Can we not like, do that Reddit thing at every turn where a certain topic/title always makes it to the top and everybody just duplicates it even though the exact same conversation happens every time?
I came to the Threadiverse because Reddit was closing its APIs and building the walls higher around its garden.
I will be supremely disappointed if the Threadiverse collectively turns around and does the same thing.
Instances should be defederated when they do something harmful. Preemptively defederating is counterproductive, it gives Meta no incentive to do things right.
Yep, the Reddit metaphor really backfired. If Reddit joined the fediverse I would happily consume their content. It would actually be a wonderful compromise where reddit wouldn’t have to provide direct app support and instead just publish out via ActivityPub and people could build third party clients through that.
I left Twitter because they killed Tweetbot and I left Reddit because they killed Apollo. I genuinely hate the experience of those sites with their native apps, and I use these kinds of services almost exclusively on my phone.
While I also hate Elon Musk and Spez, I strongly dislike most tech CEOs so while a motivator, it wasn’t the biggest factor for me. It’s important to remember we’re not all here for the same reason, and user-level instance blocking is the real solution here.
You don’t like some fediverse member? Then block them at the user level and move on, or start your own server and block them there. Don’t force everyone else on your server to not even have the option just for you.
I came to the Threadiverse because Reddit was closing its APIs and building the walls higher around its garden. I will be supremely disappointed if the Threadiverse collectively turns around and does the same thing.
So instances on the fediverse have some obligation to let entities who (A) will control 99% of the content, against our values of a decentralized, more evenly distributed fediverse; (B) have zero interest in an open fediverse; and (C) have all the incentive in the world to prevent its growth and get more people on their own platform to ensure profit? As usually hesitant as I am about preemptive defederation, if the fediverse is to preserve its values of openness and ensure its growth, it can't let in for-profit corporations that will control most of the activity and that go directly against those values of openness we care about so much. Just as tolerance doesn't mean letting in those who are intolerant, an unwalled fediverse can and should put its guards up against those who want to take everything for themselves.
it gives Meta no incentive to do things right
Meta already has zero incentive to do things right. In fact, they have negative incentive, as people being on Mastodon or Kbin instead of Threads actively harms them. You will never see Mark Zuckerberg suggest that people spread out to other instances so that no one gains too much control, but you will see him try to get as many people from the other instances on Threads as possible. We are talking about making our activity dependent on a for-profit tech corporation. If we were way larger so that Threads wouldn't control such a massive portion of activity, I wouldn't be as concerned, but as things stand now, we're letting our content pool be dominated by a company that has interests in direct opposition with ours. I can't see a scenario where any of this ends well.
Nothing makes it special. My point is not that I think Facebook will do no wrong, my point is that it's counterproductive to defederate from them before they've done something wrong.
Big takeaways, emphasis preserved from the original:
Threads is entering a space in the fediverse which is dominated by Mastodon, so it's Mastodon and other fediverse microblogging services (including, to some extent, /kbin) which will most heavily feel the impact of Threads.
Defederating another server means your instance will stop requesting content from that server. ... Defederation is about what data comes in, not what goes out. ... Defederation doesn't make you invisible, it doesn't block anybody else from seeing you, it doesn't protect your content, it only means you never have to see their content.
Firstly, the fediverse is a drop in the ocean compared to Threads (104 million registered users). Obviously, Meta wants everybody, but their specific goals in terms of user-poaching are far more likely to center around the ~350 million active Twitter users than the ~12 million fediverse users (~3.5 million active). The threadiverse [Lemmy, Kbin, et al] is smaller again, at something like 100,000 active users.
"Threads will overwhelm the fediverse with their inferior content and culture." Like the EEE fears, this one is legitimate but once again something that will primarily be felt by microblogging providers (/kbin included). Toxic users, advertisers, etc. can push garbage into feeds all day, but they will largely not be targeting the threadiverse because there's some 100 million sets of eyes to put that crap in front of on the microblogging side and it will be difficult-to-impossible for them to push that content into Lemmy/kbin threads from their interface that was never made to interact with the threadiverse.
Is there any chance Meta has good intentions?No. But it might have intentions that are both self-serving and fediverse-neutral. The absolute best intention I can possibly ascribe to Meta is that joining the fediverse is a CYA (cover your ass) mechanism to head off regulations, especially in the EU, [e.g.] the newly-applicable Digital Markets Act ...
Defederation is about what an instance allows in, not what an instance allows out. Defederation stops you seeing the defederated instance's content, but it does not stop them seeing your instance's content.
