It’s not about the data they can collect. As long as we don’t use the Meta app or register in their instance we’re on the clear. The problem is giving them power.

I’m not an evil genius shithead like Zuck, but it could go this way:

1. They enter the Fediverse as the biggest instance.
2. They artificially slow down connections with other instances. That way, lots of users from smaller intances will migrate to the Meta one. Only the ones concerned about our privacy will remain in independent instances.
3. Once most of the userbase of the Fediverse is on their instance, they keep slowing it, or adding “features” only available in their app, effectively building a wall between them and the rest of instances.
4. Finally they defederate, leaving the rest of the fediverse weaker than it was.

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There are some key thoughts in this article.

Wait, an app can do this? I thought the devs of Lemmy itself needed to add the feature. I didn’t think that was possible app-side without adding the feature to Lemmy.

How do you block an entire instance in their app?

Edit: Found it! This is interesting. I didn’t know it was possible. Finally I can get the porn off my front page without getting rid of NSFW memes. Thanks!

Edit 2: Weirdly, Connect does not seem to show my newly subscribed communities in my subscriptions even though the other apps do. What a strange bug. Hmm…I think I’ll hold off on using it until things like that work better for me.

They’re still federated with exploding-heads and rammy.site so they didn’t make my short list

They had more substance than your comment.

Yours is of less substance than areogel.

User pointed to a history of bad behaviour to counter the idea of “lets wait”. User suggested to learn from history and use that as a metric for decisions.

You just trolled your way into this and think consequentially you are ‘clever’. You are not.

Innocent until proven otherwise is a concept for criminal court.

We aren’t putting someone in jail, we are looking at their past business practices and deciding not to do business with them based on their obvious habits.

If you disagree with me, we’ll then you’re just against niceness, admit you are! Admit you’re against niceness!

Innocent until proven otherwise.

There are many years of proof already about facebook/meta acting very maliciously, actively breaking laws and being fined for it, is that not proof enough? How many more do you need before you can say they’re not innocent at all?

Innocent until proven otherwise.

Corporations like Meta have shown time and time again that they cannot be trusted to play nice with anyone else. Have we already forgotten about Cambridge Analytica or the plethora of other scandals they’ve been at the center of? The proof has been in plain view for a while now.

You just make a new account with another instance. You get about the same content as before.

Same, I was only donating $2 a month but I’m not alone in finding this completely unacceptable. I applied at lemmy.ml. It’s the scorpion and the frog with these people suggesting we should just wait and see.

“~Let’s see if Zuck doesn’t act like an anti-competitive asshole this time” <–where the hell is the logic in that?!

How does one change instances?

Currently, Connect has that option, but it doesn’t actually block the instance, it just doesn’t show feeds from that instance. So, technically, the two instances are still federated.

Currently you can with with Lemmy Connect. Maybe with others as well, given the amount of apps coming out by the day. And I’m guessing they’ll fold the feature into Lemmy/Kbin proper sometime in the future.

Same here, partner. Moved yesterday.

I got like 150, that wouldn’t stop me. Plus you can use curl to export the list of the instances you’re subscribed to on your account.

Honestly it isn’t. Nothing about the Fediverse is private or inherently secure in that way. Everything is public. And you should assume that everything you publish through activity pub could eventually be looked at by anyone. If you want private or secure messaging there are non-activity pub open source secure alternate. In fact signing up for Lemmy there’s even a field to enter for one. Whether or not a server federates with meta. Meta is still going to data mine the ever-loving shit out of all of them. The point is. None of us are at Meta’s wim about being flooded with their toxic content.

Honestly I want to see meta flooded with our content. So much anti-threads anti Meta sentiment. Actual leftists. And not just make believe right-wing liberals who’ve been conditioned to think that they are left. It would be hilarious to watch Meta try to play wack-a-mole sanitizing everything. To please their reptilian corporate overlords. And if you don’t care and just don’t want to see it. You can always block them personally. Why let them data mine in peace. I say we make them work for it.

Just gonna name-drop the tool I made to do this :) https://github.com/CMahaff/lasim

It’s only been out a few days, let me know if you have any issues!

There is a python script floating around that will sync your communities, etc. I’d link but don’t have it handy.

Yep.