- cross-posted to:
- fediverse@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- fediverse@lemmy.world
Server indexes of places for newcomers to join can be instrumental for Fediverse adoption. However, sudden rule changes can leave some admins feeling pressure to change policies in order to remain listed.
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I cannot see anything bad here. Blocking an actively malicious actor should be the norm.
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predicted? they’re facebook, they are not predicted to be bad, they ARE bad.
lets learn from history and not be deer in the headlights
Why cover your nuts when you can just let somebody kick you there repeatedly?
In this analogy, they haven’t kicked your nuts.
In this analogy, they haven’t kicked your nuts.
Sure they have, over and over and over, just not in this neighborhood yet. Folks were either too young to witness or just weren’t paying attention to the decades of anti-consumer bullshit from this company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_controversies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_involving_Meta_Platforms
Here’s a couple recent individual ones:
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders/
They have been very nearly the worst example of an awful tech company for their entire existence. They will exploit the fediverse to the maximum extent they can, and we should not be voluntarily accompanying them.
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I don’t really see the point of this comment.
- Is it that we should not hold Threads at arms length because [citation needed] Zuck was once a tech idealist and had lots in common with current fediverse denizens? (setting aside my doubt for the moment)
If so, I don’t really care how nice and kind Zuck was when he was a freshman in college. I care about what he has done since then, and leading up to now.
- Is it that one day I may not like something large Lemmy instances do, so should not be so anti-Threads?
I don’t even get that idea, so I am guessing that can’t be it.
Much the same as Reddit, Google, Apple, etc. Do you remember? Those of us who lived through it remember.
I lived through using 8" floppies, so yes, I remember.
Which of those are open source projects that anyone can fork and/or run their own instance of at any time, providing a place for people to seamlessly transition from Reddit, Google, or Apple if they don’t like what those companies do with their platform? The comparison you are trying to make falls apart immediately.
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Did you already forget the shit Facebook keeps doing? Repeatedly.
Facebook has and it’s doing plenty bad. At this point, assuming this time they will be good is too much of wishful thinking.
Still I would let the instances decide. Seems a bit counter spirit to try to force them. Even as a user your can block them (there are two that a lot of users are blocking already…)
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So wasn’t Google when they killed XMPP.
like this?
if only Facebook had started in 2004 and not 2024 we might have some historical evidence about how the company handles moderation or community safety or protecting user data or…
if only threads wasn’t launching literally today and we knew if they’d enthusiastically welcome hate accounts like Libs of Tiktok https://www.mediamatters.org/libs-tiktok/timeline-impact-libs-tiktok-told-through-educators-health-care-providers-librarians
The thing is, Meta does not care about community safety, or moderation, or protecting user data. (Fun fact: they don’t have a data protection agreement, but a data usage agreement.) All they care about is how they can get the most money out of something. Killing off things left and right of their path.
The question is not IF Meta kills the Fediverse but only WHEN they do it.
Ounce of prevention > pound of cure; or in Meta’s case, imperial fucktonne of cure.
It’s Facebook dude. To put it in Lemmy friendly terms, they’re not different entities in the way that Linux and Windows are. They’re different entities in the same way that Windows and Xbox are. It’s not technically the same thing but it’s the same people calling the shots. Expecting something different is only going to leave you disappointed.
I’m voting for Trump because he hasn’t done anything bad as a second term president.
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imo it doesn’t matter for Lemmy right now one way or another, and maybe not ever. Being federated with Threads doesn’t do anything yet. Defederate or not, the only change (from my understanding) is about making a statement, or standing with other microblog platform instances that made a choice.
On mastodon however, I’ll likely either use a federated instance or run two accounts. It’s very likely that some person I want to follow will be on Threads, and until people can convince them otherwise ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What’s nice though is that if Threads is on activitypub, you won’t need to log in to see the content. It’s only if you want to engage with the content, and that can be done from a second Mastodon account.
Is this really a problem for Lemmy though? Threads content isn’t going to show up here because threads doesn’t have communities, and Lemmy doesn’t allow you to follow people.
Part of the concern is deceptive/astroturfed content developed as advertising showing up in Lemmy communities. While those same actors could theoretically be based on lemm.ee, that’s a lot more work than simply scaling up operations when you’re doing it on Threads anyway.
Yes, my point remains. Even if a Lemmy instance is federated with masto or threads, the content does not appear here on Lemmy right now. It’s physically impossible. Lemmy literally has no code written to support self posts and to follow users.
