As the TikTok ban threatens the social media ecosystem, agency execs debate investing in the fediverse.

The possibility of a TikTok ban is inching closer to becoming a reality at this point. On Tuesday, the Senate passed the bill that would bar the social media platform from operating in the U.S. unless ByteDance, its Chinese parent company, sells its stake.

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It begs the question: In today’s social landscape, do brands ever own their audiences?

The answer is no, according to three agency executives who say it’s time to start exploring contingency plans that don’t hinge on any of the walled gardens of social media titans like Meta, X or TikTok. Looking for the next frontier, some are pointing toward the fediverse.

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  • recursive_recursion [they/them]AEnglish
    11•25 days ago

    By chance the fediverse might’ve developed a resilient antibody and regeneration system:

    due to allowing federated communities with transparent moderation logging it means that users are free to choose from a plethora of instances to set up camp and create

    back on reddit it wasn’t possible as there was only one without connections so it acted like a walled garden but now with the spread of Activitypub, it might be difficult for a singular company to have full control unless they’re able to offer better services than what’s currently available

    just a guess but I’d reckon that at minimum 51% of users that care about privacy and security would choose a FOSS instance rather than a closed-source proprietary one

    and as time passes I’d imagine that capitalistic instances would decay over time due to insufficient funding and/or user retention as their primary goal would be to squeeze their users which isn’t a sustainable model