this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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By all means, fuck Meta to the moon and back, but for goodness' sake, users on federated servers can choose to block the domain with the same result, not to mention that admins can simply restrict it (see social.coop/@eloquence/1115888…). It just isn't so black and white as people are making it seem.
Federation with a bigger platform is realistically the only way for Fedi to become mainstream, and at the moment Meta seems at least to be trying to be communicative. And with their quite unvaluable userbase they really don't have enough leverage against the privacy-concious Fediverse to turn AP into MetaPub. For now.
You're playing the classic "it's the individual responsability" game. It's how you deregulate everything and the consumer losses every right.
We have to acknowledge that we have systemic or/and societal issues. This is a systemic issues so a common thing.
I'm just saying that even on federated instances the users can choose to block Threads, and that that gives the same result for them. There's no need to force the hand of the user; there are more than enough corpo-critical people on Fedi for it not to be taken over by Meta.
Edit: And I understand that allowing interaction with Meta is very risky business. Which is why I like the approach of instances like social.coop which restrict interaction from Threads but still give the user a choice.
Not quite the same result. Blocking the instance stops you seeing their posts, but not the comments coming from their users.
I didn't actually know that. Thanks for mentioning it
My pleasure. TMYK!
No, that's just Lemmy. On Masto it blocks all interactions from users (including prohibiting them from following you and therefore fetching your posts).
Fair. But I'm on lemmy for discussion. I don't want threads' bobbleheaded userbase fucking up every discussion thread on lemmy. So I will stay on instances that have de-federated that shithole and urge other instances to do the same.
But they won't. Seeing how little even the relatively federation-conscious Mastodonians interact with Lemmy, from Threads it will be close to zero (especially since the devs are very "careful" with federation and probably won't display article-formatted posts anytime soon).
I'm not comfortable with assuming the dregs of Facebook will leave Lemmy alone. I'll stick to instances that have defederated and I'll actively block instances that don't.
I'm not out here trying to stop you from being on federated instances or anyone else. But I will not personally support instances that allow that monster into the ecosystem.
You know that if you actively blocked the instances that are federated with Threads you wouldn't have seen this post, right (lemmy.world/instances)? I'm also only active on instances that block Threads, but blocking those who don't is an excessive measure.
Like I said, I don't care what others do. But for me the correct answer is to not interact with users from that platform.
When I start seeing threads users in .world lemmy comment sections I will block .world.
That's not how federation works. If you're on an instance that doesn't allow Threads, you won't see them at all, even when viewing posts coming from other instances.
I am given to understand that I will still see the comments from threads users on lemmy. Just not the posts from threads.
You're confusing defederation with Lemmy's instance blocking. Defederation means that none of a server's content is federated. Lemmy's new instance blocking feature, however, only blocks communities and not users.
I don't think I was confusing the defed from blocking, I was confused about what you meant. Thanks for the clarification.
We are on lemmy. So they are right in this context. I really couldn't give a crap about anything like Twitter because I hate everything about that type of medium.
The thing is, you don't really see anything from the Microblogging Fediverse around here at all, do you, so why would you from Threads? And Meta will only explicitly collect your data if you follow one of their accounts, which is impossible from Lemmy. So in a Lemmy context it is quite irrelevant.
Also,
I'm not ;)
It's a similar situation as with the unions. We can all manage to have a pay rise by ourselves. Or, we unionize and ask together for the pay rise.
Defederating the instance is like unionizing. We all go forward instead of individually to have weight. This weight is in form of killing asap the federating attempt, as threads.net users will have nothing to see in the Fediverse. If you let each user manage the situation, threads.net can do whatever they want. There is no individual responsibility in this case. We have to play collectively.
We need to play collectively because the Fediverse isn't one monolithic network, unlike Meta. It's a federated network. It's each instance and Meta. This is why unionizing is important. It's the Fediverse and Meta. This is the magic of activity pub. You can let others use the protocol but say no to the interaction with them.
The second aspect is that Meta is relying on “cognitive capitalism”. Meta will use free cognitive time from the Fediverse to capitalize. This has huge implication on mental health and all kind of minorities relying on the Fediverse for various reasons. We can say all together no to this, what isn't possible individually. I recommend the book "The Soul at Work From Alienation to Autonomy" by Franco "Bifo" Berardi. It's a good book to understand the issue with Meta and others.
Look, I hate Meta as much as the next person, but they really don't have that much leverage over the Fediverse as people are making it seem. It is completely optional to follow their accounts so they have little direct control over people's feeds, not to mention that their active userbase is quite small. I'd say a better approach is simply restricting interaction by making it opt-in in all ways, just like social.coop.
