Threads deepens its ties to the open social web, aka the ‘fediverse’

xelar@lemmy.ml to Fediverse@lemmy.ml – 109 points – Threads deepens its ties to the open social web, aka the 'fediverse' | TechCrunch
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"Threads is deepening its ties to the fediverse, also known as the open social web, which powers services like X alternative Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Flipboard and other apps. On Wednesday, Meta announced that users on Threads will be able to see fediverse replies on other posts besides their own. In addition, posts that originated through the Threads API, like those created via third-party apps and scheduling services, will now be syndicated to the fediverse. The latter had previously been announced via an in-app message informing users that API posts would be shared to the fediverse starting on August 28."

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Daily reminder to defederate from and block threads.net (and optionally all instances that do not do the same).

So... Instances like lemmy.world, that this is posted to?

yes, I'm federated with them as well, but shit like this is why I dislike them being so big. In the end all the smaller instances can either have strong morals and integrity, or have access to the largest amount of content in the fediverse, but not both.

Ehh mastodon and lemmy don't see a ton of cross talk. Threads is mainly going to affect mastodon instances.

It's going to take some effort to have the necessary restrictions while also denying the "help" from major orgs in developing the software

Maybe we should do a reverse embrace-extend-extinguish where we open everything up until the point that they start introducing ads to enshittify the platform. Then after that great migration say goodbye to them

They can't place ads in your feeds.

they technically could do this by representing ads with posts.

Why would you subscribe to those? Or are you claiming they would post ads as if they are from a user? In the latter case - the EU would shut them down before they even had time to deploy that.

yeah, I see them being posted into their DB (and therefore federated as) a post as if they are a user. they can earmark that post as an ad and properly present it as such in their own platform but anyone federated would see the post as-is.

they could either obfuscate how they mark it as an ad or just not provide that information at all to federating instances.

then I can totally see them claiming they don't control other instances and can't be responsible for whether or not the federated ads are presented as such.

As I have already posted elsewhere in this thread, if they post ads as a user they would get shut down by the EU immediately.

Any other suggestions?

ok but I'm not in the EU nor is my instance so that doesn't really apply to me.

Of course it does. The EU is such a big market that Meta cannot afford to do that.

companies are capable of operating under different rules in different jurisdictions, they do it all the time. just look at how they handle data in EU due to GDPR vs how they do it everywhere else. I don't see why this case would be much different.

Please think your argument through at a technical level. How would Meta be able to push posts-masking-as-users to only non-EU citizens?

The simple answer is that no, there's no way Meta can push ads into clients and/or servers that aren't under their control. They also don't need to - Threads is much bigger than the Mastodon-part of the fediverse.

It depends on how you read posts on Mastadon. I can see methods of developing ways that read Mastadon posts that can hide ads in it.

Please post one of those ways and I'll shoot it down.

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Most platforms (especially reddit, instagram, twitter) moved ads from ad-dedicated spaces, to authentic-seeming posts, that are actually ads.

Sure, but that cannot happen here.

Sure they can. If you can't see them you might want to consider checking out Monkey Joe's optometry, they're pretty cheap and got good stock.

Why would I subscribe to a fake account pushing ads?

That’s exactly the point. There are a lot of users on Threads who might be happy with the Fediverse. Threads will undoubtedly need a put in ads in their app/instance, their enshittification is inevitable. If it becomes easy for users to move over to more friendly Fediverse instances, that is a win.

My bad - I misread. Yeah that's a good point.

They can still train ML models (create profit) from the data they get from you without consent.

They can do that no matter if I federate with them or not.

And in one of those cases they are violating a very clear "this is not okay" signal, and in the other they are not.

They're already training on that data. No signals of relevance here.

They meant after Threads enshitifies itself and the users migrate to a proper Fedi platform then we block out Threads.

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Defedding from threads always seems strange to me. Everyone says it's to protect your data from meta. But they can already get your data. Everything on the fediverse is public. They already have your data.

It’s not about the data, but the community. Just like how Google killed IRC, big techs are always trying to embrace, extend and extinguish the services.

@Dirk @MrScottyTay Also I think that one should ask the question, what Meta could do with the data and what it is doing with the data of their users. For their users they use the usage data to present them a feed that the users appreciate. Also they use it to place ads inside of their apps. Also they use the data to serve you ads outside of their system on ad networks that use data from Meta.

