Discussion: Support the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact

@Eduardo Mercovich I think this is a good start. I notice a repeated use of an expression, "our forces", where I'd have expected, "our abilities".

@Brian Vaughan

Thanks a lot.😃🙏

Please, do edit whatever is needed, this was only a pebble to start kicking... 💪😅

@Eduardo Mercovich

I'd be generally on board with these statements as a description of our own instance's values, but I think this is too narrow and specific for defining who we would and wouldn't federate with.

1) I want us to have room to maneuver if there are other instances that either haven't thought things through carefully or adopt a more libertarian stance but are small instances that don't host bad actors at this time.

2) What do we mean by "not federate"?

a. I'm very comfortable barring our members from following friends on Facebook/Meta/Threads. I'm not comfortable barring members from following friends on mastodon.social until and unless mastodon.social becomes a pawn of a Facebook-like entity.

b. I would like to be welcoming of members who want to reach across the political spectrum to try to bring "the other side" around. This is something that https://social.coop/@kathhayhoe@climatejustice.rocks has written about explicitly (she has in fact been resistant to leaving Facebook behind because her goal as a communicator is to get U.S. Republicans to understand the importance of climate change as an issue). I think our instance should be a place where people like her can do their work, as long as they confine their work to the Fediverse and as long as things are configured in a way that keep their followers from harassing others.

3) Does talk of punching Nazis count as "aggression of any kind." I'm not really on board with punching Nazis myself, but I'd like to be able to have conversations with people who do.

One concern I have about the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact is that it is explicitly to be signed by admins or mods. There's the practical question of, if we do decide to sign it, as it stands, who signs for us? But it also reflects a deeper problem with the Fediverse as it exists: there's so little expectation of democracy that it's simply assumed that only admins and mods make decisions for instances. I'd like it if we could negotiate signing it in a way that challenges that expectation -- like we ask that the signature have appended text to say they are signing on behalf of the membership of Social.Coop.

The scicomm.xyz response to the impending Big Tech invasion of the
Fediverse is well-reasoned and reasonable, it is a response that I can
wholeheartedly support, and it is one that social.coop should consider
adopting.

@Andrew Shead https://about.scicomm.xyz/doku.php?id=blog:2023:0625_meta_on_the_fediverse_to_block_or_not_to_block

(I had deleted my prior comment, because I'd already posted twice in a row.)

@Brian Vaughan Thanks for letting me know. I wondered why I couldn't find it, so replied to the Loomio email instead.

@Andrew Shead The part where Scicomm mentioned divide & conquer resonated with me. Information warfare is Meta's primary weapon, they use people's biases to influence their thinking. I have to wonder if this pact actually helps Meta because it tips our hand early, before federation choices are made, and has already created some division between us.

Yes, we're seeing the thin end of the D&C wedge, and you make a good
point. But, as the old adage goes: forewarned is forearmed. In light of
the Scicomm response, my feeling is that we don't need to be
signatories to a pact. We as an instance could acknowledge and adopt
the Scicomm response, put it on the wiki where we can all see it, adapt
it as needed, and act accordingly to meet circumstances as they arise.
By doing so, our instance will be proactive and ready for what happens
when it happens. We could also view the threat as a stress-test of the
Fediverse; we need to see if decentralization is as resilient as we
think it is; with something like the Scicomm covenant in place, we
should be able to manage any troubles.

@Andrew Shead That was a great read. Thank you.

How would people feel about using the fedipact as a starting point to create an infrastructure across instances? An Assembly of Instances, if you will, which could as its first act, adopt a set of common principles like what Eduardo posted. This assembly could also help instances become member-owner cooperatives, like social.coop.

I am open to criticism, so please pile on. :)

A "sub-federation" with a common value system would be amazing. I'm all for it. Only suggestion: make the initial requirements very low and very uncontroversial. Once it has enough mass, and the (presumably democratic, in some fashion, but lots of possible pitfalls ...) governance is reasonably stable, the requirements can be tightened. It would be considerably harder the other way around.

Here's a statement from kolektiva.social on opposing Meta/Facebook. https://kolektiva.social/@moderation/110612539820163987

As a random side-comment: I would support any type of connection to Meta for specifically communication that assists Meta users to understand the problems with Meta and how to leave.

