A user from lemmy.world claims that one of the admins had a secret meeting with a representative of Meta/Facebook. Original post was removed.
A user from lemmy.world claims that one of the admins had a secret meeting with a representative of Meta/Facebook. Original post was removed.
Crossposted this in case of takedown. Hope this isn't breaking the rules.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1370464
Original Title: At least one lemmy.world admin accepted an off the record meeting with meta, and they won't tell you about it.
Edit: I cannot confirm if the Original OP is telling the truth or lying, figured I wanted more people to see this so you can decide for yourselves who to believe.
Edit 2: Archived Link: https://archive.is/aJrnU
Edit 3: Hmm... Interesting... The original post was taken down instead of admins making a response. I mean, if I were an admin with nothing to hide, I'd just simply say "I did not have a secret meeting with anyone representing Meta/Facebook" then maybe lock the thread if stuff gets too out of hand. Deleting a post is not the right thing to do, and even if you are innocent, now you just made yourself look bad.
Edit 4: I appreciate the fact that the mods elected to use the lock thread option instead of outright removing this post. I do not agree with your decision, but I respect the fact that you left this post up. Alright, so that's the end of this, hopefully the next time someone make accusations, they provide evidence. Also, if you are making a legitimate accusation, make sure to crosspost to different instances to make takedowns more difficult. So to conclude this, I want to state these facts:
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The Original OP did not seem to have provided any evidence.
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The Original Post was removed and the Original OP was banned from the community which the post was in.
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None of the admins of lemmy.world made a statement in response to the accusations.
You can draw whatever conclusion you want from this. But without any further information, this discussion cannot continue any longer, since a mod has already locked this post.
Archive Link of where the page was, now showing an error message: https://archive.is/5BWIw
Don't belive me? Ask them.
Fosstodon admins were at least transparent and shared with their community when they were approached by meta for an off the record meeting, which was awesome. They also declined that meeting and shared screenshots of them doing so.
But lemmy.world admins won't tell you that at least one of them accepted that same meeting request. Why won't they say that?
Tell your community that you accepted a meeting with meta. Thats not wrong in and of itself, but I feel it is shady/not right when you're communicating about a wait-and-see approach, while having meetings with the company in question yet not being transparent about it.
@ruud@lemmy.world care to comment?
Also, I'm spinning up my own instance because I don't trust this platform to folks who aren't transparent. Don't ask me to join, it's going to be just for me for now. I don't even know that I have time to admin an instance, but my trust is wearing thin based on the facts at hand. So, it's what I'm doing.
Without proof it’s nothing more than speculation.
This isn’t going to be a productive conversation without proof. There is also the point-of-fact that if there was a NDA involved with said person. They wouldn’t be allowed to speak on it with anyone not listed. So we wouldn’t honestly be allowed to know legally without getting that admin in trouble.
Sure, they can approach any admin regarding federation. they still need approval of the Instance owner and the rest of the admin team as far as I’m aware.
I am curious though. Why not just join an instance that has already outright stated they will not federate with Threads?
So we wouldn’t honestly be allowed to know legally without getting that admin in trouble.
i have no idea whether any of the speculations are true or not, but purely theoretically, this is really lame excuse. if you are representing open source community, you shouldn't be taking meetings where you have to sign nda.
Oh 100% agreed. It makes the NDA’s that have already occurred with all this even more sketchy.
My personal guess is that these NDA’s are because of one of two reasons.
Threads/Facebook talks about their specific proprietary software and how it functions etc.
Threads/Facebook is offering money for access/federation to instances.
It is entirely possible it’s also both at once thinking about it.
I dislike Facebook with a passion along with Google. However as much as I dislike Facebook, proper discussion and information is essential. Without these things people tend to panic and assume worst case scenarios.
People seem to have forgotten one of Zuckerbergs quotes.
“ Zuck: People just submitted it. Zuck: I don't know why. Zuck: They "trust me" Zuck: Dumb fucks”
This was during the time he first released Facebook. It’s part of a chat transcript that was released and verified.
Also during 2008 the FTC quoted Zuckerbergs own word at him during a trial.
“It’s better to buy than to compete”
This was from an email Zuckerberg sent earlier that year during the WhatsApp acquisition or near it.
