Embrace, Extend, Enforce (ƎƎƎ): A practical Strategy against potentially abusive Instances like Meta’s Threads
fungiverse.wordpress.com
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/12225991
TL;DR: The common view on Meta’s Threads is that it will be either all good or all bad, leading to oversimplified and at the end contra productive propositions like the Fedipact. But in reality, it’s behaviour will most likely change dynamically over time, and therefore, to prevent us getting in a position, in which Threads can actually perform EEE on us, we need to adapt a dynamic strategy as well.
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My take is that if the Fediverse can be destroyed simply by a particular instance being too popular, then maybe that's a problem with the Fediverse - not that instance.
So if we had 100 Mastodon instances, and each instance had 100 users, we have a healthy Fediverse of 10,000 users.
Now 1 of those 100 instances decides to do something. Maybe they make a moderation decision and become super pro Nazi. Maybe they add a new feature where you can video chat with other users.
Now Nazis are frowned upon. So if 1 instance of 100 users is full of Nazis, the other 99 defederate from the 1. The Fediverse now has 99 instances of 100 users and we have a healthy Fediverse of 9,900 users.
But maybe video chatting is a neat feature. Initially only 100 users can video chat with each other. Other instances add video chatting, but not in a compatible way. Some users can video chat with each other, some can't, & some don't like the feature at all. As a community the different instances and developers work together to figure out what should happen to varying degrees of success.
But let's change things. 1 instance has 7,000 users, a second instance has 2,000 users, and a few dozen instances have a few users, we still get a healthy Fediverse of 10,000 users.
But maybe the 7,000 user instance becomes pro Nazi. The smaller instance can defederate, but now you have the 7,000 user Pro Nazi Fediverse, and the 3,000 user Anti Nazi Fediverse. It isn't broken. The smaller Fediverse still exists, but it's smaller. Maybe the 2,000 user instance would rather rejoin the larger Fediverse. Maybe Nazis aren't that bad. Now we have a big Fediverse of 7,000 Nazis and 2,000 Nazi tolerators. The 1,000 user Fediverse still exists, but is MUCH smaller. Not great, for either Fediverse.
Or what about the video chat? What if the 7,000 user instance adds video chat? What if they don't want to share how it works? If you want video chat you have to move instances. Now our 7,000 user instance has 8,000 users. Now our 8,000 user instance adds ads. You can't leave if you want video chat.
The Fediverse can't be destroyed, but it can be shrunk. If it shrinks too much too fast, it might cease to be useful. If it grows too much too fast, it might cease to be useful.
In this case, I would argue MimicJar's point (Edit: Shit, I didn't notice who I'm talking to. Well, you make good points I guess, lmao), and say that even if we were to defederate with the large instance, we're still no worse off than if we had never federated in the first place - in fact, we'd likely be better off, since any anti-nazi users in your scenario would know where to find us.
The way I look at it is like, if Reddit were part of the Fediverse, they would've dominated in much the same way as Threads intends to. But the moment they even started pulling sketchy tactics, we could've jumped to other instances.
I mean, that's essentially what I did anyway, but with no clearly defined alternative, not everyone knows about the Fediverse, whereas they would've had that option if Reddit was federated. Plus, in theory, I'd still be able to view and interact with Reddit content from my instance, at least until they separate entirely - at which point (again) I would have the choice.
I personally believe that, given the choice, many people would decide to support smaller federated instances over corporate monoliths. Not most, but many.
Realistically it is in Threads best interest to pretend they care about the Fediverse.
In return the Fediverse should pretend to care about Threads.
In reality the Fediverse should "steal" Threads users. At some point Threads will do something really stupid (hopefully not immediately) and the Fediverse can go back to ignoring Threads, but having gained a good subset of users.
Agreed, I think we should very cautiously federate, while keeping in mind that they will inevitably pull the rug.