Clarity on stance with regards to Threads
Arnold Schrijver PublicSeen by 345This summer we had huge discussions and multiple votes on how to deal with Meta's Threads. Then a lull as things calmed down, with little to report on Thread's plans. Now, all that is back with full force with Mark Zuckerberg pronouncing his optimism for ActivityPub support, and read-only support being launched. As far as I am aware the prior discussions and votes did not lead to clarity on the approach to be taken. If there's any time to make decisions in this regard, then it is now.
the current policy is in place for a reason, and I expect threads to become toxic like Twitter under its current direction
I disagree with this proposal, which means I think we should take action and suspend Threads as stated in the vote above.
FWIW I think running two polls is fine; I personally think the previous one's block-means-status-quo framing is maybe clearer on average but I am interested in seeing how the community responds to both framings.
One thing that this proposal could incorporate is the impact on the community if we accept it (which would be to sever follow links).
Threads should not get a special treatment because of the size. If we are blocking instances that allow hate speech, and Threads meet that description, we block them without a vote (unless there's an unforeseen nuance, I have no idea what that can be).
I won't leave the coop over this, but it seems like the process is an attempt at circumventing the previous vote (which is still ongoing, at this time).
@Evan Boehs thanks for that clarification!
@evanb @django I agree that the proposal is "odd".
For context I had raised my extreme disagreement with framing a proposal as "should we defederate threads" in the social.coop Matrix chat earlier this week (yesterday maybe? time flying), because I think doing so – as the other proposal on this same topic does – incorrectly means that members can vote in favour of a radical change using a "block" vote (triggering the 9× threshold), and incorrectly places the burden of democratic cheerleading on those wanting to maintain our existing policy.
I think that Meta's moderation policies are awful. That being said, as a principal I believe in open social networking. I don't think that federation is the same as an endorsement. I think users should be able to make their own decisions on whether they wish to engage with the threads platform or not.
I appreciate the point being made here and deeply oppose the logic that their size justifies accommodation. If anything, their size should make us more concerned by their policies, rather than more willing to overlook them.
The purpose of federating with a server or service is sharing communications with a trusted source. Explicitly stating that you are going to stop moderating to protect vulnerable people is a breach of trust. So we don't truck with these people.
Not necessarily a Block for this, but it would make me question why we are tolerating intolerant and dangerous content policies in the name of "being a good neighbor" or whatever that might look like. It is not a good idea to federate to Threads given Meta's new content policy, full stop. If you want to engage in that level of "tolerance", go create an account on Threads.
Their policy changes leave no ethical wiggle room. They aren't trying to do good and doing it poorly, they are doing badly, happy about it, and explicitly making that bad behavior their policy going forward. Continuing to federate with them says we're "willing to see if they REALLY MEAN IT when they say they're going to allow hate speech". This is ridiculous. They've proven themselves. Enough is enough.
@Hollie Butler Okkay Hollie, pop off! ❤️
Given that I voted "Agree" on the other proposal, I would obviously vote "Disagree" on this one, however, I have instead chose to choose "Block". Having two competing proposals, that both do the same thing as far as I can tell but with agree/abstain switched is extremely confusing. While I generally agree that we should have discussed this in a place that all social.coop members can actually read about it before creating the proposal, I don't think we're well served by having two ongoing votes.
@samwhited I agree that it is very far from ideal to have two parallel proposals on the same topic.
For what it's worth:
* I raised my concerns about the framing of the proposal before either was made, and Flancian chose to move ahead with the "should we defederate threads" framing anyway
* I did ask Flancian if he would be willing to withdraw his proposal, he is not
* I think democracy-wise it would be much worse than having two parallel proposals to wait to see the outcome of the first before proposing it properly
@Calix I strongly agree with you that the proposal should have actually been discussed with the community before it was made (sorry Flancian, but I feel like we've had this discussion before and only discussing it on Matrix and on your own personal website is not appropriate in my opinion, at the very least the CWG should have discussed this in advance, and likely it should have sought opinions from the whole co-op), that said, I'm not sure that making a second proposal then immediately blocking it has done anything but muddy the waters and confuse everyone. It's very unclear to me which of these I should be voting in? Both? Neither? The original proposal may not be great IMO, but the damage was done, the second proposal doesn't make things better, it's the same situation but now doubled. Anyways, I'm very confused at this point. Apologies if this sounds harsh, I've been trying to figure out how to bring this up nicely; I don't mean this with any malice, I'm just very confused.
