lemmy.world has bent the knee to corporations. Consolidated comments into body.

Emanresu@lemmy.world to Fediverse@lemmy.world – 2 points –

I don't think this is EEE, I think this is a chance for meta to dominate the narrative by drowning us out with algorithmically curated censorship, distractions, hatred, outrage etc. I would join threads if I want threads, I would be on Reddit if I want corporate influence.

The mastodon post for the same server admins admitting to allow Meta thanks @BrikoX and @Melco

This is the post regarding an admin of fosstodon being offered a secret meeting under a non disclosure agreement

Thanks lunar for articulating my central point better than I could.


Most of my primary content was within the comment section scattered so I'll try to put it up here and edit more as i go. I was worried I'd butcher things so I avoided updating my post. Ignore the mess

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EEE - I don't want to talk specifically about this. Many others are, and you can talk with them about it.

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Privacy - My views on privacy is that lemmy is already fully public and facebook merging into it probably wont reduce your lemmy privacy in any meaningful way. Ignoring lemmy, your privacy is already fully breached in ways I'm not going to explain here.

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People keep making blind claims that facebook/meta can't use their algorithms to interact with us, so i will explain. For the record I know most of this effects mastodon directly, and not so much lemmy.

Threads will be able to control what gets minimised and maximised based on whatever secret algorithms they use. These end results are known to people that want to know, it's how our parents and grandparents, became increasingly detached from reality. If facebook/meta wants to censor their users, they will, if they want to promote hate against LGBTQs then they will. Those users will then interact with our users, slowly shifting our conversations and the overall culture of lemmy into the same cesspool that is facebook.

Secondly, the content of threads will be selected by a relatively massive userbase which will drown out our content if we stay federated. Of course that content will be optimised by their algorithm, thus influencing fediverse content.

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Now onto the principle matter. FACEBOOK IS EVIL, like genocidal evil, a propaganda arm of the empire evil. They have a heavily proven track record. "Wait and see"? There is no need to ignore facebook/metas criminal record.

The admins here should have clearly stated their intent but have been deafeningly silent. People are asking for clarification or in my case, acting because of a clear lack of action.

Other posts are talking about this and I will assume you have been reading them.

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pjhenry is a troll that ignores what people actually say, he focuses on his intentional misunderstandings and straw-men, just stop feeding the troll guys, he only wants to fight over nothing. He only acts in bad faith.

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Their stance if someone is interested https://mastodon.world/@mwadmin/110654590632768079

They basically won't do anything preemptively.

This seems to be the part that relatively few people have read.

I knew it existed but was an idiot for not having that in the original post >_>

Hmmm... the admins said today on this post chain (at about 10a UTC) that they were going to making a blog post regarding this issue.

So hopefully more clarification will be coming. At this point they've heard from enough users to know that there's pointed disagreement with federating with Threads for more than a nanosecond after they become visible.

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Not saying meta isn’t evil…. but the whole point of the fediverse is that anyone can start a server. Meta isn’t going to be able to track you any better just thru federation, anyone can already scrape the data. People are too quick to defederate everything

you are replying to the wrong thread, try reading my post. See how I don't care about your arguments(I care about your comments, just not the arguments themselves) and only care they they will control the narrative.

No meant to post here.. I see you didn’t call it out but privacy is a big reason people are worried about threads. Just posting my opinion. Feeds and algorithms can be adjusted if threads is drowning others out. I don’t know how good or bad threads will be for the fediverse but I don’t think you do either. I’m fine with servers taking a wait and see approach and with servers banning. I’m worried about people being very reactionary and servers banning other servers that take a wait and see approach. That is the thing imo that could really kill the fediverse

Also you are declaring lemmy.world is dead when afaik threads won’t even be federating with lemmy, they are just federating with mastodon

Privacy is fully violated regardless of what happens here, but I can understand people worrying about it. You will find that threads still leaks in and dominates us, remember they are a very large group compared to us. We will lose our soul in this exchange, although I agree that neither of us know how bad it is. Unfortunately I've been watching service after service get compromised so this isn't new to me. I think they should all preemptively defederate with threads except for oddball servers which can if they want to, I think after we know how bad it is we should defederate with instances federated with threads.

While I agreed those who do not want federation with Threads should leave (me included), lemmy.world has not bent any knee. The admin is taking a wait and see approach, and willing to block if it turns out bad

Embrace, extend, extinguish. This is what we must prevent.

They will extinguish us by watering down our uniqueness and incorporate us into them regardless of if we are in a separate unique server like lemmy.world. In the end this instance will become intellectually homogenised with meta while foaming at the mouth with standard twitter/reddit/facebook level hate and outrage over dumb stuff.

This is bullshit. Explain how it can even occur instead of just spreading FUD.

The long-standing history of Meta's flagrant unethical practices is enough reason to block them preemptively. I'll certainly be leaving lemmy.world, ending my donations to them, and moving my community to another instance if they federate with Threads.

