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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Di 07.01.2025 22:11:54

With today's news that Meta is getting rid of fact checkers and changing its policies to allow more hate speech directed at trans and queer people, seems like a good time to resurface these detailed instructions on how to block Threads.

privacy.thenexus.today/how-to-

If you want even more protection, your best bet is to move to an instance that's blocking threads -- see fedipact.veganism.social to check the status of your instance. And I agree with @kissane's recommendation in the excellent Untangling Threads

"I think the nearest thing to reasonably sturdy protection for people on fedi who have good reason to worry about the risk surface Threads federation opens up is probably to either…

  • block Threads and post followers-only or or local-only, for fedi services that support it, or
  • operate from a server that federates only with servers that also refuse to federate with Threads—which is a system already controversial within the fediverse because allowlists are less technically open than denylists."

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Democracy Dies in Dumbass

Democracy Dies in Dumbass
@ShredderFeeder@shredderfood.com

Föderation EN Di 07.01.2025 22:44:08

@thenexusofprivacy You should get off bluesky too... All corporate social media is bad... Period, no exceptions.

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Di 07.01.2025 22:56:04

It's worth highlighting how much organizing there's been here in the 18+ months since Meta first announced their plans to embrace, extend, and exploit the Fediverse.

@jat23's Closing the Door to Remain Open: The Politics of Openness and the Practices of Strategic Closure in the Fediverse is a great overview.

And from June 2023, the "Why the Anti-Meta Fedi Pact is good strategy for people who want the fediverse to be an alternative to surveillance capitalism" section of Should the Fediverse welcome its new surveillance-capitalism overlords? Opinions differ! talks about the importance of the .

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Do 09.01.2025 19:40:11

Also, the changes Meta is making to Facebook's feed algorithm "will make it more likely to recommend extreme and polarizing content".

Here's an excellent Bluesky thread on that from Laura Edelson (Chief Technologist at the Civil Rights Division in the Department of Justice):

bsky.app/profile/whiskeyocelot

An excerpt:

"The return to an algorithm that drives more politics and more extreme rabbit holes is a return the Facebook of 2016-2020. This has some business upsides, by both cutting costs and juicing user engagement (aka, ad revenues). But it has very, very serious downsides for users and for communities.

Because the hate speech policies and the algorithmic changes that were rolled back this week were developed in response to very real offline violence, including genocide in Myanmar, that were fomented on Facebook. This is a plan to go back to that algorithm and those policies."

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Do 09.01.2025 19:51:06

And from @juliaangwin.com's newsletter:

"This week, Mark Zuckerberg revealed his true colors in what can only be described as a pledge of allegiance to incoming president Donald Trump. In a video message, he declared that Meta was abandoning fact-checking and dialing back on content moderation — a clear capitulation to right wing demands for less “censorship” of their speech that was often found to be in violation of Meta’s prohibitions against hate speech and incitement to violence.

As I wrote in my latest New York Times Opinion piece (gift link), the billionaire Facebook founders’ actions show us what it looks like when a mature company stops innovating on its products and instead seeks to maintain its market power through political influence."

buttondown.com/JuliaAngwin/arc

And here's her gift link to the NYTimes article: nytimes.com/2025/01/08/opinion

(Julia Angwin's also at @Julia, but is more active on Bluesky)

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Do 09.01.2025 19:55:16

And here's an excellent roudup of the changes by Ina Fried on @AxiosNews, including a good quote from @JenniOlsonSF

axios.com/2025/01/09/meta-mode

"Between the lines: Even the language of the new policy itself suggests animus against gay and trans people.

  • The policy uses the words "homosexuality" and "transgenderism" — the former is an outdated term, and the latter is used nearly exclusively by opponents of transgender rights.

  • "For a legitimate company to employ intentionally anti-LGBT dog whistle language in such a dehumanizing and overly bigoted way in its own hate speech policy is beyond comprehension," said Jenni Olson, senior director for social safety at GLAAD."

