Why are fediverse admins blocking out threads?

dartos@reddthat.com to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 53 points –

I get meta evil, but aren’t we just blocking out any users from accessing the wider fediverse?

54

You are viewing a single comment
View all comments

Couple reasons actually

  • Meta wants to scrap every bit of data, doesn't matter if it's on Threads or networks federated with it

  • They just want a free usercount boost for start, and will remove ActivityPub integration when they feel Threads can go on alone

  • It's all a classic case of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish

and will remove ActivityPub integration when they feel Threads can go on alone

I suspect it's even worse than that: they'll make it one-way only. So from Threads you can follow and interact with Mastodon users, but you won't be able to follow and interact with Threads users.

That way, they can position themselves as the entrypoint to the fediverse without contributing anything back, and lure everyone into Threads. Especially with the ties to Instagram accounts: easiest sign up for the fediverse because lots of people already have Instagram accounts.

Normies will only care about being able to follow external users, not the other way around. They'll be like "well just make a Threads account, that way you get everything".

I was talking about that on Mastodon but what prevent them to scrap on the fediverse when every thing is basically public (except private profile, etc). They could already be scraping data without even being in the fediverse.

The difference is that by defederating the only connection they can make is really just a facade. Users could see our posts but not reply or boost or favorite them. It would be like living with ghosts who cant see or interact with you. Makes for a crap experience.

And it also means that Meta can start sending you DMs or tagging mastodon users to push their ads or agenda. Yeah they can see your data but they can't interact with you.

It's blatantly illegal and Facebook/Meta has probably had enough of EU fines already.

Also, see this article from 2 days ago

Tl;dr:

The case centred on a challenge by Meta after the German cartel office in 2019 ordered the social media giant to stop collecting users' data without their consent, calling the practice an abuse of market power.

Can’t they just scrape the data anyway?

Yes, at least the public posts (not the private ones). I would say that their consistently lacking moderation is a bigger problem, and that’s probably the most important point, even if one doesn’t care about privacy or Embrace Extend Extinguish.