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I would like to know if I can feel safe here
If you have privacy concerns, you should probably not post here for time being.
It is prototype software. Doesn't remove EXIF geotags from photos, for example and posts here are public (and indexed by webcrawlers). Treat this as "open Internet" for your safety/privacy purposes.
Why would KBin be unsafe?
Federation works by instances (e.g. kbin.social) registering an interest (subscribe/follow) in a specific magazine or person on other instances.
That means content is only brought into an instance that members of that instance are interested in (its the same with lemmy instances, we don't see everything).
Similarly on kbin users can block individuals, magazines or whole domains. So even if kbin.social does federate with meta you don't have to see/interact with it.
For instance I respect kbin users might want content from lemmy.ml, as the people who run it are tankies I have no interest in anything from that instance and block the domain.
I have no issues with part of the fediverse walling itself off from meta but remaining in contact with other instances. Similar to how beehaw defederated from lemmy.world but kbin could see beehaw and lemmy.world.
I would treat meta like any other instance, if its a source of headache then deferate.
The Embrace, Extend Extinguish argument makes no sense.
Take C#, many years ago Microsoft wanted to build its own Java JDK. As part of that they added Microsoft specific extensions. Sun said that wasn't acceptable. Microsoft didn't just stop, the renamed it C# and launched the product.
Everyone agreeing to defederate from meta won't mean they stop. It won't prevent EEE.
The best way to prevent EEE is given in our example. Java had a huge userbase who simply weren't interested in migrating.
So you need to encourage organisations to deploy KBin/Lemmy instances which integrate with the fediverse. That gives them reach and when Meta tries EEE they cut off content their users want. So it forces them to be a good citizen.
We somehow defederated with the nsfw Lemmy instance over a big nothingburger.
If we stay connected with those hate groups however, then I'm out. That's where I draw my line for support.
We (meaning the whole fediverse, all instances) need to be de-federating that crap immediately.
Nothing good will come from having Facebook streaming into here in anyway whatsoever.
The Fediverse as a whole needs to be a separate place so that people can leave places like that.
Also, if Facebook is allowed to "work with" the development of the fediverse at all, they absolutely will eventually destroy it for profit. And "working with" it absolutely includes them federating with it.
When their vast resources are taken into account, and their existing userbase also, they would rapidly become the main instance (or collection of, but probably just one) of the whole fediverse. Once that's them, they can use that position to dictate terms pretty hard.
Before you know it, everyone that would eventually have come here are there instead, and they're now the fediverse. They can also fork the software and leverage their Dev teams to make their fediverse vastly more polished... No donations needed on their fediverse, less bugs, everyone you know is already over there... Seem familiar?
How does that effect us who aren't there, how isn't it just the same thing as now? Our fediverse dies off because the users leave, instances close down through lack of population/need, before you know it there's nobody here and the idea just dies.
Literally been done before. The playbook is absolutely common knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Fully agree. The reason I'm here is to escape corporate shitfuckery. if you expect anything other than more shitfuckery from Meta you're either a shill or hopelessly naive.
The Fediverse as a whole needs to be a separate place so that people can leave places like that.
The beauty of the fediverse is precisely that it is not monolithic. Each instance can be different, have different policies and decide who it wants to federate with. Some instances will federate with anyone, some with most, some with a few, some with none.
The claim that that the fediverse needs to be a monolithic whole, where all instances walk in lock-step with each other is entirely at odds with the fediverse philosophy.
this argument makes sense only if you're talking about defederating instances. It doesn't make sense here. The problem is not whether we want the users of meta's instances. The problem is whether we want a huge corp be part of the fediverse. And why are we talking about it? Because people are trying not being naive and believing that meta is here because they liked the ideas of a federated network and want to participate. Meta will cause more harm than good as it has already happened in the past in different technologies/projects.
If this were just some problematic instance (or a group of them, even) I'd entirely agree with you, but this is Facebook, the damage that they're almost certainly planning and are entirely capable of requires (at least in my opinion), a different solution.
Please note that I'm suggesting this as an entirely unusual solution to a very unusual problem. Not as some sort of standard practice.
You haven't articulated a problem, let alone described how this particular solution solves it. Meta building a better version of your platform that siphons away users is a problem regardless of whether or not you federate with them / regardless of whether their platform is even built to support activitypub. Federation has no bearing on that one way or another.
Meta cannot harm you by federating. If they want your data that you posted on kbin then they already have it. They run curl and they can swallow all your posts and metadata associated. Whatever you post is given for free to everyone with an internet connection.
Also Meta probably will never federate since it involves a huge risk that they will end up hosting illegal data against their will.
edit: also think in legal terms, meta will never publish content on their site if a federated server hasn't signed a mountain of legal documents beforehand. It's simply not happening. I'm only speaking on a user level. If our admin adopts a pro-facebook stance then of course it's a different story.
edit: The more I read about this the more doubt I have about this story. It seems that kbin still hasn't signed the fedipact? It's becoming a big deal and it will affect kbin even if we adopt a neutral stance. There is in fact no more neutral stance. We should sign.
Meta can harm us by federating - the server load alone would demolish Kbin and Lemmy. We were overwhelmed with just the recent sign ups from ex Redditors, how do you think Kbin and Lemmy could handle the firehose of Threads' data?
IG has 1B accounts. If each IG account makes a Threads account and chooses to automatically follow all of their IG follows that also have Threads accounts set up, while we were federated with Threads., Kbin and Lemmy instances would be done. ETA: I understand that it won't be all 1B users instantly appearing, and that someone from the smaller instance subscribing to someone from Threads, but it would grow pretty rapidly I'd imagine.
We absolutely have to defederate from Threads just to stay up and be functional. It's not all about privacy.
We absolutely have to defederate from Threads just to stay up and be functional.
Threads won't federate so they can stay out of touch of illegal content. The lemmy populace is radioactive material to Facebook. Even here we are fighting against the random content being NSFW, so imagine the black suits of facebook... imagine the lawyers of facebook having a quick look at what they are about to federate. They will pull the plug on it after their first visit.