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?
For those who don’t know, many fediverse devs and activitypub projects are funded in part by NLnet NGIZero grants, which are in turn funded by nonprofits like FSF (Free software foundation), NixOS, and the European Commission (!). Projects include the likes of Gitea/forgejo/forgefed (federation aspect of selfhosted git services), pixelfed, both Lemmy AND kbin, their apps like pixeldroid and lemmur, Mastodon, Misskey, Owncast, peertube, funkwhale, ActivityPub for WordPress, hubzilla, gotosocial, Matrix chat (specifically E2EE improvements), Fractal Matrix client, as well as other non-fediverse oriented projects like F-droid, Briar chat, nextcloud, jitsi meet, cryptpad, searx. (https://nlnet.nl/project/current.html)
The fediverse is very community and nonprofit funded right now.
For those who don’t know, many fediverse devs and activitypub projects are funded in part by NLnet NGIZero grants, which are in turn funded by nonprofits like FSF (Free software foundation), NixOS, and the European Commission (!). Projects include the likes of Gitea/forgejo/forgefed (federation aspect of selfhosted git services), pixelfed, both Lemmy AND kbin, their apps like pixeldroid and lemmur, Mastodon, Misskey, Owncast, peertube, funkwhale, ActivityPub for WordPress, hubzilla, gotosocial, Matrix chat (specifically E2EE improvements), Fractal Matrix client, as well as other non-fediverse oriented projects like F-droid, Briar chat, nextcloud, jitsi meet, cryptpad, searx. (https://nlnet.nl/project/current.html)
The fediverse is very community and nonprofit funded right now.