Meta cancelled climate change ads, then cancelled a local newspaper that reported about the ads, then a blogger who reported on the paper's cancellation, and now has escalated to blocking all of LGF

mozz@mbin.grits.dev to Technology@beehaw.org – 431 points –
WTF? Meta Cancels LGF
littlegreenfootballs.com
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Link this next time someone is complaining how unfair it is to refuse to federate with Threads.

Defederating and blocking bots is the old way, it's defensive and passive and lets them continue what they're doing. It puts the decent people always one step behind.

A better way is the "you're locked in here with me" approach. Redirect bots to a version of your site that provides naught but LLM-generated Nazi furry gibberish and an endless spiral labyrinth of new pages and product reviews of nonexistent products. Try to see if there are any that do that little Javascript-evaluation-to-render-the-client-side-site thing, and if there are, have them mine cryptocurrency for you. Federate with Threads, but serve to the Threads bot an endless series of users who say nothing but constantly-rephrased additional comments which highlight in plain English language situations like this and the types of harm that Meta causes in the real world, and good things to search for if you want to pursue a better solution.

Let the botgarbage come to harm through what comes back to them from your instances. Let them figure it out, if they can, and affirmatively defederate with you instead. Welcome all comers and give good free content to the humans and nothing but pain and misery to the semi-malicious bot traffic. View any bot that talks to you that hasn't got the message yet as a new opportunity and a new challenge.

This is the new way

Tldr version; blocking is too passive. Lets shadow ban them to the tar pits and make them our slaves

Try to see if there are any that do that little Javascript-evaluation-to-render-the-client-side-site thing, and if there are, have them mine cryptocurrency for you.

Using your evil powers for good I see.

naught(y) [...] LLM-generated [...] furry

Stop selling Threads to me...

I know Canada semi-recently said a company would have to honor a deal its LLM came up with. I have to wonder if they would hold people liable for hate speech if they hosted a LLM that outputted Nazi propaganda.

Have to say that I kinda use to like old experimental bot only subs like https://farside.link/libreddit/r/SubredditSimulator/, but the more recent versions using more recent LLMs are a bit "too much" to be funny (https://farside.link/libreddit/r/SubSimulatorGPT2/ or https://farside.link/libreddit/r/SubSimulatorGPT3/)

Some posts look a bit off, like being not verbose enough for the topic or question; a few have logical mistakes in them, but most of the GPT3 posts are not so far off from a typical reddit thread - i don't think that this stuff is filterable in any way. Lets implement it lol

Okay so I can't write for shit, but I'm officially putting out the call to all programmers who aren't shit:

Reply to this commenr, and be friends, even if you hate each other. World needs saving. Truth needs saving.

...why?

The usual argument against pre-emptive defederation goes something like, "Well we should wait to see what kind of influence they will be on the fediverse."

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_controversies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_involving_Meta_Platforms

https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/netflix-ad-spend-led-to-facebook-dm-access-end-of-facebook-streaming-biz-lawsuit/

 

We know what kind of influence they will be. They will be the most anti-consumer, exploitative influence the law will allow, and probably a little bit more than that, because it's been their entire history, and every few days we get another headline confirming that it's who they are.

And while there is a lot they can do even if many instances refuse to federate with them, there's no good argument for going along willingly, IMO.

They will be the most anti-consumer, exploitative influence the law will allow

You're right. They will. But there's nothing they can influence. Laws be damned. No one owns ActivityPub.

there's no good argument for going along willingly, IMO.

Except the one where, you know, you can use the Fediverse as an actual social media outlet where your friends and family are, public figures and all that, without subjecting yourself to ads and spying. I think that's a pretty good one.

Oh and all of your friends and family can do the same, if they so choose.

No one owns ActivityPub

No, but they can become the biggest, most influential voice in how it contimues to develop.

The methods of regulatory capture work well beyond regulatory bodies.

Only if someone allows them to. ActivityPub exists to spite Meta, so I'd be very surprised if anyone allowed to them have any sort of negative influence.

I thought you were actually curious. We can agree to disagree.

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