So, imagine some fantasy (not technically easy) in which all replies to anyone from Meta have content-warnings and extra caveats urging people to leave Meta instances…

One last comment, we can ALWAYS defederate. That option can be used at any point. The reasonable question is why do we want to defederate preemptively? I think the answer is, honestly, "to punish them" which if you're honest about it, it an understandable position. They have done HORRIBLE things and to be clear, I'm not at all happy with them or trust them (I cancelled my account 5 years ago) HOWEVER, I do think we have more power if we wait. If the entire fediverse takes a wait and see attitude (with a clear hair trigger to defederate them) It provides a type of carrot/stick approach. It's in Facebook's best interest to play along. Will they? Who knows, but if we preemptively defederate, we take that option off the table.

I'm not hopeful Meta is "better now", I'm saying "don't throw away an advantage." We have more power if we wait.

@Scott Jenson I don't see how we would have any leverage later if we don't act now. Relative to us, Meta has unlimited financial resources, and it's got no more reason to respect our autonomy than a tiger has to become vegetarian. We can point to Meta's history, but it's a bit redundant, since controlling and exploiting markets is fundamentally what profit-seeking corporations do. This isn't about punishing Facebook. It's about protecting the one viable social media platform that's not controlled by a profit-seeking corporation. We need to keep what we've built intact, along with our principles. And we'll be stronger and better if we do so in some sort of federation with other Fediverse instances.

@Brian Vaughan I understand you point but still don't see how waiting harms us in any way. We can always defederate them. How is defederating them NOW more powerful a statement? To be fair, my point was directed as a stronger action of a large group of FediServers acting in concert. If a large group said "Behave yourself or we'll defederate you" that is a carret/stick scenario. Will Facebook care? Intersting question, I think they might. But even if you're correct and they won't care at all, then you're basically saying our actions make no difference. We have no impact on them. If that's true, then what is good for us? In that case, I'd still argue that waiting is better. There has been discussion that a bridge to Facebook may help others leave Facebook. That seems worth exploring. Keep the door open long enough to benefit us, not them. Like I said, we always have the option to close the door. I just see a few (albeit small) reasons to keep the door open. It costs us nothing. Why not keep the door open and see?

If you are worried that there is actual harm in keeping the door open, I'd like to understand your point better. I just don't see the harm in waiting.

@scottjenson You have to prepare for a disaster before the disaster hits. That's especially true when the disaster is going to directly impact communication. Social.Coop at least has Loomio as a secondary means of communication. What do other Fediverse instances have? I'd bet it varies a lot, and some don't really have a secondary means of communication. We can talk to them now. We may not be able to later when Meta is flooding timelines with technically-not-spam. As for carrot-and-stick: no, Meta isn't going to care what a Mastodon instance with 300 users thinks. They will barely acknowledge what the admin of a Mastodon instance with 100,000 users and a legal claim to the name "Mastodon" thinks, and that opportunity has been squandered already.

Years ago, I was a contract worker at Microsoft; I worked in Silicon Valley, in an operations center, monitoring "non-standard systems", i.e., Linux and BSD and Solaris servers from start-ups that Microsoft bought out. Microsoft was spending hundreds of millions to buy out small start-ups, and then would keep the engineers and the servers idle, because it bought them simply so that Google and its other competitors didn't buy them first. You have to understand that it's almost certainly the case that there are engineers working for Facebook who think the Fediverse is a great idea, and that's the sort of people they'd make the points of contact in the "embrace" phase of embrace-extend-extinguish, but they are not the ones driving the process. There is absolutely no chance whatsoever that we will ever have a healthy partnership with Meta. Meta is out to absorb or destroy us. That's how Silicon Valley operates.

@Brian Vaughan We seem actually fairly close in our perspective: I don't trust facebook either and I expect they will likely be bullies. I also agree that what we do makes no difference to them. My point has always been collective action. But social.coop is a well run instance and can lead the way. Unfortunately, you still haven't answered my question: what is the harm in waiting? I don't want us to do a performative action with little impact. I do think there is a small chance that waiting can give us more information (see above). If Meta quickly confirms everything you're worried about, by all means close the door.

