If you take a look at their CEOs fediverse acct, you'll see he's pretty caught up in the mastodon hype. He's coming at the whole thing from the perspective of mastodon being the platform, instead of the weird disjointed fediverse. People have tried explaining things he's not understanding fully, and he kinda brushes it off. I think even in a decentralized network, there are some ppl who still need some centralized platform to focus in on.
I actually come at this from an open standards pov and believe in the power of interoperable systems on a shared network. I built a startup in the early 90s called Paper which launched a 3D plugin for Netscape called WebFX built on an open standard called VRML that held the promise to create a 3D web. Paper was acquired by Netscape and then I worked on a bunch of open standards like XML, HTML 4, RSS, etc. Then I started a new company called Tellme which was the forerunner to Siri and Alexa built on VoiceXML, an open standard that held the promise to create a voice web. As cool as that work was, an open voice web or open 3d web never happened. These days at Flipboard I'm focused on ActivityPub and I see an incredible amount of diversity and decentralized innovation happening here in such a way that the open social web could very well happen. And that would be good for everyone. But I've fought these battles before and lost enough to know that this is not a sure thing. There are many twists and turns along the way and I am hoping to do my part to navigate those in way which is a win for good acting members of society, non-profits and businesses.
re: Mastodon I see it as the largest use case of the social web today. But there are many others as you well know. We just stood up a peertube instance today for example and I love my pixelfed account. I have been following kbin and Lemmy with lots of interest though reluctant to sign up and engage mostly cause I am worried about spreading myself too thin across all these amazing activitypub services.
re: your broader point. I agree that most people have no appreciation for the fediverse beyond mastodon. And people get confused when they think of Mastodon in terms grounded in the centralized model used for how social media mostly works today. It reminds me of how people thought AOL was the best way to be online and that the internet was super confusing and just for scientists.
There will be a lot of education and evangelism and, more importantly, new apps and use cases that will be needed to make this vision of an open social web actually happen. I'm just happy to be doing my part to help.
re: Mastodon I see it as the largest use case of the social web today. But there are many others as you well know. We just stood up a peertube instance today for example and I love my pixelfed account. I have been following kbin and Lemmy with lots of interest though reluctant to sign up and engage mostly cause I am worried about spreading myself too thin across all these amazing activitypub services.
This was my point. You shouldn't need an account on all of these services. You should be able to interact from your single Flipboard account. But its likely that, like most new fediverse services, you were testing mostly (or probably solely) against Mastodon. Despite Flipboard having more in common with link aggregators like kbin/lemmy, yall went for mastodon compatibility first.
A lot of people are worried about large orgs/companies like Flipboard/Meta joining the fediverse and controlling it, but Mastodon itself has been in that position for a long time. It's controlled and limited the fediverse for a while and people keep reinforcing its control instead of expanding on the fediverse's plurality.
I agree with you that the fediverse’s plurality is crucial to reinforce right now. This is why integrated with Pixelfed and promoted it to our users early this year. We will be able to introduce people to other services across the fediverse once we’ve completed our activitypub cutover.
This post doesn’t address the main “pro-federation” point that I have seen. People who are support of federation aren’t saying that Facebook is a great company, they have great morales or that they aren’t supporting ActivityPub for their own gain. I think there is very little doubt that FB is a shit organization with no morales who thinks that this is a great move to get people back to their sites.
The most common reason that I see people supportive of Threads’ federation is that they believe it will help people move off of Facebook and other proprietary platforms onto more user-friendly ones. If all of your friends use Instagram it is very hard to move to Mastodon. If you want to stay in touch you will at least need two accounts. You can move friends but it is hard because they each need to make that switch and it affects their interaction with others, or they need to manage multiple accounts until most of their friends have switched. If your friends use Threads (and it federates) then you can switch to Mastodon with very little friction, you can still interact with all of your existing friends in more or less the same way. Similarly each friend can easily move without managing multiple accounts during the transition. If all instances have blocked threads.net many people just won’t move, they will stay with FB.
To make a good argument you need to either refute this perceived advantage or argue that it isn’t worth the downsides. Making up a strawman doesn’t convince anyone.
I get what you're saying, I think most people fear that instead FB's septic tank will spill and spread in the Fediverse instead; I already had to deal with some "FREE SPEECH!" guy that wanted it to be a platform where people for example from Hamas and Israel could discuss and "agree to disagree".
If a Mastodon instance was run by someone who allowed a genocide to be fuelled by their platform, and earn money from the advertising, I think we'd defederate in a heart beat. It just doesn't seem consistent to federate with them.
I have already done my part on my Mastodon account.
