Ms Wynn-Williams claims that in the mid-2010s, as part of its negotiations with the Chinese government, Facebook considered allowing it future access to Chinese citizens' user data.

"He was working hand in glove with the Chinese Communist Party, building a censorship tool…"

'Ms Wynn-Williams says governments frequently asked for explanations of how aspects of Facebook's software worked, but were told it was proprietary information.

"But when it came to the Chinese, the curtain was pulled back," she says.

"Engineers were brought out. They were walked through every aspect, and Facebook was making sure these Chinese officials were upskilled enough that they could not only learn about these products, but then test Facebook on the censorship version of these products that they were building."

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cly820v99ppo

FediPact is now, unambiguously, an antifascist struggle.

To be sure, it's not the most most important front; not when we see, for example, the bureaucratic precursors to literal trans genocide. But it's not unimportant either.

There's been a lot of talk around here about the fediverse being a holdout and refuge in an age of fascist capture of capitalist social media. That can and should be true - but is actually not, so long as the Zuckerberg entity continues to be provided the power to manipulate the future of ActivityPub.

Don't assume that the current status quo will hold or that the threat is waning. Don't assume that Meta will not advance its fediverse integration beyond the current, bizarrely stunted joke of a bridge. Don't forget that they always unilaterally force the next step on us as a sudden surprise with no advance warning.

1/4

f you're new to the fediverse and you're trying to escape Facebook or Instagram, you need to know the ugly truth: Certain power-concentrating figures have carried Meta's coat tails right into the fedi and are collaborating with the Zuckerberg entity to help it take over. But it won't work because everyone despises Meta and the @FediPact movement is standing in the way!

Article on how to block Meta by @thenexusofprivacy : https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/

Database of fediverse community servers that block Meta: https://fedipact.veganism.social/?v=2

The FediPact itself, where it all started, by @vantablack : https://fedipact.online/

The Free Fediverse wiki with tons of info on FediPact and Meta's crimes against humanity: https://freefediverse.org

Meta is now flagging Linux-related topics as "cybersecurity threats" and blocking the accounts of users and groups who discuss FOSS.

If the Social Web Foundation and SWICG leadership can't be bothered to care about genocide instigation, privacy invasion, fascism promotion, disinformation, collusion with dictators, the censoring of marginalized communities, labor and child abuse, or nonconsensual behavior modification experiments, maybe NOW they will understand they're serving as the tools of an enemy?

https://www.tomshardware.com/software/linux/facebook-flags-linux-topics-as-cybersecurity-threats-posts-and-users-being-blocked

The inevitable news that Meta is beginning to deploy ads in Threads has traveled quickly. Less well-known is that the Social Web Foundation, which has self-assumed stewardship of the future of the fediverse, also sees the introduction of ads into the fedi as an aspect of its mission to commercialize the network.

That won't be evident if you visit the Mission page of SWF's website today. which displays the expected press-release happytalk about sustainability and "social infrastructure": https://socialwebfoundation.org/mission/

However, an archive.org backup of the text copy on this page from September 2024, shortly following the organization's launch, reveals a passage that was then quickly removed: https://web.archive.org/web/20240925094541/https://socialwebfoundation.org/mission/

The passage reads: "The Fediverse cannot thrive without people building clients or running providers. And to do those things, they need money. Whether that’s advertising supported, or funded by charities and non-profits, or based on paid-for services, or affiliate revenue, we are working to find ways that companies can do well in the Fediverse."

The Research Director of SWF also leads the W3C ActivityPub working group and has provided Meta with several seats at the table around which ongoing development of the protocol is decided. And in a January 12 blog post following Meta's intensified embrace of fascism, SWF reaffirmed its partnership with them and rejected the validity of defederating Threads: https://socialwebfoundation.org/2025/01/12/content-policy-on-the-social-web/

We can presume that the Social Web Foundation sees the introduction of ads on Threads as just another step in the mission it shares with Meta - the normalization of surveillance capitalism on the fediverse

In the last few weeks Social Web Foundation partner Meta has:

Donated $1 million to the inauguration fund of the new fascist dictator
Fired its fact-checkers
Changed its hate-speech rules to allow calling women "household objects", Mexicans "pieces of shit" and trans folk "mentally ill"
Killed its DEI programs
Made its workplaces more hostile to trans employees
Hosted an "AI Hitler"
Censored links to fellow Social Web Foundation partner Pixelfed
Subjected users to force-follows of the rulers of the fascist regime
Suppressed searches of Democrat-associated topics

Yet the Social Web Foundation continues to accept Meta as a partner in good standing, and more to the point, continues to accept Meta's money. And the SWICG - The WC3's ActivityPub working group - continues to offer Meta a seat at the table for discussions on the future of the fediverse. Why?

The decision to federate with Threads and welcome Meta into the fediverse is aging extremely badly. Now would be a good time for admins of currently federating instances to reconsider. At the very least, a reminder that in two weeks the federating Threads "potus" account will belong to the world's most powerful fascist.

For everyone else, here's a guide on how to block Threads: https://privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-block-threads-on-mastodon/

And if there are still any doubts on who is really behind that bridge, check out the mind-boggling inventory of Meta's crimes against humanity at the Free Fediverse wiki: https://freefediverse.org/index.php/Nightmares

For all the concerns about missed opportunities and the sudden boom of Bluesky, consider that there are aspects of their success story which are not envious at all in the particular historical moment in which we find ourselves. Bluesky's imprint on popular culture is now that of the place that traitorous Twitter lefties escaped to, just as Twitter's not-so-benevolent dictator becomes part of the fascist Trump regime. Bullseyes are being drawn as we speak.

Meanwhile, Bluesky remains a surveillant network with a centralized relay sited in the so-called US. The corporation will of course offer compliance with "law" enforcement requests. This would be true even before turning to the question of who has internal influence there. Some of the information circulating recently on Bluesky investors has been true and some has been bullshit; but either way, the power analysis is indisputable. At least in its current form, this is no community-controlled network.

1/3

Are you ready to see ads in your fedi feed?

"Meta will reportedly bring ads to Threads as soon as January"

https://www.engadget.com/social-media/meta-will-reportedly-bring-ads-to-threads-as-soon-as-january-183044211.html

Reports are accumulating of progressive/liberal/moderate voices being repressed by the Zuckerberg entity: For example, by @kegill (toot https://mastodon.social/@kegill/112732478113361314 and article https://themoderatevoice.com/facebook-took-down-progressive-posts-to-mark-independence-day-not-kidding/ ) and by @QasimRashid (toot https://mastodon.social/@QasimRashid/112736289223818469 and Substack article https://qasimrashid.substack.com/p/meta-facebook-has-begun-to-censor ).

It should be noted that the algorithmic repression of speech has long been chronic on Meta platforms for those with pro-Kurdish, pro-Palestinian, antifascist, anarchist and other liberatory outlooks. What is observed now is not a new policy, but rather the expansion of an existing one into the political center.

It would be clarifying to know if fascist and reactionary views are now being equivalently suppressed, or not; and, as others have pointed out, exactly what and what does not comprise "politics" to the data criminals at Meta. In any case, this development should to be food for thought for those previously unconcerned about the prospect of the Zuckerberg entity becoming the predominant influence on fediverse discourse