@Scott Jenson I'm not sure how I can be clearer, as in general, the most obvious danger will be that we will be overwhelmed and unable to communicate, unless we prepare ahead of time, as I was trying to describe. I can't know exactly how Meta will game this, just that I can be certain it will game this, because doing so is innate to profit-seeking corporations.

@Brian Vaughan I agree with you! We should prepare, we should have clear 'triggers'. I'm not against your proposal, I'm against your timing. You're not answering my simple question: What is the harm in waiting (just a little bit)?

@Scott Jenson We are waiting a little bit, to have this discussion and settle on a plan which we generally support. At least implicitly, that had to be measured against the loss of momentum in not signing the Pact immediately. The sooner we act, the more time we have to find allies through the Fediverse and prepare. Already many small and medium sized instances have pledged to oppose Meta, so we have some idea what allies we might have. Meta has already acted, by having a meeting with the admins of several large Fediverse instances and making them sign NDAs to attend. We shouldn't wait until they act again, and we can't know how long we have before that happens. It could be hours, it could be years.

@Scott Jenson The preemptive blocking assumption is wrong, or at least wrong for you to assume that is everyone’s position.

I do think we have more power if we wait

Power is the heart of the matter, and it’s important to look at past Corporate Embrace of Community Standards driven Technology.

For example XMPP. Google Embraced the standard in an effort to drive users away from MSN Messenger, and because it could compete with community driven products offering better UX, most users went to Google talk, creating a Hub and Spoke situation where the majority of users are on the Hub/Google talk instance.

Threads has already announced Full Account Migration, so with enough devs and designers can easily beat Mastodon, becoming the hub, making all these community run instances the spokes.

Our only power to prevent becoming a spoke to Meta is to never federate.

Another aspect of preemptive blocking, I assume for many folks, especially those who left Facebook, would be weary of handing over their data / social graph.

@Django I don't disagree that is a possibility and if that is indeed what happens, I support your conclusion. My point isn't that we shouldn't do this, but that we just wait 5 minutes and learn a bit more before we pull the trigger. If Meta actually does fully want a hub and spoke then defederate away! But let's just confirm that. Again, we there is no risk to just wait (a bit) before doing this.

@Scott Jenson Not sharing user data is fair reason to block them. In fact based on this point alone, I would suggest a new Poll be made with the question inverted: Do you consent to sharing Data with Meta Servers? cc: @Brian Vaughan

@Django But the whole point of the fediverse is to share all of our data openly. It's bit like saying Websites shouldn't be open to Google. This doesn't excuse Google but it also shouldn't affect who we are. Is this naive? Possibly, but I do think we arguing over who we want to be and what community values we want to have.

But again, I'm not taking this off the table, I'm not arguing with you that Meta can't be jerks. I'm only saying that we just need to wait a few minutes to get a better understanding. I'm not saying NEVER defederate, I'm saying "let's just gather a bit more info" for the simple fact that it costs us nearly nothing to do so. So why shouldn't we do that? Am I wrong?

@Scott Jenson Not everything is open. The protocol is open, virtually all of the software that federates is open (I guess not Meta/Threads). But not every post is open, there are public posts, Followers only posts, and Mentioned only posts. Folks are also working on end to end encrypted / Private messages as well. But yeah, it’s possible to have things generally open but with caveats, for example not everyone’s profile is indexable by Google.

@Django It would help if you answered my question: what is the harm in waiting a little bit?

@Scott Jenson

I usually translate company behaviour as personal actions to get a better perspective.

If someone who is a known bully, liar, fraudster, and, an aggressive parasite, started trying to hang out with you and your friends, would you feel comfortable?

Or would it be better to tell them to "F Off Right Now" when they first arrive?

From the way that FB has behaved in the past, they have to actively positively prove that they have good intentions going forward, and that cannot be guaranteed to continue.

FB employee's have the legal duty to increase FB's profits.

Nothing else.

No matter what FB says they will do, the person you have been talking with can be re-assigned at an instant's notice, and a different person with a different agenda will be assigned to their place.

De-federate, and Dis-trust.

