Firstly a disclaimer, I dislike Facebook for many reasons and would prefer it if the company went bankrupt and shut down. But as that's not going to happen and there's an estimated 17.7 million Facebook users in Australia (almost 2/3 of the population) we have to deal with that. Currently a Facebook search for "Linux" and "Australia" will (for me at least) return the Linux Australia organisation and not much else. The Linux Australia organisation hasn't posted since 2024. I think it would be nice to post at least once a year but that's not the main point of this message. Currently a Facebook search for "free", "software", and "Australia" returns as the only appropriate result the group "100% free software" which is more about "free as in beer" software. I think that what we need is to have a number of Facebook groups for beginners in free software and Linux which can answer basic questions, help people get started, and then point them to more open communities (Lemmy, mailing lists, Matrix rooms, etC). I'd be happy to join any such groups and answer questions, but I've got enough going on that I don't want to be any sort of moderator or anything. Is anyone interested in running such a group? -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
Hi Russell, On Sat, Apr 18, 2026, at 20:02, Russell Coker via luv-main wrote:
Firstly a disclaimer, I dislike Facebook for many reasons and would prefer it if the company went bankrupt and shut down. But as that's not going to happen and there's an estimated 17.7 million Facebook users in Australia (almost 2/3 of the population) we have to deal with that. ...
Your suggestion is a good one. I've been thinking along similar lines, but haven't had the time or energy to take action. However distasteful, yes, the fact is that almost all the population are on Facebook — more than two-thirds if you discount the very young and the very old. In a way, it's the modern agora, and if we want people to know about Free Software, then we have to have a presence there. The same goes for the other platforms run by the Big Tech companies (mostly American), collectively "The Beast". I'm reminded of the old saying, "It's permitted to walk with the Devil to cross the bridge". Like you, and I guess other people, I'm not in a position at the moment to run such a thing, but would be glad to help out as I can. My only other thought, is that these are global concerns. What are other Free Software groups across the world doing in this space? At least to start with, perhaps we could link up with some existing Free Software presence on such platforms, if any. Some homework to find out what exists... — Smiles, Les.
Russell Coker via luv-main <luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Firstly a disclaimer, I dislike Facebook for many reasons and would prefer it if the company went bankrupt and shut down. But as that's not going to happen and there's an estimated 17.7 million Facebook users in Australia (almost 2/3 of the population) we have to deal with that.
Thank you - I didn't appreciate that Facebook was still so prevalent. I don't have an account there, and I don't plan to obtain one at this point, unless there's a good professional reason. Threads federates with ActivityPub, so you may be able to post to that from a Mastodon, Pleroma or GoToSocial instance without having an account. As I understand it, though, Threads is entirely separate from Facebook, though owned by the same company.
On Mon, 20 Apr 2026 at 09:57, Jason J.G. White via luv-main < luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Russell Coker via luv-main <luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Firstly a disclaimer, I dislike Facebook for many reasons and would prefer it if the company went bankrupt and shut down. But as that's not going to happen and there's an estimated 17.7 million Facebook users in Australia (almost 2/3 of the population) we have to deal with that.
Thank you - I didn't appreciate that Facebook was still so prevalent. I don't have an account there, and I don't plan to obtain one at this point, unless there's a good professional reason.
Threads federates with ActivityPub, so you may be able to post to that from a Mastodon, Pleroma or GoToSocial instance without having an account. As I understand it, though, Threads is entirely separate from Facebook, though owned by the same company.
Threads is Meta's answer to X/Twitter, is text based and linked to an Instagram account. Here's a short comparison. Threads - real-time text & public dialogue, FB - Social networking, family/friends Threads - linked to Instagram, FB - independent account Threads - text-heavy, short-form content, FB - Mixed (Multimedia, Text, Long-form) content Threads - Public/Open, FB - Friends/Family/Groups Threads - minimal ads, FB - highly developed (effing annoying) advertising -- Colin Fee tfeccles@gmail.com
On 4/19/26 4:54 PM, Jason J.G. White via luv-main wrote:
Russell Coker via luv-main <luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Firstly a disclaimer, I dislike Facebook for many reasons and would prefer it if the company went bankrupt and shut down. But as that's not going to happen and there's an estimated 17.7 million Facebook users in Australia (almost 2/3 of the population) we have to deal with that.
Thank you - I didn't appreciate that Facebook was still so prevalent. I don't have an account there, and I don't plan to obtain one at this point, unless there's a good professional reason.
