I strongly encourage instance admins to defederate from Facebook/Threads/Meta.
They aren’t some new, bright-eyed group with no track record. They’re a borderline Machiavellian megacorporation with a long and continuing history of extremely hostile actions:
- Helping enhance genocides in countries
- Openly and willingly taking part in political manipulation (see Cambridge Analytica)
- Actively have campaigned against net neutrality and attempted to make “facebook” most of the internet for members of countries with weaker internet infra - directly contributing to their amplification of genocide (see the genocide link for info)
- Using their users as non-consenting subjects to psychological experiments.
- Absolutely ludicrous invasions of privacy - even if they aren’t able to do this directly to the Fediverse, it illustrates their attitude.
- Even now, they’re on-record of attempting to get instance admins to do backdoor discussions and sign NDAs.
Yes, I know one of the Mastodon folks have said they’re not worried. Frankly, I think they’re being laughably naive >.<. Facebook/Meta - and Instagram’s CEO - might say pretty words - but words are cheap and from a known-hostile entity like Meta/Facebook they are almost certainly just a manipulation strategy.
In my view, they should be discarded as entirely irrelevant, or viewed as deliberate lies, given their continued atrocious behaviour and open manipulation of vast swathes of the population.
Facebook have large amounts of experience on how to attack and astroturf social media communities - hell I would be very unsurprised if they are already doing it, but it’s difficult to say without solid evidence ^.^
Why should we believe anything they say, ever? Why should we believe they aren’t just trying to destroy a competitor before it gets going properly, or worse, turn it into yet another arm of their sprawling network of services, via Embrace, Extend, Extinguish - or perhaps Embrace, Extend, Consume would be a better term in this case?
When will we ever learn that openly-manipulative, openly-assimilationist corporations need to be shoved out before they can gain any foothold and subsume our network and relegate it to the annals of history?
I’ve seen plenty of arguments claiming that it’s “anti-open-source” to defederate, or that it means we aren’t “resilient”, which is wrong ^.^:
- Open source isn’t about blindly trusting every organisation that participates in a network, especially not one which is known-hostile. Threads can start their own ActivityPub network if they really want or implement the protocol for themselves. It doesn’t mean we lose the right to kick them out of most - or all - of our instances ^.^.
- Defederation is part of how the fediverse is resilient. It is the immune system of the network against hostile actors (it can be used in other ways, too, of course). Facebook, I think, is a textbook example of a hostile actor, and has such an unimaginably bad record that anything they say should be treated as a form of manipulation.
Edit 1 - Some More Arguments
In this thread, I’ve seen some more arguments about Meta/FB federation:
- Defederation doesn’t stop them from receiving our public content:
- This is true, but very incomplete. The content you post is public, but what Meta/Facebook is really after is having their users interact with content. Defederation prevents this.
- Federation will attract more users:
- Only if Threads makes it trivial to move/make accounts on other instances, and makes the fact it’s a federation clear to the users, and doesn’t end up hosting most communities by sheer mass or outright manipulation.
- Given that Threads as a platform is not open source - you can’t host your own “Threads Server” instance - and presumably their app only works with the Threads Server that they run - this is very unlikely. Unless they also make Threads a Mastodon/Calckey/KBin/etc. client.
- Therefore, their app is probably intending to make itself their user’s primary interaction method for the Fediverse, while also making sure that any attempt to migrate off is met with unfamiliar interfaces because no-one else can host a server that can interface with it.
- Ergo, they want to strongly incentivize people to stay within their walled garden version of the Fediverse by ensuring the rest remains unfamiliar - breaking the momentum of the current movement towards it. ^.^
- We just need to create “better” front ends:
- This is a good long-term strategy, because of the cycle of enshittification.
- Facebook/Meta has far more resources than us to improve the “slickness” of their clients at this time. Until the fediverse grows more, and while they aren’t yet under immediate pressure to make their app profitable via enshittification and advertising, we won’t manage >.<
- This also assumes that Facebook/Meta won’t engage in efforts to make this harder e.g. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish/Consume, or social manipulation attempts.