@samwhited thanks for making constructive suggestions, I agree with them. There was also a suggestion in the Matrix chat that it would be helpful to add something about considering the meaning of a "block" vote to the Loomio proposal template, which I also support.
I do still disagree with you that it would have been better situation if I hadn't made this second proposal: I agree that this is a confusing situation, I think the damage caused by asking this question with the imo badly wrong "Should we defederate Threads" framing again, without an alternative, would be much worse.
My advice to members is to vote "abstain" on, or ignore, the first proposal.
@samwhited I discussed the issue in the Matrix channel, because I was hoping to persuade the moderation team to act, before proposing a vote. Flancian suggested I start a public thread on our Fediverse instance, tagging the members of the moderation team, on the question of whether they should make the decision, or whether we should take it to general vote here. I had several responses from members of the moderation team, several indicating they preferred taking it to a vote, a few saying either approach was appropriate, none arguing against taking it to a vote. I came back to the Matrix channel with this, and said that I was going to be busy at my job but would try to write the proposal as soon as possible; Flancian volunteered to do it instead.
I had actually been concerned about the role of the Matrix channel, so I was pleased to have the agreement that it was best to discuss it with the moderation team in public, and then move to Loomio as soon as we'd heard from the moderation team.
Voted for defederation in the other thread with explanation, so disagreeing here.
Same reason as explained in the previous proposal.
Nothing prevents people who enjoy or value Threads from having an account on Threads. (Until yesterday I had an account on FB. I still have one on Instagram, though I will get off as soon as I convince my coworkers to switch to Pixelfed.) I think defederation is an important response by Social.Coop to a rightward shift in social media.
Absolutely not.
Elaboration: this would constitute adopting an ongoing perpetual elevated moderation task load.
I see this as equivalent to a vote to remain in a structure when a neighboring structure is perpetually on fire, and the proposed solution would be to have people posted for the foreseeable future, hosing down the sides of our own building to prevent the spread of fire.
This is, in essence, what a "continue to limit and moderate" plan of inaction would entail.
If I understand the paired proposal, this is clear for me to vote on both, and I appreciate these together as a clearer statement of what the opposing outcomes should be (suspend OR exception). Potential for confusion or split decision with two separate proposals, but if there's not clarity between these two in outcome they can be combined. I vote for suspend, against exception.
"poor moderation" would be one thing; active endorsement of hateful conduct is another
(Reason as per my comment on the other proposal.)
Threads shouldn't be treated differently than any other instance.
I see the theory in the argument here, but in the end, this proposal just clouds the issue. Also, I'm for suspend.
I was also pretty confused by the fact that we have two dueling proposals on the same topic but I think I'm with Calix on this one. It's pretty weird that we've given Meta a free pass on its bad behavior. The way this proposal is written feels kind of confusing given the situation we're in, but I think that might be more representative of the fact that it's kind of backwards we're still debating this. Only difference between Meta today and last month is now they're saying the quiet part loud
I stand firmly with our policy and do not believe we should be making exceptions for Meta.
I don't support Meta or any connection to their products including even limited federation. Their actions speak loudly and any connection provides their actions support in my vivew.
Why would we grant them an exception?
As it stands now, I'm able to follow public figures and friends on Threads, which is of value to me, but Threads users cannot interact with our members, so they don't have access to direct hate at any of them. Our members also will not incidentally see messages of hate from Threads unless they explicitly follow someone posting them. This seems like a tolerable state of affairs to me.
(If Threads introduced full federation, I think this discussion should be had again.)
I am not up to speed on the social.coop Threads history. I detest Meta for the reasons outlined above, but still have Meta accounts for staying in touch with friends/family (though not Threads). I have interacted little with Threads via social.coop so I don't see their content. This seems like a matter of calling a spade a spade, and if Threads was just another ActivityPub server with the same moderation policy, we'd give them the boot, so... doesn't seem right to make an exception for them?
At one point I would have agreed. But at this point Meta is pretty clearly becoming the metaphorical Nazi bar. And to be honest, I don't believe I've yet interacted with a single person on Threads yet. So I personally no longer think it's worth signaling that Threads is worth exempting.
