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?
Meta has repeatedly introduced features intended to scrape larger amounts of data about our lives and tie it all into one big profile that they can sell. This area of the internet feels like one of the few remaining areas that they haven’t reached, and I’d bet everything I have that’s why they’re introducing this. I couldn’t be more strongly against allowing them a way to link my data here with the data they have from my usage of their existing products. While I understand the idea of open federation to allow disparate communities to interact, one of the lines I’ll draw is letting a massive corporation in like that.
They’ll still be able to scrape the fediverse and all instances without threads federating with them. Defederating doesn’t stop their access to your PUBLIC data on the fediverse.
Anyone can access the public data, but that is not a good excuse to invite them in through the front door. Defederating, at the very least, sends the message that they are not welcome to participate here.
And not being welcomed is going to stop them?
The guaranteed way to fail is to not even try to succeed.
I mean, we have nothing more to lose if they are hypothetically going to succeed. What does it cost us to just try? Why are so many people against even trying, despite it requiring absolutlely zero effort from most of us? Why rush to submit to bad things before they happen?
I’m curious, are there policies for usage of data on a service like this? If you federate Meta (or any instance, or this instance), is that granting them the right to use your data as they wish? Assuming the answer is yes, could the Fediverse at large implement a broad, let’s call it “Terms & Conditions”, that must be acknowledged upon federation, regarding how the data is used? Or, if the answer is no, what are the limitations to how data in the Fediverse is used?
Also, how useful is my data to them anyway, if they can’t target me with ads? Certainly there are uses, but isn’t the primary end-game just selling me something? If I’m on an independent instance, I’m not sure how much I care about them having access to my data.
Edit: Mastodon founder Eugen touches on some these questions here. This is specific to Mastodon, I have no idea how much of this carries over for Lemmy.
Will Meta get my data or be able to track me? A server you are not signed up with and logged into cannot get your private data or track you across the web. What it can get are your public profile and public posts, which are publicly accessible.
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The day this instance federates with Meta is the day I leave. They, and any other big corporations, can fuck all the way off. We have seen where that path leads time and time again.
I’m sick of Meta
I think the majority are against federating with meta so we’re probably safe but same.
Well said, and same.
Please for the love of Internet connectivity as a whole: block anything remotely attached to Facebook, not just the instance, but in general Internet daily life.
Zuck should die forgotten.
It does not go against the point of the fediverse to do so, either. Why would the ability to do this be baked into the code if it was not the intent to use it in certain situations? This would be a perfect use.
I can see maybe certain instances wanting it for whatever reason, but I’ll be packing up and moving to one that blocks it if this one allows it.
Agreed. With the nature of the Fediverse, defederating with anything from Meta doesn’t really restrict access for those who actually wish to interact with them. They can simply join their next nefarious venture.
The drawbacks to interacting with a company that so obviously only chases profit above all else far outweigh any "benefits " of their content.
Ser Robin had the right idea: bravely run away.
Brave, brave sir Robin.
Playing devil’s advocate a bit here:
Considering that I rate Facebook as evil as Google, would you support “defederating” Google Mail from other mail services?
In my opinion, the fediverse/ActivityHub is just the underlying protocol to enable people to connect to each other just like SMTP and whether I want to contact someone using a service provider that I don’t like is my choice and should not be the choice of my service provider…
My understanding is that the main problem is allowing them to get any foot in the door in the first place. They are not in it to be nice, they are in it to beat out and absorb the competition for their gain. The fediverse is about giving users a place to go that’s not full of ads and algorithms. They only see us as untapped revenue streams.
While that’s true, other instances will eventually also need to find a way to make money. And unless you’re on the Facebook instance you shouldn’t see their ads (unless they inject those ads as posts).
The Facebook crowd can only assimilate us when we switch to their instance. I see a point where new users would prefer a bigger, i.e. Facebookey instance over smaller ones when they don’t know anything about the fediverse.
If they get large enough, they will be able to force protocol changes.
No. I disagree. They already used to keep tracking metadata on non-users (admittedly, I’m beyond sketchy on the details here), they’re not at all welcome here.
They already know too much about me
That’s fair but there’s a difference between getting donation money to keep the server running (Wikipedia) and trying to get every cent you can from user data and targeted ads.
would you support “defederating” Google Mail from other mail services?
Not OP, but yes. They have entirely too much control over email traffic. You have to play ball with Alphabet or not at all if you want to host an email server today - I don’t want that to be the fate of the fediverse as well.
Don’t you see how that would make e-mail worse for everyone that uses e-mail?