Where is the indication that lemmy.world have "bent the knee"?

mastodon.world announced they won’t block threads yet and lemmy.world has the same owner.

The fact that you ask that is exactly what i mean.

edit: The deafening silence is what i was referring to here, my post has an update about what i mean further. I should have fully explained at the time but was going into "answer everyone" overload and cheaped out.

I just read the post you linked in the op. I was against federating then changed my mind after reading the post. Their reasoning makes sense, there is no benefit from detaching now but it's good to be cautiously optimistic with no issue with federating if there's potential harm.

They are pushing for a system to keep threads in check, which is what is needed

it’s good to be cautiously optimistic

I vaguely remember a quote about nazis at a table.

edit: i'm implying that this instance is complicit, nothing about you personally.

Also, i totally agree with upgrading lemmy itself.

Cautiously optimistic means making sure you're actually seeing if folks are Nazis before calling them Nazis. They're saying let's sit at the table and leave the table if we see Nazis.

You again have provided zero arguments as to why a wait and see approach causes any problem. If the defederate a week after Threads launches ActivityPub, what horrors would have occurred that can't be undone? And if it's as bad as you suggest, it'd likely be only hours after launch.

So the argument for them bending the knee is that someone on a different instance disagrees with you?

You even admitting to not reading the post when you said this. The link you added leads to a post that you then admitted to not reading til later. They haven't bent a knee. You're just overreacting. You've provided no evidence other than just "look at their history" or vague claims similar to that. Other times you just insult the person providing an actual argument. You're a bad faith actor. You're toxic. Are you sure you don't belong on Threads?

Thank you for pointing out that this is so much worse than just EEE. Meta has a long history of social and political engineering, and deliberately creating a toxic environment that turned all of our parents and grandparents into deranged conspiracy theorists. They don't just let hate thrive on their platform, they artificially inflate it in the name of engagement and profit.

I see no reason to assume they won't do all of this again, and should they do it all again it's going to impact the entire Fediverse. Even if you just stick to instances that block Meta, if you're federating with instances that aren't, the toxic environment Meta is likely to build will come back to you. If the majority of instances fail to block them, I can't bear to stay here and watch what has become the internet's most healthy and vibrant community rot from the inside.

I honestly don't understand why this is even a debate. If even a fraction of the shit meta has pulled was done by a smaller Fediverse instance, we all wouldn't hesitate to defederate from them.

And to those of you who justify Threads because Meta is somehow the lesser of two evils compared to Twitter, please remember that while Twitter is owned by a raging and incompetent manchild, Meta has eroded democracies and played a major role in a genocide. Don't fucking support these murderers. Meta is more than happy to spread even more hatred and killing in the world if it boosts their profits.

Thank you so much for being the first to properly understand the threat I was trying to express. You said it so much better than I could at the time.

I think the reason we are debating is because there are already bots and bad actors working hard to change and forge opinion. I think this style of fediverse just died, but we are close to easily making a new better one.

I'm gonna need to see an argument on how Threads' toxicity will reach places that are at least once removed. You can't just use it as evidence when it's not even clear it would happen. It's like saying this community is already tainted because there are folks who also have Instagram accounts. If it's not via people spreading the toxicity, I'm all ears to hear your reasoning. Cause it's far from just being obvious.

What are you even arguing anyway? You're saying defederating Threads isn't even enough. There's no sign they'll even federate beyond platforms of similar concept (micro logging as opposed to link sharing/exchange).

Are you just saying by simply existing, if everyone doesn't defederate them, the fediverse dies?

Your reply is a perfect example of how threads actions are causing toxicity in lemmy.world.

edit: Id just like to point out that at no point does he respond about meta being evil and unworthy to associate with, which is the important part he should be talking about.

I'd argue your attacking of other people shows that Threads isn't the reason behind people being toxic. Folks like you simply exist.

I think it's absurd to give Meta the shadow of a benefit of the doubt. in the past, they have explicitly stated their intention to make facebook the internet. If zuck had his way, there would be exactly one website, a monolith collecting your data to more efficiently serve you ads. There is no world in which their participation in the fediverse is not self serving and a net loss for the rest of us.

What are you talking about?

mastodon.world, owned by the same people as lemmy.world, is not immediately defederating with threads.

How long does it take to make an announcement for the most important and simple decision one can make? The thing is, they announced quietly that they are allowing federation with threads. Interacting with threads goes against the spirit of us leaving the corporate cesspool of reddit and doesn't even need a discussion.

and doesn’t even need a discussion.

The assumption that anti-corporate is the unanimous opinion of everyone here is false. I have and use apps from Meta. This is a topic that very much needs discussion.

I for one would appreciate federation with Meta. We can always defederate if Meta actually does something objectionable. But I see no reason to defederate before we actually know what federation with Meta looks like.

We can always defederate if Meta actually does something objectionable. But I see no reason to defederate before we actually know what federation with Meta looks like.

I don't hate corporations out of principle like the other guy, but there's no way this is gonna turn out well for the Fediverse. That's just not how Meta does things.