The only justification for making an exception is related specifically to the unique attribute of Meta/Threads: its large size and resulting network effect. That is, they are the only players capable of being a candidate for exception. So this proposal is already a sign of preferential treatment for corporate social media.
So, it really isn't worthwhile being complicit in the negative externalities they generate in order to quench the desire to interact with a few valuable accounts.
The Federation Abuse Policy seems well suited to handle this situation. No exception needed
We shouldn't let billionaires bully us into bending our rules.
I had originally abstained from this vote because I wanted to see our Community Working Group be given an opportunity to help guide the coop in making this decision. But in the end I decided to simply vote my conscience.
I don't have time to get my head back around this whole discussion, with apologies. Generally the question seems too complex for this very specific framing. Out there in the world, there is actual hate speech, and there is manipulation of the concept to shut down what I would consider necessary free speech against the powers that be. Also the impact of corporate use of private data for ads and AI. Also a confusing (to me) set of technical and non-technical options we can use.
Block them.
We're in uncharted waters. While I agree that Threads, as an organization, is behaving deplorably it's too early to tell how that will translate into whatever interactions we'll have with its members. Since I'd like the Fediverse to serve as a force for change in the world -- not just a refuge from it -- I prefer not to shut down channels of communication preemptively.
@barrysolow appreciate the reply. I disagree that the harm caused by Threads users is hypothetical, there has been hate speech and harassment on the platform since its launch: https://glaad.org/smsi/report-meta-fails-to-moderate-extreme-anti-trans-hate-across-facebook-instagram-and-threads/ https://www.mediamatters.org/facebook/meta-still-allowing-misinformation-and-hate-speech-proliferate-threads
@Calix I was trying to make a systemic point, which doesn't hinge on the question of whether hate speech and harassment arise -- they do and they will, both on Threads and in the Fediverse. I believe, however, that the healthier immune system is one that can prevent such instances from having too great an impact and from ramifying too extensively. I disprefer solutions which prematurely enclose us in sterile bubble environments, which should be last-resort measures. I believe that we can build a Fediverse where the incentives are such that attempts to arouse fear, hate and contempt simply don't get very far and, in fact, tend to strengthen our immunity from them. Such an environment is, admittedly, slower and harder to build but I'm not prepared to give up on it yet.
@barrysolow I was responding to the word "preemptively", which I think suggests that it's unknown whether hate speech from Threads users is prevalent. I agree with you about your systemic point.
@Calix ...whereas I was hoping "preemptively" would be taken to mean something like "before we've had a chance to see whether the Fediverse in general (and social.coop in particular) can dissipate the effects of harmful speech and disempower its perpetrators."
If enough Threads users are led to engage in the sort of back-and-forth we are practicing here, we might infect them rather than the other way around.
@barrysolow In the previous debate, in which we concluded with limiting Threads, I argued that it's a mistake to believe that a bridge between a small organization and a large one will lead to the transformation of the larger; it nearly always ends with the smaller absorbed by the larger. And that given Meta's history, I believed that absorbing or silencing its competitors was exactly the plan. In particular, Meta is notorious for censoring any criticism of its policies on its platforms.
The situation is much worse now. Meta's new moderation policies are actively hostile to several categories of vulnerable people, and it is in fact clearly in breach of the Mastodon Covenant. Formally speaking, I believe Calix is right, in that our existing policies require us to de-federate from Threads, and I think those existing policies are correct.
According to our bylaws, we should not federate with any instance that spreads hate, discrimination and misinformation.
Letting it continue because it has s huge number of users will only make it worst (bully before, bullier now).
Also, it is a matter of humans and political stance.
"An instance has a large number of users" isn't a valid reason to grant an exception, IMO, especially a known bad actor with a long history of abuse like Meta. As I said in the poll to defederate I thought we should have defederated from Threads from the start.
changed my vote from block to disagree (to better reflect my intent)
As I understand this proposal, it should be left to the Community Working Group to make a final decision on whether "Threads" is the "origin of a pattern of hate speech". It looks as though voters in the previous proposal mostly think it is.
@Django I agree it feels this way however the original author of this second proposal (the one we're chatting under right now) has already voted "block" on it so its a wee odd but they said "I would have preferred that someone who genuinely wanted to grant an exception had proposed it, because this situation feels fairly wacky, but I feel under immense time pressure given that the other proposal was already made live"