I will probably be harassed for this but I feel like I need to act.
The recent debate and decision by world to federate with threads seems to have sparked massive pro meta propaganda. Some accounts post completely one sided articles nearly every day, using carefully crafted language to shape meta as the „facilitator“ of the fediverse and some beligerent benevolent god. You dont have to scroll far in this community to find the posts I‘m talking about.
Please consider reporting these posts for the propaganda they are and asking your admins to defederate from threads.net.
To show you why meta is not welcome in the fediverse, here is a quote from the fedipact which is the reason I have defederated threads in my own instance.
THEIR LONG TRACK RECORD OF PURE EVIL
i’m just gonna paste some links here because there’s no point in paraphrasing what others have already said more eloquently
(if you’re wondering why i’m using archive.org it’s to break the fucking paywalls on these articles because fuck that, information wants to be free)
that time they helped facilitate a genocide
that time they helped try to rig an election
that time they did creepy behavioral experimentation on their users
so, yeah. there’s legiterally shitloads of precedent here. not to mention all the privacy concerns. which brings us to the need many feel to protect ourselves from this insidious megacorp…
Against one thing meta-shills often try to ascribe: we dont have a problem with the people on there but it is literally everything else.
Admins and Mods who read this, please consider signing the fedipact on https://fedipact.online
Thank you very much for reading and have a nice day.
Edit: wording, crossed out
Years ago, back before it was totally shitty, someone on reddit posted a gigantic, comprehensive, well-sourced list of all the horrible shit Zuck / Meta have done over the years.
It’s unfortunate that long lists of damning facts can’t seem to move the needle very much. People don’t seem to care unless directly impacted.
I hate seeing Meta dig its tentacles in. Thanks for posting this.
They “trust me”. Dumb fucks.
Mark Zuckerberg
I literally show my wife articles of Meta/Tik Tok data breaches and other shit, and she just shrugs and keeps using it. I have a friend who works in fucking CYBER SECURITY and he still has social media apps on his phone. It’s unreal.
But… you’re on social media right now.
Much like Reddit, user data here is worth little outside of LLM utility. Moreover, most of your data is freely available to anyone with a bit of patience and the ability to spin up an instance. Everything is open here, but what’s open isn’t meticulously indexed information about your hopes and dreams… I hope.
Yeah, no, that’s my exact point. It’s not like data in the “fediverse” is particularly secure, beyond the fact that you can opt out of some parts of it in some applications. And it’s not like it’s not social media doing social media things.
I see a lot of this performative outrage or pride on being on the “open” version of social media, but social media is social media. A lot of its problems are design problems that are replicated in the federated versions, and a lot of the privacy concerns remain on paper or haven’t surfaced just because this version of it is so small by comparison.
I don’t think a lot of people who have made this crusade a key part of their online persona fully understand what the underlying issues are and how they work. “How can cybersecurity experts have a TikTok account” kinda reads like the “we need to ban plastic straws” of Internet dysfunction.
You’re absolutely correct. But let’s just be practical here. Lemmy isn’t the same thing as Facebook or Tik Tok. It’s a completely different beast. I’m also being careful to not post sensitive information about myself, whereas on Facebook it’s literally your name and identity and photos and private conversations.
Ah, I didn’t realize that my Lemmy account is tied to my actual name, address, phone number, and all of my irl friends. I also didn’t realize that my Lemmy account has thousands of photos of me for deep fakes, and that the government can at any time request all of that for next to no reason. Thanks for enlightening me!
You’re welcome.
I mean, my accounts in Twitter or Reddit were never tied to those things, either, and I sure see a lot of Mastodon users under their own names.
What I do know and some people don’t fully realize is that public posts here are search engine indexable, as are Masto posts based on their privacy settings, so data being scraped is not conditional on anybody else federating. Although the data that requires federation to access can obviously be accessed just by spinning up an insstance privately at any point.
Don’t get me wrong, the treatment of data and the monetization and social engineering tools in commercial social media aren’t the same as here, but a lot of people assign a level of privacy and secrecy to their fediverse activity that just isn’t there, and the same goes for moderation tools.
Hilariously once they started rolling out Threads opt-ins you could see some Threads users complain that opting in could mean that others can see their posts without their control, or that they don’t have direct moderation access to federated copies of their content. And you know what? They’re not wrong.
Each platform has its own gaps. I prefer the set of gaps in the Fediverse, and I’ll certainly take Bluesky over Threads or Twitter these days. But social media is social media, and there are fundamental issues at the core of the concept and with every implementation of it, including this one.
