May I direct you to Embrace Extend Extinguish. It’s happened before, and you’re a fool if you think Meta isn’t federating specifically to go this route.
Comment on Fedi Garden to Instance Admins: "Block Threads to Remain Listed"
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
Federating with Threads only hurts Meta. It does not help them in any way. You are not doing them any favors. If you are concerned about reports of genocide attributed to Meta, then you should federate.
millie@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Corgana@startrek.website 7 months ago
Can you explain how defederating prevents Meta from extending open standards (ActivityPub) with proprietary capabilities, and using the differences to strongly disadvantage Threads competitors?
millie@beehaw.org 7 months ago
The reason embracing works is because it creates connections between people using the system and allows them to piggyback off of other services.
At the moment, the wider fediverse may not have a ton of people, but the quality of content blows mainstream social media out of the water. By making it available through Threads, new users are going to be encouraged to follow their normal pattern of gravitating toward the big thing while still having access to this content. If we post on servers federated with Threads, every piece of content we add is a boon for Meta for absolutely free. The fact that they have deep pockets means they already have independent federation beat on the server end in terms of stability and long-term reliability. It makes a lot of sense for the average user to just grab a Threads account and not worry too much about which other instances have the odd hiccup or potentially stop existing.
On the other hand, if people exposed to the fediverse keep hearing about all this stuff that isn’t on Threads, there’s a better chance that they’ll get into the decentralized account model that’s natural to federation. The logical conclusion quickly becomes making accounts in places that are federated with the places you want to read and post, and if Threads isn’t connected to all those places it means it doesn’t serve to unify fediverse accounts under a corporate banner.
Threads has a resource advantage, but we have a content advantage. If we let Threads in, the content advantage dissolves, because not only do they gain access to fediverse content, they pollute it.
Thankfully the reality is that the choice will always lie with server owners, not via consensus. As long as the owners of servers with higher-quality content and better moderation don’t open the floodgates to Threads, that pocket of high quality content that a Threads account can’t have will always exist.
Personally, I suspect the above will be self-perpetuating, as connecting with a larger social media entity will degrade the quality of content.
Corgana@startrek.website 7 months ago
But how would us blocking ourselves from following Threads accounts on Mastodon stop them from… anything? That’s the part I don’t get. It feels a bit like cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face, yeah?
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Federating doesn’t prevent that either, but at least you won’t be rewarding them for it by engaging with them.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
This is a topic that’s been covered a hundred times, with intelligent people realizing the “extinguish” doesn’t exist.
If Meta decides to stop federating then we are no worse off than we were before they started.
millie@beehaw.org 7 months ago
The fact that I haven’t had anything equivalent to Pidgin or Trillian installed in over a decade says otherwise. When Facebook became big it literally wiped out the active userbase of 4 concurrently relevant instant messaging platforms.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
The fact that I haven’t had anything equivalent to Pidgin or Trillian installed in over a decade says otherwise
And what does it mean that I’ve never even heard of either of these?
When Facebook became big it literally wiped out the active userbase of 4 concurrently relevant instant messaging platforms.
Facebook never interoperated with any of those, or any other platforms, so I’m not sure what your point is.
jarfil@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Like Lemmy EEE-ing Mastodon?
Meta is federating because of EU’s DMA laws, and they’re going to do the bare minimum to comply with the law… then people will start crying foul because Meta is EEE-ing by not federating 🙄
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Federating with Threads only hurts Meta. It does not help them in any way.
This is completely false. The entire reason they’re federating is to instantly get access to a much larger pool of UGC for their users to interact with. And of course they get to also choose who to federate with and who to block, so they can choose instances that have the kind of content they want, all for free, while suppressing instances they don’t like. If your instance starts to try to “convert” people off of Threads, they can (and will) just block you.
Users who create accounts on Threads because they actually want to communicate with people they’ve heard of helps Meta. Defederating helps Meta.
Threads has more users than ALL fedi.db-tracked fediverse instances combined (Threads: 160m, Fediverse: 10m). They don’t need us for users, they need us for content. Just like Reddit, there are usually a few dedicated ‘content generator’ users on any given instance, who post the bulk of the UGC. Gaining access to those is Threads’ goal.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
This is completely false.
It’s absolutely not.
The entire reason they’re federating is to instantly get access to a much larger pool of UGC for their users to interact with
Are you going to explain what UGC means?
The reason they’re federating is because of the Digital Markets Act. Same reason WhatsApp is going to interoperate.
And of course they get to also choose who to federate with and who to block, so they can choose instances that have the kind of content they want, all for free, while suppressing instances they don’t like.
Okay, and? What instances do you think they’re going to choose and why?
If your instance starts to try to “convert” people off of Threads, they can (and will) just block you.
…why would they do that? Why would they introduce something new just to turn around and try to prevent you from using it?
They don’t need us for users, they need us for content.
LOL they only need us to comply with regulations. You said it yourself, they have hundreds of millions of users, they don’t need more content. And they sure as shit don’t need content from users that overwhelmingly hate Meta.
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Are you going to explain what UGC means?
“User-generated content”. Posts, comments, uploaded files, etc.
…why would they do that? Why would they introduce something new just to turn around and try to prevent you from using it?
Why would they try to prevent users from migrating away from their service? Are you seriously asking this?
The reason they’re federating is because of the Digital Markets Act. Same reason WhatsApp is going to interoperate.
LOL they only need us to comply with regulations.
