Post AWsiVxHz2pUCbNTrPs by Whiskerkenbrook@freeradical.zone
(DIR) More posts by Whiskerkenbrook@freeradical.zone
(DIR) Post #AWr9VO9xxndU62lUVU by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T17:36:10Z
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An #FRZ poll: should we preemptively defederate with any Facebook services?
(DIR) Post #AWr9esth3Fao28gJPs by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T17:37:51Z
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Left to my own devices, I wouldn't:1. I'd rather wait and see if it actually becomes a problem.2. We don’t know if they'll even go through with it.But I'm aware that some people here have understandably strong opinions, so I’m putting it to a vote.
(DIR) Post #AWr9rekAz8ZXtyJtXU by mwl@io.mwl.io
2023-06-19T17:40:03Z
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@tek unsolicited outside opinion but we're mutuals, so I'll throw out:How many of your users joined *because* of the fedi's isolation from Meta?A solid community protects its most vulnerable members.
(DIR) Post #AWrA9so9QxB6jWs1cO by muzzle@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T17:43:21Z
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@tek My instinct is that you should always wait and see what happens. I assume malice on Meta's part, but you should avoid the temptation to interrupt an enemy that is potentially making a huge mistake.On this topic I found this post write interesting: https://calckey.social/notes/9f8fucbd3f
(DIR) Post #AWrAomoAe42ZzyNqjY by drandrewv2@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T17:50:48Z
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@tek I sympathise with the admins who do, and if you decide to, I’ll assume you’re making the decision based on more real information and experience than I bring to it, but… preemptively? I probably wouldn’t. There’s even a dewy-eyed optimist part of me hopes it might be the gateway to get a few old, less-nerdy but still-valued comrades from the Before Place to make the leap to somewhere I might see them from time to time. But if there’s also Nazis, I’m not going to apologise for punching them.
(DIR) Post #AWrAqkUCFYYNNLycXQ by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T17:50:41Z
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@mwl Yeah, I don’t know. I'd *guess* that more were getting away from Twitter, but there's no telling.We’ll 100% be protecting our users, regardless. There's no way I’d put up with Facebook causing problems for them.
(DIR) Post #AWrBAMz5L3msHHmSVU by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T17:54:46Z
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@drandrewv2 That’s where I'm personally at. I'd hope -- maybe naively -- that it could be a good thing. And if it's not, let's break out our Nazi bats.But I also know that some people have very strong thoughts on it, and if a bunch of people lobby for it, I’m not going to push back.
(DIR) Post #AWrBLkHD4wBThegO8W by drandrewv2@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T17:56:48Z
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@tek Totally respect that too. My position is loosely held… my priority is the Nazi bay
(DIR) Post #AWrBjCsMufqh3xFavA by savedr@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:00:50Z
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@tek I voted no but I thought about it. This feels like too much attention to give it, but considering their past practices, maybe?I mean, the whole Cambridge A scandal was from FB giving user data away to a 3rd party, but you could (cynically) say "well, their fault for trusting their data to Facebook." But what if Meta uses ActivityPub to scrape data from other instances like this one? I might be convinced preemptive defed is warranted for them specifically.
(DIR) Post #AWrC1vzxt4lsDijYRs by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:04:24Z
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@drandrewv2 Yep! Whatever happens, my concern for my friends here greatly outweighs my concern for awful peoples' "right to be heard”.
(DIR) Post #AWrC672klRtXdN1wFk by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:05:05Z
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@savedr That's an interesting point I hadn't considered. Thanks for bringing it up!
(DIR) Post #AWrCMXVg87uULsOPfk by mensrea@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:08:08Z
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@tek what i'm not understanding is how one would defed something that's not there? or is it more a statement of intention?
(DIR) Post #AWrCXcFopcQYFdFwpc by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:10:09Z
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@mensrea More the latter, like promising to cut it off as soon as it first comes online.
(DIR) Post #AWrCYlsEYGLINKm848 by markusl@fosstodon.org
2023-06-19T18:10:09Z
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@tek A technical question (from another instance), if I may, please:If you defederate, does that stop the other *server* from receiving any information about your users, and thus protect them from any extra data-harvesting? Or does it merely prevent *users* on the other server from interacting with your users?My understanding (corrections welcome!) is that, if I as a pleb user, block a server, the server still sees my posts, and a malicious server could still harvest and record them.