No he isn’t? Social media is centred on posting about yourself and following people to see what they post. This is a link aggregation site with a comments section. By the definition of “place you can go and post comments on a topic”, then Usenet is social media. Every website with a comment section is social media
The letters section of your newspaper is social media. No, the whole point and problem of social media is that people make it about themselves.
So by your standards Mastodon counts but Lemmy doesn’t? Is Mastodon part of the problem in that read of the situation?
Yes. Microblogging in general. It started bad with “had toast this morning” and “look at my lunch” and somehow we got influencers out of it.
That’s debatable, but fair enough. Still, you’ll agree with me that’s not what a lot of people around here are thinking, and probably not what the OP was thinking either. Specifically if the issue is, as he suggests, privacy and security Reddit (and so Lemmy) are no different than Twitter (and so Mastodon).
Ultimately it’s the same confusion between data exposure, tracking and designed dynamics.
I get where you’re coming from but is he managing his risk or not?
Does he understand the risk? If yes, good. No? Bad.
Is he ignoring the risk? If yes, bad. No? Good.
Is he weighing the risks against the benefits he receives of using these apps and taking appropriate steps to mitigate those risks? If yes, then good. No? Bad.
Cyber security isn’t “lock everything down at all costs”. Otherwise I would insist you throw your phone in an incinerator along with all your computers, live in a bunker reinforced against nuclear attack with a small army to guard you, never leave it, never talk to anyone… Etc.
It is enabling one to achieve their goals with a tolerable amount of risk. That level of tolerable risk is different for everyone.
This is correct. Security is managing risk to a tolerable level. Not eliminating it entirely. Unless you want to live by yourself cut off from the world. People who have black and white views on security are weird.
Well maybe they aren’t experienced info security professionals :)
Yep. Almost like the mind-altering power of television should have been taken seriously instead of laughed off and supercharged into an always-on ubiquitous device we mostly equate with our actual personhood.
We could actually address it now. No time like the present, eh.
I’m going to be honest, I’m kind of of this mindset.
I haven’t yet had a decent argument made to me regarding why I should personally care if TikTok or whatever has like… my age gender and what types of books I read and what apps I have on my phone.
The concern is what other pieces of information are they collecting, and when and who do they share that information with. Does it also collect data on what places you visit, or what kind of potentially controversial information you look up. People are concerned about things like visits to a hospital making its way to their employer and insurance against their will, or a trans person being outed by the ads they are served in front of their family, or maybe that the police will knock down their door because their GPS falsely placed them at the scene of a crime. Or what if they live in an actual fascist regime, and that government comes knocking because they searched for something verboten. Even aside from all that, all this data is inherently your’s, and yet all these companies collecting it are just taking it from you without your explicit knowledge or consent and without you seeing even a dime or what a quick search tells me is a multi-billion dollar industry.
Are things like that happening though? With the insurance?
I mean if the police want to come to my door and shoot me in the head or find a reason to brand me as a felon any day they can basically already do that. That goes for about anyone. It doesn’t really seem to matter if any data brokering company also happens to tag me as maybe being gay or having a 90% chance of supporting Palestine over Israel or similar
I dunno. I just feel like a lot of the argument are contingent on envisioning some imminent future wherein every Western country turns into a completely fascist police state with like concentration camps - but also they can only get their information on local demographics based off of data sold by social media companies? And foreign ones at that? And even in this situation you’re not really doing anything about it but just trying to lie low and hope no one discovers you’re an atheist or whatever until you die of old age?
It kind of reminds me of Pascals Wager. You know that one? Where it goes “ooo you have to believe in god because what if you don’t and the Christian god is real… you go to hell!?”. Like. Yeah, sure. I guess that could happen. But most people will shrug their shoulders at it, not really convinced. It requires a lot of assumptions
If that company that has tagged you as gay sells the data that most often includes location, maybe even your face, to an anti-gay hate group that could end quite badly. It’s the same impluse that drove the red scare and the citizen made lists of " suspected communists" and they were blacklisted from their communities, harrassed or evenharmed or killed.
What exactly do you think the anti gay hate groups are going to do?
Have you literally slept through the bomb threats being called in to children’s hospitals and schools over LGBTQ issues?
Um, Charlottesville?
Regular lynchings from the 1800s?
I don’t really understand the question.
To answer your question about the insurance thing, yes. Yes, that is a thing that is happening today. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/11/technology/carmakers-driver-tracking-insurance.html
Because they use that information to draw a psychological profile of people, and they use that to subtly push their agenda with content they show.
Allegedly, anyway.
For a more concrete example, though not quite like this, look at Tencent-funded western movies. They’ve all got a Chinese side character who’s always shown in a positive light.
Who is “they” in this context?
