A lot of people dislike it for the privacy nightmare that it is and feel the threat of an EEE attack. This will also probably not be the last time that a big corporation will insert itself in the Fediverse.
However, people also say that it will help get ActivityPub and the Fediverse go more mainstream and say that corporations don’t have that much influence on the Fediverse since people are in control of their own servers.
What a lot of posts have in common is that they want some kind of action to be taken, whether it’d be mass defederating from Threads, or accept them in some way that does not harm the Fediverse as much.
One of the worst parts from the “article” which is wildly misdirecting:
According to the App Store listing for the Threads app, it collects a variety of data, which stands out in comparison to the Mastodon app, which collects none. However, this affects only those who download and use the Threads app,
This is most probably decidedly false. Meta has always and will probably continue to collects whatever data they can, they build databases of relations, and collect not only on their users, but also the people their users have contact with.
If you write a message to a Threads user, you can be pretty sure as much as possible from that message is collected. Not just the message, but also any metadata that can be used to identify you and any context you are in.
They’ll kill it by having the largest userbase, and therefore the most and best content, and then finally defederating and forcing everyone to join Threads. At least that’s what they’ll most likely attempt to do. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be successful. The EEE approach has been used before and is well documented. Read more on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Since when has Facebook had the best content? I mean I could see them getting a large user base and lots of content, but I have never looked at Facebook or Instagram and wished that content was on another platform. So I guess I’m not too worried.
More users means more content, especially for a Twitter-like service which is based on following individual people. And apparently they already have more sign-ups than Mastadon.
Twitter had more users than Mastodon. Probably still has, despite Musk’s best efforts. Yet … I’m on Mastodon, not Twitter. I get a lot more good quality content from Mastodon than I ever got from Twitter. Interesting. It’s almost as “more content” doesn’t mean “more good content”.
Almost.
Same thing with Reddit. Literally every time I peeked in at Reddit it was a cesspool. There was loads of content, sure, but it was a slurry of shit every time I looked into it. Lemmy, despite being orders of magnitude smaller, gave me better content. That’s why I’m on Lemmy and my Reddit account lapsed years ago. Again, it’s almost as if “more content” doesn’t mean “more quality content”.
Almost.
4chan and 8chan have more users than Lemmy too. They probably have more good content as well, right, and aren’t a septic tank of toxicity.
Hopefully that stays true. I’ve definitely been in the same boat, sort of reviewing the Reddit front page every now and then out of habit when I’m bored at work, but immediately getting bored after the first page or two and after the first couple comments. I only go there for the most niche subreddits (some video game communities) or when I’m researching an issue now.
having the largest userbase, and therefore the most and best content
This is a non sequiter argument. It does not necessarily follow that good content comes from a large userbase. In fact, both of those things are rarely true at the same time. points vaguely at social media
I’m not saying Meta isn’t going to try to run the EEE playbook at some point. Its likely they will, but we are all already skeptical about it. More likely, the play now is to capitalize on the discontent and missteps over at Twitter, and capture the folks over there who are leaving¹. Mastodon and ActivityPub are a functional, free and open source implementation they can use to bootstrap a micro blogging and DM service that supports the familiar hashtag semantics. If they even decide to federate with us, it’s probably just an afterthought. We’re small, and already quite hostile.
Now… Is there value in having a gateway to that content? That’s arguable. I find the kind of stuff posted on Insta to be vapid enough or sufficiently commercial that I feel no need to interact with it. I probably still wouldn’t interact with it even if it happens to show up here. Same for the herpaderp-maga dingbats and their chicanery wandering into discussion threads. Down vote, block, move on. For certain, I would never get back into bed with Meta because-- c’mon-- they’re Meta, and they’re a known quantity. Same as if Google, Amazon, Apple, Reddit (and other failed social media giants) signed on. If their content is available here and of high enough quality to interact with then I’ll interact with it from here or I won’t interface at all. But no, I won’t go into your walled garden to play with your toys. “My terms take em or leave em,” and I think a lot of us feel the same way, deep down.
