Remember: It's not "AI", it's surveillance tech. It's gathering all your personal information and activities and putting them into one big funnel. Companies may not *know* why they're making this big funnel yet, but they'll monetize it eventually. And whether the companies monetize the data funnel or not, the NSA will still be (is certainly already) drinking every drop.
USGOV spliced the fiber between Google's data centers 15 years ago, of COURSE they've got a tap on the OpenAI API queries now!
@bonfire great idea!
🚀 Our first online install party is happening!
Join us this Friday to set up your own Bonfire instance 🔥
We’ll focus on setting up an instance with @coopcloud, answer questions, and support each other along the way.
📅 Friday 27 June at 15:30 UTC
📍 Details: https://mobilizon.libretic.fr/events/c0c0b536-5216-412b-a277-1dadead06997
In terms of Threads account portability, @davidimel's excellent question, and @pcottle's response: Mosseri was very candid about the goal here in his original quote in July 2023:
“I think we might be a more compelling platform for creators, particularly for the newer creators who are more and more savvy, if we are a place where you don’t have to feel like you have to trust us forever.”
And his Mosseri's December 2023 quote is similar:
"Eventually, it should also be possible to enable creators to leave Threads and take their followers with them to another app/server") is along the same lines."
As I said in Embrace, Extend, and Exploit: Meta's plan for ActivityPub, Mastodon and the Fediverse
Hmm, "eventually" is doing a lot of work there. How long will it take, and real will the story turn out to be? It's hard to know. For one thing, Mosseri has said that Threads' current plan is to "explicitly opt in to your content being available on other servers"; while that's good from a privacy and safety perspective, if they follow through it would also mean that creators to leaving won't be able to take all their followers with them. [If somebody's following you on Threads but hasn't opted in to federation, then when you move to an instance in the real fediverse they won't be following you any more.] And until "eventually" happens, creators can't actually move any of their followers to the fediverse. So we shall see.
But from Meta's perspective, so what? As Mosseri says, the goal here is to make people feel like they don't have to trust Meta forever. It's a good story, and that by itself has a lot of value at this point. It's getting favorable coverage in the tech press, too."
In terms of Threads account portability, @davidimel's excellent question, and @pcottle's response: Mosseri was very candid about the goal here in his original quote in July 2023:
“I think we might be a more compelling platform for creators, particularly for the newer creators who are more and more savvy, if we are a place where you don’t have to feel like you have to trust us forever.”
And his Mosseri's December 2023 quote is similar:
"Eventually, it should also be possible to enable creators to leave Threads and take their followers with them to another app/server") is along the same lines."
As I said in Embrace, Extend, and Exploit: Meta's plan for ActivityPub, Mastodon and the Fediverse
Hmm, "eventually" is doing a lot of work there. How long will it take, and real will the story turn out to be? It's hard to know. For one thing, Mosseri has said that Threads' current plan is to "explicitly opt in to your content being available on other servers"; while that's good from a privacy and safety perspective, if they follow through it would also mean that creators to leaving won't be able to take all their followers with them. [If somebody's following you on Threads but hasn't opted in to federation, then when you move to an instance in the real fediverse they won't be following you any more.] And until "eventually" happens, creators can't actually move any of their followers to the fediverse. So we shall see.
But from Meta's perspective, so what? As Mosseri says, the goal here is to make people feel like they don't have to trust Meta forever. It's a good story, and that by itself has a lot of value at this point. It's getting favorable coverage in the tech press, too."
Fediverse Report is now Connected Places!
As the open social web grows, my writing has expanded to cover the large variety of places within this connected network of platforms. Fundamentally I think the open social web are Connected Places. The platforms, instances and communities we're building are digital places, connected via open protocols.
This name changes better reflects what my writing is all about. To read more: https://connectedplaces.online/welcome-to-connected-places/
The weekly Fediverse Report doesnt disappear though, its just on a different domain name. In fact, Fediverse Report #122 is right here!