Imagine having an e-mail address but you couldn’t send an e-mail to your friend because for whatever reason your e-mail server decided to not block Gmail. That makes e-mail worse for everyone.
It’s the same here, we’re trying to get away from social media silos and move towards a protocol that lets everyone participate. The kneejerk reaction here is to just create a new silo that has different owners instead of just being part of a network that shares a protocol.
That only makes it worse today because Alphabet took over so much. It doesn’t make anything worse if they are never allowed to gain that level of dominance. When they get to the “Extinguish” phase it’s already too late.
Effectively, this is the same debate about big banks. Should they be allowed to get too big to fail? Should we just go along with whatever the titans want? If so, I expect the fediverse to be short lived and just another FAANG/MSFT product soon.
I agree that Meta will attempt to EEE Fediverse. I don’t think that they’re a positive actor in this space at all.
But, the move to defeat them isn’t to try to implement a blockade. There simply isn’t any way to ensure that everyone would comply and the people that don’t block Meta services will have access to billions of more potential users while the instances that do block Meta will find themselves as a backwater part of the Fediverse that the majority of the people on the planet cannot access from their existing social media account.
Right now Lemmy is made up of motivated and ideological people who were willing to leave Reddit because of the way it was being run. Having this group isolated from the networks that Meta is connected to is a positive thing for Meta. You would have all of the people who would be motivated to work against Meta’s interests cut off in an isolated pocket of the Fediverse unable to affect Meta.
Open software doesn’t have the userbase to strong arm Meta in this manner. The way you win is you outrun the Extend portion of the plan by creating software extensions that operate better than what Meta offers and use that to lure users off of Meta’s services. This is made massively easier by them being part of the same federated network. You’re no longer working against the Network Effect… users are unwilling to swap to new platforms because they lose access to their existing friends and content that they follow. This doesn’t happen if your instance is federated with Meta services… users can freely swap if the experience is better.
Lol, as a tangent, this is literally what it’s like trying to communicate with people in China. Everything from Email to XMPP you just have to try to figure out if the server can cross the great firewall. You’ve got to have 5x redundant background channels because sometimes one thing works on this wifi but not that wifi.
Am I allowed to say that here? Guess we’ll find out…
Actually interesting.
Imagine having a chat account but you couldn’t send a message to a friend because Google decided they didn’t need third party interaction anymore
Yeah, blocking is bad. It’s bad when Google does it and it would be bad if we did it.
I still use XMPP based chat services, Google’s move in this area doesn’t affect me at all because the protocol is open. ActivityPub is the same way… if Meta decides that they’re going to block all non-Meta instances then our instance isn’t affected. But as long as they’re federating with us then their users can freely switch to non-Meta services without losing access to their existing friends and communities. That would not be true if we defederated from Meta.
Beating Meta has to be done by providing a better service, not by taking a tiny percentage of their population and hiding in a bubble on the Fediverse. Meta already has the user base, they’re not worried about losing a few million users (especially ones who’re ideologically motivated to oppose them).
The best move at this point is to stay federated and to rapidly update ActivityPub to provide more features. We have to out-Extend them, we cannot prevent the ‘Embrace’ part of the strategy… the existing Fediverse userbase is too small compared to Meta’s users base.
Adding on to the pile here:
I know many have said, but embrace, extend, extinguish is also a legitimate threat to the fediverse I feel. I think the scenario you’ve described is already happening, but it’s natural compliment: Unless you pay the google/godaddy/squarespace/whomever racket, good luck getting any traffic from your personal, self-hosted email server. Even if it’s fully signed from industry standard certificate providers, you still need to effectively pay the big email servers to have your traffic be not marked as defacto spam/malicious. If you run the show, you get to point the protocol and standard operating procedures. Meta has every capability to eat the fediverse more or less, and frankly I don’t doubt they will if it is a profitable endeavor. I’m sure y’all have read this by Ploum, but it really articulates the genuine concern that is just as existential as implosion.
Sure, if you hate it so much. Join a service that’s excluded.
The people here now largely don’t care about content from Meta. I don’t even care personally if people don’t want to switch from Meta to the fediverse.
I get being able to keep access to friends and their content, but a big draw of having this account is not being tied to me at all beyond my content and comments being semi publicly known to be from the same person.
The idea of federating to me seems to be being able to have one account with access to everything. That’s not necessarily a benefit.
If the fediverse gets big enough it won’t matter if they’re able to access Meta content. The grass gets too green here to feel like you’re missing out.
I don’t even think them being cut off from the 'verse completely is the intent either. I personally don’t want to be attached to them, so like I said, if this instance decides to that’s fine. I will move to one that’s not for myself. It doesn’t have to be that big of a thing.