Agree, honestly, if people haven't figured out that mega-corporations can and will find a way to ruin a free space, you haven't been on Earth very long.

This stance doesn't affect the argument though. They're joining that space regardless of whether they defederate now or later.

I agree in spirit, but Meta is a known bad actor and wrecking ball that ran actual psyops against its own users and their networks just to see if they could make people depressed. They also engage in extensive, worldwide election interference to upend democracies. They don’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore.

This article lays out all the problems with the wait and see approach. We’ve been here before, unfortunately, and it only has a happy ending for the huge corporations looking to end us.

Edit: for those looking to get away from Mastodon’s main instances, give Fosstodon a look. Meta approached its admin with NDAs just like they did with Ruud, but refused it and published the email for openness. Here it is, by the way.

Federating would do more than defederating. The whole argument is that if they stop federating, they'll destroy the fediverse. People will leave activitypub-native instances to go to threads instead because they can't see Threads.

It's actually more important to show people a better way. Granted, if it's toxic, and we just defederate anyway, then it's already not a threat that most of the fediverse would change sides.

The EEE approach is not about whether any particular instance federates or not. Threads would need to create enough value to even make people want to care about them breaking protocol. And more to the point, we are a different culture than back then.

The only threat would be if you're worried Threads would provide substantially better content than here. It'd need to be good enough that a threat of them defederating others is more dangerous. If people made that argument, maybe I could see their point. But so far, I think the bigger threat is the content itself being toxic and garbage. I say let Threads mature a bit and let's see where it stands if and when they do federate (and if we even have to worry about seeing it on Lemmy or Kbin).

And let's be honest, Google didn't kill XMPP just out of EEE. They did so by simply making such a monolithic platform that "everyone" had an account already so why create a separate account for messaging by itself. Pretending Google Talk existed in a vacuum is deceptive at best and objectively wrong at worst. I have a Google account and it's causing me such agonizing pain that it's taking me so long to extract myself out of it. It'll likely take me months or even years to fully remove myself and that's not even counting that I then need to migrate out of Microsoft too.

You do realise the average person here now is from exiting reddit because they did bog standard corporate things? If they aren't aware they dislike the corporate part of reddit and like the lemmy part then.. well..

The "average" person does not even know what an API is or cares. I doubt they even know what's going on. You sure do like to make grand sweeping statements that have no basis in fact.

OP doesn't know what an API is. They've shown they have effectively no idea what they're talking about.

OP is reminding me of teenagers on trans twitter catastrophizing tiny events into an end of the world call for the stocks and gallows.

I haven’t responded to them directly cause of that. Have really wanted to but had to stop myself cause I know it’ll be fruitless

^Note: not hating on trans twitter. I’m trans. It’s just a hurt people lashing out at small things they feel they can exert some amount of control over in a world that is on fire^

Never said a thing about APIs.. you shouldn't make such grand sweeping statements.

As for the average person here, plenty of statistics say that corporate reddit shenanigans and the influx of users happened at the same time, this is simple fact. They got booted off, or chose to come here because of the corporate side of reddit. This is about as simple as simple can be Aldursil. Are you a bot? or just... ya know

Wow, now insulting. The last thing people do when they run out of ideas. Welcome to my block list.

I'd like to disagree with OP, but a lot of us did join after Reddit fucked up.

Sure, but Reddit managed to be ok for 18 years before this fuckup. If we get 18 years of useful content out of Meta and then it fucks up like Reddit did I'd count that as a massive win.

"you shouldn't make grand sweeping statements"

Ok. You're just a troll now aren't you. Those are the only statements you've been making.

Ok, imagine if Reddit had been part of the fediverse in the way Threads is planning to be. Then, when spez needed to fuck himself, we could have migrated more easily to another instance, without losing access to Reddit.

I'm not sure about you, but that sounds like an upside to me.

Stop being entitled and speaking for other people. The fact a discussion is occurring means it needs a discussion. You aren't some big brained person who just knows better than anyone else. It's clear folks disagree with you. This means your objective stance of truth is objectively wrong. It's simply subjective opinion. So is mine. But stop providing no actual formal logic behind your claims. If you think your doing that, then I suggest actually taking a formal logic course when you reach college.

If anyone does decide to leave lemmy.world, do not leave the lemmyverse. Join another lemmy instance or start your own instance. Lemmy is the future. Free, open source, federated link aggregator.

You don't need to stick with Lemmy. Kbin is just as good. I actually prefer it because they already solved the problem of allowing users to block domains.

What is the difference between lemmy and kbin? Is Kbin PHP while lemmy is rust based?

Honestly, I don't know much of the differences or if it's even simply which framework they used. It just seems to be two different link exchanges/sharing apps that are compatible with each other. Like, I'm currently on kbin but can see this just fine. I'm not sure what my instance's stance is currently, but there's no need to act beforehand as there's nothing lost by doing it afterward instead of before. I don't understand the people complaining that it needs to happen immediately right now. Just seems so impatient and entitled. Folks just need to calm down. They're pulling their hair out for no reason. No one has been able to articulate an actual real problem with wait and see. Just very vague "meta is obviously evil" kind of deal.

