Conversation

Notices

1. Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 17:59:36 JST Aral Balkan

   Folks, the reason #Facebook/#Instagram/#Meta/Zuckerberg hasn’t launched #Threads in the #EU isn’t because the EU is determined to protect your privacy, it’s because the EU is determined to protect The Single Market (peace be upon it) from anticompetitive behaviour. It’s because they’re using Instagram to launch Threads and sharing data between them (and not with any other EU startup that might want to use that data). It’s #antitrust, not #privacy. It’s markets, not people.

   #DigitalServicesAct

   • Captain B (captainb@aus.social)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:15:00 JST Captain B

     in reply to

     @aral You're right, but for once the EU is rightfully blocking someone to enter. That's not so common…

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:15:00 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Captain B

     @captainb Let’s wait and see what happens.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:17:51 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     By the way, it’s possible that #Facebook/#Instagram/#Meta/Zuckerberg’s fediverse play for Threads is related to sidestepping the anti-competitiveness/antitrust issues around the EU’s Digital Services Act.

     “Hey, look, we’re not a monopoly. We’re not being anticompetitive… we’re federating using an open protocol. Here, let our friend Eugen, CEO of Mastodon, explain to you how it works in very dispassionate words…”

     #eu #ec #fediverse #mastodon #antitrust #DigitalServicesAct #PR #usefulIdiots

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:20:36 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Nathalie Van Raemdonck

     @nvraemdonck You say cynical, I say a decade of seeing up close exactly how this bullshit works ;)

   • Nathalie Van Raemdonck (nvraemdonck@hci.social)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:20:37 JST Nathalie Van Raemdonck

     in reply to

     @aral ufff that's a cynical, but likely accurate, reading. If I understood correctly btw, Meta hasn't been prohibited by the EU to launch Threads, they decided themselves not to for now. But you're probably right that the reasoning behind their hesitation is not "privacy fines" but "antitrust fines"

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:29:09 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Emon

     @emon Oh, me too. But it’s not perfect by a long shot. There’s really no room for complacency.

   • Emon (emon@h4.io)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:29:10 JST Emon

     in reply to

     @aral I see your point, nevertheless I'm glad I'm in the EU for that matter

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:31:33 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Kim Schulz

     @kim Having a law and enforcing a law are two different things. (And the Tories are working on fixing the former problem also.)

   • Kim Schulz (kim@social.hackspace.tech)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:31:34 JST Kim Schulz

     in reply to
     @aral but they launched in UK, and they have both GDPR and Single Market implemented. I wonder how that will work
   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:33:08 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Yaseen, Prof of Memeology :flag_agender:🏳️‍⚧️

     @yassie_j Me too.

   • Yaseen, Prof of Memeology :flag_agender:🏳️‍⚧️ (yassie_j@snowdin.town)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:33:19 JST Yaseen, Prof of Memeology :flag_agender:🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @aral I hate that this makes sense

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:35:40 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Oblomov

     @oblomov Thanks for the heads up but that sounds like a bug in Mastodon.

   • Oblomov (oblomov@sociale.network)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:35:41 JST Oblomov

     in reply to

     @aral (off topic, but # after / does not work for tags, you need to insert some kind of space, even an invisible one, here it is for you: > /# < copy-pasting this should give slash-hashes that tag properly)

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:36:50 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Maria Liv

     @MariaLiv Of course we can. The problem is that at least the flagship instance has no intention of doing any such thing. (The fact that the fediverse has an architecture that allows for a flagship instance is the problem of course and mastodon.social will lose that position to Threads the moment they federate with them.)

   • Maria Liv (marialiv@fosstodon.org)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:36:51 JST Maria Liv

     in reply to

     @aral I asked this on my timeline, but it would be interesting to hear your opinion. Can we really block Meta?

     I've seen people in discussions, who have Mastodon accounts AND Threads accounts.

     If one of those Mastodon accounts boost a picture from, let's say me, I assume different Threads accounts can boost it too, even if I block Meta.

     Meta then gets ahold of art, pictures, faces etc from the Fediverse through Threads, and they can then train their AI on the pictures.

     What do you think?