Also, how does your “concrete example” pertain to this discussion? That doesn’t have anything to do with data from social media or phones. It’s just a giant media company pushing having having some Chinese people in some movies.
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://m.piped.video/watch?v=NNv2RHR62Rs&pp=ygULY3JjdXMgbXVzaWM%3D
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
Is this list still available somewhere?
Wasn’t that @PoppinKREAM@sh.itjust.works?
He was here around the API debacle, don’t know if that’s his actual account or whether he’s still active here
The one I’m thinking of was on reddit, and unfortunately I did not save the link. But I’m sure others have posted similar.
Also named PoppinKREAM over there.
Thank you very much for the encouragement! The amount of hate you get on a daily basis by speaking up is insane. Glad it hasnt flooded this post yet. :)
Hi can you share that list here or dm me ??
And here’s a new scandal to throw on the pile:
I haven’t even got through that list bruh like how many crimes can one zuck commit ? Still thanks
The way our judicial system works:
- You rip off working class people = Have fun, you spicy job creator, you!
- You rip off wealthy people = You’re going to jail, boy!
This one is several years old, but is the version I could find. I think it got updated but not sure where that one is.
https://np.reddit.com/r/StallmanWasRight/comments/5lauzk/facebook_2016_year_in_review/?context=3
Sometimes people have different opinions on tech stuff so I’m hesitant to block people for opinions I disagree with…
But I also saw some posts that you’re talking about OP. You linked one up thread that had come to mind. That user’s post history is super suspect. With people pointing out their shill-like qualities 6 months ago in response to Meta propaganda links.
Exactly. The wording in these article is very sus as well imo. I would actually suggest everyone report them so we can get actual „opinions“ in here and not manipulative double speak.
Little course in marketing speak
It is what we use in sales and marketing (I did this for 20 yrs before i went back in IT). This language is hard to pinpoint if you dont know what to look for. Something is off about it if you take time while reading. Like a soliciter coming to your door but as text.
Its basically actively being biased and just ignoring every counter argument while shaping words to suggest more than they actually say. Its one of the reasons I went back to IT since its soulcrushing if you dont have a real ethical product. And even then it sucks that you have to do it since worse competitors will otherwise win. Thats also why I despise ads. Imo, they should not be allowed to appeal to emotion. If your product does not win on facts, it should not win at all.
Can you give examples of what you’re referring to as propaganda? I haven’t seen anything but people bitching about Threads.
https://lemmy.giftedmc.com/post/329846 this for example
The Fediverse will soon have power on the social web to shape its future, but only through and in the interaction with Meta. This is the reality the Fediverse has to start arranging itself with.
First sentence literally.
Meta and the Fediverse are heavily intertwined: both are dependent on one another for their success.
Uncompromising idealists of a non-corporate social web, potentially origin of radicalisation and toxicity.
And so on and so forth. The language is shaping the story in one direction as if nobody has a chance to change something about it.
That’s all fair.
But it’s also heavily down voted and refuted.
Some people are gonna be shills and some are gonna be naive. But I’m not going to be a part of any platform Meta is trying to subvert.
Me too.
I think it is part of a long term strategy.
They saw all the negative feedback that was given when the first announcement came and there were a lot of users saying its not so bad or that we should give them a chance then.
Eventually everything became quiet and things moved on now there is a steady rise of pro Meta comments again and this time it will lead to a less violent reaction because it has already happened once before.
Rinse and repeat until they become the norm.
Thats why I report these posts as the propaganda they are and always try to counter them in the comments. Just doing my part as much as I can. I’m already on my own instance so I cant just be banned for it if someone gets bought by meta (its not the only reason but one of them).
I appreciate it.
Wait, what?
I mean, the OP already sounds… kinda paranoid. I’ve been on the record saying that preemptively defederating Threads is a bad idea. That doesn’t make me my opinion propaganda. I’m also on the record saying all social media is a mistake and Meta should be heavily regulated and broken apart.
But hey, whatever, maybe you don’t mean people like me and instead someone else.
But who is Meta buying? Who’s banning posts opposing Meta? Who said that was a thing or could be a thing? Why would it be a thing? There are legitimate concerns about Meta using AP, but I haven’t seen any of them listed in this thread and some of the language here is getting really weird.
To elaborate a little bit on this: Imho, opinions are not propaganda. I dont agree that defederating threads is a bad idea because I am very experienced in strategy. I built several successful companies and my job was to see stuff coming and prepare for it. Its my forte.
What I call propaganda is writing multiple articles which call meta „the only reason the fediverse exists because they said they‘d federate“. Such a braindead take and complete bs.
I‘m on lemmy for roughly a year (this account is younger though) and have been on reddit before. It is evident that there have been campaigns on both platforms to influence the public.
