611

Mastodon's Founder & CEO Gives His Thoughts on Meta's Threads (blog.joinmastodon.org)

submitted 2 years ago by CthuluVoIP@lemmy.world to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

203 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Found this post super informative as it relates to Mastodon, and thought Lemmy might also benefit from this perspective. I'm not sure I share his optimism, but his points seem sound to dampen some of the alarm bells over Meta joining the Fediverse.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[-] ubergeek77@lemmy.ubergeek77.chat 99 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

They didn't even address what will happen when Facebook starts aggregating data from instances federated with Threads:

Vote/Like data
Follow relationships
Text sentiment analysis
Behavioral patterns
Periods of activity
etc

Heck, not only did this post not address it, it seems like they tried to downplay it.

Facebook is an analytics company. Even if it's not mission critical to the function of Threads, they will scoop up data sent to Threads, they will use it to create profiles on every single non-Threads user they can, and they will sell that data.

It doesn't even matter if it violates privacy laws; the laws are toothless to companies as large as Facebook. They'll just be made to pay a fine and carry on as they are.

Yes, interoperability would be a win, but not when it comes from a company that has routinely demonstrated they abuse every crumb of data they can get their hands on.

[-] Ranessin@feddit.de 29 points 2 years ago

What should happen? That's all public information, they can (and probably do) scrape this already. As does all and any AI project and company.

[-] spaduf@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 2 years ago

But it's probably not legal for them to sell it. The fact that they've tricked us into thinking this is normal is part of the problem.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 5 points 2 years ago

Meta isn't really in the data SELLING business. It'd be counterproductive to let their competitors have access to all the data they do - it's what keeps their advertising network competitive. Same goes for Google. They don't want third parties to have access to your data, they want to be THE company that sells targeted advertisements.

[-] 314xel@lemmy.world 4 points 2 years ago

Sell it in bulk to governments for large sums of money for which advertising isn't their interest.

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Oh what makes you think governments need to pay for that? Is free if you're a big enough market.

[-] krolden@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 years ago

https://www.zdnet.com/article/the-us-government-purchases-your-user-data-heres-what-it-does-with-it/

[-] boonhet@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

I'm surprised that they pay for it. They could just demand it through all kinds of national security laws.

[-] krolden@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 years ago

Oh they definitely do that stuIf but when they do they have to disclose that to the senate or whomever oversees such things. This way they can quietly buy up a shit ton of data with whatever dark budgets they have access to.

[-] Methylman@lemmy.world 3 points 2 years ago

If it's public information why would it be illegal? If I understand correctly the only thing stopping anyone else from doing it as effectively is Meta's ability to aggregate the data and find the buyers, and perhaps morals.