I got my account there when it was only open to .edu folks. When it became a real cesspit I merely stopped using it and my account has been dormant there nearly 15 years. I've logged in there maybe 10 times in that period and have not much use at all for the deprecated, proprietary monolithic networks like it that are antithetical to traditional computing in the vein of FOSS, Linux, and now the ActivityPub and other aspects of distributed networking in the Fediverse, going back even further to the BBS days (back then it was AOL that people thought was the entire Internet). It doesn't really matter much to me, but I'll never acknowledge or participate in a place so removed from my computing reality, but then again, as someone who only became an MCT to teach the MCSE program for many years from NT 3.50/3.51/4.0.... because UNIX gigs weren't as prevalent then, I haven't operated a Microsoft Machine in a few years now either, so perhaps I'm an anomaly, but happily set in my freedom from FacePlant, InstaSPAM, etc. If there's really that many zillions of people interested in FOSS, Linux & the BSDs, and privacy, then I'm sure any "Non-Unique presence by a longtime LUG would just be swallowed up by all of the other apathy addled groups there, effective at driving folks away from that monolithic silo. Without considering that mess over there, I'm plenty busy with the task of interdicting and eradicating proprietary, privacy-disrespecting, closed source computing software as it is, and tending to the folks who actually are ready to make that tiny step over that threshold is fun.
Threads federates with ActivityPub, so you may be able to post to that from a Mastodon, Pleroma or GoToSocial instance without having an account. As I understand it, though, Threads is entirely separate from Facebook, though owned by the same company.
It, "sort of federates", and not unlike other instances, that federation is moderated with limited reach, for business reasons that are indeed sound practice for a deprecated, privacy-disrespecting, monolithic silo operation. You'll need to create an InstaSPAM account, as odd as that might seem, in order to utilize Threads. Much of what happens throughout the Fediverse does not make it into federation in Threads, but other than that, I don't follow any of the specifics. One might thing that you need to have a Faceplant account, but then again, InstaSpam is about pictures with few words, and Threads is about just the words, so I guess... maybe they go together like coffee & cream? For a while, right around the time Threads was incubating, we had Wildebeest (Sic). It was kinda fun, and free too - until you looked at all of the other parts of the requirement to self-host. It flopped, because it was a joke on itself, but was a comical attempt at Cloudflare's very best effort to NOT Capture a network that really doesn't care if you try anyway. Much like Linus has stated that Linux really doesn't care what other OSes are biting their nails over. https://github.com/cloudflare/wildebeest And that brought be back full circle to why it doesn't really matter to me who participates at Faceplant for whatever reason, even though it's usually because the user thinks it's the actual Internet, and not just a monolithic silo host. -- Bradley D. Thornton Manager Network Services https://NorthTech.US Key available at: https://keyoxide.org/A0E3913390670CCE
On Monday, 20 April 2026 09:54:54 AEST Jason J.G. White via luv-main wrote:
Russell Coker via luv-main <luv-main@luv.asn.au> wrote:
Firstly a disclaimer, I dislike Facebook for many reasons and would prefer it if the company went bankrupt and shut down. But as that's not going to happen and there's an estimated 17.7 million Facebook users in Australia (almost 2/3 of the population) we have to deal with that.
Thank you - I didn't appreciate that Facebook was still so prevalent. I don't have an account there, and I don't plan to obtain one at this point, unless there's a good professional reason.
I'm not suggesting that anyone create a Facebook account for the sole purpose of promoting FOSS. But of the 17 million Facebook users in Australia I'm sure that more than few of them are FOSS users. People who have children tend to have Facebook accounts because there are many childcare resources on there and also many groups use it to arrange events. There aren't many people who have such a strong objection to non-free platforms that they would deny their children opportunities for play dates arranged on Facebook. Community groups tend to randomly select platforms for communication. For example Rotary has no official platform recommendations for it's group so every group can make their own choice about how to communicate, all it takes is one outspoken member to say "Facebook Messenger is great" and you get the entire group using it. There are many people who are forced to use Facebook because it's used to promote various organisations. So if someone with a bit of computer skill volunteers for an organisation like Rotary someone will say "oh it's great you know computers you can promote our club on Facebook". One major difference between proprietary social networking and FOSS alternatives is that the proprietary systems are specifically and carefully designed to be as addictive as possible. If you create a Facebook account for one specific purpose then it will promote a feed of articles related to that, you will read them, find some interesting, and it will send more targetted articles to you. It would be good to have people who read articles about Linux as part of random tech news suddenly have in their Facebook feed posts about FOSS meetings and events.
Threads federates with ActivityPub, so you may be able to post to that from a Mastodon, Pleroma or GoToSocial instance without having an account. As I understand it, though, Threads is entirely separate from Facebook, though owned by the same company.
If the aim is to be as FOSS as possible while still communicating with relatives who use proprietary platforms that may work. If the aim is to establish communication with people who don't know you and are new to FOSS you want the best quality and don't want anything to get messed up in transmission so you want to use the platform natively. That said I don't think Threads is that popular and it doesn't have the social coercion that Facebook has. -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/
participants (5)
-
Bradley D. Thornton -
Colin Fee -
Jason J.G. White -
Les Kitchen -
Russell Coker