Maybe you didnt know but in that case I suggest you read up about it. Public opinion is a very powerful tool and very valuable. Literally the OP shows that meta has helped such campaigns in the american elections. Which is treason imo (although I‘m not from the US - my mother is - so my definition might diverge).
Anyway, I value your opinion and input. Thanks for asking. Have a good one.
I assume my not noticing any meta shills is due to them being downvoted to hell. If so, excellent work everyone on keeping their propaganda in check!
I agree. That is a positive thing.
Seems like this aren’t the only bad stuff they did
yes, I’ve seen that one. They’re not the nice guys. Thanks for mentioning it though. :)
I haven’t seen it but I also want Meta and everything to do with it to die in a fire, so I kind of wish I had so I could express that feeling to the shills. Mark Zuckerberg has singlehandedly made the world a significantly worse place. It’d almost be impressive if it wasn’t so depressing.
Very passionate response! Thank you! I respect the shit out of anyone who subjects themselves to hate due to their advocacy.
I don’t like Meta at all, trying to cut out Meta as much as possible myself.
Meta’s going to do what Meta’s going to do. They don’t have the good intentions for the Fediverse at heart. They will use it and the concept of federation to seek their ends, and when it’s no longer useful to them they will cut it off.
I’ll leave it up to server operators and users to decide. While I think it’s nice that Meta gives the Fediverse attention, I also the Fediverse is better off generally not hooking into Meta’s feed. If your server is part of Fedipact then it’s fair game to report disinformation biased towards Meta.
thanks for your response. I’m going through them one by one. This is a group effort and by voicing your support you are helping to keep the fediverse clean from corporate abuse.
I browse new on the regular and haven’t noticed any of what you’re saying. I see them being shit on though all the time.
Same. I guess my instance isn’t federated with the places they’re shilling to.
Thanks for shedding light on this!
Thanks for the support! This means a lot. Have a nice day.
decision by world to federate with threads
…anyone know if I can block threads so I won’t have to abandon the instance or be subjected to Meta poison?
You can block any posts coming from threads.net by going to settings and doing instance blocking but long term it probably is better to just move to a different instance that better aligns with your values.
Haha I took your advice and went to my settings to block it only to find out I already had done it. 😂
Instance blocking is, I believe, the reason stated that our instance hasn’t signed the pact that OP linked.
That aligns with my values, honesty, because it lets me make the choice for myself.
I find the pact-shaming to be kinda gross. But Meta as a company is truly disgusting, so I at least understand it.
Are you seeing these pro-meta articles on Lemmy or on Mastodon? I haven’t seen them, or much negative effect yet from Threads in general despite my instance being federated, but I assume that’s because I only use Lemmy.
(For the record, I would prefer if lemmy.world and mastodon.world defederated regardless.)
Both but I was referring to lemmy. The articles in question are posted from few accounts too iirc.
I have not seen any uptick. But then again, I’m not looking for it.
If anything, all the extra traffic concerning it will persuade me to be proactive about it.
I believe you that Meta is a bad company with a clear track record of perpetrating harms any time there’s profit to be made. I am not, however convinced that small independent services blocking communication with them is a net positive for the world. Instead, I think there’s an opportunity to get their users to migrate away.
That’s not to say that some servers shouldn’t block them. For a tightly-moderated server, the scale of moderation problems it could bring is argument enough. There are good options for those who are looking for that sort of thing.
I don’t want my Lemmy server to block Threads unless it actually does become a moderation nightmare. I don’t intend to block it from my self-hosted Mastodon server either. In fact, I haven’t blocked anything there yet. I will if I run into anybody being a jerk, but it seems like bird photos and flashlight reviews don’t attract that sort of thing.
I get your point and that is your right. I still dont agree and that is my right. There have been countless examples of underestimating a bad actor until they were already in the space.
That’s why there are many servers with different federation policies.
Exactly. And that is also why posts like mine exist. Have a good day.
What is “the people” in context of this post? Like… Meta employees?
No, the users. I get a lot of people claiming we’re just hating the people and cutting them off. Typical facebook logic. Learned helplessness if you will.
So… Facebook users? Dude like… are you alright? A massive percentage of the population uses Facebook in some capacity. It borders on being genuinely insane to ascribe any kind of singular identity to them.
I dont know what you‘re talking about but I dont like your tone.
You asked what „people“ meant. I thought you meant my next to last sentence where I said we dont hate the people on meta‘s social networks but everything else like the mechanics, the policy and the company behind it.
Does it make more sense now?
I think you’ve been thinking about this kind of thing for far too long
Probably 3 days on and off, since the recent wave of pro meta propaganda has started to spike again.
