It’s fair but skepticism needs to be informed. For example, Meta has made multiple public statements about federation. It’s certainly not like they can’t change their minds but there’s a risk to that in the current regulatory climate.
> For example, Meta has made multiple public statements about federation.
These are worth nothing, though?
The skepticism is informed by looking at the history of the company, not just what they're saying right now.
FWIW, I do think they will federate eventually. I don't think they'll do so because they want user accounts to actually move around, etc, etc. Strategically, it's valuable to keep a handle on the Fediverse, since they're big enough to exert control over it should they so choose, and they can be better positioned to do so if they start from a position of being federated.
"Threads won't be federated until proven otherwise" is a pretty reasonable take coming from exactly the "informed skepticism" stance you're talking about.
Yeah, I’m not saying that I like or trust them - only that the world has changed somewhat since 2016 and various governments are far more willing to regulate them than in the past.
In particular, note their public statements about this allowing you to keep your followers when deplatformed. It might be that this is the answer they want to give right-wing lawmakers: if you break our terms of service, you’re free to move to Truth Social.
Their very name (to me it's still Facebook) is a grift about decentralization. So of course they're keen to make multiple statements about it.
I don't fully agree with the article because I think they might cynically launch a useless ActivityPub integration. Or they'll do it only for business profiles or something...
Another thing is they could attempt to do it in a self-serving way with crypto like they did with Diem. That is they could be legitimately interested in NFT grifts but talking about ActivityPub because it's trendy right now. They have no timeline, so their first foray into ActivityPub could involve blockchain tech.
