this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
323 points (98.2% liked)

sh.itjust.works Main Community

7749 readers
2 users here now

Home of the sh.itjust.works instance.

Matrix

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

(page 2) 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] captain_aggravated 16 points 1 year ago

I won't maintain a membership on any platform that is federated with Meta in any way. That's an absolute, 100% dealbreaker. Same with Microsoft, Google, Amazon or Apple. Anything they touch turns to assgarbage.

[–] tobor 15 points 1 year ago (10 children)

Personally I'll support instances that choose to tell Zuckybags to fuck right off, and I think the fediverse is pretty well set up to be able to do that.

But I guess the bigger question how is how we protect our information, since it seems like everything that happens here is pretty wide open.

The big companies will all come for places like this and trawl for "genuine human input" to feed their AI cashbabies, and what we create has value. Maybe even the shitposts. So how do we protect that?

[–] MrScottyTay 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

There's no way to protect against that. They can still have a scraper set up to crawl the fediverse without threads ever federating with any of the instances.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (9 replies)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

I don't see why they would bother with the fediverse as it exists to be honest. To me it seems like a liability from their point of view. Not sure if they've spoken more about this but Facebook getting in more shit by having their users exposed to stuff that they don't explicitly control doesn't seem like something they'd want.

That being said, I feel like defederating with them if needed is a solid idea but their sheer size may make that decision difficult for instances that are looking to grow given that they've already amassed twice the accounts of the Lemmy fediverse in a few hours. Now not all growth is good growth like you've mentioned but there's no partial defederation so either you leech on some of their userbase or you don't.

I see some places going for growth if that's an option which may not necessarily be a bad choice (unless they impose strict rules to follow if you want to federate with them) given that facebook has the capital to bury us with if they choose to so our compliance probably won't have a very big impact on how things play out in the long run.

[–] RedComet91 6 points 1 year ago

It's because companies like Meta want all the power they can get. As you said, there's no reason for them to join the fediverse, other than to control it or kill it off, that is.

I'm not against Threads existing, especially with the way Twitter is going. People need an alternative and I don't believe that Mastodon is the answer for many.

But Threads and the fediverse can absolutely exist separately, and is why I support defederation.

load more comments (3 replies)
[–] Saledovil 14 points 1 year ago

We should only federate with entities acting in good faith, and we cannot trust an entity such as facebook to act in good faith.

[–] FlagonOfMe 14 points 1 year ago

Defederate unequivocally.

[–] pico 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

the whole reason im on fedi is to get away from megacorp social media and seeing them starting to creep into the space is kinda sad. I will drop any server that would federate with them, but hoping that is still a viable option and not just me turning off my router forever.

[–] phileashog 8 points 1 year ago

It's so insane, Twitter gets destroyed, reddit is fucked, and now just as I moved away from all that these cucks want to move here? Fuck off.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago

The design on that "pact" is... wow. Really putting our best feet forward there. Just needs a geocities logo and a visitor counter.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I vote to defederate. If I want to see meta shit I can sign up there but I'd delete this account and go find some other instance that chose not to federate with them. I want to choose when/if I interact with meta, not end up in yet another place where they dominate everything else

(Realized I posted from the wrong account. My opinion stays the same for both my accounts on sh.itjust works and reddthat and any others I may join)

[–] SexWithSilverWolf 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Isn't one of the points of fediverse is to get away from big tech shit?

load more comments (1 replies)
[–] nanoUFO 11 points 1 year ago

Don't like it personally you can't trust these companies to do anything but be malicious actors, it might drive more users to the rest of the fedverse but there are huge risks and these companies have already broken laws time and time again.

[–] protosevn 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I only use Facebook messenger and Instagram to keep in touch with family, otherwise I want nothing to do with them.

load more comments (2 replies)
[–] SickIcarus 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly, this would be a non-issue if we could block instances at the user level. Since they’re not federated yet, and User-level instance blocking should be coming, I say we wait and see.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I wish there was a way to grey-list an instance, to where a user has to seek out and subscribe to content that admins don‘t want spamming users by default, so it doesn‘t get added to the „ALL“ feed for everyone else.

Just give users more control.

[–] mrpants 10 points 1 year ago

The point of federated social media is about choosing who you federate with. North America for example contains 3 countries and they don't all need to be federated with each other.

Federation is as much about drawing borders as it is deciding who you ally with while still keeping your own autonomy. It is entirely within the point of federation to not federate with everyone.

[–] scottmeme 7 points 1 year ago

Defederate with anything that remotely has to do with zuck

load more comments
view more: ‹ prev next ›