It should come as no surprise that the lemmy.ml admin team took about 2 minutes to decide to pre-emptively block threats / Meta. Their transparent and opportunistic scheme to commodify the fediverse and it's users will not be allowed to proceed.
We strongly encourage other instance administrators to do the same, given the grave threat they pose to the fediverse.
Gonna go against the grain here a little bit, but why? If they are federated, it will mean that you can move off of threads more easily to other servers and not get locked into a walled garden. Encouraging companies to embrace federation will avoid the shit shows like we've seen at twitter and reddit, since users will be easily able to jump ship without much loss. Additionally, apps like threads make federated platforms much more approachable to newcomers and those who do not even know what the fediverse is.
I'd love someone to explain it to me, but this feels like a massive footgun.
I mean, lemmy.ml explicitly describes itself as a community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts (and I'm reasonably certain it's run by actual communists) so I'd have been quite surprised if they'd embraced Meta tbh.
Exactly what I'm thinking. Also why are server admins choosing what I can do on other instances? Am I missing something here? Why can't users be in control of who they interact with?
Yeah this is the point that irks me, each individual should get to decide for themselves, I totally get and respect the arguments for not engaging with Threads, but I don't want that decision made for me. And unfortunately it seems like most fediverse admins feel the same way, so "just switch instances" isn't necessarily practical
Agreed, I've been on lemmy for like a month and already had to make several accounts on different instances because I'm just trying to see everything and instances keep defederating. I understand lemmy is young and growing fast and there will be growing pains, but threads isn't even on activitypub yet and they're already being blocked by half the instances.
Idk if you disagree with what most fediverse admins feel is the way to go... I'm gonna say maybe find one that you do agree with and make that your instance.
I hear there's one called Threads you can try.
To be fair...you have the ability to fix this yourself by hosting your own instance.
Yes and suggesting that average users can simply set up a server and then navigate either Docker or Ansible just to maintain consistent content preferences isn't perhaps realistic. Even for tech-literate folks it's kind of a big lift, and I have to suspect it's one of the issues that could keep the Fediverse from enjoying wider adoption.
You can decide for yourself by making your own server or finding one you align with, that's exactly how this works.
I agree, threads connecting to the fediverse seems like it would be a positive step for everyone. I'm not sure how meta could kill the fediverse as long as independent servers exist. If meta is flooding the fediverse with spam or other influencer bs, then we can all just defederate.
I have an alternate theory that threads is never planning to support the fediverse. They are trying to attract users who are looking for a Twitter alternative, and right now the most compelling option is mastodon. But if threads announces activitypub support, then some would-be mastodon users might join threads instead, thinking it will all be connected. But if threads ends up winning all those users anyways, then they'll just say fuck it, we don't need activitypub.
So far I've only got a lot of unsatisfying answers (from a factual perspective). It seems to boil down to how much individuals on the fediverse fear Meta is in their capability of doing a full take-over. Personally, I feel like we're pretty protected form that. I've posted my questions, and still looking for some good answers here:
https://lemmy.world/post/1118810
Damn, i can't believe how many people immediately jump to the astroturfing accusation instead of discussing the points you raised. I think we can all agree that meta is evil and we shouldn't trust them. The solution should be to build a network that's resilient to bad actors rather than thinking we can just block all the bad actors. As long as there are independent fediverse servers supported by their communities, it's hard to see how meta could totally take over the entire fediverse.
My bigger concern is that meta could gain influence over the activitypub standard, but that's not a battle we can win by simply blocking meta servers.
It's only hard to imagine for those who haven't learned the history of facebooks nefarious practices, or don't know the many successful cases of EEE and sabotage these companies have carried out.
Luckily, many of us do remember, and are not going to let the cancer grow.
I'm just saying I've seen a lot of vague comments about how evil meta is (and i don't disagree) but very little discussion about how they would actually destroy the fediverse. At this point, it seems more likely that the fediverse destroys itself when all servers defederate from all other servers out of paranoia.
See this comment.
