Fosstodon’s Measured Take on Facebook and the Fediverse

Kev Quirk, co-founder of Fosstodon (a 60,000-user Mastodon instance):

Truth is, there isn’t that much info out there on how this thing will actually work, or what it will be capable of. Lots of people seem to be concerned about Facebook “getting their info”. Fact is, they can do that now if they really want to — it would be trivial for Facebook to stand something up that hoovers up all the public data that’s on the Fediverse, via API.

And that’s the clincher here — it’s all public data. So the best advice I can give if you’re concerned about your data, is lock down your account and don’t post publicly.

All that being said, here’s what we plan to do if this thing ever sees the light of day:

  • As a team, we will review what the service is capable of and what advantages/disadvantages such a service will bring to the Fediverse
  • We will then make a determination on whether we will defederate that service
  • We will NOT jump on the bandwagon, or partake in the rumour mill that seems to be plaguing the Fediverse at the moment

It’s important to say that neither myself or Mike like anything that Facebook stands for. Neither of us use it, and both of us go to great lengths to avoid it when browsing the web. So if this service introduces any issues that could negatively impact our users, we will defederate.

Bingo.

★ Wednesday, 21 June 2023