this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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I just saw that lemmy.ml has pre-emptively defederated from threads. Are there any plans to do that here? I personally want nothing to do with Meta/Facebook, and I'm sure that's not an unpopular opinion around here.

edit: y'all, please pay attention to where you are when coming from all.

edit again: kbin really ought to make a post's home instance more clear.

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[–] ProdigalFrog 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

I think considering how incredibly harmful Facebook/Meta has been to society, and that Meta intentionally pushes divisive and hateful content because it creates the most engagement, it makes sense from a pragmatic point of view to simply pre-emptively block them in all ways possible. Their entire history as a company has shown they will make anyone who uses their services, and society as a whole, worse off. Intentional or otherwise. It need not be motivated from a metaphorical middle finger, but as self-defense against a practical certainly of something bad coming from interaction with them.

It takes only a short glance at the 'Facebook papers' leak to see why it makes sense to distance ourselves as much as possible:

The so-called “Facebook Papers” include a mix of presentations, research studies, discussion threads and strategy memos. What the documents reveal about Facebook’s behavior is stark and damning. They show how some of Zuckerberg’s public claims about Facebook’s principles and activities clashed with internal company findings. For example, he once told Congress that Facebook removes 94 percent of the hate speech it finds. But the inverse was true — according to internal estimates, the number was probably less than 5 percent.

Ahead of the Jan. 6 assault on the Capitol, Facebook’s efforts to stem the flow of misinformation proliferating on its networks fell short. Company employees were unhappy as far-right groups spread the call to join the “Stop the Steal” rally that preceded the attack.

“This is not a new problem,” one unnamed employee fumed on Workplace, an internal message system, on Jan. 6. “We have been watching this behavior from politicians like Trump, and the — at best — wishy washy actions of company leadership, for years now. We have been reading the [farewell] posts from trusted, experienced and loved colleagues who write that they simply cannot conscience working for a company that does not do more to mitigate the negative effects on its platform.”

The Facebook Papers also make clear how Zuckerberg prioritized maximum engagement and the company’s bottom line over ethical concerns about safety and best practices. While he espouses a form of free speech maximalism in public in the United States, he has participated in enabling regimes of censorship elsewhere. My colleagues also pointed to a 2019 episode in Vietnam, where Zuckerberg personally decided to comply with demands from the autocratic government in Hanoi to censor dissident voices on his platform.

“Ahead of Vietnam’s party congress in January, Facebook significantly increased censorship of ‘anti-state’ posts, giving the government near-total control over the platform, according to local activists and free speech advocates,” my colleagues reported.

The Facebook Papers “are astonishing for two reasons,” wrote the Atlantic’s Adrienne LaFrance. “First, because their sheer volume is unbelievable. And second, because these documents leave little room for doubt about Facebook’s crucial role in advancing the cause of authoritarianism in America and around the world. Authoritarianism predates the rise of Facebook, of course. But Facebook makes it much easier for authoritarians to win.

To assume that some good could come from interacting with Meta is, in my honest opinion, a naive stance. But that's just my two cents.

[–] andrewrgross 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm sort of tired of talking about this, particularly because it's all academic: they don't offer any federated instance currently to defederate from. But I want to clarify my reasoning.

My point is NOT that we should "gIvE tHeM a ChANce!" We all know they are run by greedy, exploitative, untrustworthy people.

My point is that I think our response should be rooted in causes and effects rather than vibes. If they offered a federated instance that I had friends on, I'd want to be able to see my friends posts and have them see mine. And if Facebook then tried to find ways to push ads to a remote instance, then we'd obviously defederate. Because that's an appropriate tool to correct a specific harm.

That's all I'm saying. Currently, Facebook has no means of affecting my experience on this instance, so I don't care whether we preemptively reject them from federating. The moment that they DO affect my experience, they'll obviously be booted. That's good enough for me.

[–] Celediel 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

My point is that I think our response should be rooted in causes and effects rather than vibes.

I gotta be perfectly honest here; if despite all the discussion that's happened in this thread, you can still say something like this, then I really don't think anything we've said has really gotten through to you, and I too "tire of talking about this."

[–] andrewrgross 1 points 1 year ago