I do, however, think corporate engagement here IS valuable. In the same way that social media teams at your favorite retail brands engage on the Big Socials, I would also welcome their engagement here as well because its another avenue to interact with the brand as a potential, current or disgruntled customer. There’s no reason the media teams at Nabisco or Target couldn’t set up their own instance and interact with users on other instances. If they play along with us in flgood faith, it works. If they start being evil corporations they get defedersted and lose engagement.
ActivityPub isn’t going anywhere. It’s a standard and a suite of software implementations that nobody can take away. The early adopters are here the community is vibrant llterally in spite of Big Social and now the entrepreneurs are following.
Anyway, I think you’re right to be wary of this move, and about the prospects of the EEE playbook being deployed here as well. I also think we can afford to be a little more sanguine about it for the moment because Meta’s enemy is making a mistake, and we happen to be the arms dealer this week.
Make popcorn and watch the theater. I just read Twitter is suing Meta already, so you know this is gonna be fun!
–
¹ Conspiracy theory (I just can’t help myself!): On today’s episode of Billionare Behaving Badly, Zuck underwrites a portion of Musk’s Twitterbuyout. Musk trashes the brand and liquidates the stock. Tesla buys the infrastructure and Meta buys the user base and their analytics
This is a non sequiter argument. It does not necessarily follow that good content comes from a large userbase. In fact, both of those things are rarely true at the same time. points vaguely at social media
I was coming at it from the perspective of an ex-Reddit user. The main appeal of that site to me was (is?) the size of the userbase and the fact it meant you had access to literally any type of person at your fingertips. Every niche interest was represented, there were people of all ages and walks of life and you could find help or others in the same boat no matter what tech issue you faced or rare ailment you contracted. This type of “content” if you can call it that is only available once the population reaches a certain critical mass. Smaller communities are of course more conducive to civil discussion, high-effort posting and actual conversations, but looking at the popularity of that social media you’re gesturing towards I’m not sure that’s what the majority of people are even after.
It’s not that I want to attract Facebook users to Lemmy, it’s more that Threads as an alternative could well siphon other users who might have otherwise come over here, ending up preventing this site from reaching critical mass. Then again, maybe this particular fear is overexaggerated right now since - as you say - Threads is competing with Twitter and not Reddit/Lemmy.
I find the kind of stuff posted on Insta to be vapid enough or sufficiently commercial that I feel no need to interact with it. I probably still wouldn’t interact with it even if it happens to show up here.
I think the problem is twofold here really. First is the All feed, which by function of how the engagement algorithm works would instantly get flooded with content from Threads if they end up federated, drowning out the content from here. It would not be a matter of deciding not to engage with the post from Threads and keeping scrolling. You wouldn’t browse Lemmy anymore, it would just be Threads and Meta all the way down.
Second is the comment sections to any discussion even on communities here would likely get flooded with Facebook comments. By sheer volume of users they have already too many of them would find their way here. And it is again not exactly the type of - let’s call it “discourse” - I’m chomping at the bit to partake in.
More likely, the play now is to capitalize on the discontent and missteps over at Twitter, and capture the folks over there who are leaving¹.
I think you’re absolutely right and I think if Zuckerberg even knows what “Lemmy” is then it’s because somebody mentioned it in passing when briefing him about ActivityPub. It’s clear trying to usurp Twitter has been planned for a long time and you can understand why. If Lemmy was involved in the thought process at all, it would only be as inspiration for how Threads could in the future be connected to yet another new platform which in that case would outcompete Reddit, which is a site I’m sure Zuckerberg would very much like to usurp as well.
I do, however, think corporate engagement here IS valuable. In the same way that social media teams at your favorite retail brands engage on the Big Socials, I would also welcome their engagement here as well because its another avenue to interact with the brand as a potential, current or disgruntled customer.
But social media teams at your favorite brands don’t connect on social media in order to contact disgruntled customers or discuss consumer concerns, they do it because it’s great, cheap advertising. RyanAir doesn’t use twitter to ask customers if the uncomfortable seats injured their backs, they make funny tweets because they believe it will sell more cheap plane tickets.
Hell, even if the social media admin appears to be discussing actual issues with consumers I doubt those issues would go anywhere afterwards. The big brands aren’t interested in consumer concerns but they probably wouldn’t mind looking like they are since that would make people more sympathetic towards them and more likely to chose their product.