My main concern is the awful moderation of Meta's services. Bullying, celebration of loss of rights and violence committed towards of protected minorities; and outright misinformation are allowed. All while the very same people duped the moderation AI to flag any criticism of said hate speech as the real hate speech because false reportings. Facebook, instagram, etc. are notorious for letting big far-right accounts get away with hate speech and defamation, and I don't really think it'll be different on Threads for very long.
EDIT: In the meanwhile, I remembered screenshots of showing this exact moderation problem already happening on Threads, but to a way lesser degree, than on Facebook so far. Maybe this will make them getting booted from even the instances that didn't originally plan to defederate them.
On the Lemmy and Kbin Magazine side of things, Threads won’t be a huge threat as most discussion will stay on existing communities/magazines, and most of the same users will be there with some interaction from Threads users.
On the Mastodon and the microblog side of things Threads will be interesting and I think the healthiest option is some server disconnect from Threads and others don’t. What you don’t want is ALL the discussion happening on threads and within threads, Threads should be set up as a gateway to the rest of the Fediverse despite the size difference.
I'm here because I wanted to get away from anything corporate and mainstream. And I quite like it so far. I will definitely block anything threads. And if it seeps in too much I would rather quit alltogether, find me a good book and never look back. That said I'm all in for preemtive defederation.
I would like to make a few counterpoints to yours from the opposite perspective.
To your first point: Nearly everyone here came from Reddit's API fiasco. We all already left the place that housed the vast majority of the content and went somewhere much slower and quieter. If Threads were to abandon ActivityPub in the future, we would still have the same users who are here now, and if returning the fediverse to it's current level of activity is to be considered a death sentence for it, wouldn't that mean we're already doomed? Things are stable right now though and we have enough activity to sustain a social network as is, so the loss of Threads content wouldn't be our downfall unless a majority of our current users decide its too quiet without them. However, I wouldn't expect the group who left all of Reddit's content behind to be the type who would also abandon their accounts here just because the Threads users aren't here again.
As for the second and third points, the beauty of ActivityPub is that it allows users to choose the services they want to use in order to access the same content across the fediverse, and it wouldn't be right for us to try to dictate how others choose to access an open protocol. If someone who is interested in joining the network decides to do so through Threads, that should be their choice to make, even though I personally think its the wrong one. In all likelihood though, someone making an account on Threads wouldn't have consciously joined the wider fediverse of their own volition anyway. Once they're on though and have a chance to maybe learn a little about these "third party services" they see, they'll make their way to these places instead. Exposure to the fediverse is the best way to understand it from my experience. There have also been a whole host of people who already signed up for Mastodon accounts without understanding a thing about what a federated network entails, they just wanted out of Twitter.
I don't think its right to view ActivityPub as competition to mainstream social media networks, it's a tool meant to help build a better unified social media network. If we limit who can use the tool, we'll only be hindering the growth of the fediverse.
Thanks for the alternate perspective! However, it doesn't really alleviate my concerns much:
Firstly, the claim "Nearly everyone here came from Reddit's API fiasco." isn't necessarily true, as the fediverse consists of more than Lemmy and the threads section on Kbin. Threads primarily concerns microblogging, which includes platforms like Mastodon, Misskey, Firefish, Friendica, and Kbin. Even so, you could say that all of these people came from similar situations — they all could've chose Twitter or what have you and instead chose the smaller platforms on the fediverse. But does that really mean that they'll stay here? This whole situation is showing that people are desperate for activity, even if that activity means relying on a corporation with interests that go against ours. People have already left following drops in activity — during Ernest's hiatus, the number of active Kbin users plummeted (yes, it was always going to down after the initial rise from the Reddit migration, but Kbin went down a lot, especially compared to Lemmy) and hasn't recovered. Those people, who have tried it and said, "Yeah, this isn't really working," are really hard to get back.
Now, imagine if everyone here got used to the large amount of microblog content provided by Threads, interacted with it a bunch, followed a bunch of Threads accounts, etc. like people are expressing plans to do. If Threads quits federating, thereby making all of that content and connection inaccessible to the rest of the fediverse, do you think people will stick around after that much of an activity drop? No, tons of people are going to follow the 99% of activity and flock to Threads, leaving the open fediverse in a position worse than right now. If you want to give Meta the chance to kill the fediverse's chance of growing to become a legitimate competitor, this is how you do it.
What you say about people having choice is true. If people want to access the fediverse through Threads, that is absolutely their choice. However, another beauty of ActivityPub is that we have the choice over whether we accept interaction with Threads or not. We don't have to become dependent on Meta to carry the fediverse — we can shut them out immediately and grow slowly but surely. If someone wants to join Threads, we aren't under any obligation to show them our content. Instead, saying, "Hey, if you want interaction with us, head over to something that cares about an open fediverse like a Mastodon or Kbin instance," is going to be much better for us long-term.