But I don't want the fediverse to become mainstream!!
I know, I know, most people think it's the best thing.
But I selfishly prefer the fediverse to be as it is now. Actually, as it was a couple of months ago. Lemmy is already being filled with rage-baiting bullshit, which is one of the reasons I decided to leave reddit.
I am 100% with you. Becoming mainstream is what ruins most good communities that end up ruined. Hell, even Facebook was a 1000x better before they opened it to non-college users.
It really depends on the instance. There are many cozy, non-mainstream corners on the Fediverse. For instance, beehaw.org is as pleasant as can be.
Just because the Fediverse is mainstream doesn't mean that the content on every instance is mainstream; instances can display content however they like. It really is rather selfish to say that you want everyone to stay in the corporate walled gardens just so that you can enjoy your unfiltered feed.
Uh, yeah. I already mentioned that.
I know, I'm just emphasising on it, and its needlessness.
We disagree, and that's okay.
Well I'd really like you to elaborate. What prevents individual instances from being a nice environment even if it can connect to a giant network? On Lemmy for instance there are several instances with very nice local feeds and also on several microblogging instances there are strong internal communities. Just because the rest of the Fediverse is there doesn't mean you have to see it all.
That said, there is a lot that can be done on a lot of platforms to give communities more of their own touch. Right now, most Fediverse platforms are currently very invested into the idea of complete decentralisation and treat other instances just like their own.
Half-centralisation measures like allowing microblogs to be unlisted outside the home instance or being able to hide a community from other instances' All feeds, or even blocking outside users from posting in a community, would definitely be welcome. Point is the solution is not to keep the entire network small, but rather features encouraging interaction locally allowing for community building.
All good points. I'm just tired of moving to a spot (slashdot, digg, reddit, etc) only for it to be invaded by the same toxic, race-baiting crowd. And I think in the fediverse that may occur way more often. Say, today I'm in Lemmy.world. Then I move to Beehaw. Then Reddthat, etc....
We shall see.
If you want to avoid the toxic crowd, I definitely recommend Beehaw.org. Their entire purpose is to build a community without the toxicity often seen on social media platforms. In fact, they have even defederated lemmy.world because they couldn't control said crowd.
Thanks! I've been to Beehaw a few times in the past, and I liked what I've seen. I guess it's time to make it my home once and for all.
Adding more people would dilute some of the excessively frequent ragebait posters…
It’s like the same 2-3 dozen people.
Good to know. I'll start blocking, then.
Have you been on Facebook (or Xhitter) recently? Where "recent" is defined as "within the past decade or so".
Yes, but the point you're trying to make doesn't make sense. The content subscription model for both of these are completely different.
On Twitter (erm, I bounced shortly after the X shenanigans...) you subscribed to people and mostly saw tweets of people you follow, and the tweets they re-tweet, so it's heavily individual-curated.
On Facebook you "subscribe" to people and groups. Because your feed is mixed between people and group posts, you're still getting a mostly-curated feed from friends, with algorithmic posts from groups. In the last few years they started blending in posts from groups/pages you aren't in if your feed doesn't have much content.
Lemmy is entirely different. You only subscribe to communities. The curation is moderation style and upvotes. Individual people can guarantee their way into everyone's feed by posting to the most active communities.
You completely missed the point.
There's a HUGE number of ragebait posters on Meta/Xhitter because that's what causes "engagement" and thus that's what the Meta algorithms will foster. Bringing in Meta won't dilute the ragebait. It will amplify it.
I haven't missed the point, I simply disagree with your assertion. The advocacy to preemptively defederate from Threads is grounded in unsubstantiated FUD.
19 years of unsubstantiation.
How much does Meta pay you to shill, I wonder?
Someone disagreeing with you isn't shilling.
I'm not sure why there's so much concern about hostility being a new thing when Threads comes in. Responses like the ones you've replied with demonstrate the existing userbase already has a few toxic apples.
So then we shall propose to let them in at our own terms ?
That's quite reasonable to me, and less radical in my humble opinion.
But I also see how one may arrive at such a conclusion, as all parties may not be as welling to accept such terms and conditions, or even be able to make such terms and conditions enforceable.
One instance may accept favours from meta, and then it spreads out uncontrollably... And then ... Its gets more complex.
Perhaps the safest option is to limit their present shares to a maximum of 40% in our servers. That is, they cannot be allowed to have more than a set amount of API exposure to the feeds - and they must allow us to reciprocate, like wise, by being able to have access to theirs by more than 40%. The value of assets can surely be established and estimated par costs of maintenance and OA, etc...