There is a strong rumour going round that some Fediverse developers and admins have held secret discussions with Meta/Facebook under NDAs.
The Fediverse is supposed to be an alliance of open projects built by a broad grassroots base. Its devs/admins are not supposed to hold secret backroom discussions with people who have a horrific track record (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-social-media-violence).
Facebook/Meta is in effect a sociopathic corporation (https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/growth-at-any-cost-top-facebook-executive-defended-data). Nothing good will come of talking to them.
it’s an extraordinary claim, but i don’t disbelieve it. has anyone else heard anything about this?
So what would be the end goal for Meta?
Weaken reddit and twitter as platforms, but they don’t believe that the fediverse is able to take off in the mass market, so people will finally post on Facebook again?
True, although the “embrace” step is usually done out in the open. But yeah, if the rumers are true, you never know what they came up with.
I just feel like something nice is happening with the wider adoption of the fediverse, so could we please just let it happen and not fuck around in the background? Meta? Please? Thank you.
There will always be bad players out there. Key is to make the infrastructure so it is resistant to total domination. You know, like what’s been happening with mega-corporate run monopoly entities.
So what would be the end goal for Meta? Weaken reddit and twitter as platforms, but they don’t believe that the fediverse is able to take off in the mass market, so people will finally post on Facebook again?
Edit: A word
no, i think that they do see the Fediverse as a threat. they may be trying some kind of embrace-extend-extinguish
True, although the “embrace” step is usually done out in the open. But yeah, if the rumers are true, you never know what they came up with.
I just feel like something nice is happening with the wider adoption of the fediverse, so could we please just let it happen and not fuck around in the background? Meta? Please? Thank you.
There will always be bad players out there. Key is to make the infrastructure so it is resistant to total domination. You know, like what’s been happening with mega-corporate run monopoly entities.
Meta is launching their own ActivityPub service.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/8/23754304/instagram-meta-twitter-competitor-threads-activitypub
It’s ActivityPub-based Twitter competitor.