I don't think its right to view ActivityPub as competition to mainstream social media networks,
No matter how we view it, Meta views ActivityPub as competition to Threads and rightfully so. The values we currently hold on the fediverse — transparency from moderators & developers, no one instance having control, people having lots of choice, etc. — are values that directly go against Meta's profit whether they join ActivityPub or not. It is in Meta's best interest to pull as many users from here as possible and to nip the fediverse in the bud before it grows. Zuckerberg is not here to play nice, and I can't fathom how anyone would believe so. He does not care about a decentralized, open fediverse. He wants to get as many people on his platform as possible and to make potential competitors less viable, and this is how he can do it.
Threads presents a serious danger to the long-term viability of the fediverse if we become dependent on it for content, and our best bet at avoiding that is defederation.
If Threads federates... it's part of the fediverse.
Even if you don't accept that tautology, sure, maybe the fediverse (not including Threads, which is also fediverse at that point, but ok whatever) doesn't do great, but kbin will definitely suffer if it defederates from Threads, once Threads becomes part of the fediverse federates does whatever you think it'll be doing that's not exactly the same thing as joining the fediverse and therefore becoming part of the thing that you think will become non-viable after the most viable piece of it joins. Kbin will become an also-ran within the fediverse, because most users will want to use tools that allow them to interact with the most people.
I guess what I'm saying is you can't in one breath say that "Threads will join the fediverse" and then in the next breath say "the fediverse will become non-viable" as if Threads isn't part of the fediverse in the second breath. Let's not do "separate but equal" with social media, please. It's silly.
If Kbin defederates from Threads, it'll be Kbin that suffers.
This may be an issue of poor wording on my part. The idea I'm trying to get across is that if Kbin, Mastodon, & other microblog platforms that are currently on the fediverse don't defederate from Threads, the users on those platforms will become dependent on Meta for activity. If Meta then leaves the fediverse, activity will drop down to what we have now, only with people used to the activity brought by Threads and having all of the connections they made with Threads accounts. This will pull tons of people from Kbin, Mastodon, etc. and essentially kill the open fediverse with very little hope of it growing again.
And to be clear, Meta has tons of incentive to do this. Meta is a profit-driven company. They want as many people as possible on their platforms, not on Mastodon or on Kbin or on Firefish or on Misskey. The open, widely distributed fediverse that we strive for goes against Meta's motives. Just as they'd have everyone on the Metaverse if he could, Zuckerberg will absolutely pull people from Kbin onto Threads if he gets the chance, and he will get that chance if we decide to put the content pool in the hands of Meta for the sake of trying to get activity as quickly as possible.
Kbin will become an also-ran within the fediverse, because most users will want to use tools that allow them to interact with the most people.
I'm not sure this holds. Surely if it was the primary factor in deciding which social media everyone chose, Kbin would already be dead at the hands of Twitter? Federation doesn't really change that argument if it's only about interacting with the most people.
That said I do agree that we need enough instances to defederate from Threads for this to work. If Threads overwhelms every other instance with volume and kills them, Kbin is alone and not really better off for having defederated. But as a pretty big instance, Kbin doing this is a major part of ensuring that the fediverse does not just become a collection of quirky alternative interfaces for Threads.
as if Threads isn't part of the fediverse in the second breath.
If Threads puts out so much more content as to effectively make other federated entities irrelevant, the character of the Fediverse changes such that it is no longer what it is today. Federation is meaningless if 99.9% of content comes from one place. Kbin would wind up as effectively just a weird third party interface for threads in that situation.
Let's not do "separate but equal" with social media, please. It's silly.
Is it meaningfully different to any other instance of defederation? Many of which I would say are generally beneficial to Kbin.
If Threads puts out so much more content as to effectively make other federated entities irrelevant, the character of the Fediverse changes such that it is no longer what it is today.
I see what you’re saying, but I really don’t see what Meta stands to gain in the long run from an open fediverse. It just doesn’t seem compatible with their business model to allow users who aren’t on their platform to interact with content created on their platform. They need data so they can sell it to advertisers, and I don’t see how that works when your users can just jump to another instance with no advertisments and access all the same content.
What do you think Meta stands to gain from Activity Pub, and why wouldn’t they just make their own closed protocol? (I am asking in good faith, because I do not really know.)
As I understand it, they’re joining precisely because they’d gain little. By flooding it with their content, any new user would think Fediverse=Threads.
I’ve seen the acronym EEE (Embrace, Expand, Extinguish) thrown a lot in these discussions because it’s a 3-word summary of their presumed strategy.
My question is, what has Threads done to influence Mastodon development so far in a bad way.
lets Say threads is just the mainstream platform of the fediverse. The protocol is all open source, and every one is in control of their servers. If it is federated whats the worse that could happen?
Plus you can always switch to lemmy, firefish, and etc. to try to avoid threads platform wide.