Make popcorn and watch the theater. I just read Twitter is suing Meta already, so you know this is gonna be fun!
Can we arrange for a cage to be built in the courtroom and schedule it so Zuck and Elon give their testimonies in between the rounds of beating the shit out of each other?
Well stated! I agree wirh you on most of it The only point I want to make is:
the size of the userbase and the fact it meant you had access to literally any type of person at your fingertips
The niche communities themselves tended to be small and focused, which is what I say improved the quality of the content. Contrast with the large, default sub’s when I think we both agree failed to add value. I say that communities happened to accrete there was because it was low effort and low friction. Now, not so much. It was a naked grab for cash by usurping the uncompensated efforts of a few dedicated people. The true believers moved on.
As a market place of ideas, reddit was a good mega mall. The anchors sucked but the boutiques were cool. Now it’s just a great big building full of disregarded storefronts after the holiday sales have ended.
They could offer the slickest interface and keep people locked to their friends. That interface can use protocols that make it difficult/impossible for non-Threads instances to play ball (ooh this cool new feature is only available through the Threads app; Oh, my basement.world.ml.xyz can’t read that content). There are many ways to EEE, and I’m sure we haven’t even thought of some ways Threads could use.
I think defederation is our only option to protect what we have.
My fear is that some people is advocating for defederating the instances that doesn’t defederate Meta. In my opinion that would be awful for the health of the Fediverse, as it’ll be even more scattered.
I run my own instance and am defederating immediately (whenever they start federating). I did also join the pact.
I’ll evaluate their impact a month or so in and decide whether or not to refederate.
I acknowledge there’s potential for a positive impact here, so I will give them a chance.
Aren’t the privacy concerns about threads so bad they can’t release it in Europe?
If you give meta a crack in the door of the fediverse it’s going to do all it can to consume it entirely. Allow meta in at the peril of federated social media.
The EEE argument is a red herring at the moment. Sure, in the future, Meta and others could get clever in ways we can’t imagine right now, but currently it’s a “sky is falling” kind of threat. As it currently stands, the path from Threads launching to “Meta killing the fediverse” has all the logical progression as the Underpants Gnomes.
You’re right. It’s all FUD at this point. There’s nothing stopping servers from federating for now and then disconnecting later if an actual issue comes up.
The problem is like the boiling frog analogy. Its never easy to get consensus on whether the latest insult is too much and so inertia holds everyone in place until its too late.
You don’t need to get consensus though. The Fediverse isn’t a monolith and you can change servers if you feel the one you’re on isn’t working for you anymore.
What is the point of using something that’s federated if we all have to do things the same way? Sounds like you just want a centralized site where you get to make the rules.
I don’t think we should defederate threads. It would only give Meta a walled garden which we will be outside of. Let them embrace us here and encourage everybody to scatter across instances so they can’t defederate reasonably
The drawbacks is that we aren’t showing mastodon as an alternative. If we defederate we cannot tell people it’s “threads without the ads”. I know people talk about Embrace, Extend, Extinguish with Google, but Meta have been rather keen on decentralisation recently, even claiming that they want their “Metaverse” platform to be decentralised
There’s really no imminent threat with Meta and ActivityPub, as a standard.
As for Threads and Mastodon, the “threat” is mild. If Meta wants your data, they can get it without spinning up an entire social network. If the concern is that it’s going to lower the quality of the content, well, there’s probably some truth to that, but that would happen with popularity, regardless of which service became popular, and it’s a problem solved by the block function.
i don’t like meta and everything they seem to touch with their greedy little fingers turns into a hollow husk of what it once was, if you want an example look at whatsapp
i like the fediverse and i think it has potential, i just don’t want to see it ruined slowly but surely
you are right but they can dictate standards because of their massive user base, i mean they have had 10 million sign ups in 7 hours. that is more than the entirety of mastodon.
perhaps a more suitable example would be google’s adblock hostile attitude and how they can only do that because of their massive user base.
meta only cares about profit and i don’t think any profit driven entity entering fediverse is a good thing.
