Strategies for the free fediverses
https://privacy.thenexus.today/strategies-for-the-free-fediverses/
The fediverse is evolving into different regions
- "Meta's fediverses", federating with Meta to allow communications, potentially using services from Meta such as automated moderation or ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta's behalf.
- "free fediverses" that reject Meta – and surveillance capitalism more generally
The free fediverses have a lot of advantages over Meta and Meta's fediverses, some of which will be very hard to counter, and clearly have enough critical mass that they'll be just fine.
Here's a set of strategies for the free fediverses to provide a viable alternative to surveillance capitalism. They build on the strengths of today's fediverse at its best – including natural advantages the free fediverses have that Threads and Meta's fediverses will having a very hard time countering – but also are hopefully candid about weaknesses that need to be addressed. It's a long list, so I'll be spreading out over multiple posts; this post currently goes into detail on the first two.
- Opposition to Meta and surveillance capitalism is an appealing position. Highlight it!
- Focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety
- Emphasize "networked communities"
- Support concentric federations of instances and communities
- Consider "transitively defederating" Meta's fediverses (as well as defederating Threads)
- Consider working with people and instances in Meta's fediverses (and Bluesky, Dreamwidth, and other social networks) whose goals and values align with the free fediverses'
- Build a sustainable ecosystem
- Prepare for Meta's (and their allies') attempts to paint the free fediverses in a bad light
- Reduce the dependency on Mastodon
- Prioritize accessibility, which is a huge opportunity
- Commit to anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and pro-LGBTQIA2S+ principles, policies, practices, and norms for the free fediverses
- Organize!
#fediverse #freefediverse #threads @fediverse @fediversenews
@drwho Not necessarily. In the short term, the huge split in the Republican party means that the NDAA's already not a slam-dunk, so throwing gasoline on the fire with FISA activism could potentially have an impact. It also adds to pressure on Speaker Johnson, who's under a lot of fire from Republicans for how badly he's handled this mess.
And even if they do the short-term reauth (which I agree is more likely than not), it's still very much an open question as to what happens next -- it could be anything from GSRA or PLEWSA (with significant reforms) to a straightforward longer-term reauth with minimal reforms as a "compromise" to the odious FFRA (which *broadens* the scope). So pressure now is also a preparation for the next battle.