Lemmy.world Should Defederate with Threads

I think it’s pretty safe to say that the majority of us are here to avoid another corporate takeover of our preferred platforms. It would seem to me to be a tad irresponsible to allow Facebook into our space with open arms, allowing them to hoover up our data. I would love to keep using Lemmy.world, but will happily change instances if need be, and I feel many share that sentiment.

Toes ,
@Toes@ani.social avatar

It's been a few months, did it happen?

PopOfAfrica OP ,

I wish

muzzle ,

I think that interoperation with big walled gardens is part of the reason why exists. Furthermore, there are no technical measures to completely shut off , and the social measures are unlikely to work.

I know the risks, I’m old enough to remember embracing and extinguishing browsers and open documents, defederating from and predatory tactics.

On the other hand, I think that federation with the big players is unstoppable. The protocol is open and there is no way to get every last instance to defederate. If people want to see the big players’ content they’ll move to an instance that federates with them. And defederating from those that connect to threads sounds like a Zealot’s suicide pact.

I think that the best way to ensure that plays fair is to create a fediverse that is as diverse, open and vibrant as possible, with plenty of open services (Lemmy, mastodon, misskey…) and commercial ones (Flipboard, tumblr…) so that threads users will feel compelled to interact and miss us if Meta stops federating or shadowbans external content.

PopOfAfrica OP ,

I don’t want everyone to defederate with threads, I just want my server to defederate with threads, or else I’ll leave and find another one. But it seems like looking at this post that there’s about 80% of people that agree with me here.

h3mlocke ,
@h3mlocke@lemm.ee avatar

Same, I’ll just find another server, im on lemm.ee and seems the admin isn’t planning of fedding with threads

PopOfAfrica OP ,

My worry with them is that they aren’t defederated from hex-bear, but I suppose that they’re already updated to version 19, then I can hop aboard and block the ibstance

helenslunch ,

What data is Facebook “hoovering up” through federation that they don’t already have access to?

I have asked this question a dozen times and no one can ever give me a legitimate answer.

PopOfAfrica OP ,

It really comes down to whether you believe that Facebook is scraping the entire internet right now or not.

I’d prefer to not directly feed my information into their servers.

helenslunch ,

It doesn’t. They don’t need to scrape the entire internet, just ActivityPub.

PopOfAfrica OP ,

That’s the thing, though, you can’t just quote-unquote “scrape activity pub.”

You have to pick every single instance. Believe it or not, not all data is just on every single instance. It’s usually cached by users connecting with different instances.

fadhl3y ,

Right and if FB wanted to do that it would be well within their capabilities, wouldn't it?

When does the Threads federation begin? I've not yet seen a single message from a Threads user so I imagine this hasn't yet started.

helenslunch ,

That’s the thing, though, you can’t just quote-unquote “scrape activity pub.”

Then what’s the problem?

PopOfAfrica OP ,

That we are federating with Threads and are going to put our information directly into their servers.

helenslunch ,

But you just said that’s not a problem…

PopOfAfrica OP ,

Read better please.

helenslunch ,

Write better please.

kingaloo ,

Nothing. This is a PR move by meta, nothing more. They are trying to seem “hip” and push their ads.

Meta, Google, MS, OpwnAI, etc gave akeasy scrubbed fediverse. Probably associated accounts to folks real names.

helenslunch ,

How are they going to push ads?

steeznson ,

Meta don’t need to federate to get all of the ActivityPub information. By it’s nature everything that is posted to it is public and unencrypted - including private messages. This is a PR move instead of a data gathering activity. Maybe also they are trying to bootstrap content into their new platform which would otherwise be a barren wastelend.

h3mlocke ,
@h3mlocke@lemm.ee avatar

Yeah that was my understanding, fb will collect the data whether your server is federated with threads or not, fb could even make alternate servers not named “anything meta” and still get the data, but at this point I think they can just get it anyways. I guess the data would be likes, posts, comments, subs your in etc.

ieightpi ,

People who keep touting the point that defederating from Meta means we are cutting people off from fediverse are picturing this situation wrong. Based on what I’ve read, people see this little island of people compared to the mainland where there will be physical barrier because shouldnt tear down the bridge.