Yeah, but if they do try to dictate standards, then react, defederate, that’s all I’m saying. I just don’t think we need to be proactive here, our tools to react are fast acting and simple.
If they do go for the dreaded Embrace, Extend, Extinguish method, then let’s ride the benefits of “Embrace” and lose them when they move on to the next steps.
Look up the history of the dread Triple-E and count the number of people who said exactly what you just said here shortly before they got consigned to oblivion by it.
Please could you provide a better summary then? I must have missed the point, because I’m genuinely not understanding how the fediverse is EEE-resistant.
Being smart at coding doesn’t automatically make you smart at anything except, possibly, coding1. Eugen is young and is being more than just a little naive here. He hasn’t seen well-intentioned people get played for suckers enough times to make the pattern match on “bad actors do bad things, no matter what their pretty words”.
1 Why “possibly” here? Because “coding” is a far larger field than people understand—including coders.
In my opinion, nothing. If Meta is able to effectively take over Fediverse as people are claiming, then the Fediverse was never destined to survive to begin with. On to the next thing. This is the first real test of the resilience of this type of “decentralized social network”, and if it ends up going to shit, it would have eventually anyway.
I disagree with this. You’re saying we should watch Meta invade and profit off the fediverse and do nothing? Just because it’s an open standard doesn’t mean we should watch and let it happen, defederating is retaliation. The fediverse isn’t going to succeed by people doing nothing and watching others ruin it.
We’ve seen this happen. Many times. If the fediverse admins are going to repeat the mistakes of other standards then it’s going to slowly get worse until people do another standard and do it all over again.
What I’m saying is that if there’s always this constant corporate threat, if there’s the functional possibility of it happening, then it will eventually happen. If not Meta, then Musk, or god forbid Trump. Having to constantly “defend” against a mega instance does not seem like a sustainable future for the platform. That said I don’t think this is even an issue. There will always be instances that fundamentally don’t and won’t federate with Threads and other potential big players, so just go there. That’s kinda the point of this whole thing isn’t it? Activitypub and Lemmy/Mastodon won’t go away just because most people are somewhere else.
What can we do as user though? Other than whining which make instance admins and moderators job more difficult, we can only do very few things to stop meta. Fediverse is free, it is better for us users quietly migrate away from instance that don’t align with our value (in both ways) than harrasing instance admins. At worst it will make admins rage-quit then all of sudden your (or our) instance is gone like that mastodon.online…
I didn’t say we should harass admins, I’m saying it’s up to us as a community to either move to an instance that defederates or if you know what you’re doing, stay on an instance that does federate and don’t add content to Threads. Lurking is okay, but posting there means you’re adding value to them and taking away from local communities and slowly rendering other instances irrelevant.
It bothers me that after leaving for-profit social media, a lot of people here are totally fine going straight back to them. Have we really learned nothing?
Threads is exactly showing the biggest problem with anything Fediverse. It’s simpler for the user so it will be accepted. The amount of people I’ve already seen join is huge compared to mastodon.
Lemmy doesn’t need to be #1 in popularity. I’d prefer it to split and maintain a higher level of quality, even if it’s smaller as a result. Even if Meta can grab data either way, it should be disconnected on principle.
Yup, my main concern is being fed stuff Meta wants us to see so they can misinform and manipulate public opinion. I want to never interact with Meta again.
In order to compete in user experience we need to up our game. We need to set up communities which collect, categorize and funnel user requests upstream. These features should be focused on:
reducing frictions like unclear UI, broken links, etc.
improving usability of the various web frontends (the one from Lemmy, kbin, etc.)
collecting bug reports and making sure they will be fixed
This is meant to be a proxy between average users and tech enthusiasts who know how to do pull requests or open GitHub issues. Moderators of these communities would do it for them. This would enable us to gain visibility in the needs of the users.
This is only a part of what needs to be done, but I think this can be done quickly.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: [email protected]
A community to talk about the Fediverse and all it’s related services using ActivityPub (Mastodon, Lemmy, KBin, etc).
If you wanted to get help with moderating your own community then head over to [email protected]!
Rules
Posts must be on topic.
Be respectful of others.
Cite the sources used for graphs and other statistics.