All of this is technically not possible for Fediverse users.

Public is not the same as public domain.

I'm not a lawyer, but Federation would probably imply consent to sharing the data. Whereas defederation would strongly imply you're not okay with sharing the data with that entity.

You think they don't collect data illegally and anonymise it (but keep cohorts) for market research already? You sweet summer child

What I think or what they "may" do is irrelevant regarding public data. What matters is sending a clear signal what you are and are not okay with.

Whether you actively participate in helping them get your data or not might not effectively matter in them acquiring it, but it may heavily impact the fine they get for it afterwards. You might be okay with them getting your data for free, but I'm not, sweet summer child.

@Dirk @xelar thanks for your view, question: defederating with threads seems reasonable, but why would you defederate "second level" like this? I ask as the instance I'm in decided not to defederate with threads for now and I'm personally OK with that.

A is defederated from Threads, but federates with B. And B federates with Threads. Now Meta can cash out on your data via B.

Now Meta can cash out on your data via B.

Everything we're posting is public, anyone can cash in on it regardless of who you defederate.

Everyone can break into my house regardless of having a key or not. I still don't have my key delivered to them.

Everyone can break into the park you visit and talk to people at

I don't think that's how it works and it would likely not be legal. By explicitly blocking Threads, you make a big statement about not wanting your instance's posts to show up there. Also from a technical standpoint, I don't think a "middle-man" instance will push posts from another instance to a third one. You'd have to explicitly scrape data that's not available via the API. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

@copygirl @Dirk yes, I also get the feeling this would not work in a compliant setup but it seems like a good idea to test this in e.g. a federation test suite.

Maybe @evanprodromou would know how this should work, or would know of someone who might be testing this kind of scenario.

The fediverse is too new and niche to say that with certainty.

The legality is likely untested and certainly not enforced by pubspec yet.

I don't know enough to speak to the technicalities with certainty, but my surface level understanding is that that is exactly how it works, and it is one of the known flaws of the fediverse as it currently exists.

You might be making a statement, but server B is just a node and, frankly, doesn't care. If you federate with them, you federate with everyone they federate with as well.

It's uncomfortably like an STD in that regard.

@flancian @Dirk Threads has about 200 million monthly users, 33 million daily users. The fediverse has just under 1 million monthly users. Do you really think that 0.5% has any relevance to Meta?

Also: What data do you think Meta will be able to use - and for what? They can't use this data to serve you ads, simply because they don't know you. They can't track you around the web because you don't have a Meta account.

Threads has about 200 million monthly users, 33 million daily users. The fediverse has just under 1 million monthly users. Do you really think that 0.5% has any relevance to Meta?

Do you really think they would care about those users when they extend and extinguish the Fediverse?

@Dirk How should they achieve it? The Fediverse contains of a lot of different systems that offer so much more than Threads could ever do.

Nobody can ever explain how EEE could work in this scenario. They just parrot it and stop thinking.

The 0.5% on fedi are more likely to be the technical users that actually produce usable content.

How many thread users are bots or passive consumers? They may be good for serving ads to, but they're not so food at retaining and attracting users

It's a way to force your morals on the others.

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That same Meta that performs emotional manipulation experiments on its users without informing them or receiving their consent? No, thank you!

Is anyone even using threads?

200 million users apparently, though I think that everyone with an Instagram account was auto-added (or something like that)

I hear yoy but I have literally never heard anyone mention threads since it launched. I mean no one. No one I know personally and no one on any media.

I guess the people we associate with aren't the kind to be interested, and even if they are there's apparently nothing worth saying about it

Fuck the Zucc

This won't affect the Fedipact instances like dbzer0, right?

Embrace, extend, extinguish.

That's not how ActivityPub works.

On a technical level, no. You're right. It would not be possible to capture the protocol entirely. But meta has serious cash to spend on marketing Threads. If they can capture enough of the ActivityPub market and were to collab with Bluesky and use their protocol (I forget the name), or make their own, it's only a matter of time before the drop activitypub and force users either to join threads or lose access to their users.

Threads and Bluesky are kind of an existential threat to ActivityPub given Meta and Twitter's track record with Open Graph, bootstrap, and public api's.

But why?

Simply put, there aren’t a lot of us, we don’t like them, and we aren’t particularly nice people, even to people we don’t dislike a priori.

