

None of these other examples you cite comes remotely close to the gravity of a Zuckerberg takeover. The historical example to point to is not Medium or Vivaldi, it's Gab