Some food for thought from Mastodon:
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-threads/
One of the worst parts from the “article” which is wildly misdirecting:
This is most probably decidedly false. Meta has always and will probably continue to collects whatever data they can, they build databases of relations, and collect not only on their users, but also the people their users have contact with.
If you write a message to a Threads user, you can be pretty sure as much as possible from that message is collected. Not just the message, but also any metadata that can be used to identify you and any context you are in.
Meta gets all the data as well, even if all people defederate.
ActivityPub has it in the name. All your activities in the fediverse are public.
The article talks about private data saved on your phone like health data, contacts etc. Threads takes those, Mastodon app does not.
Yes you are right, it was a brainfart on my part.
@panja
Meta is going to kill the Fediverse and it’s all probably a part of Zuck’s grand plan.
How would they kill it? I’m all for blocking them, but I’m not sure how could they kill Mastodon or other activitypub apps.
They’ll kill it by having the largest userbase, and therefore the most and best content, and then finally defederating and forcing everyone to join Threads. At least that’s what they’ll most likely attempt to do. It remains to be seen whether they’ll be successful. The EEE approach has been used before and is well documented. Read more on Wikipedia: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Since when has Facebook had the best content? I mean I could see them getting a large user base and lots of content, but I have never looked at Facebook or Instagram and wished that content was on another platform. So I guess I’m not too worried.
More users means more content, especially for a Twitter-like service which is based on following individual people. And apparently they already have more sign-ups than Mastadon.
Twitter had more users than Mastodon. Probably still has, despite Musk’s best efforts. Yet … I’m on Mastodon, not Twitter. I get a lot more good quality content from Mastodon than I ever got from Twitter. Interesting. It’s almost as “more content” doesn’t mean “more good content”.
Almost.
Same thing with Reddit. Literally every time I peeked in at Reddit it was a cesspool. There was loads of content, sure, but it was a slurry of shit every time I looked into it. Lemmy, despite being orders of magnitude smaller, gave me better content. That’s why I’m on Lemmy and my Reddit account lapsed years ago. Again, it’s almost as if “more content” doesn’t mean “more quality content”.
Almost.
4chan and 8chan have more users than Lemmy too. They probably have more good content as well, right, and aren’t a septic tank of toxicity.
Hopefully that stays true. I’ve definitely been in the same boat, sort of reviewing the Reddit front page every now and then out of habit when I’m bored at work, but immediately getting bored after the first page or two and after the first couple comments. I only go there for the most niche subreddits (some video game communities) or when I’m researching an issue now.
This is a non sequiter argument. It does not necessarily follow that good content comes from a large userbase. In fact, both of those things are rarely true at the same time. points vaguely at social media
I’m not saying Meta isn’t going to try to run the EEE playbook at some point. Its likely they will, but we are all already skeptical about it. More likely, the play now is to capitalize on the discontent and missteps over at Twitter, and capture the folks over there who are leaving¹. Mastodon and ActivityPub are a functional, free and open source implementation they can use to bootstrap a micro blogging and DM service that supports the familiar hashtag semantics. If they even decide to federate with us, it’s probably just an afterthought. We’re small, and already quite hostile.
Now… Is there value in having a gateway to that content? That’s arguable. I find the kind of stuff posted on Insta to be vapid enough or sufficiently commercial that I feel no need to interact with it. I probably still wouldn’t interact with it even if it happens to show up here. Same for the herpaderp-maga dingbats and their chicanery wandering into discussion threads. Down vote, block, move on. For certain, I would never get back into bed with Meta because-- c’mon-- they’re Meta, and they’re a known quantity. Same as if Google, Amazon, Apple, Reddit (and other failed social media giants) signed on. If their content is available here and of high enough quality to interact with then I’ll interact with it from here or I won’t interface at all. But no, I won’t go into your walled garden to play with your toys. “My terms take em or leave em,” and I think a lot of us feel the same way, deep down.
I do, however, think corporate engagement here IS valuable. In the same way that social media teams at your favorite retail brands engage on the Big Socials, I would also welcome their engagement here as well because its another avenue to interact with the brand as a potential, current or disgruntled customer. There’s no reason the media teams at Nabisco or Target couldn’t set up their own instance and interact with users on other instances. If they play along with us in flgood faith, it works. If they start being evil corporations they get defedersted and lose engagement.
