this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Press coverage of the Fediverse
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A group to share articles, videos etc by media organizations on the subject of the Fediverse. Not personal blogs or such.
What would be useful: if you think the writer of an article missed something important or got something wrong, say so in the comments?
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I think pretty much everyone here thinks fuckerberg and his ilk shouldn't be welcome to the fediverse
I actually disagree for several reasons.
One is that activitypub is an open protocol. It's for the individual servers to decide who they want to federate with, not some centralized decision made by an authority of the fediverse.
Another is that there are many good reasons to have more people, and especially casual users, entering the fediverse. Artists could share their work on Pixelfed, where they are the rightful owners of their own accounts, and yet have it shared with mass audiences including Threads users. For many people, this is essential for making a living doing what they do.
Other people who don't need to (or want to) have that kind of reach can be on servers that federate with the artists, but block Threads users. They'll see what the artists post, but they'll remain oblivious to the comments made by Threads users.
Meta will only try what other corporations have done before in similar cases; the strategy is called “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish” and it’s the reason why no one who values a free internet should federate with them. A detailed explanation here:
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
I have been using FOSS since forever and this is always the fear whenever any big company is involved in any way. Sometimes I completely agree. With activitypub I just don't see how it would realistically play out. Sometimes big companies adopting to open standards can be a good thing.
Reasonable people disagree of course.
Nobody is taking that away. You are phrasing this as if people wanted to put in place some authority to make centralized decisions.
But then they are, effectively, in the Fediverse. Maybe not the entirety of it, but that's part of how the fediverse is by design.
I like the idea that people could suddenly realize they can be on the platform but with a user account from somehwere else. not being a closed garden will quickly kill the platforms and they will reverse course pretty quickly.
Who is this "authority of the fediverse" you're talking about? No one is controlling anyone. Most come to the conclusion that we don't want Threads independently.
The is none, and there can't be. That's exactly my point - there's no reason to pretend it has a singular voice. It is fragmented by design. Many servers will defederate, many will not, and that's exactly how it's supposed to work.