this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 34 points 6 months ago (1 children)

For the Meta apologists, I have a reality check for you:

Threads was immediately subject to mass amounts of radicalizing, extremist content, and there have also been instances of users having personal information doxxed on Threads due to Meta's information-harvesting practices. [1]

Threads was marketed to be open to 'free speech' (read: hate speech and misinformation) and encouraged the Far-Right movement to join, who have spread extremism, hate, and harassment on Threads already. [2] Threads has been a hotbed of Israel-Palestine misinformation/propaganda. [3] They also fired fact-checkers just prior to Threads' launch. [1]

As already established, Meta also assisted in genocide! [4]

Meta/FB/Instagram also have a strong history of facilitating the spread of misinformation and extremism, which contributed to the January 6th insurrection attempt. [5], [6]

This really should be obvious by now.. but Meta mines and sells their user's information.[7] Just look at the permissions you have to grant them for Threads...

FB users have to agree to all sorts of unethical things in the TOS, including giving Meta permission to run unethical experiments on their users without informed consent. [8] Their first published research was where they manipulated users' feeds with positive or negative information, in order to see if it affected their mood. It did, and they successfully induced depression in many of their users!

I will now turn to an article that surmises well the core practices of Meta as a company:

  • Elevates disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories from the extremist fringes into the mainstream, fostering, among other effects, the resurgent anti-vaccination movement, broad-based questioning of basic public health measures in response to COVID-19, and the proliferation of the Big Lie of 2020—that the presidential election was stolen through voter fraud [16];

  • Empowers bullies of every size, from cyber-bullying in schools, to dictators who use the platform to spread disinformation, censor their critics, perpetuate violence, and instigate genocide;

  • Defrauds both advertisers and newsrooms, systematically and globally, with falsified video engagement and user activity statistics;

  • Reflects an apparent political agenda espoused by a small core of corporate leaders, who actively impede or overrule the adoption of good governance;

  • Brandishes its monopolistic power to preserve a social media landscape absent meaningful regulatory oversight, privacy protections, safety measures, or corporate citizenship; and

  • Disrupts intellectual and civil discourse, at scale and by design. [9]

[–] [email protected] 6 points 6 months ago* (last edited 6 months ago) (1 children)

Let me help you summarize, like 80% of that comment:

2023 Word of the Year Is “Enshittification”

Overall, for as well researched and organized that it might be, it misses the main reason for Meta opening to the Fediverse:

To comply with a new EU law, the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which comes into force on March 7th

Posted on March 6, 2024: https://engineering.fb.com/2024/03/06/security/whatsapp-messenger-messaging-interoperability-eu/

...and now:

25 March 2024, Brussels: Commission opens non-compliance investigations against Alphabet, Apple and Meta under the Digital Markets Act

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Enshittification had already been largely discussed here.

I saw users minimizing the aberrant business practices of Meta and doubting their role in assisting in genocide.

My point was to highlight how unethical and horrendous Meta itself is.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

There's a word for that too: "corporation" 🤷

On a wider scale, can't spell "ethics" with "business practices" anyway.

Back on topic, Threads is only a problem for the "All" feed of federated instances with users senselessly following people from Threads, while defederating won't stop Meta, or anyone, from syphoning and abusing any publicly available data from the Fediverse. Other than that, Meta's algorithms have no power here, the Fediverse isn't Meta's playground even if all instances federated with Threads.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 months ago

Fedi Garden to users: "You may need to find an alternative to us"

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 months ago

Well, it's a list of "well maintained/moderated servers

Any server that federates with threads, a product of Meta a company known for their low quality moderation and lack of ethics, is clearly not a well maintained/moderated one.

It's not a new rule. The admin is just applying the sites rules as they are, instead of making exception for threads as many of the techbro admins that are getting their servers excluded have been doing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 6 months ago (3 children)

This is proof to me that the federated model has failed. I was so hopeful early on in the fediverse, I thought it was all we needed. I no longer feel that way. It's not a network of users, its a network of power tripping fiefdoms.

Client relay network topology is the future of social networking. Check out Nostr (and ignore all the bitcoiners, see the network for what it is).

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

All of humanity is a network of power-tripping fiefdoms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 months ago

Hi there, @monero.town...!

Nostr has a different functionality and works for a specific threat model that most people on Lemmy don't care about.

Also, you can't ignore the crypto part when talking about NOSTR: https://tokeninsight.com/en/coins/nostr-assets-protocol/markets

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 months ago (2 children)

The problem you're having is that you're addicted to being a consumer. The fediverse doesn't hand consumers a golden key to have everything they want for free at no effort. It hands creators and organizers the tools to do what they want.

You were never the target audience for federation if you can't be bothered to set up your own instance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 months ago

[Beware that you're likely responding to a crypto shill.]

The Fediverse is not the problem, the "All" feed is the problem... and large non-thematic instances shoving boosts from anyone that at least one of their users follows, straight to "All", is a problem.

Another problem, is setting up your own instance and being legally responsible for distributing what some users, that your users decide to follow, decide to boost.

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