(DIR) Post #AWrCjHW7l041PZRg7k by mensrea@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:12:11Z
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@tek then i say no, cause we don't know what it is. but as soon as that becomes clear, then i suspect that will change to an aggressive visit from the ban hammer
(DIR) Post #AWrCsOIVuttF2yQHqq by drandrewv2@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:13:52Z
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@tek I’m a big fan of this consultative approach, by the way. Warms the cockles of my trade unionist heart.
(DIR) Post #AWrEZqJdinYWLlEVJA by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:32:56Z
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@markusl I *think* you're right, but I'm not completely certain.If you defederate at the instance level, then yeah, the two servers basically don't talk at all.
(DIR) Post #AWrEd1bWCxuYEG741g by clint@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:33:31Z
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@tek actually Facebook’s BS is why I’m here. I joined right after it became clear that FB and Cambridge Analytica helped Trump get elected. Do what you think is best. If you don’t block them on an instance level, I’ll just block them on a user level
(DIR) Post #AWrEeRcywFMzEHTTWa by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:33:34Z
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@drandrewv2 This is a group project!
(DIR) Post #AWrEkTF9qOXLyhCjJY by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T18:34:52Z
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@clint A couple other people brought up similar concerns, and I hadn't thought about that before. It's a strong point.
(DIR) Post #AWrI6rWwWhbLXGtMmW by alltherum@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T19:12:29Z
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@tek This ventures into the realm of decision making that I feel very uncomfortable reducing to a binary choice.Meta is evil, period. Doing business with them is beyond naive, period. But how many links removed in the equation of doing business with those who do business do we go?It's the Good Place problem of getting into heaven when absolutely everything is connected with doing evil on a tiny enough measurement.
(DIR) Post #AWrJ1Nhk5gFtXStT5k by catbuttes@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T19:22:48Z
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@tek it needs to be watched very closely. My biggest concern isn’t the data harvesting - they can do that silently if they really want to. We know Meta have previous for similar shenanigans. I’m more concerned about an inability/unwillingness to moderate to a good standard. They have the potential to bring a huge influx of new users, some of whom will not be nice people. The mod load of all servers federating with them will go up and Meta may not be willing/able to do what is expected of them
(DIR) Post #AWrKCCRYOp2Xkj2nCK by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T19:35:56Z
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@catbuttes That’s a real concern, and if this were a less awful large company, that would be my biggest worry. The good news is that we have a big button to push and make them all go away.
(DIR) Post #AWrKmsh6myeZDToK9Y by catbuttes@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T19:42:22Z
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@tek I should probably say that the only reason that is my biggest concern is that I have made a conscious choice that everything I post on social media in any form is fully public. If I were to have a much more locked down profile like some folks do, I would probably be much more concerned about Meta data scraping anything that comes near their service. I can fully understand those folks wanting to preempt the scraping and just block them completely.
(DIR) Post #AWrLakdT1cx8hZt4kq by suetanvil@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T19:51:25Z
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@tek Personally, I'd consider moving on if you don't.With other companies, I'd maybe consider a wait-and-see approach, but Facebook has routinely gone beyond the lawful-evil standards of most companies into things that, if *I* did them would get me jailed.This company literally trojaned a bunch of third-party Android apps to spy on those apps' users.I have zero doubt that every AP status that gets to their servers will wind up in the dossiers they sell to advertisers forever.
(DIR) Post #AWrMWxvJmMdWi2zn8K by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:01:53Z
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Part of the reason I like to surround myself with people who aren’t exactly like me is to hear a wide variety of opinions I might not have thought of on my own. Every time I ask about an idea, I’m surprised by other perspectives. I love this.
(DIR) Post #AWrMbMZ66W4eIBhOts by kkarhan@mstdn.social
2023-06-19T20:02:44Z
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@tek *nodds in agreement*
(DIR) Post #AWrNS01cdahzjZ8ksa by bougiewonderland@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:12:15Z
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@tek I personally think they’ve demonstrated time and time again who they are and what they’re willing to do. The best we can hope for is for them to play nice for a while before going full-speed. I don’t believe they deserve the benefit of doubt.
