dipshit@lemmy.world 10 months ago
AFAIK, Meta cannot modify algorithms in lemmy code / created in networks inside lemmy instances (if that’s s thing) unless meta starts running those instances themselves. No doubt, using meta’s instance and client will let meta do what it wants to do.
I think the harder problem here is meta isn’t a curated collection of 300+ instances we can block when we don’t like the instance (e.g., instances != facebook communities). Meta is just going to come online with a large instance with millions of users. It’s kind of hard to judge all of meta users at once, as an instance provider. So, I guess instances who don’t want meta, don’t get meta. Fair.
I agree with all the misconceptions you’ve cleared up, and you’ve also made a great case for why people would want to join a smaller private instance instead of facebook. I guess I just don’t see the present threat to the fediverse with meta (aside from instances being bombarded with trash that needs to be defederated from that instance). There’s absolutely an existential threat, but the beauty of open source is that as long as there are devs willing to work on it, it can still exist - meta cannot buy the current version of lemmy we are all using and prevent it from being run, for example.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 10 months ago
That’s one course of action Meta could take.
Another option would be for Meta to open ten or twenty or however many different instances (Facebook alone has 36 domains, so it’s not like they’re not already doing this) and thus attempt to vastly complicate every effort to filter or block them. They could say they’re trying to direct people to instances curated to their specific interest, for example, and then use their bots and AI to populate them with some content. In other words, Meta could literally “Metastasize” itself throughout the Fediverse with no advance notice, no opting out, suddenly they’re just there.
And then when other instances and users get upset because suddenly Meta is fucking everywhere, Meta goes, “We told you we were coming in, what’s the problem? Are we not allowed to have as many instances as we like? You do, why can’t we?” and continue to flood the Fediverse.
I am genuinely sorry to throw that possibility out there, but thinking Meta will play fair, and content themselves with a single instance, when they can so easily propagate themselves freely across the Fediverse with endless cash and servers and bots like the cancer they are is not realistic, IMO, given their behavior since the outset.
Allero@lemmy.today 10 months ago
There will be a blocklist, then.
But fundamentally we can do very little to prevent the inflow of random instances - if only instances will implement whitelist federation, but that obviously hurts decentralization and adds a lot of headache
dipshit@lemmy.world 10 months ago
I think that’s a bit of an overreaction. the internet at large has many domains. domains are owned (publicly) by corps - filtering would be pretty easy. I also don’t see any benefit for facebook to behave this way. Facebook doesn’t need the fediverse - most of their users already think of them as “the internet”. Facebook has already taken over the internet (and they really haven’t, as it’s very possible to avoid them).
The internet has always been decentralized. It will always be decentralized. Your attention dictates the amount of control the companies you give attention to have power over you.
ChunkMcHorkle@lemmy.world 10 months ago
It’s neither reaction nor overreaction; it is simply a statement of possibility. One of many, because Meta has not told us what their real intentions are, and no one could believe them even if they did.
dipshit@lemmy.world 10 months ago
meta could also make the world go kaboom after building up its own army after building its own nation-state.
just a statement of possibility.