I understand privacy being a concern but reddit, lemmy and kbin are not designed for privacy since all posts are public. I guess the upvote/downvotes could be more private perhaps which will protect what users voted on if a database leak occurred.

And E2EE messages are coming in the future I believe

Yes. It's nice to have choices.

I have multiple accounts and .... So I am actually fine if Lemmy.world keeps Threads on. In fact I'd just be curious more than anything.

I can always just use my other account on another instance if things go bad.

I'm getting sick of these "time to leave" posts about people wanting to jump ship on each sites decision. Beehaw decided they only want peaceful severs, time to leave. Lemmy.ml was founded by communists, time to leave! Lemmy.world doesn't instantly defederate from other instances, time to leave!

You can't just continually shuffle the community from site it site.

While a entire community can't convince itself to leave, the beauty of the fediverse is if you as a user want to leave it's very easy to switch instances and get access to most of the same info you want.

If you only scroll-read here - then, yes, it is easy

I certainly post and read. I'm happy with my instance currently, but should lemmy.one does something I don't agree with I will have no problem switching.

People are so weird. Their online presence means so much to so many. I want to reply to all of them, just switch instances. As important as they feel, nobody is going to bat an eye when they move, yet they feel that they are really losing something if they do.

I'm glad someone realizes it. Online presence is something you want to be worthless. If people see worth in that can lead to a set of problems you don't want.

I agree with you. We should not kill them for not defederating immediatelly

It's almost like this constant 'call to leave' is meta's Trojan horse.

A way to create discourse, lower patience of users and make them question their new home away from corporate enshittification.

I just ignore posts like this, as a partially functional human I am able to form my own opinions and draw my own lines in the sand.

I believe the approach described in https://www.timothychambers.net/2023/07/03/instagram-threads-and.html is much more pragmatic than “Meta is bad, Threads will corrupt us” argument and I honestly believe that fighting among fedi instances would be the first win of EEE strategy. Meta IS bad, federation with Threads may be an opportunity, fighting before even watching and assessing the situation is wrong imho. “Watching Like a Hawk, with our Fingers Over the Block Button.”

We don't have to wait and see? Meta has a proven history.

His write up doesn't cover the issue my post is about, but it does cover a fair bit. I also worry about fracturing the community but see it differently. If everyone rejected meta or if everyone embraced meta, we would be an unfractured community. Unfortunately we aren't fully one way or the other. The best part though is that we can split into different instances. My biggest issue is that to my knowledge, on lemmy.world there were no announcements stating intent, and to people like me that means pro-corporate and I need to leave. If they just announced I would have just slowly left without much fuss.

i do realise lemmy isn't effected that badly compared to mastodon, but the basics still stand.

I feel like your post is low info outrage bait.i am no expert on all this but this seems dramatic.

I made the mistake of not just updating my post when I reply to people. My responses are scattered through the post. I encourage you to ctrl-f.

I was getting sidetracked, but thanks to your encouragement I updated the main post.

Awesome! Thanks a lot for caring enough to do all this.

Thanks :) I should have done it sooner. It was a touch exhausting managing a dozen conversations at once. Have you seen my cute downvote collection? haha

Or you can just leave once you actually see what happens. You lose nothing. You're providing no actual problem posed by wait and see. If it isn't good and they defederate after Threads federates, there's very little difference to defederating beforehand. Certainly no permanent problems. I think most people are choosing not to stress and worry for literally no reason, especially when it may not come to pass.

Less stress in your life is better. Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do, but it won't get you anywhere.

All this talk of Meta is histrionics at this point until we find out if they are going to federate. Wait and see then you can decide what to do.

I've edited the post to show the 4 day old toot I was referencing. We already know they will federate and we already know meta and generic big multinational corps are evil. We have all the evidence we need.

You were abusive with what you said, and just because you were too lazy to fact check doesn't mean I'm lying or the fact it isn't known

In that very toot they literally say they will defederate as soon as there is any reason for it, and they will be watching for such reasons.

Mate, if the word "histrionics" is abusive, wait till you see the rest of the internet.

The toot that was made before launch? That toot? The toot that referenced they have their finger over the button to defederate? That toot? The toot that you didn't bother actually reading?

I understand both sides' points. At the end of the day, it's like going to your doctor. It's a personal decision whether you stay and wait this out, or feel an "icky" ping in your gut-- a familiar feeling that doesn't sit right with you. I've read these comments and it really all comes down to how and why you "internet."

Personally, I'm getting the icky, oh-god-here-we-go feeling because I worry about privacy. I've tried to learn what all of this means. The conclusion I've come to is that I enjoy the 3D (4D?) world much more. I will always seek these communities for reading and info... but the reality seems to be: People want to connect online. I think I just want to use it to pay bills, look up movie times, and eff off. Signing onto anything requires a risk that I must evaluate-- at least until my hand is forced. Like with paying bills, looking up movie times, shopping and so on.