For example, here is NPR’s masto account viewed through Lemmy.world. You get their name, avatar, banner, and bio….but zero content.
https://lemmy.world/u/NPR@mstdn.social
Until lemmy decides to copy Reddit’s user pages, this isn’t a problem. Federate, defederate - makes now difference for lemmy right now.
I feel like this would be spotted and stamped out immediately. Everyone’s eyes are on Threads right now; astroturfed content might sneak in on Mastodon, where regular Threads content will be mixed in with the hypothetical astroturfed content, but here on Lemmy there will be little to no Threads presence due to lack of interoperability, so every single Threads account that shows up will be noticed. It’s already super visible when Mastodon users show up due to the weird formatting issues that happen due to the lack of support.
I just don’t see an astroturf campaign as being viable unless Threads implements community functionality, which seems pretty far out when they’re only now implementing basic federation with Mastodon.
It’s not that crazy, the Threads devs are already looking at specific FEPs for things like quote posting. If they really wanted to, they could implement Lemmy-compatible community groups.
Meta: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/, https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1320040111, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039
Instance admins: Let’s give them a chance guyyyyss!!
Those of you who think the problem is data scraping or whatever are totally missing the point. All profit-motivated social media platforms engage in promoting hate content for engagement, and in doing so have deadly real world consequences. The Fediverse is one of the few online spaces where people can just be themselves naturally without being manipulated by algorithms. Given their history, there’s no reason to assume Threads won’t be any better about handling their own community, and anything that happens with them will affect the rest of us.
for real. im new to lemmy but places like hexbear seem really good for trans stuff. i hate how so many trans places are dependent upon facebook or reddit to exist. facebook itself is problematic because those fuckers already assisted a genocide in myanmar, whats to stop them from helping to massacre trans people here?
hexbear seem really good for trans stuff.
HB and blahj are the two explicitly pro-trans instances. Hexbear is strongly oriented towards communism but I would strongly suggest them over blahj just because of their abysmal handling of c/196’s noncery. They just don’t have as strong of a track record as hexbear.
hexbear seems way more active in the trans spaces at least. its also nice seeing everyones pronouns and being able to guess what variant of transness someone is talking about when theyre describing their experiences.
im on lemmy cause i saw advice saying that you could access pretty much all the lgbt spots on the fediverse from here, which seems true. ive already seen a bunch of transphobic bullshit on this site and on blahaj so maybe ill just swap to hexbear, idk
Yeah you should make the jump if not seeing transphobia is your goal. lemmyML is a great omni-instance but as a result you’re going to be exposed to a lot of right-wing bullshit. And really, transphobia on blahj? That’s extremely disappointing but not all that surprising.
yeah one of the top trans posts the other day was filled with transphobes and people debating the merits of transphobia. i think blahaj doesnt have very active modding?
We aggressively remove transphobic/transmisic posts/comments on lemmy.ml. Please report any that you see. But understand that we don’t control the content of other Lemmy instances, so when you select “All” instead of “Subscribed” or “Local,” it’s the wild west.
i guess the question is more of bans and not just removals. for instance this guy https://lemmy.ml/comment/9833425 seems to regularly go on to write misogynistic and queerphobic screeds, but seems to not have been banned because he is a moderator and has been here for 4 years?
They do have moderators they just care more about PR-washing than actually protecting their trans base. I would stay away from them.
Hexbear is definitely a good place for trans stuff, its just a shame about all of the authoritarians.
youre starting to really sell me on it
There is a spectre haunting Lemmy
for real. im new to lemmy but places like hexbear seem really good for trans stuff.
I am not trans, and so this may be incorrect, but while of course you can use any instance you choose, IIRC it’s https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/ that is very explicitly trans-supportive at the instance level. (I’m not saying other instances are transphobic, to be clear)
Edit: I see you’ve already taken the convo far past the comment I replied to, sorry for not reading ahead!
You think lemmy doesn’t have algorithms?
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Maybe I’m just being naive, but this seems like an argument in favor of federating with Threads. One of the reasons Facebook and Instagram are so effective at driving engagement is that users have basically no ability to curate, sort, or filter the content that they see, especially since third-party clients are banned. You can’t even view most things without logging in.
The implementation of ActivityPub in Threads is a strange departure in this context - (federated) Mastodon users can view all of the content Threads has to offer without subjecting themselves to Meta’s arguably predatory curation algorithms. It almost seems like an escape for people who want to use a Meta-sized platform without Meta getting its grubby little fingers all over your mental wellbeing.