But the net isnt like that. People have just as much freedom creating a Threads account as they do a Lemmy or Mastodon account.

And don’t say that the fediverse is too difficult to understand for the average person. That kind of rhetoric is what will push people away.

Everyone needs to be patient with growth. It’s not going to happen in a year just like it took years for reddit to grow. I do believe that more and more people will be interested in the fediverse once they realize that corporate oversight is non existent here. And that can only happen if we keep the major instances disconnected from Meta or any for profit company.

CosmicCleric , (edited )
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

But the net isnt like that. People have just as much freedom creating a Threads account as they do a Lemmy or Mastodon account.

It’s not about creating an account or not, it’s about the conversations, who views them, how inclusive are they to all.

The people who would be making comments are not the same people that are running Meta.

And don’t say that the fediverse is too difficult to understand for the average person. That kind of rhetoric is what will push people away.

It is a barrier entry though for many (for whatever reasons). I don’t think you can just hand wave it away like that; that’s not constructive.

Everyone needs to be patient with growth. It’s not going to happen in a year just like it took years for reddit to grow.

The situation is different now, than back then with the starting of Reddit. This time you have a 800 pound gorilla dancing in your living room.

I do believe that more and more people will be interested in the fediverse once they realize that corporate oversight is non existent here.

Unfortunately the Fediverse account creation difficulty barrier of entry may be higher than avoiding corporate oversight. People take the path of least resistance usually. (And yes, it bums me out big time saying that, as we should all try to avoid corporate oversight.)

And that can only happen if we keep the major instances disconnected from Meta or any for profit company.

That’s not the only way though. Good moderation will also prevent that from happening.

–

So, I don’t have a dog in this hunt. Personally I would lean more towards not defederating, to be inclusive, as I’m just an 70s/80s liberal who believes free speech for all, and that it would do more harm than good by excluding a whole bunch of people from conversing with a whole other bunch of people.

Having said that, I do see good points being made on both sides, it’s not a clean decision to make, it’s not binary, it’s analog.

But it does seem to me like a lot of the comments being made on the subject are knee-jerk advocacy based, gatekeepingy.

pelespirit ,
@pelespirit@sh.itjust.works avatar

Nope, I’m fine with small companies trying to make the fediverse better. Meta is full on enshitification, why wouldn’t they bring a new form that we can’t predict over here?

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Meta is full on enshitification, why wouldn’t they bring a new form that we can’t predict over here?

The people who would be making comments are not the same people that are running Meta.

pelespirit ,
@pelespirit@sh.itjust.works avatar

What does Meta get out of this?

CosmicCleric , (edited )
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

Meta is full on enshitification, why wouldn’t they bring a new form that we can’t predict over here?

The people who would be making comments are not the same people that are running Meta.

What does Meta get out of this?

Would I be talking to the c-suite, or to regular people?

Edit: I get it, truly. You want to punish the corporation for bad behavior, and I definately agree with that sentiment; voting with your wallet.

But we are talking about excluding people from conversations, and not hurting the c-suite. Defederation hurts everybody else more than the c-suite. The 800 lb gorilla is already dancing in your living room.

pelespirit ,
@pelespirit@sh.itjust.works avatar

No really, what do they get out of it?

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

lemmy.world/post/9826225

Angry_Maple , (edited )
@Angry_Maple@sh.itjust.works avatar

It’s always odd when people stretch inclusivity to mean that absolutely everyone should be able to freely breeze past any and all possible barriers, with no effort.

Internet security, you guys. There has to be SOME minimum activity requirement, or this whole site would be swamped with an insane number of bots. There are multiple written tutorials and video tutorials that tell you exactly what to click and when, in order to sign up. How much easier does it need to be to join? What can you do beyond a video walkthrough for account creation? How the hell did they join reddit? I just don’t get it.

Sometimes these topics kind of remind me of people like the parents who argue that babies and toddlers belong at raves and busy nightclubs. Sometimes having multiple different groups are ok. You don’t usually see videos about how to fix your car on the cooking channel. You also don’t usually get proper accounting advice from random insect documentaries.