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:39:40 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • noyb.eu
     • Cinnamon

     @Cinnamon Well yes, we all know how well the EU (especially the Irish DPC) executes GDPR… every time they’re sued into doing so by @noybeu, that is.

   • Cinnamon (cinnamon@lea.pet)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:39:50 JST Cinnamon

     in reply to

     @aral@mastodon.ar.al what? It's privacy too. They don't exclude each other.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:44:08 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Oblomov

     @oblomov PS. I did just edit the post with the workaround. Thanks :)

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:45:28 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • aristeon89

     @aristeon89 @Gargron Good for you.

   • aristeon89 (aristeon89@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:45:29 JST aristeon89

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko

     @aral I agree with @Gargron on this and I am not in favour of preemptive defederation.

     The whole promise of the fediverse is that it can't be taken over, and this is a huge test to see how it works out when a big corporation federates.

     Building up walls between us and millions of people makes no sense to me. I don't want to be part of a niche platform where some gatekeepers want all instances to do the same thing.

     We'll see how Threads moderates. If it impacts us, we can defederate then

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 19:54:44 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • ProScience

     @proscience Clearly, you’re clueless about who I am or what I stand for. But thanks for the hot take, I guess.

     🤷♂️

   • ProScience (proscience@toot.community)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 19:54:45 JST ProScience

     in reply to

     @aral

     😂 I hope that you get at least paid a decent sum for such blatant BS propaganda for these corrupt Big Tech folks.

     #ThankGodForGDPR

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 19:56:23 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Oblomov

     @oblomov Good workaround :)

   • Oblomov (oblomov@sociale.network)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 19:56:24 JST Oblomov

     in reply to

     @aral you're welcome 8-)
     I actually configured my keyboard to insert a zero-width space just to be able to do this 8-D (too bad I cannot on mobile)

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 15:56:46 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Médecine Libre Jérôme Pinguet
     • Lisa Melton

     @medecinelibre @lisamelton Sure, and please do. But farming people for data is not “living decently” so this doesn’t affect those who want to do that.

   • Médecine Libre Jérôme Pinguet (medecinelibre@mastodon.medica.im)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 15:56:47 JST Médecine Libre Jérôme Pinguet

     in reply to

     • Lisa Melton

     @aral
     Well there are people trying to run small businesses in the EU... who want to exist and live decently. 👋
     @lisamelton

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:06:01 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Sara Joy :happy_pepper:

     @sarajw It serves the Single Market, which may, in this case, coincidentally also serve the people. But framing everything through the lens of the Single Market (instead of, say, human rights) definitely doesn’t serve the people and it’s how we end up with antitrust being the main mechanism by which trillion-dollar corporations are regulated. Better than nothing? Definitely. Best we can do? Not by a long shot.

   • Sara Joy :happy_pepper: (sarajw@front-end.social)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:06:02 JST Sara Joy :happy_pepper:

     in reply to

     @aral whatever the mechanism, it still serves the people. Antitrust/anti-monopoly legislation helps keep prices down and quality up for consumers. If it happens to help us keep our privacy then great.

     I find the privacy/GDPR arguments coming from the likes of Germany odd at times though. The very same country wants anyone with a public website to give a physical (not PO box) street address where they can be found 🤷

   • Baruch 🇮🇱 (baruch@babka.social)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:07:50 JST Baruch 🇮🇱

     in reply to

     @aral Monopolies enable businesses to abuse their customers, so helping anti-trust is helping people. They are not a contradiction.

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:08:19 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Baruch 🇮🇱

     @baruch Indeed. And yet: https://mastodon.ar.al/@aral/110677192923198955

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:11:38 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Sara Joy :happy_pepper:

     @sarajw Here’s me making basically that same case (way before the Digital Services Act, in the context of the Digital Single Market framing):

     https://ar.al/2019/11/29/the-future-of-internet-regulation-at-the-european-parliament/

   • Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:21:46 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • M8_d

     @M8_ Yes, they are. All I’m saying is that one is a deal breaker for the European Commission and one isn’t.

   • M8_d (m8_@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:21:47 JST M8_d

     in reply to

     @aral both are top issues