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Years ago, back before it was totally shitty, someone on reddit posted a gigantic, comprehensive, well-sourced list of all the horrible shit Zuck / Meta have done over the years.
It's unfortunate that long lists of damning facts can't seem to move the needle very much. People don't seem to care unless directly impacted.
I hate seeing Meta dig its tentacles in. Thanks for posting this.
They "trust me". Dumb fucks.
Mark Zuckerberg
I literally show my wife articles of Meta/Tik Tok data breaches and other shit, and she just shrugs and keeps using it. I have a friend who works in fucking CYBER SECURITY and he still has social media apps on his phone. It's unreal.
But... you're on social media right now.
Much like Reddit, user data here is worth little outside of LLM utility. Moreover, most of your data is freely available to anyone with a bit of patience and the ability to spin up an instance. Everything is open here, but what’s open isn’t meticulously indexed information about your hopes and dreams… I hope.
Yeah, no, that's my exact point. It's not like data in the "fediverse" is particularly secure, beyond the fact that you can opt out of some parts of it in some applications. And it's not like it's not social media doing social media things.
I see a lot of this performative outrage or pride on being on the "open" version of social media, but social media is social media. A lot of its problems are design problems that are replicated in the federated versions, and a lot of the privacy concerns remain on paper or haven't surfaced just because this version of it is so small by comparison.
I don't think a lot of people who have made this crusade a key part of their online persona fully understand what the underlying issues are and how they work. "How can cybersecurity experts have a TikTok account" kinda reads like the "we need to ban plastic straws" of Internet dysfunction.
You're absolutely correct. But let's just be practical here. Lemmy isn't the same thing as Facebook or Tik Tok. It's a completely different beast. I'm also being careful to not post sensitive information about myself, whereas on Facebook it's literally your name and identity and photos and private conversations.
I get where you're coming from but is he managing his risk or not?
Does he understand the risk? If yes, good. No? Bad.
Is he ignoring the risk? If yes, bad. No? Good.
Is he weighing the risks against the benefits he receives of using these apps and taking appropriate steps to mitigate those risks? If yes, then good. No? Bad.
Cyber security isn't "lock everything down at all costs". Otherwise I would insist you throw your phone in an incinerator along with all your computers, live in a bunker reinforced against nuclear attack with a small army to guard you, never leave it, never talk to anyone... Etc.
It is enabling one to achieve their goals with a tolerable amount of risk. That level of tolerable risk is different for everyone.
Yep. Almost like the mind-altering power of television should have been taken seriously instead of laughed off and supercharged into an always-on ubiquitous device we mostly equate with our actual personhood.
We could actually address it now. No time like the present, eh.
Is this list still available somewhere?
Wasn’t that @PoppinKREAM@sh.itjust.works?
He was here around the API debacle, don’t know if that’s his actual account or whether he’s still active here
Thank you very much for the encouragement! The amount of hate you get on a daily basis by speaking up is insane. Glad it hasnt flooded this post yet. :)
Sometimes people have different opinions on tech stuff so I'm hesitant to block people for opinions I disagree with...
But I also saw some posts that you're talking about OP. You linked one up thread that had come to mind. That user's post history is super suspect. With people pointing out their shill-like qualities 6 months ago in response to Meta propaganda links.
Exactly. The wording in these article is very sus as well imo. I would actually suggest everyone report them so we can get actual „opinions“ in here and not manipulative double speak.
Little course in marketing speak
It is what we use in sales and marketing (I did this for 20 yrs before i went back in IT). This language is hard to pinpoint if you dont know what to look for. Something is off about it if you take time while reading. Like a soliciter coming to your door but as text.
Its basically actively being biased and just ignoring every counter argument while shaping words to suggest more than they actually say. Its one of the reasons I went back to IT since its soulcrushing if you dont have a real ethical product. And even then it sucks that you have to do it since worse competitors will otherwise win. Thats also why I despise ads. Imo, they should not be allowed to appeal to emotion. If your product does not win on facts, it should not win at all.
Can you give examples of what you're referring to as propaganda? I haven't seen anything but people bitching about Threads.
https://lemmy.giftedmc.com/post/329846 this for example
The Fediverse will soon have power on the social web to shape its future, but only through and in the interaction with Meta. This is the reality the Fediverse has to start arranging itself with.
First sentence literally.
Meta and the Fediverse are heavily intertwined: both are dependent on one another for their success.
Uncompromising idealists of a non-corporate social web, potentially origin of radicalisation and toxicity.
And so on and so forth. The language is shaping the story in one direction as if nobody has a chance to change something about it.
That's all fair.
But it's also heavily down voted and refuted.
Some people are gonna be shills and some are gonna be naive. But I'm not going to be a part of any platform Meta is trying to subvert.