You have asserted this in multiple comments, but the only site I can find asserting this link is a blog post by someone who admits to having only a “surface-level understanding” of DMA, and thinks that this is gaining them data portability.
As someone who works at a very large company that is also affected by DMA, this is not how any company whose legal teams we’ve spoken with are interpreting this requirement. Data portability is being solved with export standards, so that users can (more) easily migrate to other services. Streaming someone’s data over to another platform where they may or may not have an account, or ever intend to go, wouldn’t fulfill that requirement, because if the user wishes to move to a non-federated instance, that would not be possible. Portability also cannot be ‘favored’ under DMA.
That is a separate issue from interoperability, which only works if Threads is allowing federated instances to fully interact with their users’ posts, with no loss of functionality, which was at least originally not the plan.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
Why would they try to prevent users from migrating away from their service? Are you seriously asking this?
No, that’s not what I asked. And you know it’s not. That’s why you tried to rephrase my question.
this is not how any company whose legal teams we’ve spoken with are interpreting this requirement.
Do you work with Meta?
Data portability is being solved with export standards, so that users can (more) easily migrate to other services.
Are you not aware that WhatsApp is also interoperating to comply with DMA? Another Meta company?
tal@lemmy.today 7 months ago
Are you going to explain what UGC means?
I would guess he’s talking about “user-generated content”, given context.
uis@lemm.ee 7 months ago
Even defederated instances can get UGC
FfaerieOxide@kbin.social 7 months ago
Federating with Threads only hurts Meta.
...
Defederating helps Meta.What the fuck are you talking about, That is the opposite of true.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
I already explained it in the comment you replied to. Maybe you’d like to explain what the fuck you’re talking about?
FfaerieOxide@kbin.social 7 months ago
You did not explain how federating with Meta hurts Meta. You could not have because it does not.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
You don’t think allowing people to interact with Meta users while NOT ingesting ads (their virtually sole income stream) or having corporations spy on the entirety of their online presences, doesn’t hurt Meta? You can’t imagine how people might realize that they no longer need to use Meta services to follow and interact with the people they actually want to, and that they might leave without losing anything?
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 7 months ago
Then why is Meta facilitating it?
I actually expect it matters fairly little to meta either way, it’s basically just a fun add-on to their service, but it’s good for federation as a concept.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
Most likely to comply with the Digital Markets Act. Same reason they’re adding interoperability to WhatsApp.
CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 7 months ago
Wow, nobody had actually brought that up before. It looks like it has been around long enough that could actually be the consideration, having begun the process of becoming law in 2020.
Melody@lemmy.one 7 months ago
I would argue that federating with either of the biggest companies on the fediverse is a monumentally bad idea.
Not just because of “Reports of genocide” or anything specious like that; which can be debated for days and days on end by people in both good and bad faith; but because both Threads and Meta are simply too large to be moderated correctly and be capable of managing basic issues such as harrassment and extended bouts of hate-speech which should never be considered acceptable; even if you do not necessarily agree with all of the goals and policies of the Fedi Garden; as strict as they are.
Melody@lemmy.one 7 months ago
With that being said; I do fully support an Instance’s choice to federate, not federate or even limit their federation with them.
In most cases this should not affect instances; but unfortunately there are people who will ignore all warnings and use the Fedi Garden as a whitelist instead of a list of instances that you know will handle policy violations quickly.
On the other hand I absolutely also respect the needs of communities who ABSOLUTELY, POSITIVELY WILL NOT TOLERATE instances who choose to federate with either X, Threads, or any other instance they deem to be too toxic to play nicely. As instance operators you absolutely have the right to block problems BEFORE they happen, and if you happen to KNOW an instance will absolutely be a HEADACHE, you have every right to say NO. If the users do not like your decision; they are free to find a better instance for themselves; or spin up an alt account on a better instance.
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
Or just personally block Threads…
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
What other company are you referring to?
They’re not. Meta is simply not motivated to implement proper moderation.
That being said, I acknowledge and agree that moderation is poor, which is, once again, why you should federate. To let people know they don’t need Meta.
FfaerieOxide@kbin.social 7 months ago
You are full of more shit than my colon. Stop arguing to federate with the Cyber Devil.
TheRtRevKaiser@beehaw.org 7 months ago
Hi @FfaerieOxide. Beehaw has one rule: Be(e) Nice. This kind of personal attack isn’t really in the spirit of Beehaw, and I’d like to ask you to please reconsider how you interact with users on this instance. You can disagree with someone without being insulting or demeaning.
t3rmit3@beehaw.org 7 months ago
You’re gonna have to break this down for me, because I’m not seeing the logic.
So I’m a Threads user. I now start seeing Beehaw posts in my feed. Let’s say that I’m seeing them alongside Threads-originating posts containing “exploitation and harassment”. How does my seeing those Beehaw posts in Threads automatically translate to thinking, “I should leave Threads and join- not Beehaw, which is federated, but another, non-federated instance”?
Or are you advocating for individuals in non-Threads Fediverse instances to do some kind of manual outreach campaign?
helenslunch@feddit.nl 7 months ago
That’s not how it works. What you see is conversations on other ad-free spy-free platforms that give you actual control over what appears in your feed, while simultaneously giving you access to all the people and orgs you know and love on Meta.
I doubt Threads is supporting communities so you probably won’t stumble across Lemmy convos, much like you don’t stumble across them on Mastodon.