If people are worried that Threads will affect likes and comments (and therefore like/comment-based sorting algorithms) on other instances, it should always be possible to exclude Threads’s contribution to those metrics, no?
f people are worried that Threads will affect likes and comments (and therefore like/comment-based sorting algorithms) on other instances, it should always be possible to exclude Threads’s contribution to those metrics, no?
That’s one of the effects of defederating. And you are still ignoring the overall point of the comment 2 layers up from your reply.
Really I think you are losing the forest for the trees. Meta/Facebook/Zuck is a known quantity. They will corrupt and exploit any environment they are a part of via any means they can. We don’t need to be able to predict every last detail of how they will do so to know it is true. They have a track record of being awful, anti-consumer corporate citizens. WHY would we want to try to invite them in and try to contain them? Can we make the fediverse invisible to them? Of course we can’t, but why would we cooperate in any way?
Folks who don’t think this is a problem can use an instance that federates with them, just as I’ve chosen ( and will always choose) an instance that does not.
There is no reasonable argument for trying to be a good neighbor to Meta, because you can always, always be sure that Meta has no concern for being a good neighbor to you.
They will corrupt and exploit any environment they are a part of via any means they can.
Right, unless they can’t, though. Ideally the Fediverse should be resistant to this kind of influence without resorting to defederation. I’m also concerned that defederating from Threads will make more Threads users than Mastodon users.
We don’t need to be able to predict every last detail of how they will do so to know it is true.
I mean, some idea of what they might do would be nice.
They have a track record of being awful, anti-consumer corporate citizens. WHY would we want to try to invite them in and try to contain them?
I couldn’t care less about Meta itself. My interest begins and ends with Threads users. There are a ton of people that would never give the Fediverse a try for one silly reason or another—predominantly, I would argue, the fear of the unknown—and this seems like it could be an opportunity to overcome that obstacle if leveraged correctly. The prospect of everyone and our parents using social media that is not completely beholden to Meta is exciting to me.
Again, maybe I’m wrong, but this whole thing is basically an experiment, isn’t it? I’d like to see what happens before reaching any conclusions.
I’m also concerned that defederating from Threads will make more Threads users than Mastodon users.
Already done, and by an order of magnitude at least. (probably many orders, I don’t have the numbers at hand)
I mean, some idea of what they might do would be nice.
You can look at their entire history for that. And somewhere in this very discussion some other person has given a very plausible overview of their potential EEE approach. I’ll add a link to that comment later when I have time to find it again.
But, I’m starting to realize that no amount of evidence is sufficient for folks who want to federate with Meta, and at the end of the day my freedom ends where yours begins, so although I will continue to advocate for defederation and flee any instance that does not make that choice, I very sincerely encourage you to do you.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_controversies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_involving_Meta_Platforms
Here’s a couple recent individual ones:
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders/
The prospect of everyone and our parents using social media that is not completely beholden to Meta is exciting to me.
I firmly believe that hoping Meta isn’t going to be the worst possible company they can this time is not the way to achieve that, and is in fact actively working against that future possibility.
I’ve been alive, adult, and working in IT for the entirety of the existence of Facebook, so I’ve had a long time to see everything I needed to see about them.
But, I’m starting to realize that no amount of evidence is sufficient for folks who want to federate with Meta
This is an incorrect assumption, because
And somewhere in this very discussion some other person has given a very plausible overview of their potential EEE approach. I’ll add a link to that comment later when I have time to find it again.
I would be very interested to read this! There are definitely limits to my optimism here. I think Meta is a horrible company and I don’t expect them to act in the best interests of the Fediverse; I’m just not yet convinced that them giving up what is essentially free and ad-free API access to one of their platforms cannot be used to our advantage. Threads federation could absolutely be catastrophic, but it’s also possible that it’s a good opportunity; that’s all I’m saying.
That’s the same thing with a different label.
A community index of servers added a new rule recently, that requires every participant to defederate from Threads.
Maybe I’m naive but I kinda don’t get it. People talk about defederating as if…what, all Meta IP addresses will be magically blocked from scraping your content? Any script kiddie can harvest Lemmy/Mastodon/whatever content.
Has Meta shown itself to be a bad actor? Yes. Should my email provider block all emails from Meta? Well…that’s a bit much I think? If Facebook email still existed, should my email provider block that?