Let them show by their positive actions whether they will be worth federating with.

And the instant that they change their behaviour patterns, is the instant that we de-federate again.

@Billy Smith and as I've said over and over in this thread, I agree with your concerns. My point is that waiting, just a bit, gives us MORE power not less. There is performative value in saying "F Off Right Now', but it limits us, especially if staying open a bit allows us to bridge refugees away from FB. I'm NOT saying FB will suddenly be an angel! They likely ARE going to be jerks. But waiting JUST A BIT before we pull the trigger allows us more wiggle room and opportunities.

But this is a heated issue, emotions are high and it just feels like people want the satisfaction of saying "F Off Right Now" which may feel good, but isn't the most powerful thing for us to do.

@Scott Jenson Many folks are repeating this story that (the mere of idea of) federation will somehow convince users AWAY from Meta. How many of the folks coming from Twitter mentioned their dislike, or even confusion at how federation generally or mastodon specifically works? Let's be pragmatic for a minute, Big corporation with army of developers, designers and UX researchers, can easily iterate their way to creating a great app/service that will likely drive adoption in the other direction.

If the core business of Meta is data the ONLY leverage is indeed to prevent sharing with them in the first place!

@Django I'm actually quite tired of talking about this and I don't want to appear to be the guy that keeps yammering on. All I'm saying is that you're right! I just don't see the problem with waiting. That's all I'm saying. You're not wrong. I'm just saying that waiting is a more viable political strategy. I am not disagreeing with you. But I'm done. I'm tired of talking about this. I'm out

@Scott Jenson A harm that occur without preemptive blocking is harassment and targeting of our users. Imagine you are a user that left FB because of an ongoing campaign of harassment and threats by bad actors on the platform. Waiting until you start getting attacked is worse than preventing attacks from happening in the first place. If a platform can't or won't prevent bad actors for whatever reason, there is no reason to wait for them to figure out how to act badly in the fediverse. It's like waiting until the guy with the knife stabs you before you close your front door.

@Dave Menninger Completely agree but it is guaranteed that there will be harassment and attacks? Or is that just a hunch? How do we handle targetting today? Do we ban everyone just in case? Of course not, we wait until we see activity and THEN we ban/defederate.

My point is that we just act on solid data, not conjecture. Be prepared, have clear warnings in place, the MOMENT Meta engages in anything we don't like, ban them! I"m not at all against being prepared and having a plan, but waiting A TINY BIT, to make sure we're extracting as much value as possible (e.g. supporting people that want to migrate over) seems worthwhile trying to maintain. I'm not against your concern, I'm against your timing. A short window seems prudent.

@Scott Jenson it is guaranteed, from my perspective. FB is well known to be unable or unwilling to disable repugnant groups and individuals.

@Scott Jenson I also want say that I only posted to give you an answer to the question you've been begging everyone else on this thread for. There are harms that can happen. You have agreed with this. Consider taking a break from this thread for some hours.

@Dave Menninger "Begging"? I have been nothing be respectful? It's hard to have an honest exchange when people are using emotionally charged arguments and can't even answer basic framing questions like "What is the harm in waiting?" I've pursued this for the simple reason that no one can answer it, or at least refuses to. Which means this forum has no value.

@Scott Jenson I've answered you (harassment) and so has @Eduardo Mercovich (system resources).

Last person to reply to this thread wins the argument! On your mark, get set, go!!

@Dave Menninger That's unfair, I'm NOT trying to win the this conversation. I'm trying to have a conversation but I agree, we are running out of meaningful exchange here. My point was that both of your answers were worst case suppositions, which while possibly true, would benefit from calmer heads and a bit more information. Waiting on defederation would give us that, but neither of you are willing to admit that waiting actually has very little risk.

I love the fediverse because people are more respective, polite, and the whole point is to have reasonable conversations. But clearly this isn't happening here and I'm being painted as 'an extremist' which is very odd to me as I've tried to be very respectful, and I thought we were having a conversation.

@Scott Jensonmy understanding is that you feel that the probability of harm is low, or that the window of time before such happens is reasonably long.

I feel the opposite. And even in the case of low probability or long time horizon, I don't accept any likelihood of harm.