ActivityPub isn’t going anywhere. It’s a standard and a suite of software implementations that nobody can take away. The early adopters are here the community is vibrant llterally in spite of Big Social and now the entrepreneurs are following.
Anyway, I think you’re right to be wary of this move, and about the prospects of the EEE playbook being deployed here as well. I also think we can afford to be a little more sanguine about it for the moment because Meta’s enemy is making a mistake, and we happen to be the arms dealer this week.
Make popcorn and watch the theater. I just read Twitter is suing Meta already, so you know this is gonna be fun!
–
¹ Conspiracy theory (I just can’t help myself!): On today’s episode of Billionare Behaving Badly, Zuck underwrites a portion of Musk’s Twitterbuyout. Musk trashes the brand and liquidates the stock. Tesla buys the infrastructure and Meta buys the user base and their analytics
I was coming at it from the perspective of an ex-Reddit user. The main appeal of that site to me was (is?) the size of the userbase and the fact it meant you had access to literally any type of person at your fingertips. Every niche interest was represented, there were people of all ages and walks of life and you could find help or others in the same boat no matter what tech issue you faced or rare ailment you contracted. This type of “content” if you can call it that is only available once the population reaches a certain critical mass. Smaller communities are of course more conducive to civil discussion, high-effort posting and actual conversations, but looking at the popularity of that social media you’re gesturing towards I’m not sure that’s what the majority of people are even after.
It’s not that I want to attract Facebook users to Lemmy, it’s more that Threads as an alternative could well siphon other users who might have otherwise come over here, ending up preventing this site from reaching critical mass. Then again, maybe this particular fear is overexaggerated right now since - as you say - Threads is competing with Twitter and not Reddit/Lemmy.
I think the problem is twofold here really. First is the All feed, which by function of how the engagement algorithm works would instantly get flooded with content from Threads if they end up federated, drowning out the content from here. It would not be a matter of deciding not to engage with the post from Threads and keeping scrolling. You wouldn’t browse Lemmy anymore, it would just be Threads and Meta all the way down.
Second is the comment sections to any discussion even on communities here would likely get flooded with Facebook comments. By sheer volume of users they have already too many of them would find their way here. And it is again not exactly the type of - let’s call it “discourse” - I’m chomping at the bit to partake in.
I think you’re absolutely right and I think if Zuckerberg even knows what “Lemmy” is then it’s because somebody mentioned it in passing when briefing him about ActivityPub. It’s clear trying to usurp Twitter has been planned for a long time and you can understand why. If Lemmy was involved in the thought process at all, it would only be as inspiration for how Threads could in the future be connected to yet another new platform which in that case would outcompete Reddit, which is a site I’m sure Zuckerberg would very much like to usurp as well.
But social media teams at your favorite brands don’t connect on social media in order to contact disgruntled customers or discuss consumer concerns, they do it because it’s great, cheap advertising. RyanAir doesn’t use twitter to ask customers if the uncomfortable seats injured their backs, they make funny tweets because they believe it will sell more cheap plane tickets.
Hell, even if the social media admin appears to be discussing actual issues with consumers I doubt those issues would go anywhere afterwards. The big brands aren’t interested in consumer concerns but they probably wouldn’t mind looking like they are since that would make people more sympathetic towards them and more likely to chose their product.
Can we arrange for a cage to be built in the courtroom and schedule it so Zuck and Elon give their testimonies in between the rounds of beating the shit out of each other?
Well stated! I agree wirh you on most of it The only point I want to make is:
The niche communities themselves tended to be small and focused, which is what I say improved the quality of the content. Contrast with the large, default sub’s when I think we both agree failed to add value. I say that communities happened to accrete there was because it was low effort and low friction. Now, not so much. It was a naked grab for cash by usurping the uncompensated efforts of a few dedicated people. The true believers moved on.
As a market place of ideas, reddit was a good mega mall. The anchors sucked but the boutiques were cool. Now it’s just a great big building full of disregarded storefronts after the holiday sales have ended.