These two quote should tell everyone exactly what to expect from this company and person. Considering how their track record is atrocious.
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I did actually switch from lemmy.world to lemmy.ml and turn off recurring donations just off of the weak admin announcement they made about Threads like "let's just wait n see, hmmkay?"
Umm. No, you're in an anti-corporate environment full of refugees from greedy Reddit and you can't denounce one of the worst corporate actors in the social media space and promise to have nothing to do with them? I have no idea if OP's story is true, but I do know that they're not the instance for me just from what they HAVE been willing to say.
What a ridiculous attempt at stirring a pot. Not only is it someone saying something that cannot be proven, but someone quoting someone saying something that cannot be proven….
What if I were to spread it around that this is all a ploy from Reddit to fuck with the lemmy community and cause drama?
Embarrassing.
People using an instance that appears to try to act and communicate transparently and asks for donations from the community to run the platform, should actually be transparent in my opinion.
People can just go somewhere else, and no one is obligated to say or do anything, but users appear to value transparency, and I feel as a collective we should value open and honest discussion about issues like this rather than shutting it down or being confrontational or argumentative or rude about it.
It might be nothing, it might be something: either way, people are entitled to feel they deserve to be kept informed. Whether they are entitled to or not is a different kettle of fish.
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So if they don’t say they didn’t when asked if they did, then ipso facto, they did?
I don’t think you or anyone gets to make that distinction. And the fact that you think you can, illustrates how this is an attempt at creating drama.
How about this:
Maybe it’s a dumb fucking question that they don’t feel obligated to answer? I mean, I would imagine that it’s damn near insulting to them to feel they have any reason to answer such a stupid and irrelevant question as it’s not up to you how they manage their instance.
So yea. It’s purposefully stirring a pot. So stop.
@nekat_emanresu @Rhoeri How much did they then got paid for signing an NDA without any need for doing so?
The answer to this scenario built into the fediverse. You bail on the bad instance and move to a new one. If the problem of profile transfers can be solved, then the whole thing becomes fairly trivial.
https://github.com/CMahaff/lasim
Profile transfer tool
I wish Lemmy provided ability to transfer ownership of posts/comments too. With subscriptions I can easily manually do it myself
So… we’re just repeating unverifiable rumors now? What is this, high school? What’s the next post going to be, a list of who has a crush on who? Please.
The fediverse is particularly bad in this respect. In my time here (since Nov 2022) I've come to treat any unsubstantiated negative ad hominem opinion as essentially "fake news" ... and honestly, everyone should. Twice I've paid attention to "an issue" as it was gaining traction and both times I've seen, in real time, the "chinese whispers" effect result in the "story" mutate right in people's "mouths" as they post about it. Honestly, it's worth chasing down such a thing at least once just to see it in action ... it's quite revelatory.
It's "sea lioning" to ask for receipts ... but if you're polite and well-meaning about it I think it's totally justifiable about these sorts of things, not least because you'll be surprised how many people just don't have any (sometimes even when they loudly claim they do)! But also, because the rumour mill effect is real, sea lioning, at some point becomes a valuable antidote.
There are probably a few factors that make this bad here (not that it's good on any social media platform):
- Fediverse is kinda anti-viral ... no algorithms etc
- But ... bad news and scandalous rumours are the original viral algorithm baked into human psychology, so they have a way of rising to the surface in the absence of the generic rage/engagement about anything/everything that big-social feeds provide
- There are real and valuable concerns on the fediverse about ensuring the "culture" here doesn't get bad and that certain values or morals are upheld. While good, such is an excuse for some to get zealous and excited to an excessive extent in the pursuit of and engagement with scandalous rumours.
Combine that with how easy and satisfying it is to simply post a false/unsubstantiated statement without any consequences, and you get a rumour mill.
Getting back to point 3 above ... a valuable an important perspective on that is that actually achieving those goals is not a simple or trivial task. Instead, it is likely a boring, collaborative and deliberative task. So, the moment there's any amount of excitement and engagement around a "bad person or act" on here ... the moment you feel the need to click, read and respond ... you're probably just being driven by engagement habits and reflexes and not at all contributing to the goals and values that the "bad actor" has allegedly compromised.
That being said, on this point, I think it's justifiable to ask for a clear statement from your admin about what relations they have with meta and what the federation or defederation policy is regarding threads. That was so ages ago, and IMO, fediverse admins have a thing or two to learn about being healthily communicative and transparent.