CosmicCleric ,
@CosmicCleric@lemmy.world avatar

It’s always odd when people stretch inclusivity to mean that absolutely everyone should be able to freely breeze past any and all possible barriers, with no effort.

Internet security, you guys. There has to be SOME minimum activity requirement, or this whole site would be swamped with an insane number of bots.

Nice strawman you got there. We’re talking about access to comments made by human beings.

In all forms of communication and commenting, moderation should happen to remove bots as much as possible.

How much easier does it need to be to join?

Apparently people are used to a single server source, and a federation of multiple servers seems to be a blocking point for them. /shrug

Angry_Maple ,
@Angry_Maple@sh.itjust.works avatar

What do you suggest then? I’m listening. There has to be some in-between that you must see.

You’re making it out as if there’s an easy solution that makes everyone happy.

Flax_vert ,

Thing is, for someone to interact with a Lemmy Instance from threads or mastodon, they’d have to tag a community first in a post. So it would need to be very intentional, which if someone on threads is intentionally interacting with Lemmy, what’s the problem?

dog_ ,

They should, but they’re not going to. If mastodon.world isn’t doing it, lemmy.world isn’t either.

Edit: both mastodonworld and lemmyworld are owned and operated by the same admins and such.

NotMyOldRedditName ,

Fuck anything and everything about Meta. Don’t let them near this.

assassin_aragorn ,

I’m of two minds about this. I have no love for Facebook and Zuk can go fuck himself. I want Lemmy to be free of the same fucks that ruined Reddit and formally corporatized it.

At the same time, I want Lemmy to grow. I don’t want this to be our little corner of the Internet that’s tucked away. I don’t want an information bubble. I want to see user-managed spaces like this grow and overtake the corporate ones.

So I choose to stay neutral. The two philosophies I described are at odds with each other here. I’ll go with what the majority decides – that’s the whole point of it being user-managed after all. I’ll just say that I think we should give ourselves options to reverse and monitor any changes as time goes on. We need to see how things progress, regardless of what decision we make, so we can course correct if necessary.

pomodoro_longbreak ,

I can understand this perspective: wanting to spread the gospel of federation, etc.

But I’m starting to come around to the realization that the growth mindset is rotten. It’s what leads to these big centralized/unified platforms that concede on their core in order to reach a wider audience.

I can’t blame corpos for conceding away all identity, because engagement is how they make money, but what’s our excuse?

These aren’t refugees. They’re free to make a lemmy or masto or whatever account any time they want. We don’t have a problem with most of the people. It’s the platform, and all the fucking out and proud racists who are on it.

assassin_aragorn ,

It’s interesting, because wanting to grow to supersede the corporations can become just like the corporations wanting to grow for profit. The ends don’t justify the means here.

The idea would be that as people here and see about it more, more people would join, but there’s a lot of assumptions baked into that, including that these people are actually people you want on the platform. Like you mention at the end, racists are going to find a “corporate, government free” space to be their own paradise. And we can’t let that happen.

I wonder if this would be possible: content from Facebook is not shown on Lemmy, but content from Lemmy can be shown on Facebook. Facebook users can join Lemmy, but there’s an application process for them so we can vet them.

I’m fine with however things end up, but I do want us to keep in mind that we risk becoming too insular and developing a groupthink. I don’t think it would be a danger to society like conservative ones tend to become, but I don’t want to think Jill Stein has huge support because Lemmy castigates anyone else, for instance.

I don’t think we’re in that position right now, but it’s one to be wary of.

thawed_caveman ,

I feel strongly that we should defederate, but i really like your reasoning for being neutral. The fediverse is currently a small community of advanced internet users who see themselves as separate from mainstream users, and the temptation is to gatekeep.

Aceticon , (edited )

When it comes to Corporates it very much is like the Nazi Bar allegory: you let one Nazi stay because he’s beheaving rasonably and not being nasty, and sooner or later the place is going to be full of his friends and turned into a Nazi Bar.