- Therefore we should defederate and still keep working on making improvements. This strategy of “better clients” is only viable in combination with defederation.
PART 2 (post got too long!)
I only joined Lemmy because of its open source, non-manipulative, not-for-profit nature. If Meta joins it will be a good reason for me to quit. Hell, even Reddit would be better than a Fediverse with Meta IMO.
I’ve already blocked threads on mastodon. Just waiting to find out how to block their shit here on
LemmgLemmy, too. IF they’re already here or coming soon.They’re not here yet. I’m actually not sure they’re on Mastodon yet, either. They delayed federation implementation.
It took off so quick. Fucking people are sheep, man. I’m absolutely apauled at how many people just ran to it WITH all the shit it asks to collect.
Tl:Dr the only federation we join should have Jean luc Picard in it not Mark Zuckerberg
Is Zuckerberg Borg then?
“We will add yourbiologicaland technological distinctiveness to our own instance”.Zuckerborg
If You look at pictures of him in Congress testifying, he looks like a robot
OP I completely agree with all of your points. ESPECIALLY (BIG BOLD LETTERS) we need to create better “front-ends” Anecdotally, I put a post a on mastodon that didn’t get responses (the vibe there seems a bit different on this issue, because I usually do get responses) Since the reddit migration, I’ve gone into a homelab frenzy. I have reached out to others. I have been in awe at the developers who worked on the overloading of servers and the jump on the creation of third party apps. The pre-existing community that explained a complicated process to many people.
We saw how many uses came over from reddit and found it too complicated. We had those discussions too. How there were solutions like simplifying what the fediverse is, what instances are, etc. etc. This took time for people who already cared about what was happening on reddit_ which is a small minority of internet uses.
And that would have been okay, right? We had our space, we could have had time to build.
I have been going on about this issue ad nauseum with my partner. I have a computer science background and work in cyber tech so this came to me a bit faster, but still a learning curve. I showed her videos, articles, walked her through the apps. But this is someone who is a social media user.
I had a fever for a few days (very irritated as it disrupted my home lab fever, pardon that pun) when my partner is comes running in thrilled*___* that she gets to be involved with my project and finally understands it because she saw Threads and the word “fediverse”
This is someone who is yes intelligent, who lives with someone who is way more involved with this issue that the average internet “normie”, and still, because of the front end UI, the simplification of it. The exact quote was “this is a space on the fediverse for me”
A lot of fighting happened, lol anyways if you have made it this far, especially to OP:
- We need to organize. I do not think anything can get done with siloed passionate informed users like ourselves. How do we organize? This will take crowd funding. Resources. Project roadmaps. Mission statements. Unfortunately, some of the ick of how we work together in a corp to roll to market.
- We need to move fast
- We need things pretty
How do we get this done?
We need to organize. I do not think anything can get done with siloed passionate informed users like ourselves. How do we organize? This will take crowd funding. Resources. Project roadmaps. Mission statements. Unfortunately, some of the ick of how we work together in a corp to roll to market.
Communities without leadership, or pulverized leadership, suffer a lot when it comes to progress. When one person orders something and everyone works on it, things tend to happen quickly. When everyone can complain and question decisions, things slow down
I wish there was a silver bullet for this problem. The best my monkey brain can think of is electing people to take these decisions, which leads to politicking problems.
Do you think it would take electing people or organizing around leaders within an instance?
Probably pinned threads for each instance to vote/decide and show who ends up elected
This is someone who is yes intelligent, who lives with someone who is way more involved with this issue that the average internet “normie”, and still, because of the front end UI, the simplification of it. The exact quote was “this is a space on the fediverse for me”
This is exactly what I want to see and what I’ve been fighting for recently. This is complicated and brand new to all of us but if people realize they’re a part of something bigger than them. They would want to be part of that too!
This is complicated and brand new to all of us but if people realize they’re a part of something bigger than them. They would want to be part of that too!
That’s not how this works. The overwhelming majority of Threads users just saw whatever thing FB put on the instagram accounts and clicked it. They have probably never heard of the fediverse and even if they like the idea they’ll just go “oh, I’m already on it, no need to bother”.