It's a growing pain as the fediverse transitions from "hacker side project" to "mainstream" ... on which ... be sure to donate and be part of the dialogue with admins as it's probably the best way to organically evolve the culture around this.
Ruud seems to me pretty transparent about things but I don't know what has or hasn't been said about meta/threads as I'm not on any of their instances. Given the size of their mastodon instance (top 5 IIRC), however, it's very likely he was at least contacted and, I'd wager probably did have some meeting of some sort.
Given the *.world instances are essentially mainstream, I'm going to bet that lemmy.world won't defederate from Threads ... which is honestly a reasonable position. But it's also very reasonable to not want to be on such an instance and move.
IMO, there doesn't need to be "drama" around this. The fediverse isn't one thing with one culture and one set of values. *diverse is literally in the name. Having options and freedom of association is the whole damn point. Talk, work out where you stand and where others stand and then act appropriately. There's no giant conspiracy to destroy the fediverse here ... we're more likely to do that to ourselves with out propensity for "drama".
So, the moment there’s any amount of excitement and engagement around a “bad person or act” on here … the moment you feel the need to click, read and respond … you’re probably just being driven by engagement habits and reflexes and not at all contributing to the goals and values that the “bad actor” has allegedly compromised.
Ha! You’ve done a very good job of explaining why I was reluctant to reply at all, even to comment on how silly the whole thing seems. I didn’t want to throw fuel on the fire. I did it anyway, though, and just did again. Oh well.
Can we please shut up about Meta, there’s not a single point in the conversation, everyone has made up their mind, and now are spreading stupid school rumors, like, what the fuck y’all.
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Why did you really repost this?
I saw the original several hours ago. I didn’t vote or comment because I had no way of knowing if the original author was lying or not. You, however, are just repeating an unverifiable rumor. I feel like I’m back in high school.
You know perfectly well that if the original becomes unavailable, there will be no way for anyone to tell if this version is authentic or if it’s been altered. This isn’t a museum, or anything remotely close to a secure archive. You’re not helping anyone.
I share the apparent majority view that these basically are claims without any kind of evidence and there's no basis for an outrage (yet).
However, I do find this dynamic interesting to discuss the same topic on different instances. That's unique to the Fediverse.
Doubt threads will even use activitypub. Tumblr said it was going to months ago. Never happened.
For what I understand Meta only reached Mastodon/Misskey/Pleroma and PixelFed instance admins. There hasn't been mention of they even reaching Friendica/socialhome/hubzilla admins. So I doubt they even care contacting admins from "non-competing" software based servers
Also, I don't think the NDA stops admins from disclosing they were contacted by Meta. It only stops them to talk about what's been discussed on these reunions, because several tech bros at mastodon where prouly announcing they were "invited by Meta to a talk about the future of the Fediverse" and how they accepted. So the admins of Lemmy World deciding not to confirm or deny doesn't necessarily prove they signed anything.
After extensive review of the conversation, I believe that it has run its course, and has degraded beyond any fruitful discussion. We need a cooldown.
I will say this on the matter: making an accusation against someone for not saying something is not, in fact, proof of complicity. You cannot prove a negative that way, and Russell's Teapot would suggest the burden of proof is on you, the one making the accusation. Otherwise, this is just Glenn Beck-style "Why do you think they're saying anything? I'm just asking questions" discourse, which is disingenuous.
Thread Locked.
Is there a way to see why a post was deleted?
Typically yes, but in this case, there is no modlog for the reason of removal since the logs got purged by the admins. They forgot to delete the other log which says the user was banned and reason being "Misinformation"
There a modlog button at the bottom of the page, you can see for yourself, but they might've be deleted by now.
Edit: Apparantly, the user was only banned from the community, his account is still not banned.
Wow they banned the OP of that post 3 years from that community for misinformation. Do they have proof that it is misinformation?
Banned
@booty_flexx from the community Fediverse reason: Misinformation expires: in 3 years
I could not find that post being removed from modlog. There were other removed posts but not that particular one
Whats the point of modlog if it does not record everything for auditing purpose?
Oh I guess we better lynch them. I am sick and tired of this pathetic purity gang attacking everyone.