Not partnering with trillion-dollar, people-farming, human-rights-eroding, and democracy-destroying surveillance capitalists like Meta should be the lowest of low bars when it comes to organisations that purport to work on ethical technology but, clearly, even that bar is just too fucking high for some.
#SocialWebFoundation #SWF #fediverse #mastodon #pixelfed #vivaldi #writeAs #iftas #ghost #mammoth #meta #automattic #medium #flipboard #fordFoundation #fastly #institutionalCorruption #BigTech
@aral@mastodon.ar.al Even more directly projects that claim to work on privacy missions cannot resist littering their Cloudflared website with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other garbage antithetical to their mission.
I can understand to some extent them having a presence in those shitty walled gardens for outreach to those misled audiences, but when they proactively link into those shitholes from their public-facing website, it’s obviously quite disgusting.
RMS gives good guidance in this scenario:
https://stallman.org/facebook-presence.html
The links should go one-way: from the walled-garden to the free world.
@aral@mastodon.ar.al Here’s an interesting example. This is a government agency tasked with defending digital rights in #Belgium:
https://www.mediateurtelecom.be/article-rapport-annuel-2023/
As you can see, they don’t merely have a link to their FB account. They actually direct the public to go to #Facebook and #MS #LinkedIn to get /public/ information (that is, info intended for the general public). I am blocked from the publications on that page because I do not have FB or LinkedIn.
WTF.
public money → public agency → private #walledgarden.
@aral@mastodon.ar.al what else could #SWF do if they join the fedivirce then the network effect keeping them in metas grasp will losen and we will get many more users
@M1k3yv2@ioc.exchange Goodness, those Meta folks must be really foolish, huh? Looks like they’re stepping straight into our trap.
:awesome:👍
@aral@mastodon.ar.al they might still lock down settings export from there server
@M1k3yv2@ioc.exchange Shush, they might be listening… this could foil our ingenuous plan.
🤫
#sic
@aral@mastodon.ar.al if our plans relia on secrecy they might not be good enough
@M1k3yv2@ioc.exchange We’re playing 4D chess.
@aral@mastodon.ar.al they’re only too eager to help Meta do a bit of the ol’ reputation laundering, I guess
@aral@mastodon.ar.al
The problem that #SocialWebFoundation are not addressing https://hamishcampbell.com/opening-a-space-to-build-alternatives-omn/ is about change and challenge, the #NGO path they take is missing this, they do it on purpose to keep a seat at the table, which could be useful, but rarely turn out to be.
This can be fixed by https://hamishcampbell.com/tag/openprocess/ I understand this is a VERY UNCOMFORTABLE path for everyone, but it will work if backed up by https://hamishcampbell.com/?s=activism what do you think we can do to start this conversation?
@aral@mastodon.ar.al it’s an attempt at a power grab Aral, even Meta aside, it is an illegitimate attempt to take over the cultural and technological aspects of decentralised social communication. Only makes sense that they’re partnering up with a bully to fund their mission. Read their founder’s bio on Fedi, he thinks he owns ActivityPub, unchallenged by even the author or co-editors, W3C, etc and now he wants to set the tone for the Social Web and Fediverse.
