I think ignorant might be more accurate than stupid. That crosses into stupidity if the ignorance is wilful eg they refuse to accept facts or refuse to even investigate if someone tries to present evidence.
People these days seem exhausted and angry and for some there's comfort in the 'certainty' of their wrong beliefs. I read a piece recently about an ex qanon guy who said a large part of the appeal was being part of a community and encouraged to be angry about everything.
And some of us understand that what's happening here is not just about the technical workings and impact, it's also about how cultures and societies form and operate.
Following full federation, how long do you think it's going to be before the ultra-right groups that already post regularly and freely on Threads start targeting and brigading fedi instances where black people or gay people or trans people or disabled people or women currently feel safe?
Now, you might answer 'well, if they do that then we can just defederate' to which my response would be; they're already doing that, but at the moment only on Threads. We already know how they operate, we already know who they hate - why expose people in the groups they will target to that when it can be avoided?
Saddens me to see instance admins reducing their users legitimate concerns as 'reactionary' as if we/they are dumb ignorant fucks with no concrete concerns.
This is the very start of Meta gaining a foot hold in the fediverse. Of course they're not going to do anything overtly shitty at the very start. That'll come later when they get a firm foothold, start suggesting 'helpful' tweaks to ActivityPub, get a seat at various tables etc. The privacy issue is not so much (to me) about what they can do now , because he's right, anyone can set up scrapers and use the API, it's about what they'll introduce on Threads instances a few years from now, then offer to make part of the ActivityPub standard because its just so cool.
Of course there'll be ads at some point on Threads instances and Meta are the absolute masters at online ads. They're so good at it, not even UBO catches them all. If anyone honestly believes they're not going to be capable of injecting ads at some point in the future, they're living in a rose tinted fantasy land.
But those things are the future. Right now, Threads is already a place that is awash with hate groups like LibsOfTikTok etc. One of things I love about the fediverse is that I don't have to wade through that type of shit. It's mostly not here via defederation and if we know (as we do) that threads already has that type of content on it, why the fuck are people so keen to 'wait and see'? We can already see.
And yes, I know - I can user block and instance block, but the times I have to do that right now with an active userbase of less than 2 million across the fediverse are few and far between. Ramp that active userbase up to 100 million and it's going to feel like most of my time is spent playing whack-a-mole. That's not an enjoyable user experience in any way. And even after I've done all that, the open warfare that's going to break out with well-meaning non-Threads users reposting, quoting 'look at this evil fuck' type posts is going to mean I still end up seeing some christian fascists dumb take on COVID or whatever.
We, as a group of people, developed and use fediverse software precisely to escape this sort of shit. When are we going to learn that growth for the sake of growth is absolutely meaningless? Focus on quality and organic growth will occur. Let's have enough faith in the software and users that corporate users want to come to us.
Privacy is a personal thing. Everyone does it for their own reasons. For me, I'm just sick of wading through adverts, targeted outrage and my details being sold to every company under the sun for profit so I cut down on every opportunity for those companies to harvest that stuff.
As far as governments go, I'm not sure anything I say or do is remotely of interest to them so it matters less to me on a personal level, but I also appreciate that people like whistle-blowers, activists, abuse survivors and journalists do care about those things so I fully support any measures that help support them.
From pixel tracking, to WebRTC leaking your real ip, fonts fingreprinting, canvas fingreprinting, audio fingerprinting, android default keyboard sending samples, ssl certificate with known vulnerabilities
All those things have ways of being tackled to some degree or other. Depending on your browser, WebRTC leakage for example is either a setting or an extension away.
As an example of the type of user Threads homes, LibsOfTikTok are active members.
A large part of the reason I came to and enjoy the fediverse so much is that all that right-wing hate is not on here and I don't have to wade through it. I really appreciate the fact that there is this one place online where I don't have to be continually exposed to all that conspiracy-laden, right-wing, christo-fascist hate.
Yep. This most basic aspect of Lemmy/KBin/MBin is its biggest advantage over Reddit. The fact that no one person, or company/organisation can ever own or control the entirety of the threadiverse is, to me, a huge factor in why I prefer it.
All centralised web based software like reddit is susceptible to exactly the kind of slow death Space Karen is inflicting on Twitter. Federation and decentralisation means that can never happen in the threadiverse.
Get a 2nd hand multicooker off eBay. They slow cook, do rice/lentils/soups and lots of other things. I got one that was a bit bashed about but worked perfectly for £20.
Grow herbs either inside or outside. Rosemary, Thyme, Bay and garlic and a few others will grow fine. For the rest, get dry. Herbs add instant flavour to rice, lentils etc.
A small chicken (about £4) equals 4 meals. When the carcass is stripped, put it in your multicooker, just cover with cold water, add a whole carrot, a whole onion, both halved, some peppercorns, 3 or 4 bay leaves and 2 teaspoons salt. Slow cook on a very low heat for 6 hours. Get rid of all the solids and you now have chicken stock.
I speak under correction, but I believe that whilst yes adding any add-on can potentially alter your fingerprint, it's also true that a site has to test for the presence of that particular add-on you've added. I don't believe there's a way to test generally for the presence of add-ons and report back which add-ons a visitor is using.
ActivityPods are being developed. From their website:
What is the main shortcoming of ActivityPub ?
ActivityPub wants to make it possible to create decentralized apps. But to post videos, you need an account on a PeerTube instance. And to post images, you need an account on a PixelFed instance. You must thus handle multiple accounts, with their profile, list of followers, etc.
How does ActivityPods solve this shortcoming ?
With ActivityPods, you have only one profile, one outbox, one inbox and one list of followers - all in a single place. Applications connect to your Pod to post activities, read the inbox and fetch data. And of course they can connect to any existing fediverse application !
I think ignorant might be more accurate than stupid. That crosses into stupidity if the ignorance is wilful eg they refuse to accept facts or refuse to even investigate if someone tries to present evidence.
People these days seem exhausted and angry and for some there's comfort in the 'certainty' of their wrong beliefs. I read a piece recently about an ex qanon guy who said a large part of the appeal was being part of a community and encouraged to be angry about everything.