Threads poses some danger to the fediverse, in particular the portion of it centered around microblogging (mostly Mastodon, but also Pleroma, parts of /kbin, etc.), but very little risk to the threadiverse.
The worst thing about the fediverse is all the fondue, but you don't have to eat it.
Emphasis from the original post.
This is a detailed summary, thank you for linking.
I have also read some other POVs here; my fears are not totally allayed and I still think Meta is only engaing with Activity Pub to prevent new, potential competitors arising from it.
I hope the OP is right about it being very little risk to the Threadiverse. The good news is that Threads is focused enitrely on microblogging and not the Threadiverse. Perhaps that means Kbin and Lemmy users will be able to sit on the sidelines and see how it plays out for a bit, idk. Mastodon users will be seeing the most change.
The issue is that this does affect Kbin because Kbin is a microblogging platform. It's also a thread aggregator, but it has microblog functionality that some people do actually use. Should we not defederate, stuff from Threads will flood the microblogs of Kbin. If your home page is set to use the All Content feed (like mine is), you'll see microblogs from Threads there. This doesn't have as much of an effect as it does on a purely microblogging-focused platform like Mastodon, but it does still affect a big way that Kbin is used.
Right, and that’s part of why I remain a skeptic. Kbin’s microblog being overtaken by Thread’s content could very well limit kbin’s growth and viability as a microblogging platform - especially if Meta pulls the plug later.
But, I have also seen the opinion that not having Threads content could make kbin unappealing as a microblogging platform. (I’m not sure if I agree with this, but I have seen it mentioned.)
I guess the questions are, Can Kbin grow with Threads content? And, Will the lack of Threads content make it unappealing to new users?
Also, another problem I think is that kbin might not have the userbase and content yet to be self-sustaining when faced with a goliath company like Meta; if we produced as much content as Threads will (or enough to the point that defederating kbin would hurt Threads) then there wouldn’t be much of a concern.
Idk, Threads is ultimately the one forcing the situation (probably intentionally) where federating with them is risky but also refusing to do so could be self-isolating. I still maintain that they’re doing it now while the fediverse is still young for a reason, and that is so they can grab so much of the “fondue” that everyone comes to them anyway.
I would like to see kbin succeed, and I don’t trust Meta. Whatever kbin decides to do I will be here for it, but I’m definitely a Meta skeptic.
To put my own skin in the game, I quite like the microblogging side of kbin. I like that I can swap between the thread and blog sides, I like that I can combine them into one view if I choose, and I like that I don't need a separate account to use either service. Using kbin's microblog was the first time I ever blogged, period. I'd hate to see that stream be overwhelmed by Threads users.
Exactly one of the reasons why I remain a skeptic.
I don’t want sound too much like I’m complaining about “Eternal September” but I quite like how kbin’s microblog is right now. Having millions of threads users suddenly flood it with random… crap… would change it forever.
I haven’t used instagram in more than half a decade. When I hopped on to see what it was like recently, I hardly recognized it and all the content was completely irrelevant. I would hate to see that happen to the microblog.
Bill D’Agostino is the Media Editor for NewsBusters and Senior Research Analyst for the Media Research Center’s News Analysis division. His work has been featured on Fox News, The Daily Wire, The Mark Levin Show, and many other conservative outlets.
The guy that manages Kbin has been having personal issues and stepped away from the fediverse so yeah Kbin is kind of in limbo at the moment and indeed not well moderated. There’s mods but there’s just so much they can do. The software doesn’t federate the deletions so even if they’re gone on Kbin, they remain everywhere else.
One of the main problems is that Ernest is the owner and only mod on those magazines getting all the spam. I guess I missed the memo (figuratively speaking) about deletions not being federated though. That seems like a problem even if there were alternative moderators.
There's at least one person on the mod-request queue for most of the spam-ridden magazines. That "at least one" is me, which is how I know. I'm not here all the time and wouldn't be great at it, but at this stage even a part-time mod would be better than none at all. Hopefully, as and when Ernest comes back he can assign some roles. Twice as hopefully, someone else who would be better at it gets it instead.
I hope it goes on. And being open source, it definitely will! (e.g. Mbin)
Ernest likewise will be remembered, fondly or otherwise, for his contributions in starting it.
That said, I’m close to personally blocking it due to all the spam hitting other servers from it, and the FBI may come knocking soon as well if people decide to hit it with illegal stuff like CP.
They’ll never have the full Mastodon functionality because they’re Facebook. It’s always going to be a one way proposition where Masto can see them but they can’t see us. It’s honestly kind of like being a creepy Peeping Tom.
