I mean, do we even know if Meta’s plan involves federation? As others have stated, ActivityPub is an open standard that allows for federation, but services don’t have to federate just to use ActivityPub. We could be getting into a fit right now just to find out they have no plans to federate - of course, they could change that at any time, but we just don’t know yet.

Of course, Meta meeting with big instance admins is concerning, especially since they’re under NDA so we don’t know what was discussed. Maybe it was the possibility of federation, maybe it was just logistics of ActivityPub. They only started this in January, they could have figured they’re at a point they should talk to the people who run this stuff.

IMO, we just don’t have enough information to act yet, at least beyond “we are actively monitoring and prepared to make XYZ actions in response to ABC behaviors.” Make it clear to the community what you’re looking for and what you’ll do in response to expected actions that are clear to all why they’d be acted on. I think a pre-emptive silence could be justified, but I think a full defederate is just really hard to argue for when we don’t know a lot just yet.

Plus, love it or hate it, even if they do federate, Meta is a trusted entity by big names and organizations. A lot of people might give it a go, and it feels unfair to them. Especially for anyone interested in federation from the comfort of a known thing just to find out half the fediverse decided they want nothing to do with Meta’s platform without seeing how it actually goes.

A small part of why I keep Twitter around (outside of artists and streamers who haven’t made a presence here, at least as far as I know) is because I follow some local government orgs. I would love to get that on my local timeline so I have another reason to cut back on Twitter more, and Meta’s platform might be the best way I can get that right now.