- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
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“DM me on Twitter” perhaps wasn’t the best way to start a post about fediverse, but OK, I got through it…
That article was a hot mess.First of all, over half of that article was based on misunderstanding of how fedi and ActivityPub works. Meta will not just “push their content” out to the fediverse and drown it - even if they fully adapt and integrate ActivityPub (which was still marked as TBD in the roapmap). ActivityPub is not a broadcast protocol. There is no “global federated feed” that can drown you. Someone actually has to subscribe to users and their posts for them to show up on their instances. Sure, some additional messages will be “discovered” during that (likes and re-posts etc), but it’s not like all of Threads just flows into all fediverse servers automatically.
My timeline is posts from people who I follow. My local timeline are posts from people on my server. My federated timeline is all public posts from people (from other servers) that users on my server follow. It is trivial for me (as an individual) to domain block *.threads.net in my Mastodon user profile and then I will never see any posts from that server.
The chapter about content moderation was also a bit misleading. On fediverse side of things, content moderation is done by instance mods. If and perhaps more likely, when it becomes too much work to deal with, they will simply just defederate or limit Threads.
I’d imagine most smaller server admins and mods will eventually end up doing this, because they simply don’t have resources to moderate the message flow from a server that has hundreds of millions of users - this is already evident with mastodon.social and the other larger servers. Lot of places have defederated them.
But this is all working as intended. Defederation isn’t controversial, it happens all the time.
The actual moderation problem is entirely on Meta’s side. The fedi is full of bad stuff. Really bad, like CSAM. They will have to deal with all those kiddyporn .jp instances. Good luck telling that your shareholders Zuck.
There are some real problems with Threads integration, but none of those were mentioned. I don’t want Threads to monetize my content. If I post something on Mastodon and a person from Threads follows me, I don’t want Threads to show them ads based on what I wrote. But currently there’s no way to prevent that.
Also, if I should follow someone from Threads, there’s nothing preventing Meta from inserting an ad into that persons “Outbox” and therefore serving it to me on Mastodon. Sure, they’d be impersonating that user, but their whole business model is based on showing ads and datamining the clicks, so would be naive to think they wouldn’t enable ads on Threads later on.
Of course the last problem is easy to solve by blocking Threads, but you get my drift…
It’s almost - almost - as if this is what ActivityPub was designed for.
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I think one of the points - and strengths - of the Fediverse is that a single person or instance can’t make that choice for others.
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So - counter-example. I’m working with a UK organisation that currently still uses Twitter. I’m trying to persuade them to start their own Mastodon instance instead. Being able to reach Threads users, in addition to Masto uses would clearly be substantial selling point of setting up a Mastodon server - given the size of the Threads userbase - and much preferable to them starting a Threads account.
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How so? It’s a direct benefit of federation
It would be right now, but the first step of Embrace Extend Extinguish is that: Embrace. Opening up to threads now might be extremely detrimental to the fediverse in the future, in the same way as happened with XMPP.
By this argument nothing should ever interoperate with anything else because clearly that’s the first step toward destruction.
I’m writing this on Firefox, which interoperates with Chrome and Edge. Oh no! We need to get these browsers operating on incompatible protocols stat, before they all extend and extinguish each other.
In reality, “embrace extend extinguish” is not a law of nature. XMPP is not ActivityPub. They are separate things with separate circumstances. Did you know that XMPP is actually still functional and open and you can download clients and servers that use it to this day? The stories about how Google “destroyed” it have become wildly distorted folklore at this point.
God forbid if Microsoft decided to use open document formats by default and to phase out docx - it would clearly be the first step of EEE!
God forbid companies use the world wide web - they’ll run it down the gutter!
The standards must be protected at all costs - may they never see mass adoption.
It might, yes. But I think the risk can be managed, with defederation if need be. I don’t think existing Fediverse users are suddenly going to defect.
Maybe on your instance - it’s your loss. But admins have a choice - defed from them and lose access to all those users and having actual content worth looking at, or federate with them and actually grow your network into something that has enough going on to make people interested. As it is, I use Threads right now. I strongly prefer it to Mastodon. Kbin comes close, but has less content to idly scroll through. If no Fediverse site I use supports Threads, I’ll keep on using it.
