You can't keep them out, but you can choose not to Federate with them. They can't take over. That's the point of having independent federated servers.
this post was submitted on 02 Jul 2023
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They have the right to use the open protocol, just as anybody else to build their own instance. Trying to keep Facebook out only through banning of known instances/IP addresses is a losing battle of whack-a-mole.
If you really want to stop them from EEE, make a pact to refuse to federate with any instance software stack without the AGPL-3.0 license instead, no Apache, no MIT, not even regular GPL, so they simply can't do the "Extend" bit at all.
What are those licences that you list? Please explain like I'm a non-IT.
Now Lemmy Explain: These are all open-source licenses; however, their provisions are different from each other. For this, I assume you understand what compilation is.
- MIT and Apache are "Do whatever you want with my code, just give credit with this license file", but Apache is a bit more detailed and has a bit more on patent clause.
- GPL can be summarized into 2 provisions: "You have to share the source code alongside compiled executables" (.exe for windows), and "if your executables compile with GPL code, then the rest of the code that compiles also has to be GPL licensed" (Which is why some call it a viral license)
- However, the loophole with GPL code is that if you are running anything with GPL code running on a server, you are not distributing the executable if you are only accessing it through a web page, so you don't have to share the source code, and AGPL closes that loophole by saying "You still have to share the source code for AGPL licensed programs if you are using it as a service"
Companies hate GPL code since they can't legally keep modified software close sourced, which means that Facebook won't be able to develop proprietary extensions for AGPL licensed software like Lemmy or Mastodon.
Any admin worth their salt's gonna defederate them and proudly wear the Misfit Loser Zealot label[^1]. The only people who'll federate with them are the naive techbros and those who only care about how much users they have, compared to, idk, being committed to creating a good community.
https://fedipact.online is already gaining steam with the Mastodon side of the fediverse.
[^1]: Seriously the markdown guy couldn't've picked a better description if he tried.
Upvoting because that’s a great explanation, that’s a great term that I will wear proudly (MLZ), you used a triple contraction. I love contractions
We could collectively vote to defederate them.
How does defederation work? Is it global or is it in a per instance basis?
Per instance
But just as a side note, a user can block an entire instance as well, at least on Mastodon. I haven't checked for that functionality on Lemmy. That's not defederation, but it prevents you from seeing things you don't want to at the user level.
I haven’t found it but I’d love to see it if I can. As world is struggling I want to use an alt but most alternatives haven’t defederated exploding heads
Any instance can choose what other instances it interacts with.
So it would need to be a movement across instances, not just a single action, but given the principles of the user base here and why we're here I think that movement would be very successful.
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The protocols and software are all free and open source. You can't stop a company from running a Lemmy or Mastodon instance any more than you could stop an individual from doing so.
The nice thing is that the system allows for free choice. Your favorite instance isn't forced to federate with a hypothetical Meta instance, and and even if it does you can choose which communities to subscribe to or avoid. Who cares if Meta runs an instance, or a hundred instances? You can simply choose not to use them.
Yeah on the whole it could be good, In the same way that it isn't a problem that google owns the most popular e-mail service, that doesn't hurt those on proton mail or any other mail service, and in fact offers benefits that they can just as easilly e-mail their friends using gmail from their preffered mail service. The real fear is the embrace extend extinguish. IE if meta encourages people to join their instance, then gradually makes things incompatible after major communities move to them, but they can't prevent us from moving back just the same even if they somehow got us to jump there.
Due to the dominance of just a few companies' big email services, it's now almost impossible to set up an independent email server. Emails from small independent servers are just not delivered by Gmail and the like. They will only accept emails from other big email providers. In this sense it is a problem that Google owns the most popular email instance. They and a few other large companies have effectively turned a democratic and distributed system into a closed loop owned by a handful of big corporations.
Any reading on this? Seems a little outlandish. I self host an email server for both my business and personal use, and have never had issues sending or receiving mail. Not saying I don't believe you, just that that has not been my personal experience.
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I don't think it's the existance of big providers, as much as the general problem of spam, lemmy will likely have this too one day if it grows big, with or without big corporate backed lemmy's. Fact is, it's trivial to set up an e-mail server, and have it send millions of spam messages a day to thousands of addresses. You can then register dozens of domain names for a few dollars, and fill the internet with millions of spam messages.