I share the concerns of OP, but I love what someone on this post said. Something close to: If you think corporate America isn't coming for free space, you haven't been on Earth very long... (sorry, person who said this. I'm butchering your comment).

If you're getting the icky feeling, do something about it. I think we all are "internetting" for different reasons. We aren't all just going to run away in protest. I may or may not stay, but I will continue to my best to find the quiet places. If it becomes too much, I'll delete.

In a perfect world, it would be really nice to have a place online to be fun, free, and find reliable information in a quick and orderly fashion. So subscribing to the Fediverse means you will have to do some digging to find the communities you trust.

Yeah, I think the lack of announcement was why i made this post ultimately. I felt betrayed if they kept their views censored. I'm here because everywhere with close to uncensored(in regards to the evils in the world) speech gets compromised and I let me hopes get the better of me. I just wanna hear new ideas and talk with interesting people. I'd rather not have more standard corporate approved memes and repost bots etc. I don't want to be in a meta tainted area.

Yeah. I totally get that. There's the technical aspect of things, and the the ethical which carries a perceivable looming threat: "We're coming for you." I think people sense it, but are trying to play fair and ethical with a monster that has proven time-and-time again that it doesn't give a shit about our wittle-bitty feewings. That's the icky feeling I have at the moment. I understand your reason for sounding the alarm and appreciate that you're sort of like 'Holdup. Y'all seeing this?' From there, I think the question becomes, how do we activate our inner Public Enemy and fight the power.... or do we? Is it okay to just do us with the hopes of staying under the radar?

I like that you brought this up. Posts like this inspire important conversations that can (at the very least) inspire mods and creators to access the "how" and "why" of participating in the fediverse.

This was part of my plan all along! To raise awareness about what is happening so that others can do the right thing, or at least start thinking about it in a new way. I didn't see many others talking about the narrative hijack stuff, so i took a bullet and gave it a go.

I think we all have different skills in this and need to find our easiest ways to personally do something. It's a part of being in a community after all :). They want to control what we think about and talk about, so we can start by talking about what we aren't meant to say, and my downvotes paint a clear picture lol. I even had a post mentioning facebook helping enable genocide removed by a mod.

We should make a big deal about the evils of Meta, especially how they control views to help promote genocide and how they are destroying our loved ones minds. @Lunar@lemmy.world Said it perfectly. We need to spread that kind of sentiment until we have a better idea of what to do next. We can force them to not federate.

Very nicely put. I've used all this for deep reflection about my internetting as well and I don't think I have come to terms with everywhere being ruined by corporate. It's not like they don't fuck us over as well in the real world and I now realize what kind of fight we're in on- and offline. Don't want to give up any bit of space to evil corporations. I think it's easy to create really quiet Lemmy instances (or other social sites, federated or not) where one can rest from all those aggressive algorithms, and if I do it at some point I will make it very connected to real life and good for information gathering. Other than that, I like real life, I'm not interested in much virtual stuff.

Yes! Agreed. <3 I fundamentally don't believe that the internet is here to eat humanity alive. Corporations and greed are (sadly) integrated in our daily living in a variety of ways. And while it is wise to keep an eye on what's going on and vote and engage accordingly, the best we can do is find what is useful without abandoning or compromising our individual quiet spaces. If they took away my ability to delete my account, then we'd have a problem. As long as I have real life to participate in, I'm good. My whole world isn't inside of my computer screen. :D

I think it's silly people are using arguments from pre-launch. If what I'm being told is true from what is being posted there, it's no doubt that it'll get defederated from most places fairly quickly. However, whether your instance federates with it or not will do nothing to address your concerns that are legitimate. You have nothing to fear from the algorithm or curation in any way. That won't affect you, federated or not. You also won't be drowned out either. That's not how federation works. Threads will dominate the narrative for a bit regardless of federation.

And your closing statement about "us" and "we" is culty and creepy. Don't speak for people you don't even know.

You want a server run by "one of you"? Run one yourself. You can do so for well under $100 a month (likely significantly lower depending on how snappy you want it).

I'm kind of tired of folks protesting against people hosting instances for others and entitled individuals making demands that they've done nothing to earn.

This has nothing to do with corporate. If you read what you linked, you'd know that full well. I'm guessing you didn't go more than that one link deep and didn't dive down to read the given reasons for the stance. Lazy.

I really wanted to reply to you but deleted half way in, sorry burning out. most people aren't responding to what I'm actually saying, but just making massive assumptions half the time. For example I'm not talking about the API, EEE or privacy at all in the slightest.

Us and we can be used strangely by some, you might be reading into it a bit too much, but i also coulda phrased better. we/us as in the refugees of corporate bs from reddit.

I replied to the points you literally put in your post. I don't know what you want. What points are you making then? What worry did I not address?

I really wanted to reply to you but deleted half way in, sorry burning out

I just want basic respect and for you to be literate. Go view lunars answer to see my central point. I've answered everything else you have said in other posts here. I'm not going to feed trolls any more.

