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Meta can rage farm Mastodon without controlling it

Meta can introduce their signature rage farming to the Fediverse. They don’t need to control Mastodon. All they have to do is introduce it in their app. Show every Threads user algorithmically filtered content from the Fediverse precisely tailored for maximum rage. When the rage inducing content came from Mastodon, the enraged Thread users will flood that Mastodon threads with the familiar rage-filled Facebook comment section vomit. This in turn will enrage Mastodon users, driving them to engage, at least in the short to mid term. All the while Meta sells ads in-between posts. And that’s how they rage farm the Fediverse without EEE-ing the technology. Meta can effectively EEE the userbase. The last E is something Meta may not intend but would likely happen. It consists of a subset of the Fediverse users leaving the network or segregating themselves in a small vomit-free bubble.

Some people asked what EEE is:

hikaru755 ,

And that’s precisely why so many people are calling for everyone to defederate immediately from anything facebook-owned. The only way to prevent this is to not even let them get started.

STUPIDVIPGUY ,

Yeah imo this is the only way. Fediverse should be completely user-owned, we need to isolate any corporation that tries to get involved.

avidamoeba OP ,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Non-profits like Mozilla and Wikimedia might be OK.

Odinkirk ,
@Odinkirk@lemmygrad.ml avatar

Might. Possibly. Maybe.

Bushwhack ,

I would at least give them a chance. Meta is DOA.

Emanresu ,

The corporate power structure is the problem. Non-profit status is like a negative head start to corruption. Ubuntu is taking step after step of microsoft like action for example. Also, wikimedia is dead. They have a massive Mormon style of excess funding that they put on the casino stockmarket while still begging and harassing for donations.

kava ,

Either we have an open system or we don’t.

It’s sort of like open source encryption algorithms versus security by obscurity. One is totally open because it’s foundation is strong. The other is hidden because it is actually weak.

Which are we going to be?

scroll_responsibly ,
@scroll_responsibly@lemmy.sdf.org avatar

Encryption standards are open, but would you give your private keys to someone untrustworthy?

kava ,

No, but I think that’s more akin to giving Meta your instance admin password. Federating would be more like sharing your public key. Which, you know, is sort of the whole point.

Illecors ,

We are going to be open. Open to the idea that a bucket of shit does not have to be forced upon us. Open to using the tools to get rid of said bucket.

kava ,

What I think is interesting about this is the decision to federate goes down to individual instances. So for example mastodon.social is the biggest - their decision is very important.

But on the smaller level, users will be able to choose instances that won’t federated with Meta. And they will be able to choose the inverse.

What I see happening is that the ones that do choose to federated with Meta will grow larger and sort of suck up most of the userbase. At the end of the day, social media sites are only as valuable as the number of users and the interactions between those users.

Rusticus ,

But to give power to the users we’ve got to solve the username problem. Usernames need to be global so there is no penalty to moving between instances.

kava ,

Why not just do username@instance and then if you wanna transfer over to somewhere else you have to change your username?

I don’t really view that as an issue. The real issue is allowing transfer in the first place, which I don’t see anyone doing right now but I agree it would spark a lot of healthy competition between different sites on the Fediverse

hikaru755 ,

This feels very close to the paradox of tolerance, honestly. To achieve maximum tolerance, you can not tolerate those who are intolerant themselves, or they will destroy you from within. I think something similar applies here. To achieve a maximally open system, be open by default, but only to those who actually share the goal to keep the system as open as possible, and defend vigorously against those who don’t.

Drewfro66 ,
@Drewfro66@lemmygrad.ml avatar

I agree with the sentiment but with a caveat:

Just like with email, I think the future of the Fediverse will involve institutions and companies running their own instances for discussion related to their niche.

For example, universities might run their own servers for campus-related discussion, and game companies (Paradox Interactive comes to mind) might run a server for discussion around their games and by their members.

Running a server is expensive, and in the long run I think the sustainable future will be for established institutions with large budgets to put a tiny part of that forward for instance hosting, rather than individuals self-hosting instances that actually lose money even when buffered by user donations.

Flemmy ,

Running a server isn’t that expensive. Someone did a breakdown, and found the cost is around $0.20/user/year. Their math might have been a little off, but it’s in the ballpark based on the back of the envelope math I use to see if something scales

That’s well within casual donation amounts.

But, that assumes admins and mods are volunteers- maybe they get a few bucks now and again, but their time is a far bigger factor than server costs

Squiglet ,

Yeah sure but profit based entities we know screw up everything with their greedy mentality. I am for staying away from any profit-driven entities.

solrize ,

Pretty stupid to want to defederate an instance over one Trump troll, but not defederste Zuckerberg, the emperor of trolldom. Yes, pls do everything possible to keep Meta away.

corsicanguppy ,

I see we disagree on whether one smart guy or a dumb guy with a bajillion listeners is the bigger problem.

ivenoidea ,
@ivenoidea@lemmy.world avatar

^ They absolutely intend the last E. Gotta get rid of the competition, especially if it isn‘t another big ass corporation. You can buy a competitor, you can‘t buy a federated network.

avidamoeba OP , (edited )
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

While I agree you can’t buy it, I think one of the reasons why Meta is considering federation at all is because some not insignificant fraction of the 1 in the “90-10-1” social media model has left Meta’s circles and is now active in the Fediverse. I think Meta wants their content and engagement. I also think this same group is probably going to be the first to leave for a Meta-free island of the Fediverse. If I’m right about this, Meta probably doesn’t want to drive these users out. Should they rage farm the Fediverse, they inevitably will. Could be wrong of course.

sachasage ,

I don’t think fedi is currently competing with any meta property? This is an opportunistic land grab from meta aiming to capitalise on twitter’s weakness. Fedi offers them a ready made protocol tested at scale.

avidamoeba OP ,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

This could very well be the case, but then why would they be considering federation? Federation would seep their users’ info into a lot of third party hands. There must be something they want from the Fediverse if they actually end up federating. It can’t be the volume of users, they have that.

sachasage ,

Volume of users is everything here. Picking up enough share grants you a tremendous gravity as a social service. Once a service has network effect on their side it takes an extraordinary amount to unseat them - and Instagram users will pad the numbers at first but who knows if they will engage. Fedi users are demonstrably early adopters willing to put up with a new service’s teething issues. If meta can plug in and grab them it’s a big win.

PeleSpirit ,

What’s the 90-10-1 model?

RGB3x3 ,

I think it’s 90% of users lurk, 10% comment, and 1% actually create content.

But I could be wrong.

PeleSpirit ,

Wow, I’ve never hear of that formula, that’s interesting.

avidamoeba OP ,
@avidamoeba@lemmy.ca avatar

Yes that’s the one.

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