Which is why pretty much all e-mail servers default anything that isn't known to be throttled (IE a gmail account won't let you just send as many messages as your bandwidth can handle). A black list whack a mole is basically an unwinnable battle on that front, all anti-spam measures kind of have to start with a "prove you aren't a spammer then we'll whitelist you", rather than the opposite.
But the main point still remains, there are dozens of e-mail providers that have proven they aren't spam, and more or less ones that meet every overall goal one might have. Ones that don't track you or put ads (some you may have to pay for, but that's the options). Still 100x healthier than say facebook and twitter where you consent to all their tracking and rules, or you can't talk to their members ever.
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A good analogy is Google with Gmail. They became the biggest player in email and even gained a lot of influence over for email works, but you can easily use another email provider and not be locked out of the system.
Imagine how horrible things would be if email were centralized. We really need to thank the founders of the internet for having the foresight to not let that happen.
It's funny you bring Email as an example because everyone using the same 3-4 providers effectively centralized email. Anyone who tries to run any self-hosted email with decent volume quickly discovers this fact
This "anyone is free to join any instance, you can just avoid what you don't like" kind of thinking is perfectly reasonable in theory, but I think what OP wants to know is if this also holds up in practice. You could "defederate" Google and Microsoft by blocking emails from Gmail and Outlook addresses, but the reality is that the majority of people you will need to contact use those addresses. In most cases, your school/workplace will even make you use them for your organizational email. Yes, it is possible to avoid these companies and choose alternatives, but you'll be isolating yourself from the majority of the network.
The question is not if it will be possible to use the future corporate-owned Fediverse without Meta (of course it will), but if it will be feasible for the majority of users.
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let's say the instance i belong too has been bought out by zuckerberg... can i transfer my data and move? or do i just lose everything like i did with reddit?
currently you lose everything. I'm hoping they add a transfer tool like how masodon(i think it was that) has with transferring accounts
Transferring is theoretically technically possible (Mastodon does it), but Lemmy hasn't implemented the option yet. There's an issue for it on their GitHub.
Why would Facebook bother buying out existing instances? They have the resources to create thousands of instances, and the userbase (the idea is to migrate all Instagram accounts) to populate them.
Not to mention that they're creating a Twitter/Mastodon clone, not a Reddit/Lemmy one.
If a corporation aims to purchase an instance, all the other instances would let them know they will vote to defederate it as soon as the purchase is finalized. That ought to make them change course.
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The Mastodon instance I'm on has blocked all known Meta IPs as a preventative measure. So I imagine some admins will federate and some won't, and users will be free to join the instance that they wish to.
Most of the good content I see is from here.
I think the real threat comes from the larger user base they’ll likely bring. Because they’ll certainly favor their own instance’s communities, which means those communities could then grow to the point that they have enough leverage to do the bad things.
The main strategy I’ve seen is to form a pact against federating with them. I hope it works.
I don’t have an issue with social media companies entering the Fediverse, at least on the surface, because it’s ultimately more users and it’s in line with the ideas of free exchange of information and content. My problem with it comes in when they try to buy instances, communities, or what have you. No one should have a monopoly on the Fediverse, and it shouldn’t be pay to win.
So, my answer is this: because no one can stop anyone from making their own instances, users decide whether to defederate their instances from Meta’s, or Twitter’s, or anyone else’s. Join an instance that doesn’t federate with Meta, or start your own if you have the know-how. Just like anywhere else on the internet, you don’t have to interact with content you don’t want to interact with.
Seems simple enough to me.
Meta: Do what we want or we'll defederate you!
Everyone: Fuck off
Meta: Surprised pikachu
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Here's the most interesting take I've found on this question.
https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/06/23/project-and-the.html
Good read. Onboarding and discoverability are the weakest part of the fediverse and need to be a high priority.
Apps should go as far as assigning new users randomly to a good general instance (vlemmy.net, lemmy.one, lemm.ee etc) if it means the user wouldn't have to know about instances, and integrating lemmyverse.net's functionality into lemmy would both go a long way for both I feel.
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Great article! I appreciate how it addresses the commonly raised reasons and points to a way forward.
You sign up on (or create) an instance that defederates from them.
Hopefully people will remember what Google did with XMPP.
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