It’s the same dynamic only with corporate logos, advertising, hypercommercialism and eventual enshitiffication instead of swasticas, racist messaging and violence.

Certainly in my eperience of it since the 90s, the Internet changed very much this from its early days and spirit as commercial interests from their original foothold almost entirelly subverted it to serve their interests.

pomodoro_longbreak ,

My grandma who owned a diner used to say the same thing, but about cops

artic ,

Fuck nazis and fuck cops

vamp07 ,
@vamp07@lemm.ee avatar

Yeah, let’s defederate from a major player that wants to participate in the decentralized nature of this protocol. That way we further fragment Mastodon and guarantee its failure in the long run! Good call!!!

Skaxen ,

…wikipedia.org/…/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish

This kind of shit happened before, lets not let it happen again.

RememberTheApollo_ ,

If you want corporate control go back to Facebook and Reddit. Seriously. There are places that do what you want already, no need to corrupt this one too.

spicyjimmy87762 ,

Why can’t it be as simple as fuck Facebook! I don’t want a multi billion dollar corporation playing in my sandbox.

BreakDecks ,

To be fair, ActivityPub is an open standard, so corporate adoption was a guarantee following any amount of success.

As an advocate for ActivityPub, I want to see more entities using it. The fact that Threads and Flipboard will interoperate will likely convince more corporate actors to join the fediverse, and I don’t think that’s a bad thing.

There will always be instances that block out the entire corporate fediverse, and those communities will still thrive alongside instances that do federate with the corporations. People will have freedom of choice without having to exist in a bubble, and I think that’s great.

The strength is in defederation, where communities can decide who they want to play with. I’m not personally worried about big companies like Meta embracing ActivityPub because their bad behavior will have consequences for them, and the community is starting off vigilant and aware. If they play nice, the community might loosen its grip, but if they act exploitive or abusive, they’ll get shut out from most of the community forever.

yoz ,

Any admins of Lemmy.world reading this? Can we tag them?

echodot ,

Not that it will make any difference to either of us.

You get how federation works right?

yoz ,

Alright genius! Enlighten me

echodot ,

What do you want a different instance so will this instance does has no effect on you

yoz ,

Lol

Draconic_NEO ,
@Draconic_NEO@lemmy.world avatar

It doesn’t seem like tagging on Lemmy is working at the moment, but you could reply to the thread on Mastodon tagging them there, and that would work (only if you tag their Mastodon accounts, lemmy accounts don’t support tagging on Mastodon, as far as I’m aware).

raspberriesareyummy ,

Seconded. Fuck Meta.

Clbull , (edited )

I’m not worried about Threads joining the fediverse. They can’t even properly implement hashtags and trending topics, which already puts them far behind Mastodon and X.

Also, how would users on a microblogging platform be able to interact with a Lemmy instance? I’m a bit confused about how ActivityPub works in that respect.

The ‘they can farm our data’ argument is a bit moot when Lemmy is already publicly accessible, and it makes us no better than Spez if we are trying to combat people for 'data scraping"

CyprianSceptre ,

Agreed about the data farming, but I would recommend reading this if you haven’t already. Not properly implementing the conventions is basically step 1 in that article.

Icaria ,

I thought Threads was supposed to be a competitor to twitter? I don’t understand how they’d even integrate with Lemmy instances. I’m here to see posts from boards/forums/subs, not from specific people. Would posts from random Threads user profiles start showing up on the main page?

echodot ,

Well like Mastodon does. It’s not exactly a smooth integration. I have no idea how Lemmy posts would show up I’m assuming almost as a separate tweet equivalent.

Microw ,

No. Lemmy integration of ActivityPub doesnt enable that. Either Threads or Lemmy would need to change their implementation of ActivityPub in order for us to see Threads posts. Currently that’s impossible. All federation happens beneath the hood and isnt shown.

Icaria ,

So what would federating involve, then? How would it change how lemmy.world users see lemmy.world?

Microw ,

Nothing. Currently it would not be visible at all. In the backend however federating means that the Threads servers might - at some point in the future - fetch data from lemmy.world (and not display it either, only let it sit on the server).

overzeetop ,
@overzeetop@lemmy.world avatar

But Meta can already do that through user accounts or through a honeypot/passive instance, correct? All public conversations are open, as are all public user profiles.