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This grand standing and these purity tests about threads are sickening.

We want to prevent enshittification. Not encourage it.

I don't think there's anything wrong with a wait-and-see approach.

We know the history of Meta. We ignore the history to wait and see.

This is literally FUD. Unless you can provide actual details of what the problem actually would be, you're just spreading fear with no basis.

Given the relative scales, it's best to put protection in place, then wait and see.

If Threads is a positive place, we open up and nothing is lost.

If Threads is a(nother) cesspit of hate and bots, then we have protected ourselves from it.

That argument works the other way a lot better. Mainly because a delay of a day or so won't kill anyone and we'd actually see if it's a cesspool and not some random screenshots or hearsay.

The admin is ready to defederate. Theres no benefit to doing it early.

I disagree entirely, that's simply incorrect. You can observe whether it is a cesspool or not whether you federate or not. The federation will not affect it at all. Everyone is able to go and use Threads, we won't need to rely on "random screenshots or hearsay", or to federate in order to see whether it's good or not.

It's an unknown quantity, 1000x bigger than the current fediverse. If we federate then block, there is just a mess to clean up. And you know the first few days are going to be a nightmare anyway, as they are with any social media platform, while the controls spin up and new ways to abuse them are found.

The benefit to doing it early is to let it land and let the smoke clear before making a judgement, without creating a mess for existing users. This is really obvious.

I fail to understand your benefit. Defederation is extremely quick. If it's a problem, there's no mess to really deal with. I fail to see what the problem is even if it is problematic for a day or two. No one has actually voiced a real concern that provides a valid benefit to defederating beforehand vs seeing what happens and then defederating. You lose absolutely nothing.

As you said, "if it is problematic for a day or two". It could be enormously problematic.

You fail to understand the benefit, and I don't need to convince you, it's still correct :)

Pretty sure you can't explain what's wrong because you have no idea how ActivityPub works.

Good rebuttal though. "Just trust me I'm right. Stop asking for details or questions. Just do what I say."

I'll wait and see if Facebook is even gonna end up doing federation correctly. Maybe they wont.

As much as I preemptively created an account on another server (as I prefer admins to have a decisive stance in regards to Meta and similar corporations), it'd be good to wait for lemmy.world admins official message on it before telling everyone to leave.

But if they do "officially" bend the knee, yeah, it's time to leave if you want to avoid Meta.

I don't WANT to agree, but I kinda do.

We're here because Reddit was shit on top shit, led by gaping anus. We all accept that Meta is the same.
We didn't want Reddit profiting from our work. Meta will do the same, only more competently.

Defederation is useless at scale They can continually spin up new instances that act as spies and bridges to Meta's area.
Once enough Meta bridge nodes are woven into the Fedi, they'll be masked by a backchannel to mask the exchange/activity.

Someone plz tell me I'm wrong, but this is how I think things work in the background...

  • Bob creates a Lemmy node - @Zucc1.ughfuckoff. It has 3 users and basically shops around until someone in lemmy.world's sphere allows federation. Zucc1 looks like any random, small instance.
  • Once federated, Zucc1 syncs to its connected Lemmy instances - for now there is no Meta connection.
  • Zucc1 can then federate with a bunch of other instances, including Zucc2.
  • This repeats for a few weeks, infiltrating Fedi. This could be happening now.
  • A new set of Lemmy nodes spin up and federate only with a portion of the spy instances. The spy instances don't respect the federation rules, distributing portions of the Fedi sync back to the Meta connected nodes, masking the source and destination.
  • Once signed posts are received by the spy nodes, user names are swapped with a table synced by spy and bridge instances. @User1@T4server.threads becomes @User7@Zucc4.ughfuckoff.
    • The Threads user sees their message from @someone@lemmy.world (which can also be swapped if they worry Threads users care about any of this stuff).
    • The Lemmy user sees the message from @User@Zucc4.ughfuckoff.

Probably easy to combat when it's one instance here and there. If it's constant and automated, federating would have to be paused until the spies are weeded out and there's a better detection strategy. If they get a big enough network going, they could all dip out at once, change identity, and refederate back in as the Fedi network flips out because of all the sync mismatches. Just more new nodes joining in. They have the source code, so they can act differently from other instances as long as it doesn't cause problems.

Is this a realistic scenario or am I way off base? I feel like it has to be one of the two.

  1. Metas algorithmically curated feed happens only for threads users
  2. In few hours threads got much more users that lemmy has - meta do us in any ways - we are small group of people which will not consume meta ads/style
  3. What special Lemmy.world did in this context?

Lemmy.world isn't preemptively defederating with Threads.

The developers already said they plan on Threads being multi-instance. Preemptively doing anything is just stupid. It might not even do anything.

