this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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I just read this point in a comment and wanted to bring it to the spotlight.

Meta has practically unlimited resources. They will make access to the fediverse fast with their top tier servers.

As per my understanding this will make small instances less desirable to the common user. And the effects will be:

  1. Meta can and will unethically defedrate from instances which are a theat to them. Which the majority of the population won't care about, again making the small instances obsolete.
  2. When majority of the content is on the Meta servers they can and will provide fast access to it and unethically slow down access to the content from outside instances. This will be noticeable but cannot be proved, and in the end the common users just won't care. They will use Threads because its faster.

This is just what i could think of, there are many more ways to be evil. Meta has the best engineers in the world who will figure out more discrete and impactful ways to harm the small instances.

Privacy: I know they can scrape data from the fediverse right now. That's not a problem. The problem comes when they launch their own Android / iOS app and collect data about my search and what kind of Camel milk I like.

My thoughts: I think building our own userbase is better than federating with an evil corp. with unlimited resources and talent which they will use to destroy the federation just to get a few users.

I hope this post reaches the instance admins. The Cons outweigh the Pros in this case.

We couldn't get the people to use Signal. This is our chance to make a change.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm hoping that ALL admins across the Fediverse will defederate from Meta. At least we get to have our own separate platform then.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

They shouldn't just defederate from Meta, they should defederate from any other instances that federate with Meta. Like a firewall against late stage capitalism

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

But that is a double-edged sword. What if, for example, mastodon.social doesn't defederate with Meta, but you defederate mastodon.social? Now you've just cut yourself off from a huge portion of the fediverse. Admins should defederate from Meta if their community wants to do that, but defederating from other instances that didn't do that is going a bit too far, in my opinion.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

A small price to pay for salvation from Meta.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've already blocked mastodon.social.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Because the size of it, the sheer centralization around it, it creeps me out.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Why? If you have blocked meta shouldn't you already be exempt from seeing comments and posts by their users on other instances? Why is this punitive approach needed

Edit: (Alongside downvoting, an explanation might be better suited to change people's minds, I just eant to know the advantage of this approach since you are excluding yourself from many users and you would have already blocked meta in this scenario)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If you have blocked meta shouldn’t you already be exempt from seeing comments and posts by their users on other instances?

Yes, at least that's how it is explained in How the beehaw defederation affects us, Back then, beehaw.org defederated from lemmy.world.

Why do I see posts/comments from beehaw users on communities outside lemmy.world and beehaw.org?

That’s because the “true” version of those posts is outside beehaw. So we get updates from those posts. And lemmy.world didn’t defederate beehaw, so posts/comments from beehaw users can still come to versions hosted on lemmy.world.

The reverse is not true. Because beehaw defederate lemmy.world, any post/comment from a lemmy.world users will NOT be sent to the beehaw version of the post.

Third instance communities

Finally, we have the example of communities that are on instances that have not been defederated by beehaw.org.

We can see all three of these versions look pretty similar. That’s because for the most part they are. We are identical with lemmy.ml, as lemmy.ml hosts the “true” version, and we get all updates from the “true” version. Beehaw.org will not get posts/comments from us, so beehaw actually doesn’t have the most “true” version of this community.

Translated into the current context:

  • beehaw.org = your instance, which defederates from Threads
  • lemmy.world = Threads (sorry folks, just to eplain the mechanics)
  • lemmy.ml = another instance, which is federated with both, your instance and Threads

Conclusions:

  • You wont see posts or commens from Threads users in that remote community. You also won't see reactions to those activities from anyone, anywhere. It's as if comment chains started by Threads users don't exist.
  • Threads will not see posts and comments from you, even if done in communities from instances which are federated with Threads.

Or what do you think, @[email protected]?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using an URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

That will just drive many Fedi-users to Meta.

Different instances will make different decisions and users will go to the instances that suit their preferences. That'a how it is supposed to work and the only way it hurts the Fediverse is if we get flooded with threads complaining that other people have different preference, dammit.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (4 children)

I feel like this will just hurt us more then help.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Meta willingly under-moderated across large swaths of east Asia and Africa, leading to unchecked rumors and tangible acts of genocide. Zuckerberg has compared himself to Augustus Caesar.

I think it’s acceptable to cut off a wildfire before it spreads.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Gotta love the fact Meta contributed to how my country got a murderer and the son of a dictator as presidents. Real great and trustworthy company there /s

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (3 children)

I'm not asking you to trust them, I'm asking how defederating accomplishes anything? They got more users than the entire fediverse in a single day. We are not hurting them by cutting them off, we are merely making the fediverse seem more like a barren hostile place for a bunch of weirdo nerds.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The goal is not to hurt meta, but to keep meta from hurting the rest of the federated sites. Like not inviting a known their to the community barbecue because they are known to have stolen tons of food from other community meals. We aren't keeping them from creating their own dinner or anything by not federating, just keeping them away from ours.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Except in this analogy, Meta hasn't stolen food before. They run the largest bbq around, and have bought out previous corporate competitor bbqs, and now they're hosting a giant bbq one way or another, they're just suggesting you put a gate in the fence so that people can flow back and forth between the small community bbq and their large corporate one.