Microw ,

True

chitak166 ,

I will be leaving if lemmy.world defederates with threads.

Just give users the ability to block instances themselves so we can be done with this.

Stop letting other people make decisions for you.

hessianerd ,

I am still new at this. If I block threads, and lemmy.world doesn’t defederate, will threads users still see my posts and comments in the communities I participate in? Is the relationship recpricol?

If not… What incentive is there to give my (admittedly mediocre) content to a mega corp whose goal is to take over this space?

I’m genuinely asking.

chitak166 ,

Good question. I’m not sure. I still don’t even know how users can block entire instances, just communities within those instances.

blawsybogsy , (edited )

blocking instances for users was added in 0.19. it works like community block: you don’t see any posts from an instance, but you can see the activity of users from that instance on any other instances where they do stuff.

github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/3869

[this is not an endorsement of federating with any meta product. i believe in deplatforming hostile actors, which they’ve well and truly proven themselves to be.]

hessianerd ,

I appreciate the info, however, it doesn’t really answer my question. If I instance block I don’t see them, but they get to see all of the posts/comments I generate in threads?

This is all really interesting. Kind of reminds me of The City and the City.

raspberriesareyummy ,

You are either blissfully ignorant of how corporations work, or you are a corporate shill.

echodot ,

Well they ask the question I don’t understand why you would respond with hostility either answer the question or don’t comment.

chitak166 ,

It’s just the mob mentality taking hold.

A_Random_Idiot ,
@A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world avatar

No, its people capable of looking back and recognizing mistakes that were made, and not wanting to repeat them.

Meanwhile a bunch of corporate white knights are screaming about how its unfair to be mean to billion dollar companies, and how they totally wont do the the destructive, exploitative bullshit this time, that they’ve done every other time in the past.

Jakeroxs ,

Oh federated social media has been tried before? Til

A_Random_Idiot ,
@A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world avatar

Congrats, That is the most obvious and intentional wooosh I’ve ever seen.

and I bet you think you’re so clever with it.

Jakeroxs ,

I am serious, I don’t see how the argument that centralized social media sites like Facebook, reddit or X were “taken over” when they are outright owned by those companies. It’s a completely different situation with the fediverse were they literally can’t have the same power as they don’t hold the keys to everyone’s servers, the development of activity pub as a whole or anything of that nature. It’s literally a completely different situation.

yoz ,

Don’t wait, you can leave right now.

pistachio , (edited )

Question: did you read the article linked? If the answer is yes and the comment still reflects your opinion, please leave

Edit: thought i was under a different post 🙄

pandacoder ,

Where is the linked article? The only link I’m seeing in the post is to the homepage. Not sure if my mobile client is not showing me something.

echodot ,

The isn’t a linked article the guy is just an idiot.

pedroapero ,

I read the users can blacklist instances already, from the latest Lemmy release note.

chitak166 ,

I’ve heard this, but haven’t seen it explained how to do it.

Blackmist ,

Yeah, looks like it’s in 0.19

I can’t see it myself, because my instance is still on 0.18

Senal ,

And you’re free to do so, that’s the entire point of a decentralised system.

They aren’t making decision for anyone but themselves, again, as is the point.

If you don’t agree with whatever they do, find an instance you do agree with or start your own.

Staying or leaving has the same amount of personal agency.

A_Random_Idiot ,
@A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world avatar

“Stop letting other people make decisions for you”

“If you do X I am leaving”

Maybe you should stop letting people make decisions for you.

Be bold, be brave, and just go ahead and leave now.

chitak166 ,

Crazy how many people like you reply to me as if they have a point.

Oh well, at least it makes ignoring easier. Goodbye.

A_Random_Idiot ,
@A_Random_Idiot@lemmy.world avatar

Just go join threads. I’m sure its full of people just like you. You’ll feel right at home with other people who feel the need to loudly announce departures and pretending to put people on ignore.

pomodoro_longbreak ,

Proof the system works right here.

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