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Fr 10.01.2025 02:51:17

On @404mediaco , @jasonkoebler reports that "‘It’s Total Chaos Internally at Meta Right Now", with employees very upset about the changes -- and highlights that these didn't go through the usual processes of broud employee feedback.

404media.co/its-total-chaos-in

The paywalled article also has a lot of quotes from internal discussions. Meta's clearly leaking like a seive right about now ....

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Fr 10.01.2025 03:03:35

And speaking of leaks @caseynewton on Platformer and Sam Biddle in the Intercept have details on the new Meta guidelines and the guidance they're giving moderators

CW: some really sickening examples of anti-trans hate speech now explicitly allowed by Meta

platformer.news/meta-new-trans (partially paywalled, but the examples are visibile even without logging in)

theintercept.com/2025/01/09/fa

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Fr 10.01.2025 21:23:00

@caseynewton reports that Meta' is killing their Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion programs

platformer.news/meta-kills-dei

"As a result, the company said it would:

  • Eliminate its DEI team. Maxine Williams, the company's chief diversity officer, will take on a new role "focused on accessibility and engagement."

  • Ending use of the diverse slate approach to hiring, which required managers to source candidates from underrepresented backgrounds.

  • Ending efforts to hire underrepresented minorities as vendors and suppliers.

  • Instead of equity and inclusion programs, we will build programs that focus on how to apply fair and consistent practices that mitigate bias for all, no matter your background." (?????)"

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Fr 10.01.2025 21:24:59

And @jasonkoebler reports that Meta is deleting trans and nonbinary Messenger themes

404media.co/meta-deletes-trans

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Di 14.01.2025 23:13:35

Members of Meta's Civil Rights Advisory Group have "grave concerns" with their recent content policy changes. No, ya think?

cdt.org/insights/letter-meta-c

"Meta’s failure to engage even its own advisory group of external civil rights experts shows a cynical disregard for its diverse user base and calls into question Meta’s commitment to the free speech principles to which it claims to want to “return.”

A bad process makes bad policy. In your announcement, you touted Meta’s commitment to free expression, but the changes will significantly harm free speech."

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The Nexus of Privacy

The Nexus of Privacy
@thenexusofprivacy@infosec.exchange

Föderation EN Fr 31.01.2025 02:11:09

Mark Zuckerberg Agrees to Turn Meta [Back] into a Pogrom Machine -

An excellent post by @emptywheel , including this

"Most people — including Elizabeth Warren, in the WSJ story — are focusing on how this is effectively a bribe, a $22 million donation (on top of the earlier $1 million one) trading for regulatory favors. It is. Trump continues to engage in unprecedented corruption in plain sight.

But it is more than that. The concession of the settlement implies that Facebook should not have banned Trump for using their platform to incite an insurrection, though it admits no wrong-doing.This is not just about eliciting a bribe for regulatory favors. It is not just about winning an argument about actions taken four years ago to halt an insurrection in process.

The entire lawsuit is about an ongoing chilling effect. And Zuck’s capitulation is a capitulation to that chill, a soft commitment that the next time Trump uses social media to launch his mob against vulnerable targets like trans people or legal Haitian immigrants, against co-equal branches of government in Congress or the courts, or against his select targets like Milley, Meta will do nothing to slow the mob."

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Alexandradal

Alexandradal
@Alexandrad1@mas.to

Föderation EN Fr 31.01.2025 04:30:30

@thenexusofprivacy @emptywheel

Yes. But in my view, it misses a part of the picture. It is US-centered. Meta is influent worldwide. Cambridge Analytica was the discovery, in a London office, of the mind mastering of a Barbados FB user. It discovered the power to oust leaders, quell revolutions, tip the scales for a dictator. Everyone speaks about Big Tech submission to Trump, it is the other way round, imo. Big Tech oligarchs, drunk on their power, have decided to reshape humankind's fate.

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