Me too.
I think it is part of a long term strategy.
They saw all the negative feedback that was given when the first announcement came and there were a lot of users saying its not so bad or that we should give them a chance then.
Eventually everything became quiet and things moved on now there is a steady rise of pro Meta comments again and this time it will lead to a less violent reaction because it has already happened once before.
Rinse and repeat until they become the norm.
Thats why I report these posts as the propaganda they are and always try to counter them in the comments. Just doing my part as much as I can. I'm already on my own instance so I cant just be banned for it if someone gets bought by meta (its not the only reason but one of them).
I appreciate it.
Wait, what?
I mean, the OP already sounds... kinda paranoid. I've been on the record saying that preemptively defederating Threads is a bad idea. That doesn't make me my opinion propaganda. I'm also on the record saying all social media is a mistake and Meta should be heavily regulated and broken apart.
But hey, whatever, maybe you don't mean people like me and instead someone else.
But who is Meta buying? Who's banning posts opposing Meta? Who said that was a thing or could be a thing? Why would it be a thing? There are legitimate concerns about Meta using AP, but I haven't seen any of them listed in this thread and some of the language here is getting really weird.
To elaborate a little bit on this: Imho, opinions are not propaganda. I dont agree that defederating threads is a bad idea because I am very experienced in strategy. I built several successful companies and my job was to see stuff coming and prepare for it. Its my forte.
What I call propaganda is writing multiple articles which call meta „the only reason the fediverse exists because they said they‘d federate“. Such a braindead take and complete bs.
I‘m on lemmy for roughly a year (this account is younger though) and have been on reddit before. It is evident that there have been campaigns on both platforms to influence the public.
Maybe you didnt know but in that case I suggest you read up about it. Public opinion is a very powerful tool and very valuable. Literally the OP shows that meta has helped such campaigns in the american elections. Which is treason imo (although I‘m not from the US - my mother is - so my definition might diverge).
Anyway, I value your opinion and input. Thanks for asking. Have a good one.
I assume my not noticing any meta shills is due to them being downvoted to hell. If so, excellent work everyone on keeping their propaganda in check!
I agree. That is a positive thing.
Seems like this aren't the only bad stuff they did
yes, I've seen that one. They're not the nice guys. Thanks for mentioning it though. :)
I haven't seen it but I also want Meta and everything to do with it to die in a fire, so I kind of wish I had so I could express that feeling to the shills. Mark Zuckerberg has singlehandedly made the world a significantly worse place. It'd almost be impressive if it wasn't so depressing.
I don't like Meta at all, trying to cut out Meta as much as possible myself.
Meta's going to do what Meta's going to do. They don't have the good intentions for the Fediverse at heart. They will use it and the concept of federation to seek their ends, and when it's no longer useful to them they will cut it off.
I'll leave it up to server operators and users to decide. While I think it's nice that Meta gives the Fediverse attention, I also the Fediverse is better off generally not hooking into Meta's feed. If your server is part of Fedipact then it's fair game to report disinformation biased towards Meta.
I browse new on the regular and haven’t noticed any of what you’re saying. I see them being shit on though all the time.
Thanks for shedding light on this!
Thanks for the support! This means a lot. Have a nice day.
decision by world to federate with threads
..anyone know if I can block threads so I won't have to abandon the instance or be subjected to Meta poison?
You can block any posts coming from threads.net by going to settings and doing instance blocking but long term it probably is better to just move to a different instance that better aligns with your values.
Are you seeing these pro-meta articles on Lemmy or on Mastodon? I haven't seen them, or much negative effect yet from Threads in general despite my instance being federated, but I assume that's because I only use Lemmy.
(For the record, I would prefer if lemmy.world and mastodon.world defederated regardless.)
I have not seen any uptick. But then again, I'm not looking for it.
If anything, all the extra traffic concerning it will persuade me to be proactive about it.
I believe you that Meta is a bad company with a clear track record of perpetrating harms any time there's profit to be made. I am not, however convinced that small independent services blocking communication with them is a net positive for the world. Instead, I think there's an opportunity to get their users to migrate away.
That's not to say that some servers shouldn't block them. For a tightly-moderated server, the scale of moderation problems it could bring is argument enough. There are good options for those who are looking for that sort of thing.
I don't want my Lemmy server to block Threads unless it actually does become a moderation nightmare. I don't intend to block it from my self-hosted Mastodon server either. In fact, I haven't blocked anything there yet. I will if I run into anybody being a jerk, but it seems like bird photos and flashlight reviews don't attract that sort of thing.
I get your point and that is your right. I still dont agree and that is my right. There have been countless examples of underestimating a bad actor until they were already in the space.