It seems like a poor business decision.

It's awesome that Threads federate with Mastodon. I follow several accounts on Threads I otherwise wouldn't be able to, just as I bridge with Bluesky.

Me federating with Threads makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to what they could or could not do with my data.

No. Threads federation should be treated the same way as a wolf joining a "sheep's right to not be eaten" meeting. Deeply unsettling, highly suspicious, and troubling. Facebook does NOT want the fediverse to succeed, and any claim to the contrary is fucking sus.

Other than general assumptions and track-record and being a business that sells user data, is there any actual evidence or clear and present ways that Meta could do harm to the Fediverse / its users?

All I've read is that it seems suspicious and we shouldn't trust them. I totally agree with that but I'd like someone to give some examples of what they could do as a member of the network. I've read how they could post advertising – how would that work?

I ask because, like the previous comment, the idea of following people from other, more popular, federated platforms from the comfort and security of "open source" (?) platforms is appealing. At the same time, if this is leaving me and my platform vulnerable to something specific, I'd like to either proceed with caution or not proceed at all.

The biggest loss for me when leaving Twitter was losing access to so much happening in my community and local news and government organizations. They're all still posting on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and not moving to the open social web. More and more are moving to Threads though so it would be nice to maintain / regain exposure.

The basic idea is that a huge company with infinite money creates software that supports an open standard, such as Threads. Next they spend significant amounts of money driving users to their software, rather than an open software equivalent. Once they've captured a huge percent of all users of the open standard, they abandon the open standard, going with a proprietary one instead. They'll make up some new feature to justify this and sell it as a positive. Because they control almost all of the users at this point, many of the users they don't control will decide to switch over to their software, otherwise the value of the open standard drops significantly overnight for them. What's left is a "dead" open standard that still technically exists but is no longer used. You can find plenty of past examples of this pattern, such as Google and XMPP.

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all. Why go through all that trouble when they’ve already accomplished the end goal you’ve outlined?

To kill any competition and ensure they retain control over future standards. Money. It's pretty straightforward.

XMPP didn't die, so why would the Fediverse?

That's your opinion. It's problematic when people conflate their gut feelings for facts.

There's quite a bit more than a gut feeling here. Meta is a malignant cancer and having nothing to do with it while promoting the fediverse is the wisest course of action.

The fediverse could pose a threat to the market dominance of the Facebook platform and instagram, as there are applications that aim to be direct competitors (frendica, plemora, pixelfed) already in the fediverse. If the fediverse grows, there will be no reason for people to stay on Meta's platforms without them reducing advertisement and increasing user privacy, which is obviously not something they want to do.

Theres no balance when one instance floods the whole network with millions of users. Soon people will mean that "threads" is whole "fediverse" .

ActivityPub is pull, not push. Threads isn't pushing anything into my feeds.

This is completely wrong.

No.

Guess who wrote Lemmy? https://github.com/dessalines

And?

Well, that convinced me. Thanks for your insight on the matter, I now know how to value the rest of your comments.

troed:

It's problematic when people conflate their gut feelings for facts.

Also troed:
I understand activitypub better than creator of Lemmy

What has argument from authority to do with facts?

You only get posts from those you subscribe to. That's the "pull" part.

The largest social media operator in the world had to adopt open source concepts and ActivityPub in order to compete. I see this as a huge win.

Unpopular opinion: Threads deepening ties to the fediverse is actually a really good thing for the fediverse as a whole.

I feel like realistically the fediverse will never gain mainstream adoption on its own. People like to believe in this beautiful future where the fediverse "wins out" and beats all the major social media networks, but I just don't see this happening. This is why I think Threads is actually really important for the growth of the fediverse and realistically one of the only paths to broad adoption.

Beyond this, I also separately really like the idea of being able to use a platform like Threads with my irl friends while still having access to open source clients etc. (ie. preventing situations like the Twitter API debacle which fucked over 3rd party clients)

"on its own" is an empty qualifier. Nothing is on its own.

Sure, to be pedantic, I could clarify: "I think the fediverse will realistically never gain mainstream adoption without a large organization with either a massive existing userbase or the ability to invest in large organized marketing efforts."

This could be technically through some Fediverse collective that receives a large amount of donations, but I don't see this as very likely to happen and even with organized marketing efforts there's no guarantee of effectively converting this into adoption.