Should sh.itjust.works preemptively defederate from Threads?
Threads is the not-so-new reddit-like twitter-like public forum platform by Meta, the same commercial company behind internet behemoths like Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. They’re working on ActivityPub integration so that they can bridge (federate?) with the fediverse. As far as I know, the focus is on Mastodon instances, but in the future that could include Lemmy instances too.
Some have raised the question, worried about the future of the fediverse or even claiming that it goes against its definition.
What do you think should be done?
EDIT: correction
EDIT.2: The Vote is on! Go make your voice heard. You have until Friday the 29th.
What do you see as the risks to the larger fediverse in having Meta federated?
What benefit does Meta hope to see?
What do you see as the risks to the larger fediverse in having Meta federated?
for me the main risk would be the loss of freedom, as in the open way it is developed. if threads is openly weaved to the fediverse, their closed development methodology will dictate it’s future by virtue of its monopoly and the way for that future will not be defined by the interests of the larger community - as it generally is now with the fediverse’s platforms and apps open standards
a second important risk is the quality of the conversation will likely drop abruplty. the dominance of the userbase will be too big too fast. i’d like for e.g. Lemmy to grow and keep on growing (not that i care that much about it) but i think this would not be the way to do it
What benefit does Meta hope to see?
the benefit any company seeks with any new product or implementation: to increase it’s bottom-line, AKA money
how? one way is using everything that’s going on in the fediverse as ‘content’ for their users - who they’d be “milking” for said bottom-line. and that content’s upkeep, that would bring them said profit, would not cost them a thing
EDIT: grammar
They get to claim to have less of a monopoly. Plus try to snuff Mastodon.
Defederate
We should defederate the internet. LAN not WAN!
Federate, let them get a taste of sweet Lemmy content, then cut them off. Will make the Threads experience feel broken for native Threads users.
Will make the Threads experience feel broken for native Threads users.
Genuinely, why would you want that? It seems pointlessly hostile. Shouldn’t we welcome more users?
For the lulz, obviously. I legitimately forgot Threads exists until this post came up so I’d be hard pressed to honestly claim any meaningful level of investment in the topic.
Defederate
I don’t get the point of pre-emptively de-federating. This would allow lemmy to have a wider reach amongst a general audience rather than be a niche community. We should only defederate after seeing if it’s a problem or not to be federated with them.
Completely agree. If it is really an issue, we can always defederate later.
We’ve seen this multiple times before. This will not give Lemmy/Mastodon/whatever more reach, it will connect us to the metaverse and then after we have invested in it they will pull the rug. This is classic big tech vs OSS, using EEE to attack the competition.
Good news is this means they see us as a threat
I don’t see how they can get us invested in something that they can take away. The whole point of this system is that each instance fundamentally does not rely on a third party, right?
Do you really want to be the one testing how they’re going to fuck with the system? This instance didn’t update to .19 because they wanted the bugs out. I don’t think we know yet how much and how hard meta is going to try and use our system and/or break it.
What are the concrete reasons a wider reach would be better? Are there any other reasons why it would be better to have them or not?
It offers a completely different perspective than what people on lemmy provide, which is usually people in the tech sector. So many smaller subreddits exist on reddit because of it’s wider reach. Look at [email protected] for example, the last post in “hot” was from a month ago, current numbers on lemmy just can’t sustain smaller subs like that.
I don’t mean this in a rude way, but shouldn’t you hang there then?
I mean by that logic no one should be using lemmy then, we all should stay on Reddit. This instance was created due to Reddit corporate greed, not because Reddit had “normies”
Your logic seems to be:
- I want all of threads content - Which we won’t get because they can just look at us, not interact with us currently. Also, what content? It’s going to be pretty bad.
- I want all of the users to come in -Our instances are small and can be overwhelmed easily. They will do that easily just looking at it, it might end up being a constant ddos.
My logic
- provide more content for people to look at for a year or two and then think about letting the companies like Meta in, who are known to be evil
- we don’t know how they plan to fuck with the fediverse, they are planning it though
Here’s my low int take: more people means more discussions, which is the whole reason we use this service in the first place
Don’t defederate immediately, but do it automatically three months after threads goes live if users don’t explicitly vote to keep it around. I wouldn’t mind seeing how it goes at first.
Defederate pls
I have no interest in welcoming Facebook/Meta/Zuckerburg’s Big Goddamn Fucky Wucky Company to the Fediverse. I would vote to defederate from Threads and any instance federated with them.
Defederate
I was just checking this point before registering here, and this instance pleases me :)
Welcome aboard then.
As you can imagine, we’re not counting votes from accounts made after the vote thread was created because that opens up a bunch of shenanigans. You’re welcome to discuss here though. Thanks,You. are. awesome.
Thanks, you’re awesome too
Disclaimer: I know it’s an unpopular opinion, but despise what I said in my message, I am not strongly for or against federation with Threads. I just feel it’s better to give another point of view to the situation (there is no harm, people who disagree with this instance final decision will just migrate somewhere else, regardless of the choice).
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I don’t think we should treat Threads differently than any other instance. If they cause no harm, they should be allowed. As a consequence, I would personally not defederate immediately.
I am more concerned at a more general level, in the sense that federating with a large instance can be difficult / impossible to handle moderation-wise (which is not specific to Threads). This could be solved by simply putting the charge on Meta (just like any instance): if they can’t moderate their content, we will defederate (and revise the decision if changes are made on their side).
I also don’t really see why this would hurt the fediverse: it’s not like they can’t already get all the data they want from the fediverse, and the moment they will push ads to the fediverse, the instances will just defederate.
People will just follow the content they seek. If they have to migrate towards another instance federating with Threads (or directly leave for Threads), they will (which might not be an issue for the fediverse).
It kinda defeats the entire point of the fediverse. It couldn’t be more obvious what they want to do, and that’s control it, or destroy it.
I don’t plan on staying here if you defederate with Threads, but I respect your right to do it. The move seems unnecessarily reactionary and premature. I think the open web has more to gain from encouraging companies to invest in ActivityPub than it does siloing itself off from anyone who represents real growth in the space.
If you want the community to remain small, fair enough. I believe in a world in which every social media service is using ActivityPub; I don’t care what or who they are. I don’t even really understand what the anti-EEE crowd is afraid of? The protocol is run by a neutral party (W3C), I can’t imagine any features that would compel major change, nobody that’s already on the Fediverse is going to leave, you can always decide later to defederate… The system already seems pretty well protected against hostile action.
Facebook should be quarantined as much as possible.
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