Just like your example, of you personally don’t want to connect with Gmail, you join a network that’s not connected. Everybody’s happy.
I don’t want to touch their content, and I feel like I’m large part the people that have moved here already mostly agree in not seeing value in a connection to Meta.
This will not always be the case, and for them that’s fine.
I’m starting to get rant-y here, so I’ll cut it off.
But back to the original point- if you don’t want Google stuff, then yes, join a place without it. That’s ok, and kind of the design of this setup.
I really believe the content here will surpass anything they can possibly contribute, and then making an account over on this side shouldn’t be an impossible hurdle.
A good read about that with an historical perpective : https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
An important reminder of the right play here. If we are to keep the fediverse out of the hands of enshitification, we need to stay away from letting corporates play the game. Don’t federate.
I’ve been having a few back-and-forths in this thread about how it’d kinda suck from a user’s perspective if my instance defederated from Threads, but after reading those historical examples, I’m more amenable to instances defederating. I saw a bunch of people talking about how Meta was gonna “ruin” the fediverse, but not really elaborating past that. Your link explains that better than anyone else has.
I’ll have to ruminate on that some more to see how I truly feel about it, but those examples are compelling.
Excellent article. I am completely against federating with Meta, and this does a great job of explaining why.
This should be higher. It’s the playbook for companies like Meta.
Great article, very enlightening for those of us who are too young to remember the early internet.
I just joined this place this week, fleeing reddit of course. So my vote may not be worth much. But if this place becomes meta-adjacent then I’ll see myself out. I have no desire to interact with Mark “move fast and break adolescent girls’ self esteem” Zuckerberg.
The beauty of the Fediverse is that your vote is exactly equal to everyone else’s. I’ve only been here 3 weeks, but welcome fellow Lemming!!
“Move fast and shatter democracy”
I came to the fediverse to get away from Meta and Twitter and Google and the like.
So personally I’d prefer if they stayed out of here.
I don’t get how this is even a question. Most people are here because they want to get away from corporate social media. It’s like asking a person who managed to leave a cult if it was okay for them if they build a church on their plot.
Are there any statistics about the usage in the network that allow to figure this out? I’d assume that your position might be correct for the fediverse users that have been around before the Reddit fallout, but certainly not for the majority that joined just for a Reddit alternative.
Remember when Facebook and Google both were using XMPP protocol? They just need fediverse users for now to get free content. They will always delink when they can. That’s profit logic for you.
But if we dont defederate, we would get free content from their userbase, won’t we? And people from thread would realize they get the same content here, without the ads ?
Will they though? Look how many still used the reddit app when there were very clearly better alternatives.
Not only that. They are coming HERE to ask questions about how to set up the reddit app, which is mindboggling for me
This is exactly why I don’t believe they intend to federate openly anyway. Unlike email or XMPP, ActivityPub content is public, which means it is associated with your brand. They will likely only allow apps and instances which they approve, and which agree to tie into their monetization APIs. Just like reddit should have done with third party apps, if they weren’t run by the stupidest fucking sentient creature on the planet.
They will likely only allow apps and instances which they approve, and which agree to tie into their monetization APIs. Just like reddit should have done with third party apps, if they weren’t run by the stupidest fucking sentient creature on the planet.
Exactly this. I probably would not have quit reddit if the only change at the end of June was RIF sticking in some ad row every 10 posts.
I would prefer Facebook/Instagram/Meta to stay far away from the fediverse that I use. I do not like anything about the online communities they develop.
Do not federate with anything Meta
Excuse me for being crass, I sincerely apologize, but fuck Threads.
From a post on Mastodon comparing privacy policies. Meta gonna pillage the village.
https://mastodon.social/@llebrun/110664586216685040
Ok dear gods whyyyyyyyyyyyy does a social media app need access to all that. Burn it down. Burn it all to the ground
Don’t federated with Meta
I strongly support basically firewalling the fediverse from anything Meta/Twitter/MS/Google/<insert Big Tech here> as a default behavior. They will 100%, without question make some sort of attempt to co-opt, corrupt, and monetize this ecosystem unless their interference is actively mitigated and corralled.
And sure, maybe there can be a collection of instances that do federate with Big Tech… but to be blunt, I’d look at those mostly as canaries in the coal mine.
Exactly this. It would be the height of stupidity to create this space/network that frees us from so much of the hyperconglomerate bullshit only to invite them in willingly.
Don’t federate, they are a terrible company.
I think we should preemptively add them to the defederated list at least until we get more info on what exactly they are doing. We are already having enough sync issues in the fedverse. We can come back to the subject in like a month with an agora vote on refederation.
