@Bloonface I think you're misunderstanding what I'm saying on #2. Meta uses data they harvest to target ads they serve on other (non-Mastodon, non-Meta) sites.
On #1, they can get a lot more data with federation than scraping, and it's a lot easier ... in fact if they're federating with that user base, it comes for free!
Anyhow, thanks for the conversation, I'm working on a post as well, so this was helpful!
@jdp23 @Bloonface@mastodon.social
I think the point is #Meta has bigger fish to fry than the #fediverse for gathering data about people not using Meta platforms.
In terms of resources, using #ActivityPub just doesn’t make sense if the primary goal is getting data about 2 million users or so here.
For that matter if Meta is so intent on pulling data from the fediverse why wouldn’t they quietly set up a few instances and not bother to identify themselves as Meta?
@cstefan206 Once they start federating, they'll be routinely getting the data of people who aren't on Meta platforms. They don't have to go out of their way to gather it, it's given to them. Do you really think they'll say "not interesting" and just get rid of it? That's not in their DNA. They already gather data on people not on Meta platforms in lots of other ways,
@jdp23 @Bloonface@mastodon.social Honestly at the end of the day it doesn’t matter. Sure they’ll keep the data if they get it. But blocking them isn’t going to keep them from getting the data. It would be very low effort for them to federate using instances not obviously associated with #Meta if they want the data that badly.
Honestly I don’t think preemptively blocking Meta does much more than a “Free Tibet” bumper sticker on your car does.
@cstefan206 Agreed that (if #Meta actually follow through on the plans to make it decentralized) there will be lots of instances they're running not obviously associated with them. So yeah, blocking's only one piece of what needs to be done.
That said, since Meta's *not* federating yet, I think there's a lot of value in instances announcing that they'll block. I talked about that in the "why the #FediPact is good strategy" section of https://privacy.thenexus.today/should-the-fediverse-welcome-surveillance-capitalism/#strategy