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1. Embed this notice
   Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:00:13 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

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:15:37 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Captain B

     @captainb Let’s wait and see what happens.

   • Embed this notice
     Captain B (captainb@aus.social)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:15:38 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…

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:18:27 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

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:21:03 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 ;)

   • Embed this notice
     Nathalie Van Raemdonck (nvraemdonck@hci.social)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:21:04 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"

   • Embed this notice
     Emon (emon@h4.io)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:29:37 JST Emon

     in reply to

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

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:29:37 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.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:32:09 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.)

   • Embed this notice
     Kim Schulz (kim@social.hackspace.tech)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:32:18 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
   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:33:38 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Commodore Yasmiga CD32 :flag_agender:🏳️‍⚧️

     @yassie_j Me too.

   • Embed this notice
     Commodore Yasmiga CD32 :flag_agender:🏳️‍⚧️ (yassie_j@snowdin.town)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:33:50 JST Commodore Yasmiga CD32 :flag_agender:🏳️‍⚧️

     in reply to

     @aral I hate that this makes sense

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:36:16 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Oblomov

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

   • Embed this notice
     Oblomov (oblomov@sociale.network)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:36:17 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)

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:37:17 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.)

   • Embed this notice
     Maria Liv (marialiv@fosstodon.org)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:37:19 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?

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:40:19 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.

   • Embed this notice
     Cinnamon (cinnamon@lea.pet)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:40:47 JST Cinnamon

     in reply to

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

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:44:39 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Oblomov

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

   • Embed this notice
     aristeon89 (aristeon89@mastodon.online)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:45:58 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

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 18:45:58 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Eugen Rochko
     • aristeon89

     @aristeon89 @Gargron Good for you.

   • Embed this notice
     ProScience (proscience@toot.community)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 19:55:13 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

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 19:55:13 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.

     🤷♂️

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 19:56:50 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Oblomov

     @oblomov Good workaround :)

   • Embed this notice
     Oblomov (oblomov@sociale.network)'s status on Friday, 07-Jul-2023 19:56:51 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)

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 15:57:07 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.

   • Embed this notice
     Médecine Libre Jérôme Pinguet (medecinelibre@mastodon.medica.im)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 15:57:08 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

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:06:26 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.

   • Embed this notice
     Sara Joy :happy_pepper: (sarajw@front-end.social)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:06:27 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 🤷

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:08:17 JST Aral Balkan

     in reply to

     • Baruch 🇮🇱

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

   • Embed this notice
     Baruch 🇮🇱 (baruch@babka.social)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:08:18 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.

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:12:20 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/

   • Embed this notice
     M8_d (m8_@mastodon.social)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:22:16 JST M8_d

     in reply to

     @aral both are top issues

   • Embed this notice
     Aral Balkan (aral@mastodon.ar.al)'s status on Saturday, 08-Jul-2023 16:22:16 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.