I'm on a mailing list for the official ActivityPub specification and everyone is super keen on this idea that ActivityPub is going to start supporting "facts", ie you either agree with the "truth" or you're wrong.
As much as I can't stand the disinformation campaigns, they're not at all taking seriously the idea that demanding everyone have the same "truth" is not only group-think, but far more dangerous.
It's a degradation of the very foundation of fundamental liberal ideas of difference. The idea that all must adhere to the official "Truth" is a tenement of fascism.
And who will control truth? Why, the same people who control moderation of course, meaning that if you're part of a marginalized group within the network then watch out, because they're coming for you, and now they have the "truth" on their side.
@serge i dunno if protocols should tackle abstract things like the truth, good or evil, but concrete things like an attachment, a property of an object, right?
@evan @serge but a concrete thing like a photo or a note on a photo will still be a photo or a note on a photo, over time. The thing is that what you state as a fact today, is a result of a consensus that may be different tomorrow. It's like trying to build enshittification-free social network. It's impossible because we humans carry our miseries wherever we go, so what protocols and platforms should focus on, imho, is in building good administration tools and solutions for concrete and tangible things and leave the complex ones to users, and i mean that things that require skills beyond a mere sysadmin (like tell is something is a fact or not), to humans. Which humans? i dunno, time will tell. The real struggle in the fediverse and decentralized social media lies on finding good administrators and moderators that communities will eventually choose. I think. Build a fact-thing in a protocol, and it'll bite you in the future, full stop.