I wouldn't say kbin would be harmed necessarily even if maybe just a tiny bit. A good amount of the users on Lemmy (can't say much about kbin hadn't tried it yet) hate threads. So as an alternative to Mastodon, that would actually more likely score them points not detract from a user perspective.
Most likely, for a user to be on kbin or Lemmy you either come from Reddit, or you come from Mastodon so the users would had likely made up their mind on separating themselfs from major platforms, that likely includes threads.
Counterpoint, what has Meta done to gain even the tiniest bit of the semblance of the doubt. If someone's punched you in the face every time you've knocked on their door, are you really going to knock on it a 15th time? You'd be a fool to expect that time to be any different.
Just like you'd be a fool to expect the overall impact of Meta having their fingers in the Fediverse to be anything other than harmful.
I feel the post doesn't really address my concerns.
Really? You think Threads will take over and rule Mastodon? Threads is its own platform, users on the fediverse can still join Mastodon #servers of their choice and leave. I expect we'l see plenty of anti #threads Mastodon servers pop up. If Threads were to somehow get an influence in Mastodon, just switch to #lemmy switch to #pixelfed switch to #firefish So many choices.
This seems to not really understand the risk Threads poses. Threads is its own platform, yes, but it will dominate the visible content of any instance that federates with it. It's very dangerous to depend on a massive, profit-driven corporation for activity on the fediverse, as the things we value on the fediverse (decentralization, transparency, even distribution of content between instances, etc.) go against the corporation's motives. Meta does not stand to benefit from any of the things we value, and most of the Threads userbase (i.e. casual Instagram users) probably won't notice or care about federation. Meta does benefit if everyone depends on them for content, as then they can pull people to Threads just by defederating. People will choose to go to Threads where the amount of activity is what they're used to over staying on their Mastodon instance after activity has plummeted and they can't see most of the people they follow.
This is a big one. Meta might capture the mainstrean fediverse. Lets just be real the average regular internet user wasn't going to join Mastodon in the first place. Not that they wouldn't want to it just isn't on their list next to #facebook#instagram#tiktok#youtube#discord or even #twitter . Actually I take what Meta is doing as a compliment to the fediverse. Remember Twitter at one time under #elon#elonmusk banned the talk of Mastodon or something like that. Threads might not have our interests at heart but they are already mainstream so why should they not allow their users be federated with us?
Yes, there are definitely a lot of people that the fediverse is just never going to appeal to. But of those who are interested in the fediverse, more will be inclined to join Threads due to it having most of the content & just requiring an Instagram login. There is a pool of people out there who will try out the fediverse if they're introduced to it — that's how we all got here — and if people can interact with the big Mastodon, Kbin, etc. instances from Threads, many will choose to do that when they wouldn't have otherwise.
@ThatOneKirbyMain2568@rob299 Yes. But also Meta's screwed-up moderation systems will be brought to bear against fedi instances. The latter will essentially have to endure a shitty AI-generated smear campaign.
@FinchHaven@ThatOneKirbyMain2568 what I meant by that section you quoted from the post was, if Meta were to influence the development of Mastodon. If you switch to Firefish or others mentioned, you would probably have a more preferred dev team then what could happen to Mastodon with Meta.
I don't think "the development" is what is claimed to be at stake here.
OP is not talking about the software, they're talking about the content. And the content model from Mastodon is not interchangeable with the one from Lemmy, Pixelfed, etc. they serve different purposes and have different models. In fact that's the main interoperatibility barrier between them.
It's like saying that if most people use gmail for email you will switch from email to audio calls to avoid communicating with google's service. As if real time audio were the same thing as sending a message (or as if google was unable to add compatibility with that call service too if they wanted).
One thing you could argue is, instead of switching services, switching to an instance that does defederate if you dont want threads content. But that same argument can be said as well towards those wanting threads federation...
But dont think the point is what does the individual want (if that were the case, just use the option to block threads content for your user, without defederating), the point is what's best for the fediverse. I think people are afraid that something similar to what happened with "google talk" and their embrace of xmpp will repeat.
Personally, I think there's no reason to jump the gun this early... all of this post is based on a lot of weak assumptions. I dont believe that threads content would overwhelm the feeds, and if that were to happen then the software could be tweaked so the contribution of each instance to the feeds can be weighted and made more customizable, for example.
The lack of answer to the question "Why are Meta suddenly so open and willing to integrate with the Fediverse when they've basically been doing the opposite with their own products?" is a huge concern.
My guess is that they don't have an exact game plan yet, and are letting their naive, enthusiastic staff - those with no idea of the answer to the above question - do the initial scout and integration work with a view to see how it can be perverted for Meta's profit/benefit in future.
Meta probably wouldn't use the word "perverted", but from an outside perspective that's what it'd be.
My thinking here is exactly the same as in comments I posted about Microsoft's embrace of Linux a short while back: 12
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