(DIR) Post #AWrNf4pc4xz6PAl7Fw by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:14:43Z
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Along those lines, #FRZ friends have raised some strong arguments for preemptively blocking Facebook/Meta, especially that:1. It’s despicable how they treat private data.2. By the time we’d “given them a chance”, the damage might be done.Now I’m inclined to go along with the preemptive block. In that spirit, another poll:
(DIR) Post #AWrNsU87KbYGdCo7yC by tavi@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:17:12Z
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@tek I understand being cautious about it, but I think it's actually the safer option to block them immediately. It's not permanent, and if they prove themselves to not be a problem(doubt), federation can be enabled with them. if you federate and wait for them to become a problem, you'll probably have to sever connections that are made with facebook users :/
(DIR) Post #AWrNweaOOjT6Dc1LrU by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:17:45Z
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Would anyone on #FRZ have a strong desire *not* to block Facebook/Meta? That seems like the safest course of action.
(DIR) Post #AWrOcA1IQqova9OfWC by unlofl@mstdn.social
2023-06-19T20:25:09Z
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@tek These are the two main reasons for me, this isn't some new unknown actor, we know who we're dealing with even if its a new product.There is one other strong argument I haven't seen much: If Facebook had always been a fediverse instance, they would be widely blocked for ignoring reports of hate speech. They don't come anywhere near the mastodon covenant, or other norms of moderation on fedi.
(DIR) Post #AWrOjtNWBmD2HmTg9o by objectinspace@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:26:52Z
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@tek Obviously I am biased. However:It's not clear to me what "block meta" means at this stage, because I don't know what Meta intends to do. If Meta wants to mine FRZ they have ways to do that now, a ban of Meta's fediverse presence doesn't really stop that.Furthermore, I have a number of friends who do not use social media actively that I used to follow regularly. They are not on the fedi, but they are on instagram. I would love to be able ti interact with these people again.
(DIR) Post #AWrP7RcZ2dkd9EkJJA by edd@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:30:59Z
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@tek Not a particularly strong opinion, but Facebook isn't exactly a paragon of trustworthiness. There are folks I'd give a chance to, but I wouldn't trust a data broker to play nice with our data.
(DIR) Post #AWrPcSeVG0unK7RVoG by snickerbockers@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:36:41Z
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@tek defederating with facebook doesn't make public data less public. if you're broadcasting information that you'd rather keep private to everybody on activitypub then that's the problem that needs to be solved, not blocking specific servers.
(DIR) Post #AWrPmDAzeRn4DnHzJA by objectinspace@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:38:08Z
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@tek A lot of my friends are not on the fedi, but have instagram and facebook. I'd love to be able to connect with them again!
(DIR) Post #AWrQHdLIPrV0Lr5ioi by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:44:04Z
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@snickerbockers That’s very true. My main counter argument would be that we should make it as hard as possible for malicious instances, and not feed it straight to them.
(DIR) Post #AWrQIwF3dNdbFxnNq4 by r343l@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:44:23Z
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@tek Something I struggle with is *I* believe FB has been on net a force for bad. But hundreds of millions don’t. Or they do, but also feel like if they left they would lose some very important social support. FB having something that interconnects and works may allow folks to try it and maybe “get” it in ways asking them to create a masto account (or whatever) never will. Preemptive defed feels like saying “we don’t care about inviting those folks over” (wait and see does not say that.)
(DIR) Post #AWrQOcFEtaw2ySaUzY by objectinspace@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:45:09Z
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@tek This is how I feel as well, I could certainly see a lot of potential bad outcomes but it's just not clear to me at this stage what they are even doing, so a wait-and-see approach feels like the right one to me. I am obviously pretty biased though!
(DIR) Post #AWrQiRZcHUU9fYZcsi by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:48:56Z
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@r343l Ugh, that weighs heavily on me. From my personal position, there’s not a clear least-bad move here. Like, neither path would affect me much, which would push me heavily toward inaction if this were a private me-only server.
(DIR) Post #AWrR2vgG3MPSpvRrYO by elshoggotho@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:52:35Z
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@tek No strong feelings about the issue. I'd like to see them behave, but the safest action would be a preemptive block, to be revisited if they prove themselves in the public eye.
(DIR) Post #AWrR5yv0THVXkOnoHY by r343l@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:53:16Z
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@tek I am glad you are asking us! That’s partly what this entire federation thing is about! I imagine you’ll post something substantive on the blog once you decide (and hopefully will not attract abuse for it — some of the stuff I’ve seen goes well beyond disagreeing with folks into actual abuse and it sucks.)
