Meta/Instagram launched a new product called Threads today (working title project92). It adds a new interface for creating text posts and replying to them, using your Instagram account. Of note, Meta has stated that Threads plans to support ActivityPub in the future, and allow federation with ActivityPub services. If you actually look at your Threads profile page in the app your username has a threads.net tag next to it - presumably to support future federation.
Per the link, a number of fediverse communities are pledging to block any Meta-directed instances that should exist in the future. Thus instance content would not be federated to Meta instances, and Meta users would not be able to interact with instance content.
I'm curious what the opinions on this here are. I personally feel like Meta has shown time and time again that they are not very good citizens of the Internet; beyond concerns of an Eternal September triggered by federated Instagram, I worry that bringing their massive userbase to the fediverse would allow them to influence it to negative effect.
I also understand how that could be seen to go against the point of federated social media in the first place, and I'm eager to hear more opinions. What do you think?
Defederation can go as far as including any instance that federates with Meta, even if they don't do this directly.
It still doesn't change the very basic math of Meta having billions of users and the existing Fediverse, across all services, still numbers in the millions.
A social network is only as strong as the size of a network. If you're trying to get an average person to join an instance are they going to want to join an instance with access to a few million people or an instance that can contact most of the planet?
Cutting an instance off from the largest userbase of any service on the Internet is suicide for an instance.
There are guaranteed to be instances that do not de-federate with Meta and so users looking to escape Meta will move to those independently owned instances as it allows them to get off of Meta services without losing contact with users and groups that they were previously using.
It is disheartening to see how often de-federation is offered as a solution to any given problem or grievance. This mindset ensures that the network will be an ideologically fragmented mess instead of a single open social network.
Meta having billions of people gives Meta the evil ability to scrape and steal all their personal info. Zuck even called them “stupid fucks”.
Communities don’t need to reach billions. They just need to be honest and central for the topics people wish to discuss.
Meta doesn’t allow that - they use the feed and algos to push agendas, run psych experiments on children, redline real estate ads, and psyop for political gains.
I can’t understand trying to foster an actual community and joining it to Meta. They have just proven themselves to be bad actors too many times. Why should anybody trust them now?
Nonsense. A social network thrives on quality, not size. In fact more online communities have been killed by uncontrolled growth than by anything else (the Eternal September effect) when the old culture of the community was swept away by masses of new users.