1. Meta/Facebook has a horrific track record on human rights:
- https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/ethiopia-facebook-algorithms-contributed-human-rights-abuses-against-tigrayans
- https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-sue-facebook-myanmar-genocide-us-uk-legal-action-so...
Meta just announced that they are trying to integrate Threads with ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, etc.). We need to defederate them if we want to avoid them pushing their crap into fediverse.
If you're a server admin, please defederate Meta's domain "threads.net"
If you don't run your own server, please ask your server admin to defederate "threads.net".
But there’s one thing my own experience with XMPP and OOXML taught me: if Meta joins the Fediverse, Meta will be the only one winning. In fact, reactions show that they are already winning: the Fediverse is split between blocking Meta or not. If that happens, this would mean a fragmented, frustrating two-tier fediverse with little appeal for newcomers.
Basic EEE strategy (embrace, extend, extinguish). For example, take XMPP. It was a wonderful federated chat protocol. Google joined it with its Google Talk application. All was well. Until it wasn't. You see, Google added some "new features" that could be used only with the Google talk app and account. So people flocked to it. All is still well. But then google decides to close the gates - Google Talk is its own thing now and you can't talk to people on other servers or with other apps.
Take what hapoened wit XMPP. Google embraces XMPP with Giogle Talk. Google add some shiny "new features" that are exclusive to Google Talk (extend). Google cuts off XMPP access to other domains other than the Google Talk domain, thus finishing the extinguish phase.
Just replace Google with Meta/Facebook/Zuckerberg, Google Talk with Threads and XMPP with ActivityPub/Mastodon/Lemmy and you can see how it could happen. The XMPP Wikipedia page has it covered very well, and there's a dedicated Embrace, extend, extinguish page on Wikipedia if you want to read more.
And what's the most important - they were a "corporation of good" then. They were doing plenty of such things, which are in fact acts of war, because there's no other purpose to them, surely not money, - only strangling competition and places where something may emerge.
Its about the money, but the money in the long term.
They will gladly sacrifice short term money, by strangling or usurping anything they perceive as a possible competitor and threat to their long term money.
because as long as they sit on the top and kill everything beneath them, the long term money will always come.