Assuming, of course, that your instance doesn’t block Threads. Many (most?) do. Some even block second-degree connections.
This isn't "the fediverse." This is one instance. "The fediverse" is a network of interoperable instances, each one owned and maintained separately.
Personally, I think the best way to interact with the fediverse is to maintain accounts on multiple instances. I have a dozen or so accounts total, and regularly use four or five of them. They're all under the same name, so they're all "me," but they're spread out instead of everything being on one account on one instance.
The main reason I prefer that is that every instance is different. Even though they're all interacting with the same broad pool of content, they each have a different userbase with different preferences, which means that they each have a different set of federated instances and subscribed communities. There's a fair amount of stuff I'll see on one instance but not on another, and it follows the overall focus of the instance. So whatever my mood might be or I might be interested in, I have an account on a suitable instance to match it.
Another advantage though, and directly on topic, is that I always have an alternative if one of them is having problems. Since each instance is privately owned and maintained rather than being owned by a corporation and maintained by its staff, there's any number of quirks and difficulties and failures. And that's just the way it is - the people running these instances are just ordinary people who are basically donating their time and resources, and they don't owe us anything. We get whatever we get, and have no right to demand any more than that.
With accounts on multiple instances, it doesn't matter if one or another of them has difficulties at the moment, or even if one shuts down completely (as two of my favorites have), since i can just switch to a different instance any time.
Kbin is special. It's an entirely different piece of software from Lemmy (and a better one in many ways). But it was written primarily by one person - Ernest - and he's also the owner of this instance. And while he's a great guy, he's also a single individual with other interests and responsibilities, and with some health issues. So it's a great place running on a great piece of software, but it has some difficulties and is often slow and/or glitchy. That's fine - I still like it here, so it's one of my most-used accounts, and I can always use a different one on a different instance if this one is too much of a problem.
“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…
Glad Flipboard is expanding in the Fediverse, I've been following their various news accounts on Mastodon for a while now. It especially helps the fediverse feel more complete as a social media platform.
Sure, these don't really matter for Lemmy and Kbin, but they are a huge deal for microblogging platforms like mastodon or misskey.
It's not a bad thing, gives you the option to read them on the Fediverse and it proves that the Fediverse could possibly be the future of Social Media. It's good to see other people want to see it grow.
If people don't like it then personally block it, the only reason for blocking a whole instance, instance wide is if it has morals that conflict to much such as a Anti-LGBT instance vs a LGBT one.
Let's put it this way: Just because they live under an oppressive regime doesn't mean we should be mean to them and keep them isolated in their evil bubble.
Say, many would agree that Han people in China are oppressed. They have a ton of middle-class citizens who are free to leave the country, they just don't want to permanently due to not thinking it'd be better.
Same applies to Threads, though maybe a stronger case for leaving.
I’m not having a conversation that compares people signing up to their favourite social media channel with people who suffer systemic discrimination every day in their lives.
I mean, you know they aren't going to have adequate content moderation because they ALREADY don't. Lack of moderation is the #1, #2, and #3 best reasons to defederate.
Wanting to see proof before taking positive action is valid and sensible. But you can't pretend it isn't something you can already make reasonable inferences about. This is not a new unknown and pretending it is is ridiculous.
Email servers do not automatically feed content into and pull content out of your system. They only send and deliver to specific people at specific addresses. Federation is a firehose. You can close the hydrant before or after it gets hooked up to city water, but at the end of the day only people that chose to do things the sensible way will have dry socks and no water damage.
this is just not true, sorry. instances only retrieve/pushed specified actions/actors. . pretending it is is ridiculous. this is now a new unknown, this is how the ap protocol works.
and your shit is already public, if they want to suck it all in there is literally nothing stopping them right now. federation or not.
Like I linked in the OP post, the problem isn't their implementation of the protocol, but what FB is, and what it has done; and it probably would not stop doing it in the Fediverse. If Hannnibal Lecter moved in the neighbourhood I wouldn't answer his dinner invite, just to see what's on the menu.
whatever. i hate facebook, i dont use their crap. but im not going out of my way to block their AP protocol any more than i would their SMTP protocol.
when their activity in a specific context demonstrably, negatively affects my system, ill take action as i would any negative impact from any protocol on any of my services.
when i get a spammer, i block them. but again, im not going out of my way to spite some big asshole company, and potentially lose out on coordinating an offramp for those trapped in its walls.
everyone here as proven one thing: there is no technical reason to block threads. its entirely political/moral/spite and a lot of 'maybes'.
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