  1. itl be forced onto us by being federated, and if some block, the others that dont will be controlled by those posts and indirectly influence the rest of us.

we are small group of people which will not consume meta ads/style

  1. The quote is what i mean, we wont want them so why do we want them?

  2. lemmy.world has been silent to us inside lemmy, and their mastodon instance said they are federating and will "see" if they should based on how meta behaves. As others have said, its like letting an arsonist into your house unsupervised hoping it wont happen again.

edit: because i get doubles of the same comment from two accounts I'll answer in here.

The threads algorithm will maximise likes on things they wish maximised and minimise attention on things they want ignored etc. What threads likes most will spread most, through their app and through peoples actions, then that spread will reach federated and then indirectly federated sources. The important part is they dwarf our community size and tend to be very homogenised so for gain that i cant see, we lose our soul as a community. We may as well just delete here and make threads accounts. I'm here because the people are more unique and interesting, not as a generic chat room or social media account. Once we become what most of us don't want, then why bother?

That's not how it works. Threads using an algorithm does not force it onto any other platform.

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  1. you don't understand ActivityPub. You're objectively wrong here.
  2. that there's any arguing shows your supposed objective stance is objectively wrong. Stop speaking for people you clearly don't. It's a sign of narcissistic behavior and entitlement.
  3. it's not like that at all. It betrays a lack of understanding of the platform you're using. Defederating even a day later would clean it up fairly quickly. There's virtually nothing lost if they defederate afterword. Your analogy is just so wrong on so many levels.

And to address your supposed algorithm issue: ActivityPub doesn't work that way. It can't change a feed in realtime. It just publishes. And again. It won't affect you. Even if they hacked and broke the spec, all it would do is change what you see from Threads. Whoopity doo. Join a Kbin instance and just block it from your feed.

I lost you. algorithmic "feed" is created by Threads for Threads users. As long as you personally do not subscribe to Threads "communitues" (or whatever it will be) you do not see there. Without Threads you can find an unpleasant context in Lemmy as well, if you search for it just or browse "all". If you want instance admin decide for your what you allowed to see and protect you from everything what they thing is not nice - there are few.

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I'm not surprised, but disappointed. And I'm even tired to talk about it. It's just so fucking dumb.

Do the fosstodon people have a Lemmy instance?

fosstodon has the same stance as lemmy.world. I don't know if they have a lemmy.

Wait, did I read something wrong... I thought they were like "we don't want to talk to Meta at all".

Edit: oh yes I see.

It's all getting a bit Judean People's Front around here. I know there's a generally leftist userbase, but do we have to do this?

That's less about defederating with Meta. Meta are the Romans. It's about people defederating with anyone who federates with Meta.

I'm not on lemmy.world, but I've joined some communities that are. I think an important question is, for any community mods who take this stance, do you plan to shutter your lemmy.world community and move to another?

This situation is one reason why it's important to get tools for community migration into Lemmy. (Another is: what if an admin simply has to shut down their instance for personal reasons?)

(Also FWIW there's already reason to defederate based on the garbage moderation even if you're not concerned about EEE, so I don't get admins who are in "wait and see" mode.)

I didn't think about this from a community owner pov. It would be pretty rough on them.

Meta is known to promote bad things. There is already enough evidence and a top level corporation should be seen as representative of all their holdings. Meta facilitates genocide.. i should get some articles but I'm done for a while.

also, "wait and see" feels like a judge that has alzheimers and can't see the persons criminal record.

Meta literally posted pro Brexit propaganda courtesy of Cambridge Analytica on the night before the referendum. They're evil as hell.

Their bots are posting anti-threaxit content as we speak.

I keep forgetting that most people don't get the censored info about how evil facebook/meta is. Its a huge list of items. I'm considering compiling it.

You do realize algorithms won't apply to your instance, right? ActivityPub doesn't support the type of tech you're worried about.

I think many of the wait and see is due to not even knowing how well Threads will turn out. Threads may come out with some valuable creators. And if they implement the same capabilities as Mastodon, they can just limit Threads. People can see posts from those they specifically choose to follow on Threads, but nothing else.

You're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Rather than make thread after thread after thread about it, just start an instance with blackjack and hookers and threads.net on your blocklist

Is there any way how to move account into another instance? Basically so I don't lose posts.

I myself am interested what lemmy.world's admins will do. Now they get a lot of criticism for not doing anything but so far I wouldn't blame them that much.

PS: I would probably still defederate if it was my decision

You would have to make a new account. Not sure how i feel about not having account migration. It's got its good and bad points. Sad to make a second account though.

I was going to switch from lemmy.world to lemmy.ml but disappointed that I'd be losing all my comment & post history. Not to mention you have to re-subscribe to all your communities again.

In response to your update about the algorithm, I highly suggest reading how ActivityPub publishes posts. This won't be as much of a concern as you think. It'd require breaking the spec entirely. It would literally not be compatible with other instances if they had a real-time algorithm like that. The only thing it can truly effect is if you browse Threads directly. Even then, there are certain standards it has to follow if it wants to be compatible. More than likely, you will get a "diminished" Threads experience (ie: you will not see any "benefit" of any Threads specific functionality). They already stated if you apply Thread specific privacy controls, it simply won't be posted to the federated feed. It's important to realize their actual feed will not be the same as the federated feed. I do not think Meta wants to capitalize on the fediverse. I think they're doing it as an inexpensive option to be available in the EU without having to interoperate with direct for-profit competitors.

