You're viewing part of a thread.
I won't kid myself that our data will be used either way. What I'm concerned about the most might be the negative attention that Meta will bring to federation. I have little doubt government regulation and strangulation will follow.
If my understanding is correct, it also means that other instances will be footing part of the bill and doing the legwork to propagate and extend Meta's spiderweb?
Yeah, I don't actually know the details about how Threads is supposed to work. I should look into it.
I'm guilty as well.
Once thing that did occur to me just now, is how Meta's current platforms are the focus of gov pressure to censor free speech and though crime, under the guise of public safety. What happens when this new platform federates? I think it'd be naive not to think that stink follows it. I have a sneaking suspicion Meta will filter content that doesn't adhere to their own TOS, so does the blame shift to the rest of the fediverse?
Lots of open questions, but the whole thing stinks, IMO.
If clueless people in Washington/Westminster/Brussels/whatever make laws that censor the Internet, they will do so, and they will almost certainly apply, no matter what Meta does. Obviously it's worth fighting these attempts, but I don't think it really has anything to do with Meta.
If Meta filters stuff that they think exposes them to Bad Things For A Corporation To Be Exposed To, that is all the more reason to keep things open to Meta users who seek an alternative.
I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one. I do understand where you're coming from-- I just think that it's more parts optimistic than realistic.
If federation takes off even the government won't really be able to gently censor it, though. They might stomp and complain but short of breaking down a server room door there's little they can do, and the only things that get that treatment right now in the West are child porn and stolen credit card numbers.
They could basically close off the internet like Cuba or to a much lesser degree China, but closed internets/intranets tend to suck, and then they're in the awkward position of either rubber-stamping adult websites or banning them, which straight up won't fly anytime soon.
EDIT: Removed this comment entirely, as it had the potential to take things off-topic and I acknowledged as much introducing the post. Wanted it out of my head, didn't want to make a further mess here. Sorry.