(DIR) Post #AWrRC78GqRuIxZvliK by mensrea@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T20:54:17Z
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@tek
(DIR) Post #AWrRhiJKfNl7FBAlQu by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T21:00:02Z
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@r343l I will absolutely write something up, whichever way it goes.If people here are on board with it, I couldn’t care less what the rest of the fediverse thinks. I’m not here to please the whole world. 🙂
(DIR) Post #AWrSrpqZbNwFT06wTY by suetanvil@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T21:13:06Z
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@tek Needs a "BURRRN IT WITH FIIIIIIRE!!!!!!" option.(But perhaps I should stop holding back and start telling you what I *really* think.)
(DIR) Post #AWrU3i5qM7VcqeTo8m by wilbr@glitch.social
2023-06-19T21:26:10Z
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@tek I'm confused about who on this planet would go to the trouble of joining Fediverse if they weren't trying to get as far away from Facebook and Twitter as possible
(DIR) Post #AWrU5qdPZOnBuzCTmy by suetanvil@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T21:26:36Z
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@tek @snickerbockers Also: if I set a toot to followers-only, I have a reasonable degree of confidence that it won't get out. It would require a bad actor either in my follows or running an instance.So far, there's no real reason for an instance admin to be harvesting data. They can't really do anything with that. So either the instance is fake or they're an unstable person. Either way, it comes out quickly.But Metabook *can* benefit from that data, and their userbase gives them cover.
(DIR) Post #AWrVnsPuPA9C8pRWRU by karlexceed@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T21:45:59Z
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@tek this may be the hottest take I've yet posted here, but: I don't really have a strong opinion on this.
(DIR) Post #AWrWBsXTbQLPTCQZpA by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T21:50:12Z
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@wilbr I joined out of curiousity while I was still active on Twitter, and didn’t jump that ship (mainly because I’d just organically stopped using it and had forgotten about it) until much later.
(DIR) Post #AWrWFBGYQrcEQ55SPQ by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T21:50:56Z
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@karlexceed I have only the tepidest of takes.
(DIR) Post #AWrXA8I4ATsphHx1UW by wilbr@glitch.social
2023-06-19T22:01:06Z
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@tek sure but who among us is so radically centrist that they don't *prefer* a place where Nazis and MAGAs run free because the place is owned by such people?Real question, point them out so I can block their Good Polite German asses
(DIR) Post #AWrdBb8mzJl5Boh4Fc by steevmi1@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T23:08:43Z
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@tek I did mot see a “fuck, yes.” option in your poll, amd would like to complain.
(DIR) Post #AWrdLC9kjb4Gb6ijrM by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-19T23:10:04Z
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@steevmi1 It was imparted in the following conversation. :-D
(DIR) Post #AWrjqDtmuBjIhhQpBA by wilbr@glitch.social
2023-06-20T00:23:10Z
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@tek sure but who among us is so radically centrist that they *prefer* a place where Nazis and MAGAs run free because the place is owned by such people?Real question, point them out so I can block their Good Polite German asses
(DIR) Post #AWrpqgr5qS1yEgmFai by nateb@freeradical.zone
2023-06-20T01:30:35Z
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@tek I personally have no strong opinions either way.
(DIR) Post #AWsiVxHz2pUCbNTrPs by Whiskerkenbrook@freeradical.zone
2023-06-20T11:43:08Z
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@tek no one should own the public square. I don’t want to support their effort.
(DIR) Post #AWtOqavpYltbPydvCC by sohan@freeradical.zone
2023-06-20T19:37:15Z
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@tek torn on this... on one hand Meta's involvement in the space could be a huge fedi growth driver (for better or worse). On the other hand... they have a horrible track record of not playing by anyones rules and privatizing the commons. (web basics, anyone??)This weirdly, ultimately becomes a personal question: "How much do I think of #FRZ as a refuge from the bad places?"
(DIR) Post #AWtPt3h9go6X9vW8kC by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-20T19:48:58Z
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@sohan That was the struggle I had. Ultimately, people who are in less safe life positions than me pointed out some very real risks, and the hypothetical upside was grossly outweighed by the very likely downsides.Also, some friends posted whole litanies of Facebook’s past poor behavior, like the thread starting at https://hackers.town/users/thegibson/statuses/110571428704604494 . I don't have a good comeback to any of that.Those things, plus clear poll results, pushed me from "wait and see" to “better safe than sorry”.
(DIR) Post #AWtQN2TGnwaC3CJnhA by sohan@freeradical.zone
2023-06-20T19:54:27Z
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@tek totally respect your decision! 🫡
(DIR) Post #AWtQWyag5SWauYWPlQ by tek@freeradical.zone
2023-06-20T19:56:21Z
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@sohan Thanks! 🙂