Again, some folks won't be sold on the mess federating with Threads will look like. Let it play out and if you are correct, they will defederate very quickly and there won't be any lasting harm. Meta will gain nothing. You will have stressed and lost years off your life for worrying so much.

Just drink some tea and watch the sunset or something.

Aaaaand the argument is moot.

https://fortune.com/2023/07/06/mark-zuckerberg-replacing-metaverse-with-twitter-killer-threads-fediverse/ (may be paywalled, it worked for me once, but visiting again it was blocked)

Threads isn't going to be one instance. Threads is gonna be like Kbin or Lemmy. Users can set up their own instances. So you can't simply defederate from Threads as a whole. I'm sure there will be some primary instances one can defederate from, but this preemptive motion to do so seems misguided and may not even be possible as we don't truly know what the domain will end up being.

This is so histrionic. The whole point of the fediverse is instances connecting. If you want a safe space go join a forum or something.

Then why is there the option of defederating at all?

Defederating must be based on facts and evidences, not on imagination.

I'd argue defederating can be based on whatever the hell the admins of the instance wants. That's the freedom of the fediverse, instances are free to choose what they do and do not want. And you the user are free to choose the instance that aligns with your wants.

Obviously, we're only guests in the admin's house, as long as the admin wants us to be there. But during the time I was on Mastodon, I saw some (de)federation discussions, and the admins said that most of the time: facts, not assumptions.

My statement was more referring to the idea that defederating based on facts are not a definite rule. Ideally facts are used, but sometimes it won't. Speculation is pretty fair considering prior facts in this scenario.

No one is using any facts that actually makes sense. They just keep using scary corporate spooky words. Ignoring that the toot says they will defederate if there is reason to do so addresses the "speculation". It's simply a matter of whether the defederate now and risk being overzealous or defederate the next day after they see evidence. There's no real harm in making sure one isn't overreacting.

Embrace, extend, and extinguish is a real tatic used by big tech companies for years though. It is fair to assume this strategy will be in play, as times the FOSS community hasn't things died as a result.

You can't just keep saying it's a tactic without remotely arguing how it's even possible. Facts will help you. Spreading FUD with no understanding of how ActivityPub works doesn't help you.

You're right, I don't know how ActivityPub works. Perhaps explain to me how this tactic is impossible?

I can only base things off of my knowledge and from what I understand you can remove activitypub support just as (relatively) easily as you add it.

You've been very active in this post attacking users personally, but are unable to actually articulate anything of your own. Care to elaborate on how this is all a non issue, or your understanding of ActivityPub?

ActivityPub works closer to an RSS feed, so it wouldn't be real-time like an algorithmic feed that updates constantly. When you post something via ActivityPub, it simply posts. Other servers will rank it based on the actual stats. So the best that can be done to try and force the algorithm on you without breaking spec too much (ie: doesn't change the spec, but uses it improperly) would be to post it with false statistics. It's pointless to do that though. So ultimately, the algorithm will have very little effect. In regards to EEE, I can't think of how it actually could do that, and I'm at a loss why I need to prove a negative. Anyone who is positing to will happen needs to back up their point of view with how.

And literally everything I've posted were my own thoughts. And yeah, I was abusive to the person who told me I was illiterate because I asked them to clarify an extremely vague FUD stance.

I just want people to articulate what the difference is between defederating now and defederating after seeing how it actually plays out. Literally no one has done that yet. Not one single person has been able to back up their point with an articulated answer beyond "but but meta is evil." Yeah, I agree. I don't have Instagram. I don't have Facebook. I don't have Threads. I don't even care if my instance defederates before or after either. I will care if they choose not too and federating causes the experience to degrade. But I don't need to worry about that right now. It costs a lot mental stress to be worrying about such a non-issue now when it's just as easy to take action when it comes time to cross that bridge.

Personally, I just really dislike how poorly so many people are using logic and that is what I'm more interested in. Unfortunately no one has shed any light that actually has evolved the topic beyond the same vague principle of "meta is bad." Hell, some are arguing entirely different points but the OP seems to be entirely in agreement even though the logical conclusion isn't remotely the same between the two.

I just want to know why there are users so actively trying to dismantle other instances. Like, is OP secretly a fan of Threads and is spouting this nonsense everywhere trying to get people to leave instances everywhere?

It's entirely not doing anything positive for the fediverse to be acting like many of the other folks in this thread.

The only group that benefits from posts like this is Threads.

Appreciate you taking the time to write that out. You make some good points. I've been no lifing this subject for the past couple of hours, and while I was definitely on the bandwagon that OP is, I've pretty much arrived at the same consensus. I feel it's a wiser choice to wait and see, before going full scorched earth. Cheers.