This week's news:
- @Mastodon announces and retracts a new ToS for their instances
- Threads moves their fediverse integration to a separate feed
- Wanderer is a new fediverse platform for sharing your hiking and biking trails
https://connectedplaces.online/reports/fediverse-report-122/
No, although I'm not sure at what point the per-user cost starts to be significant.
If you want a cheaper single user AppView, you're better off running AppViewLite, which focuses on low resource consunption (and more functionality that the default bsky app).
And now, futur's zeppelin.social is a Bluesky-compatible AppView with the complete history - 16TB of data, so $200/monrh ... not dirt cheap but not horrible (for comparison, chaos.social is $400/month with 6K active users, and infosec.exchange's admin Jerry spends about $5000/month on the various instances he runs).
https://whtwnd.com/futur.blue/3ls7sbvpsqc2w goes into detail on the project, and https://bsky.app/profile/bad-example.com/post/3lscmaacjcs2j is an example post from the (non-Bluesky) deer.social client to thje (non-Bluesky) zeppelin.social AppView via the (non-Bluesky) Blacksky atproto.africa relay. Impressive!
Dr. Timnit Gebru and @DAIR have a clear, direct set of recommendations for how to create AI that has value, and that is responsive to actual customers, shareholders, and workers, not Silicon Valley oligarchs:
https://hai.stanford.edu/news/timnit-gebru-ethical-ai-requires-institutional-and-structural-change
https://techwontsave.us/episode/151_dont_fall_for_the_ai_hype_w_timnit_gebru
@parismarx For me, https://www.optoutproject.net/ from @cyberlyra was very helpful to make my way out of the net of #bigtech I found myself in.
I’ve begun my journey to reduce my reliance on US tech, so it’s time for an update on how it’s all going.
No surprise, some services are far more easy to replace than others. Email and streaming are low-hanging fruit; maps and messaging can be more difficult. But we should still make the effort.
https://www.disconnect.blog/p/getting-off-us-tech-is-no-easy-task
I've posted my seminar on 'The role of the university is to resist AI', which takes as its text Ivan Illich's 'Tools for Conviviality'. https://danmcquillan.org/cpct_seminar.html
@ludicity thank you for this excellent , very calm and restrained, take!
Great news everyone! Thomas Ptacek at Fly.io published "My AI Skeptic Friends Are Nuts", and it was shoved in front of me enough times that I have sentenced him to a swift death. Godspeed, Thomas, I pray that your incineration is speedy and painless.
https://ludic.mataroa.blog/blog/contra-ptaceks-terrible-article-on-ai/
🔥 Want to start your own Bonfire instance?
We’re hosting online install parties, come set up your server alongside others! Bring your questions and curiosity, we’ll figure it out together and support each other through the process.
✅ Ideally have a (sub)domain + server with DNS set up, or just follow along and take notes.
📆 Vote on possible dates/times: https://crab.fit/bonfire-install-parties-394649
📩 Sign up to be notified: https://mailchi.mp/a601c2e1e132/bonfire-install-parties
Sitting down for a lunch interview is definitely an interesting experience! Leaving the roughly two-hour conversation with George Hammond, I felt like we'd covered good ground but had no idea what of that would make it into the piece. In the end, I think this covers it pretty well, though I (of course) have a couple of quibbles/some context to add.
https://www.ft.com/content/9029cc1c-4a3f-42ca-9939-f3ef8e8336ae
>>
Yeah ,totally agree. And, after the discussion last year, @snarfed.org wound up agreeing that it needed to be opt-in -- as @quillmatiq was just saying at DWeb Seattle a couple of nights ago, it got to a good place in the end. So it's really frustrating that the anti-consent people want to keep relitigating it.
@moira @DavidBHimself @mastodonmigration @lauren @anewsocial
@lawyersgunsnmoney You can block @bsky.brid.gy -- more details at https://fed.brid.gy/docs#opt-out