They could offer the slickest interface and keep people locked to their friends. That interface can use protocols that make it difficult/impossible for non-Threads instances to play ball (ooh this cool new feature is only available through the Threads app; Oh, my basement.world.ml.xyz can’t read that content). There are many ways to EEE, and I’m sure we haven’t even thought of some ways Threads could use.
I think defederation is our only option to protect what we have.
Yes, I totally agree with you.
My fear is that some people is advocating for defederating the instances that doesn’t defederate Meta. In my opinion that would be awful for the health of the Fediverse, as it’ll be even more scattered.
I run my own instance and am defederating immediately (whenever they start federating). I did also join the pact.
I’ll evaluate their impact a month or so in and decide whether or not to refederate.
I acknowledge there’s potential for a positive impact here, so I will give them a chance.
Aren’t the privacy concerns about threads so bad they can’t release it in Europe?
If you give meta a crack in the door of the fediverse it’s going to do all it can to consume it entirely. Allow meta in at the peril of federated social media.
EU blocked the app yes, because it gathers a lot of data from the user of the app.
Not the website/service in general though.
Threats is a better name for that data collecting pos.
Make an account and use chatgpt to shit post on it.
Ah, the u/spez r/programming approach. A classic.
The EEE argument is a red herring at the moment. Sure, in the future, Meta and others could get clever in ways we can’t imagine right now, but currently it’s a “sky is falling” kind of threat. As it currently stands, the path from Threads launching to “Meta killing the fediverse” has all the logical progression as the Underpants Gnomes.
You’re right. It’s all FUD at this point. There’s nothing stopping servers from federating for now and then disconnecting later if an actual issue comes up.
The problem is like the boiling frog analogy. Its never easy to get consensus on whether the latest insult is too much and so inertia holds everyone in place until its too late.
You don’t need to get consensus though. The Fediverse isn’t a monolith and you can change servers if you feel the one you’re on isn’t working for you anymore.
Yep. As the old saying goes: Divided we stand, united we fall.
No, wait…
What is the point of using something that’s federated if we all have to do things the same way? Sounds like you just want a centralized site where you get to make the rules.
Well we they could just be centralized in their own decentralized instance lol
I don’t think we should defederate threads. It would only give Meta a walled garden which we will be outside of. Let them embrace us here and encourage everybody to scatter across instances so they can’t defederate reasonably
That actually sounds like a good idea. Are there any drawbacks to this that we’re missing though?
The drawbacks is that we aren’t showing mastodon as an alternative. If we defederate we cannot tell people it’s “threads without the ads”. I know people talk about Embrace, Extend, Extinguish with Google, but Meta have been rather keen on decentralisation recently, even claiming that they want their “Metaverse” platform to be decentralised
There’s really no imminent threat with Meta and ActivityPub, as a standard.
As for Threads and Mastodon, the “threat” is mild. If Meta wants your data, they can get it without spinning up an entire social network. If the concern is that it’s going to lower the quality of the content, well, there’s probably some truth to that, but that would happen with popularity, regardless of which service became popular, and it’s a problem solved by the block function.
data is not a problem, you should accept what you post publicly to be well… public
what most people are worried about is embrace extend and extinguish policy, if you haven’t read it already here it is
Everyone on the fediverse knows about EEE at this point; it’s mentioned in every other post haha
The dev behind Mastodon doesn’t seem concerned. Why are you?
Lots of devs are foolish/naive, Eugen is just one of many to fit this bill.
i don’t like meta and everything they seem to touch with their greedy little fingers turns into a hollow husk of what it once was, if you want an example look at whatsapp
i like the fediverse and i think it has potential, i just don’t want to see it ruined slowly but surely
WhatsApp is owned and fully controlled by Meta. The Fediverse is federated and that’s the beauty of it. They can’t control it
you are right but they can dictate standards because of their massive user base, i mean they have had 10 million sign ups in 7 hours. that is more than the entirety of mastodon.
perhaps a more suitable example would be google’s adblock hostile attitude and how they can only do that because of their massive user base.
meta only cares about profit and i don’t think any profit driven entity entering fediverse is a good thing.