My point is yes, Meta bad, but all Thread users also bad? I thought — and apparently I’m very wrong here — that the Federation paradigm was kinda like email. And the only email I want blocked is a domain where every single user is malicious, not a domain run by a malicious entity which has normal people as users, who aren’t necessarily very tech literate.
I don’t actually care, but I just find it a little confusing tbh.
I agree, and I predict people will eventually pick instances that are doing what you suggested.
My understanding is that the defederation is to prevent MetaFacebook from getting to a point where they control the entire thing and then destroy it.
I don’t think defederating is the right move for that, but it’s a move
I think most people simply just don’t know how federation works and they imagine that defederating blocks Facebook from accessing your content when in reality it’s the exact opposite; it places one way mirror between us from which only they can see thru. There’s also some great irony in the fact that they’re talking about genocide while advocating for using the nuclear option to block Facebook despite the massive number of innocent casualties it’ll cause.
EDIT: Turns out I was mistaken. Defederation indeed does stop the flow of data both ways.
Brother these things are in no way the same. One is a tech giant knowingly aiding and abbeting governments who are ethnically cleansing their country and another is not being able to see posts from a different instance. The only great irony is you calling them innocent casualties.
It’s a comparison. By definition they’re not the same thing but there are similarities; you’re doing something that affects 100% of the userbase because you have an issue with 2% of them.
You should think of a better comparison cause this one sucks.
Also no. You’re doing something that affects 100% of users because the node these users use is malicious. The problem is the underlying structure not the people using said structure. Maybe this makes them stop using said structure.
Its like being upset that I dont answer unknown numbers. “Well only 10% are scammers so you’re affecting 100% of calls”
This is like comparing requiring students in schools to wash their hands to genocide. The scale is the same but the impact is vastly different, and if you don’t want to wash hands (or be defederated) you can just move. Except for changing activitypub instances is even easier than changing schools and both are easier than leaving Palestine.
Blocking shitty instances is great. Users should have more ability to include the instances they want to hang out with, in their own experience, but I’ll almost never object to a “fuck Nazis” policy.
Blocking other instances that don’t block shitty-enough instances makes sense. Hexbear is a chan board for tankies, but then .ml is only “more serious” by having mods snip and tut at anyone besides those tankies. If there’s any actual Nazi instances, I don’t wanna know, and I don’t wanna see anybody that hangs out with them.
Blocking instances based on M’Zuck’s embrace-extend-extinguish plans, yeah okay sure? That’s predicting existential problems for federation as a concept.
But a list of instances… not even mentioning them… by association? That feels kinda skeezy.
I guess if it’s specifically a “where you should sign up” list, versus a “here’s all the servers that aren’t fucking Nazis,” then… okay. But if this is a solution, maybe we have deeper problems.
…I’ll almost never object to a “fuck Nazis” policy.
What, as in you’re always in bed with Nazis? Cause basing yourself out of sh.itjust.works at this point is a pretty good indication that you are ok with fascism.
sh.ithole is the federation’s lightning rod for sh.itheads
The entire point of the Fedi-verse is so that one person or small group of people can’t ruin the entire platform for everyone else. Anyone who tells you how to moderate your content, backed up by a threat can screw off.
The beauty is that people can do what they want with their own instance, and I can move and still be in lemmy/mastodon.
Is this the last migration?
Every time something like this gets posted, there are always Lemmy users crying to defederate their Lemmy instances.
But remember, the current concern is with Mastodon, NOT Lemmy. Lemmy can’t actually view the post types that Masto and Threads make. Wendy’s can post all the Threads ads they want - we’re not going to see them here. We can’t. That hasn’t been built.
Try it. Go view someone’s Mastodon account in Lemmy. You don’t see their posts.
It’s not us seeing Threads that’s the problem, it’s Threads seeing us (and thereby trapping all of us in their sticky web we tried to escape, what with their shadow profiles and whatnot).
So what would stop them from shadow profiling you by scraping content, or using a different domain? Most lemmy instances are configured to federate with a blocklist, meaning any unblocked instance can download data. Facebook can just make an instance under a different domain and download the data that way. Or they can just scrape user data from the web facing interface.
Posts and comments on lemmy are public. If facebook wants your publicly accessible data from the fediverse, de-federating from threads isn’t going to stop them.
I post stuff on lemmy via my mastodon account so I don’t have to deal with image hosting on my lemmy instance, so its not quite that simple. You’re not wrong, but they do interact
