My standpoint is that, not only should all social software support ActivityPub, it should be required by law.
Further to that, all social software should have an account migration path towards and away from it.
No, I’m not saying all servers should federate with each other. What I am saying is that it should be impossible for any one server software to monopolize the network effect.
Signal is an order of magnitude more secure than Matrix by being substantially less ambitious - 1/1 deny able secure chat exclusively. I can imagine a lot of ways federation would cut down on security, especially around deniability.
If you’re using a chat server that requires absolute security, and thus can’t federate, there should be a limit on how big that chat server is allowed to be.
Is it hosting 1 billion people? Too bad, “security” shouldn’t be an excuse to extend your monopoly.
Baking this requirement into law is something that should ONLY be done with the utmost care and clarity.
For example, does "federate" mean that large servers must actually connect to a significant portion of the external market of users or just be open to it? How does the legal requirement overlap with local moderation choices? Are there exceptions for instances where the rest of the market chooses to NOT federate with them (e.g. Truth Social)?
Some people are saying, “Oh, if you break up WhatsApp’s monopoly on chat, it will be less secure.”
Why is a for-profit, multi-billion dollar enterprise like Meta the arbiter for security?
If WhatsApp’s security requires centralization, take it out of Meta’s hands. Given Meta’s track record with privacy, they should be the last entity protecting WhatsApp’s security.
Either way, I don’t buy the notion that a monopoly should continue in the name of security.
@atomicpoet Marshall McLuhan is frequently cited by @Rushkoff to have said something along the lines of “every new medium starts out by using the old medium as its content”.
TV started off with stage plays. Podcasts started with radio recordings. YouTube started with cable tv clips. TikTok started with YouTube/Reddit clips
“Different applications operated by different entities can use MLS to exchange end-to-end encrypted messages. For example, in a messaging application, clients of messaging1.tld can encrypt and decrypt end-to-end encrypted messages from messaging2.tld.”