Yeah, but if they do try to dictate standards, then react, defederate, that’s all I’m saying. I just don’t think we need to be proactive here, our tools to react are fast acting and simple.
If they do go for the dreaded Embrace, Extend, Extinguish method, then let’s ride the benefits of “Embrace” and lose them when they move on to the next steps.
Look up the history of the dread Triple-E and count the number of people who said exactly what you just said here shortly before they got consigned to oblivion by it.
The Mastodon Dev says it’s not a concern because of brand recognition.
That’s not a defense mechanism lol.
That’s not an accurate summary.
Please could you provide a better summary then? I must have missed the point, because I’m genuinely not understanding how the fediverse is EEE-resistant.
Being smart at coding doesn’t automatically make you smart at anything except, possibly, coding1. Eugen is young and is being more than just a little naive here. He hasn’t seen well-intentioned people get played for suckers enough times to make the pattern match on “bad actors do bad things, no matter what their pretty words”.
1 Why “possibly” here? Because “coding” is a far larger field than people understand—including coders.
What worries me most is how this has shown me how how wildly insecurely ActivityPub seems to be storing and sharing user data.
Drop that trash
In my opinion, nothing. If Meta is able to effectively take over Fediverse as people are claiming, then the Fediverse was never destined to survive to begin with. On to the next thing. This is the first real test of the resilience of this type of “decentralized social network”, and if it ends up going to shit, it would have eventually anyway.
I disagree with this. You’re saying we should watch Meta invade and profit off the fediverse and do nothing? Just because it’s an open standard doesn’t mean we should watch and let it happen, defederating is retaliation. The fediverse isn’t going to succeed by people doing nothing and watching others ruin it.
We’ve seen this happen. Many times. If the fediverse admins are going to repeat the mistakes of other standards then it’s going to slowly get worse until people do another standard and do it all over again.
What I’m saying is that if there’s always this constant corporate threat, if there’s the functional possibility of it happening, then it will eventually happen. If not Meta, then Musk, or god forbid Trump. Having to constantly “defend” against a mega instance does not seem like a sustainable future for the platform. That said I don’t think this is even an issue. There will always be instances that fundamentally don’t and won’t federate with Threads and other potential big players, so just go there. That’s kinda the point of this whole thing isn’t it? Activitypub and Lemmy/Mastodon won’t go away just because most people are somewhere else.
What can we do as user though? Other than whining which make instance admins and moderators job more difficult, we can only do very few things to stop meta. Fediverse is free, it is better for us users quietly migrate away from instance that don’t align with our value (in both ways) than harrasing instance admins. At worst it will make admins rage-quit then all of sudden your (or our) instance is gone like that mastodon.online…
I didn’t say we should harass admins, I’m saying it’s up to us as a community to either move to an instance that defederates or if you know what you’re doing, stay on an instance that does federate and don’t add content to Threads. Lurking is okay, but posting there means you’re adding value to them and taking away from local communities and slowly rendering other instances irrelevant.
It bothers me that after leaving for-profit social media, a lot of people here are totally fine going straight back to them. Have we really learned nothing?
Threads is exactly showing the biggest problem with anything Fediverse. It’s simpler for the user so it will be accepted. The amount of people I’ve already seen join is huge compared to mastodon.
Lemmy doesn’t need to be #1 in popularity. I’d prefer it to split and maintain a higher level of quality, even if it’s smaller as a result. Even if Meta can grab data either way, it should be disconnected on principle.
Yup, my main concern is being fed stuff Meta wants us to see so they can misinform and manipulate public opinion. I want to never interact with Meta again.
In order to compete in user experience we need to up our game. We need to set up communities which collect, categorize and funnel user requests upstream. These features should be focused on:
This is meant to be a proxy between average users and tech enthusiasts who know how to do pull requests or open GitHub issues. Moderators of these communities would do it for them. This would enable us to gain visibility in the needs of the users.
This is only a part of what needs to be done, but I think this can be done quickly.
Here’s Eugen Rotchko’s thoughts.
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-threads/
What an excellent article. Informative and to the point.
Recommend everyone read it.
Another vote to defederate here.