We can get exposure without letting a company specialised in manipulation and astroturfing straight through the door.
“even if they like the idea they’ll just go “oh, I’m already on it, no need to bother”.”
“We can get exposure without letting a company specialised in manipulation and astroturfing straight through the door.”
They were going to stay whether if there’s fediverse integration or not. Atleast having the option to communicate with threads is enough for the people on mastodon to stay on mastodon and have the choice to do so. Blocking them off will just cause mastodon users to have to make a seperate account just to merely communicate with their friends on Threads. Defeating the purpose of the fediverse entirely and going back to square one. Giving a corpo more power than they already need by being the only influence in their own platform and splitting off communites into the big bubbles of social media we had before the fediverse.
Besides should i have to wait till facebook fucks up before i even get a slight uptick in mastodon accounts again and potientially see my friends (if they’re even encouraged to even try it)?
even if they like the idea they’ll just go “oh, I’m already on it, no need to bother”. We can get exposure without letting a company specialised in manipulation and astroturfing straight through the door.
They were going to stay whether if there’s fediverse integration or not. Atleast having the option to communicate with threads is enough for the people on mastodon to stay on mastodon and have the choice to do so. Blocking them off will just cause mastodon users to have to make a seperate account just to merely communicate with their friends on Threads. Defeating the purpose of the fediverse entirely and going back to square one. Giving a corpo more power than they already need by being the only influence in their own platform and splitting off communites into the big bubbles of social media we had before the fediverse.
Besides should i have to wait till facebook fucks up before i even get a slight uptick in mastodon accounts again and potientially see my friends (if they’re even encouraged to even try it)?
Atleast having the option to communicate with threads is enough for the people on mastodon to stay on mastodon and have the choice to do so. Blocking them off will just cause mastodon users to have to make a seperate account just to merely communicate with their friends on Threads. Defeating the purpose of the fediverse entirely and going back to square one.
It doesn’t defeat the purpose to prevent a known-hostile actor from interacting with everyone on Fedi.
It’s not just your friends, it’s Facebook, with algorithms specifically designed to manipulate you and the communities you are part of - including your friends - and by engaging with them you end up locked back into FB’s reach and make it easier for them to EEE or EEC us or do even worse >.<
If you want to talk to your friends, use another app (including threads if you really feel that much need to interact with people who are only on there), or post links promoting Fedi on other platforms, to your friends.
Defederation exists to protect our network from groups like Meta/FB. It doesn’t defeat the purpose of federation to choose who to federate with.
Telling people to use another app is not a solution to the problem and again like I said would take us back to where we were from the start; locking the people that do want to use mastodon and other alternatives away from other users and forcing users to go use threads instead. We need to adopt a universal social media, not just seperate each other again and again. Just implying this isolationist attitude is whats going to give billionaires enough influence to force those users to accept changes and removed features and force them into a platform. Its a domino effect that goes back to us. I don’t want to have “move to threads” to talk to people i know. I want to use one unified mastodon account or lemmy account even and reach out to all my friends everywhere, even corpos.
Look hear me out though, I despise Meta as much as the next guy. In fact, threads is incredibly out of touch with the audience that actually uses twitter. There’s barely any features on it like hashtags, a search (not a followers search), followers only tab, even a desktop version of it. In fact the only gimmick that they really have is the fact they’re connecting to services like Mastodon. We should all be cautious about what they might do to us and the entire fediverse but bigger instances have the job of allowing and experimenting to see how this major influx of users will fair towards our own communites. The most I’m focused on is not just whether they should integrate but how they could be integrated and how as a community we should treat these people. What’s the cultural impact and everything.
I know that we all want the same thing for people to realize that corpos are gross and to get out of that shit. It’s ironic of me to say this too but i simply do believe that a user/instance has a choice in whether or not they want to interact with Meta and should have the choice. At the end of the day it all comes down to it. We shouldn’t all defederate but we should all have the choice to. Simple as that. I just want a social media that is as unified as email. I’m definitely going off a tangent but i just want a world that doesn’t tie users down to “just download x app here to talk to them”. Its not a solution, it’s the problem.