I don't have to "admit" to any points that you have made that I don't agree with.

@Scott Jensonthis is a redirection of the question. You asked for specific potential harms, and were provided with some.

Now you'd like us to accept as given that the probability of harm is low, until we have calmer heads and concrete data.

Why don't I ask you to accept that the probability is high, unless you provide the data to prove otherwise?

Do either of us have that hard data that will show what will happen in the future. No, we don't.

My position is protective, because it assumes worst case. I want protection to be a primary value.

In your view, (correct me if I'm wrong) it is ok to accept some minor risk as a tradeoff for some benefits.

I do not have to accept this tradeoff.

In my view, the frame of "cooler heads and data" is actually an abdication of responsibility. It's kicking the can, and it is often presented from a position of privilege.

We can have different opinions. That's fine. I just want you to consider your base assumptions and maybe take a break from having to be right about something on the internet. Maybe take some contemplative time and write a persuasive essay for us.

#lastPostWins

@Scott Jenson

> ... can't even answer basic framing questions like "What is the harm in waiting?" I've pursued this for the simple reason that no one can answer it, or at least refuses to.

We -and many other here and in other already cited instances open letters- have responded that very clearly, at least as my understanding goes (and English is not my native language). There is almost sure damage on many levels: resources, social and inter instance relations, easy abuse of many people, personal information harvesting, etc. We have almost 20 years of completely consistent behavior from Fb that shows that this is their modus operandi and that it makes sense from their business model.

If this is not enough proof or enough dangerous for you, that's ok. But please don't say that we didn't responded.

> Which means this forum has no value.

If you feel this is the case, from your POV there is no point in following this conversation. Please stop now then.

Just to clarify, I didn't like that affirmation at all and I feel it as aggressive because we are here putting our time and attention to collectively understand a very clear danger that seems to be arriving to our front door and -again, collectively- define some action/s. But for you, all this time and attention has no value. What's even more, you are saying that this whole forum (an open, democratic, respectful space) has no value. I believe it's very clear why I -at least- can have some negative feelings about what you said.

In the future, please do think it twice before saying something so obviously aggressive like that again.

For my -and others- care I will take a break from answering anything from you. I hope you understand -as I do- that it is for the better of everyone here.

Best...

Yes, there is, and it is very concrete: small instances will be flooded way deeper than what they can handle. The last Twitter migration will be reduced to nothing compared with millions of Fb accounts running wild to the Fediverse.

What is wrong with asking Fb to sign our values (there was a proposal a few days ago) and then letting them in? It's gentle, it's clear, it's civil and respectful for all parties.

However, if they don't want to sign a minimal set of shared values, we know what to expect (BTW, we already know it now, but let's give them a chance).

@Eduardo Mercovich If those shared values could be a general list all instances could sign up for it would be much more powerful (and practical) Meta would sign one document an 100s of servers would say "ok, you're in" (there is no way Meta will sign 100s of agreements)

Something like that is what we've been starting to draft in https://www.loomio.com/d/AZcJK6y2/discussion-support-the-anti-meta-fedi-pact/96

If others feel it's ok, let's put in cryptpad, edit it at will and then share it to be signed with other instances. :)

@Eduardo Mercovich It seems to me that it would be a good idea to go ahead and do that, and perhaps create a new thread to discuss drafting the statement, specifically.

@Brian Vaughan Thanks a lot. :)

I'm not very good with Loomio or discussions so I ask you please to start that, but at least I've created a cryptpad with the text to work on: https://cryptpad.fr/pad/#/2/pad/edit/5xxQZvxvjfAP2eQTYenLuWOZ/embed/ (cryptpad is new to me, but it seems to work for this and more).

How does it looks?

@Eduardo Mercovich thanks for doing this! I suggested calling it the Cooperative Fediverse Charter, and left a few comments in there about whether we want to only federate with signatories, or if we should openly federate by default.

@Ed Summers Thanks a lot for seeing this important issue. Yes, I added your suggestions and now it is better.

So we 1st federate openly, but if something smells like misalignment of values we can ask an instance to sign this charter. Failure to sign and/or comply can lead to defederation.

Thanks a lot... :)