non-stickied PSA: Beehaw has signed the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact
although this is unlikely to substantially and directly impact us and is a more immediate concern for Mastodon and similar fediverse software, we've signed the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact as a matter of principle. that pact pledges the following:
i am an instance admin/mod on the fediverse. by signing this pact, i hereby agree to block any instances owned by meta should they pop up on the fediverse. project92 is a real and serious threat to the health and longevity of fedi and must be fought back against at every possible opportunity
the maintainer of the site is currently a little busy and seems to manually add signatures so we may not appear on there for several days but here's a quick receipt that we did indeed sign it.
I guess I'm the odd one out when I say I fully support this decision. I do not trust Meta, I Do not trust their intentions, and they have given me no reason to trust them.
Good call from the instance admins. Meta's been a known actor for over 10 years at this point, which is more than enough time to observe their behavior (including up to a few weeks ago when they got fined for violating the GDPR). They're not going to be participating in good faith and we don't need to give them a chance to shit up the Fediverse.
Meta is not a brand new, fresh-faced corporation that maybe needs a chance to prove it's good intentions in the fediverse. It is an established entity that has a history of killing competition and often being on the wrong side of social issues. It should be rejected from federation outright because of its track record, if nothing else.
Thanks for the transparency. I personally think this is the right move. Meta shouldn't be trusted, based on their previous performance. If they do something to change that then we'll see, but I'm not expecting them to change their stripes.
Been catching up on all the NDA drama on Mastodon, it's really caused a rift between some users and instance admins. Felt a bit like an 'aww it's all grown up' moment to see Mastodon having a scandal.
Meta is at best looking to profit from the Fediverse, and more likely looking to extinguish it. I think blocking them at the borders is the only solution.
I appreciate the work you all do. Im a heavier lurker than particpater and i see little fingers of you all taking care of beehaw for us all the time and it makes me smile 😁 good work everyone!
I 100% agree with this decision. At first I wanted to give Meta a chance, just to get a big player in the Fediverse, but after reading this article it totally changed my views.
I hereby agree to block any instances owned by meta should they pop up on the fediverse.
I suggest to rephrase with this better:
"I hereby agree to block any instances owned by, governed by, supported by mostly, funded by only or affiliated with Meta, its subsidiaries, major involving partners and influenced involving affiliates should they pop up on the Fediverse."
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: I do not provide my suggestion "as a legal advice" but as a thought to share that may be considered or configured by legal experts. I will not be held liable for any error that any revision upon or any derivative from my suggestion may cause.
This is fantastic news and applaud this decision. I used to work in digital marketing and having seen how Facebook, (and Twitter, Google, etc.) makes their sausage and how they operate, I advise everyone get off Meta/FB, or really any centralized social media platform for that matter.
Nice, I got the vibes you'd do that without having to announce it but I'm glad to hear the commitment. Makes it easier to feel better about building connections here knowing they won't be thrown apart when Meta comes to town.
Good. There's no place for corporations on the fediverse. Specially not for a corporation like Meta that has shown time after time how dangerous they are.
I don’t know if I have a settled opinion for or against defederating from Meta instances, but I know enough to say I absolutely respect the decision to.
I may appreciate more exposure to federating social media, but I also appreciate that Meta has a problematic track record. Besides, my shifting away from Reddit has me realizing that juggling accounts is not as difficult as I thought. If I end up having a reason to get on a Meta instance, it wouldn’t be an issue to make a compatible handle that can communicate there.
John Gruber describes the Anti-Meta Pact as "petty and deliberately insular" and suggests that the whole point of ActivityPub is to turn social networking into something more akin to email, which he describes as "truly open."1
Tristan Louis says "The anti-Meta #Fedipact can only achieve one thing: make sure that #ActivityPub loses to the Bluesky protocol."2
Dan Gillmor suggests that "preemptively blocking them -- and the people already using them -- from your instance guarantees less relevance for the fediverse."
I've seen a lot of sentiment shifting positively for Facebook (I refuse to call it meta) over the past few months and I find it kind of unnerving. Mostly outside of tech/journalism circles. Maybe it's just that standing next to Twitter, Facebook has looked a lot prettier lately or something but I don't understand how anyone can forget all the malicious evils Facebook has been and brought onto us. Could the name change have really bamboozled people into giving them a clean slate?
I'm all in on holding the line against them taking over the fediverse, glad to see the energy and I hope we keep it.
Glad to hear it. Over the years, Meta has shown that they don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. They’d have to prove themselves, which I suspect they are able (but 100% not willing) to do.
@alyaza I am conflicted on this. While I feel like it's probably the right thing to do as Meta would just destroy the fediverse if it entered it, it makes me uncomfortable that this network that is supposed to be so open and connected with each other can be so easily and glibly made into what is essentially yet another privately controlled website.
let them create there's and lets see what happens. I do not like meta but i like their open source projects like react and lexical. if they do any unethical stuff we can just not use them.
I truly do t understand why so many people in the fediverse are so willing to "give meta a chance". Why?! Why would would get closer to the limbs ripping machine just because they painted it a different color?
Every single Zuckerberg social media venture had "raze everyone else to the ground" as a step, but you think this one won't?? This time the leopard won't eat our faces?!
The link to the pact nearly blinded me. Animated falling hearts and bright pink background. For a minute there I thought I travelled back in time to the 90's. Also I hasten to add that everyone blocking Meta seems like quite an unfederated thing to do. That said I hate Meta, block 'em.
Refusing to federate with Meta servers is practically a no-brainer anyways.
Nobody really wants brain-dead facebook users on the fediverse anyways.1
1 > This, of course, doesn't include anyone owning a facebook account out of necessity who also has the technical knowledge to register and conduct themselves appropriately on the Fediverse in general.