If meta gathers a ton of users and then defederates, then wouldn't we just be back to exactly where we are right now?
No, because they want you to get hooked to their content, like a drug. The third step of EEE is where they draw people away from open standards into their walled gardens. This was in the comment I linked you.
If the biggest fediverse communities are all ones on meta, then after they get the fediverse addicted to their communities, they'll draw everyone who was on it out.
It's pretty damn simple actually. Let's say we fully federate with Threads, what will happen?
Threads gets a massive amount of users, they already have 20 million sign-ups on the first day! Their user base will be gigantic
We'll get a big influx of content (if Meta does the federation properly), huge communities will pop up on Threads and you'll join those communities. It's unlikely that Threads users will join communities hosted on smaller instances, why join a community with 1k users if Meta has one with 200k?
Now Meta controls 99% of the users AND content. They can switch off federation at any moment. Maybe they cover it with "we have a new cool feature, but it breaks federation, sorry!" in that moment all our Lemmy instances lose most of their users and content. And you lose all your communities you joined
Lemmy users will migrate to threads, because they want their content back, the fediverse dies (except for a few hundred to thousand hold-over nerds who won't give up)
Fuck Meta.
Damn thinking about this, this is exactly what Reddit did with 3rd party apps
Embrace openness by allowing 3rd party apps on the platform and gain user base in the process
Once user base is high enough, start introducing features that aren’t available (chat, polls) in the API to entice users to abandon 3rd party apps for new features
Once the users is high enough, cut 3rd party apps the fuck off and coerce users to use their app with no alternatives. Terminally online users won’t ask questions and will transition without hesitation to the official app to get their subreddit community fix.
I agree with you. I think this is a way to introduce people who aren’t tech-savvy into Activity Pub and Fediverse, which is ultimately a good thing.
Yes, Meta has a history of being untrustworthy, but I think a place that allows communication between a large population isn’t a bad thing either.
I would rather wait and see when Threads is full federated and what that means. We just don’t have enough information to make a decision.
I would rather 70 million people have joined Mastodon but that’s just not how things work and we need to be realistic.
I feel like Threads and Bluesky could lift the entire fediverse ocean, give it content and legitimacy and server capacity. And if the fediverse chooses to Balkanize and fracture in response, before we’ve even seen what effects they have on the community, then yeah we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
by concentrating said content and legitimacy within their walled garden servers. Then they perform the rug pull and shut the gates closed, they have all the content and we have nothing.
If they defederate we are just back to where we are now
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Embrace: they embrace the fediverse, bring millions of new users to it and everyone is happy. The fediverse grows and the new meta instance gets a ton of content. Everyone is happy
Extend: meta begins to add features to their instance which clashes with or is unusable with other instances. These begin to pile up and issues develop.
Extinguish: meta unfederates from other instances. People are now forced to stay where they were and lose a majority of their friends and content from metas instance. Or switch over. Mass migration away from original instances. These instances die
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
How is that different from defederating now?
In the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish scenario, assuming they get to "Extinguish", the rest of the Fediverse becomes isolated and cannot connect with their friends and content.
If we defederate now, the Fediverse becomes isolated and cannot connect with Threads content, and cannot connect with friends who choose to be on Threads instead of a disconnected alternative.
expired
"Prevention" perhaps in the way of amputating a broken arm. If we apply the exact same scenario of the e-mail/Gmail to the Fediverse / Threads, we're talking about a loss of (or lack of) some functions, but the foundational connection will still remain. Meta can dangle carrots with their bells and whistles, but the people who want to be on a non-corporate instance will remain here. We can still receive content & comments, and we can proselytize the benefits of a non-corporate Fediverse while still offering the same content & comments.
expired
The difference is time. With time a federated Threads will build it's own massive library of content, suck in it's own users and then slowly make all of that proprietary and locked down from the rest of the fediverse.
It's a long con that's been done several times by big corporations.
De federate now and that content and those users will have to choose now. Meta or fediverse. The scales are still uneven, but less uneven than in that future.