In fact I’d say the biggest threat to us is if Meta or whatever big bozo corporation decides to make their own version of ActivityPub (which is why i hate bluesky with a dying passion besides the AI crap).
OP is correct. We have very little to to gain and everything to lose.
I’m 100% in favor of defederating and completely blocking communications with whatever Meta, Bluesky and other big companies throw.
More importantly, I was not aware of how Google killed XMPP, and that’s the most important thing that every Mastodon and Akkoma admin should read about. Their instances will slowly stop working with Threads, people in their instances might eventually migrate back into Meta owned shit, thus slowly killing their instances.
I absolutely support not allowing the ZuckFuck and his corporate shills any access to the fediverse. Defederate them!
We have a moral and ethical obligation as humans to exclude any participation from Facebook or Meta. Facebook knew their algorithm increased suicide rates among it’s users, but actively suppressed this information because they also knew their algorithm made them more money. The more depressed and addicted Facebook users became, the more money Facebook made. And when they went before Congress to answer for this, Zuckerberg just did nothing, took no accountability, and nothing changed.
This isn’t about boycotting and trying to do some kind of ethical capitalism, it’s about not letting Hitler submit changes to your git repo regardless of what those changes technically are. They could be the most technically brilliant changes ever made to an open source project, but they would still be Hitler’s changes.
Cat: Yeah, don’t give Meta a single inch. They need to GTFO.
I think I fall on the side of preemptive defederation, not just because of data harvesting etc but also because the incoming communities will be huge and dwarf anything already here - look at what has happened here already as communities try to merge and establish. Everything dominant will become meta along with whatever mods and rules etc they already have in place. Scary.
yes! and i’ve wondered for awhile how people would still be able to run servers once threads swamped the fediverse.
This one is easy. I remember the 90s when microsoft pretended to play nice with everyone while they simultaneously did their damndest to destroy any competitor by their embrace and extend tactic. I also remember when AOL opened up their walled garden and the amount of garbage that flooded every usenet group. Im aware that the redditpocalypse probably had the same effect on lemmy but I still support defederation.
Microsoft? Like how they destroyed Linux? Oh wait, they’re now one of the biggest Linux kernel contributors and use it extensively internally.
Likewise, Facebook have now also a solid track record of open sourcing tech: https://github.com/facebook
Yes lets go right to pointing how linux lives and just completely ingore decades of history and the whole 1998 netscape mess.
https://thehistoryoftheweb.com/browser-wars/
Its not about simply being open source, its about the fediverse being the next to play the role of a forgotten company named spyglass in another round of the same old story. People are rightly worried that history will repeat and the 800lb gorrila that is big giant company here will use its bulk to screw over everyone else in the space.
My understanding is that they contribute to the Linux kernel for the same reason Google funds Firefox. If you have competition, you can’t be a monopoly
So they shifted large parts of azure to Linux, use it internally for many systems, made WSL Linux layer for Windows, spent tons of resources to improve it and support it and made it a first rate development and server system for their solutions like .Net - just so they can say “we’re not a monopoly”?
In truth their attempts at EEE failed miserably and hurt them, and Linux is actually a very good match for what they’re doing in server space and development space.
Could be because linux is so good for server infrastructure. It’s more reliable than windows and it’s far more consistent of an environment. Why wouldn’t Microsoft want to bring .Net to Linux? So devs can embrace it. Windows ends up being more for the end user
Exactly. Linux ended up being a boon for Microsoft. But still people here insist that it must only be for monopoly legality. And that no big company can benefit from and contribute to open source.
Yeah, absolutely defederate. Nothing good can come from interacting with Meta.
Ban meta and its instance on a firewall level
Defederate from those ass holes, zuck can get bent and a whole slew of other bad things. Stupid ass hasn’t done anything of value and still acts like the dumb ass college kid bragging about getting people to give them all their personal details to use his crummy site.
Lolol this thread and the rest are pure compium without a plan.
Without monetization this place is DoA. Either step up, start a non profit e.g Mozilla foundation, and start charging users and hitting staff.
Otherwise you’re post is going to the void, accomplishing nothing.
Server performance: garbage Comment: garbage