I’ll take a smaller volume of stuff from people who want to engage over the quality of mass produced lowesr common denominator content that will come from Meta products.
The great thing about the Fediverse is that you can choose that even if Threads federates. You pick what you engage with, which communities and instances you subscribe to and which you block.
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Yes, indeed - which is why it would be good for them if Threads federated, and they could reach their network without using a Meta service.
For some users the network is a really important part of social networks.
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A bunch of people are pretty disgusting on the established fediverse as well. It’s just that nobody has a way of imposing themselves in your feed.
And I don’t use Lemmy, nor will I use Threads. I use services that broadcas information with both - that’s different. I made a web site once, that doesn’t make me a Google Chrome user. I send emails with Gmail users, but I still don’t use Gmail. I just co-exist with people who do.
That would be a shame. Why shouldn’t I be able to directly tell Mark to go fuck himself without going anywhere near his software?
Why can’t you do that? Use one of the many non-Threads servers to do it. Like Kbin, the one you’re already using. Nothing about it changes if Threads federates.
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If you want to stay private, probably avoid a networking protocol like ActivityPub that inherently relies on essentially everything being public
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I don’t mean to alarm you, but Meta can see this post even if Threads doesn’t federate.
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Why not? It’s no different as far as Meta is concerned, it only inconveniences us.
I’m pretty sure most people don’t want it to…
There’s something like 50 million Threads users. Chances are there’s at least a few people out there who would be happy to be able to connect with at least some of those 50 million people, without having to use Threads themselves.
As an academic, I would just be happy if I could reach my peers on Mastodon. I don’t really give a fuck which platform they choose to use - I’ve chosen mine, and that’s enough for me.
Furthermore, what’s even the point of open standards if you don’t want them to be adopted.
@sab If Threads plays by the rules, they’re welcome, but if they fail to meet our moderation standards (as they likely will), we shouldn’t give them any special treatment.
Also, federating with Threads might not be as big a prospect as we originally thought. Daily active users had fallen by 80% last summer when Meta stopped releasing official numbers. It could be that the numbers have improved since, but then why not make a big deal over it?
Absolutely - if they federate and it turns out to be a problem, there’s no reason one should be more patient with Threads than with any other poorly moderated instance. But in all likelihood the slimy parts of Threads will very rarely make it to the feeds of anyone not actively looking for it.
@sab I think the concern is more about tens/hundreds of thousands of toxic bros from Threads jumping into conversations on the fedi. We’ll know enough not to follow them, but they’ll be able to find us.
The fedi already has every kind of hate and -phobia and -ism present, of course, but if the wrong people from Threads get involved, that could go up by an order of magnitude and push us past a tipping point where our network of volunteer moderators just can’t keep up.
If a threads user is so hellbent on finding and ruining conversations over at Mastodon or whereever, it would probably be easier for them just to sign up for a Mastodon instance in the first place. I don’t think Threads federating is going to make it all that much easier for the trolls.
@david_megginson @sab — so… thugs have Truth Social, X, and Threads. How are they seeping into a Mastodon?
There’s already a bunch of awful Mastodon servers! It’s just that the way the whole system is designed makes them easy to mariginalize.
Furthermore, what’s even the point of open standards if you don’t want them to be adopted.
Well, yes. There does seem to be a lot of “we want open standards but we don’t want big companies to use them” among fediverse users.
“Furthermore, what’s even the point of open standards if you don’t want them to be adopted”
JFC
Didn’t I reply to exactly this point somewhere else yesterday?
Here:
"Using “open protocols/standards” does not translate to “accept any content from anywhere”
It’s just like “Free Speech”
You can say any damn thing you want, but I am under no obligation whatsoever to read or listen to anything you say
Right?"
Nor does it require any sysadmin to accept any content from anywhere
This makes no sense whatsoever. You could want Meta to use ActivityPub, say it’s a good thing that they use an open standard, and still say you have no interest in communicating with them and stick to services where they are defederated.
You don’t have an obligation to read every email you receive just because it’s an open standard.
There’s no logical connection between services using activitypub and you bring forced to connect to them. So I guess at least that’s a point to your free speech example.
