The inevitable news that Meta is beginning to deploy ads in Threads has traveled quickly. Less well-known is that the Social Web Foundation, which has self-assumed stewardship of the future of the fediverse, also sees the introduction of ads into the fedi as an aspect of its mission to commercialize the network.
That won't be evident if you visit the Mission page of SWF's website today. which displays the expected press-release happytalk about sustainability and "social infrastructure": https://socialwebfoundation.org/mission/
However, an archive.org backup of the text copy on this page from September 2024, shortly following the organization's launch, reveals a passage that was then quickly removed: https://web.archive.org/web/20240925094541/https://socialwebfoundation.org/mission/
The passage reads: "The Fediverse cannot thrive without people building clients or running providers. And to do those things, they need money. Whether thatβs advertising supported, or funded by charities and non-profits, or based on paid-for services, or affiliate revenue, we are working to find ways that companies can do well in the Fediverse."
The Research Director of SWF also leads the W3C ActivityPub working group and has provided Meta with several seats at the table around which ongoing development of the protocol is decided. And in a January 12 blog post following Meta's intensified embrace of fascism, SWF reaffirmed its partnership with them and rejected the validity of defederating Threads: https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/01/12/content-policy-on-the-social-web/
We can presume that the Social Web Foundation sees the introduction of ads on Threads as just another step in the mission it shares with Meta - the normalization of surveillance capitalism on the fediverse
[#]DefederateMeta #FediPact #Meta #Zuckerberg #Threads #Facebook #Instagram #SWICG #SocialWebFoundation
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@ophiocephalic This is a real humdinger:
After it's treated the fediverse like a shameful little secret and has never embraced itself as part of the fediverse--that's marketing people like this do FOR them. But they aren't doing a real fedi integration, and they certainly aren't guiding people OFF Threads and TO the fediverse.
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@oli
IMO it was always a stretch to imagine that Meta would provide its users the means to escape Meta
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@ophiocephalic @oli
not so much of a 'stretch' as a self-imposed delusion.
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@StopTheSweepsPDX
that works too
@oli
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@ophiocephalic And people can say "this is coming" all they want.
With their resources, Meta could easily have done this by now, if it was actually a priority for them.
I actually find it kind of amusing that Brid.gy provides a better 2-way bidirectional integration between two entirely different protocols, and it feels more like a native integration than Threads, which is using native integration with the fedi--actual ActivityPub.
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@oli
Yeah that is ironic isn't it?
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@ophiocephalic ''The Fediverse cannot thrive without people building clients or running providers. And to do those things, they need money. Whether thatβs advertising supported, or funded by charities and non-profits, or based on paid-for services, or affiliate revenue, we are working to find ways that companies can do well in the Fediverse''
ΞΞΞ that's the biggest trojan horse coming to break the fedipact .. big tec companies
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@nikolakisjunior
Agree, which is why it's good to raise a ruckus
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@ophiocephalic
"presume" is a very friendly understatement.
https://mastodon.de/@katzenberger/113794375528802771
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@katzenberger
Let it never be said FediPact isn't fair-minded
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@ophiocephalic for your attention and consideration @chad
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@ophiocephalic Excuse them? The fediverse is ALREADY financially viable, thankyouverymuch! Us little critters are doing just fine hosting small things. Even the mediumsized servers are doing fine.
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@IceWolf
Broadly speaking, financial sustainability is and will be an ongoing concern on the fedi. But what that means is that we need to be as creative and progressive in that field as we are in the technical one. Think cooperative economics, not competitive ones. IMO capitalist "solutions" will destroy what their proponents claim they want to preserve
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@IceWolf
But good to hear you're doing well! πΊ
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@ophiocephalic
Surely, the Federal Bureau of Investigation can use some of their money (that they make running scams) to fund the Fediverse? π€
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@miguelpergamon
Uh, any other ideas?
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@ophiocephalic
Nah. That's about ... Hang on! Me auld boss, Vlad, may have some spare cash.
write to :-
V. Putin
The White House
Red Square
No Way
RapidlyDiminishingPopulationLand
just say Foreign Agent sent you
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@miguelpergamon π
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@ophiocephalic There are two things that @swf should understand about the Fediverse:
It's important to note that neither of these are necessary for the Fediverse to exist. They are only necessary for the Fediverse to exist as a means to make money via ads and data collection. And there is the rub. Rejecting these ideas is not merely an exclusionary stance, but a requirement to fulfill a vision of something else entirely.
And it's non-negotiable. End of.
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@thankfulmachine
Hard agree
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@ophiocephalic I'm beginning to learn more about the fediverse and ActivityPub. I find it concerning that ActivityPub is a W3C candidate. Hasn't anyone learned anything from other standards from that body? It's been some time since I actively followed the politics of the W3C but last I remember there was a general air of wanting to be done with it.
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@Unsightly3055
Whole other can of worms there, and I'm not directly involved so not deeply informed on it. I'll just say for now that I think it's complicated. There are folks in the working group who agree that the fedi should remain free and freaky, so it's tough to generalize. But yes, there's cause for concern
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@ophiocephalic
Good thing nobody has to use the official mastodon software. Of they ever add a "feature" people don't want, we can just access Madison instances with something else.
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@humbird0
Yes, development diversity is a defense against enclosure
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@ophiocephalic at some point, just like there will be no choice but to hard-fork or abandon Mastodon, there will be no choice but to discard future W3C/SWF AP developments once they inevitably start to EEE it.
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@amberage
This may well come to pass, though at this point it's getting difficult to predict anything beyond a short horizon
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@ophiocephalic Yeah, they're just whining because they want to make us see ads. I'm so sick of ads being plastered everywhere that I've been taking extra steps to avoid seeing them wherever possible, and I've actually been fairly successful doing so. Only using social media like Mastodon that don't have ads. Switching to Brave browser and Proton Mail. Not much I can do about billboards and signs in meatspace, or the ads on the rare occasion I see a movie at the theater, but I've been pretty successful online. Screw them.
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@thyrsuscat
Yeah, we should be keeping our mental ecology clear of the psychic pollution of advertising, at every point under our control. And sabotaging the ones that aren't!
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@ophiocephalic all of my activitypub-related discussions were greatly improved by blocking Evan. maybe somebody ought to establish a new standards body along those same lines
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@zzt
lol! Evan blocked me back in 2023 when Meta first showed up, though I had never interacted with him. Let's just say this post isn't intended to spark a dialog with him
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@ophiocephalic Worrying stuff, but do we know why that passage was removed? To hide their intent, is one option. Because they realiser they were wrong is another. I'm not playing naive here, I'd just like to know more.
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@radundtat
Unknown. To date, the organization has not been particularly transparent
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β¬οΈ https://kolektiva.social/@ophiocephalic/113890257241980108
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