Is that going to make you nervous since they have such a cool giant bbq that people are inevitably going to want to go there? Yeah, but again, that's the case regardless of whether or not the gate goes in.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Shilling for Meta is a bad look.

They steal people's data and don't follow data privacy laws. They draw people in with unethical business practices, not fair competition like in your example.

People are not worried about people using Meta outside of the fediverse. In your analogy Meta is already easily accessible through the internet in general and people can feel free to use both without needing a special gate.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago

Shilling for Meta is a bad look.

Does it look like I care whether or not I agree with the hive mind?

They draw people in with unethical business practices, not fair competition like in your example.

My example included them buying out their competition which is not fair, it's blatantly anti-competitive. Fairness has nothing to do with anything I wrote.

People are not worried about people using Meta outside of the fediverse. In your analogy Meta is already easily accessible through the internet in general and people can feel free to use both without needing a special gate.

And in my example the gate doesn't harm the fediverse at all, it just makes it more convenient for users of both bbqs, being my entire point. There is nothing to be lost by federating with Meta.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Defederating means not interacting with the crowd Meta brings in. I have a bunch of other reasons but that's my main one. And before you suggest blocking, you can't possibly expect me to block all 10M of their users and the domain block is bugged. I know because I tried.

Besides, this place doesn't look like much of a barren wasteland since we're interacting with a bunch of people right now. I don't mind interacting with only weirdo nerds if they're nicer people. Quantity doesn't mean quality after all.

For the people who want to interact with Threads because of family and friends, they should just make an account there. Just don't let Meta destroy this small part of the internet.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

FB is a known source for targeted misinfo campaigns. If I log into those services right now Im pretty much gaurenteed to have misinfo on my landing page.

why federate with that?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Lemmy is run by a bunch of tankies and the entire fediverse is under-moderated.

Cutting off a ton of users and content from the fediverse is stupid and everyone in here just keeps coming up with vague generalities because they're scared of Meta rather than have actually thought through what will happen and be able to articulate any actual harms.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

"Boo hoo tankies bad, but big corpo run by billionaires who spread misinformation and intentionally act to topple legitimate governments in favor of their fascist agenda are akshually good"

Arguing with people like you (corporate shill) is a waste of time, so I'd rather have fun instead.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

The reactions you are seeing are based off of Metas history. We will see how it works out.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

People have articulated all kinds of actual harms, including two possibilities in the OP, but frankly they're irrelevant.

We know what Meta's goals are, and we know they have absolutely no moral standards whatsoever. Exactly how they try to accomplish those goals doesn't matter. We shouldn't give them the opportunity to try anything.

We should be scared of Meta, and we should keep them as far away as possible. Anything else is reckless and stupid at best.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (2 children)

People have articulated all kinds of actual harms, including two possibilities in the OP, but frankly they're irrelevant.

No, they didn't. The harm listed was that Meta will make a shinier platform that will syphon away users, that is happening regardless and is not a harm that is a result of federation, it's a harm that's a result of meta having more money to build a better platform.

We know what Meta's goals are, and we know they have absolutely no moral standards whatsoever. Exactly how they try to accomplish those goals doesn't matter. We shouldn't give them the opportunity to try anything.

There goal is to launch a twitter competitor with a lot of users and make money off advertising. Nothing about that conflicts with the fediverse.

Like I said, this thread is filled with a bunch of people shaking in their boots about the company who must not be named rather than actually providing sober rational assessment of what's likely to happen.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Yeah, you think they give a shit about the fediverse? They're using ActivityPub because it's easier for them. They're not going to want to EEE us, because there's not enough of us to matter to them.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

It's not easier for them, and once there's enough people to matter then it's too late to kill it. The fediverse is growing, and they want to stop that before the fediverse is big enough to matter.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

that is happening regardless and is not a harm that is a result of federation

Yes, it is. Read this: https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html

There goal is to launch a twitter competitor with a lot of users and make money off advertising.

They can do that without integrating with the fediverse. The reason they're going to integrate with the fediverse is to embrace, extend, and extinguish.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I've read that, and it's not an example of a corporation killing a decentralized network through federation, it's just a normal example of a corporation killing a decentralized network by having more money to make a better app.

XMPP did not die because Google used that protocol, it died because people preferred using Google Talk over any of the XMPP apps. That would be the case regardless of whether Google used XMPP or not.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

I don't see why this would hurt us. But even if it did, I would rather take the blow than associate with Big Tech again.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Do you really want the Instagram crowd to interact with us...?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At least there would be people and content to interact with.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Based on your posts so far my friend, its becoming clearer why you think there's no one to interact with.