Lemmy.world Should Defederate with Threads
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.
Well, right now Meta is pushing, not pulling. Meaning, Threads content can be displayed on Masto, but not the other way around.
IMHO, the bigger threat is having Threads content completely dominate other activity pub clients. Other clients / communities could get dependent on it. Then Meta is basically a drug dealer with leverage.
Data collection doesn’t bother me too much. I’m not going to install their client and all of the behavior trackers that come with it, and my activity pub content is already freely available to query on the internet. If they want it, they already have access to it. Everyone does.
Whichever way instances decide to go there's a few things people should remember:
- We're lucky to have this option even if it's divisive at times.
- It's not always about what we know will happen, sometimes it's concern over possibilities we couldn't even imagine at the time.
- Growth is great but there's infrastructure, moderators and policies that can be overwhelmed.
- Defederation can be reversed at any time if things change.
The Facebook hatred is understandable and justified, but defederating with Threads is a misguided idea:
- Federation is not required for them to be able to pull the data. Even if you block an instance, they can still pull whatever they want.
- By closing down with Threads, you'll be basically guaranteeing that that all the millions of people that are there will never be able to migrate away.
- By getting major (current) instances to defederate with Threads, it gets easier for Threads to just say "hey, we tried to be open but they still rejected us, so we are just going to go back to our walled garden."
Unless threads implements the full activitypub spec then everyone should be defederated from meta. There is a fine line for meta to walk to not harm the fediverse. Lemmy World is one of the few instances that can handle it. But meta should not be allowed to be a guiding voice in the direction of the fediverse at all
Seems like everyone who is "for" letting threads stay can be summed up by "why would I want to intentionally separate this from a corporate entity when they'll just get my data anyway" Like that's a fucking valid argument.
Oppose corpos at all fronts, it doesn't matter if they'll get you anyway. If that's your take, then if your country ever gets invaded, I expect you to bend over and invite the enemy inside.
I'm actually really trying to play devils advocate... But I'm struggling.
I came to get away from the main stream socials.
I came to minimise my farmed data footprint.
I came to find other like minded people.
These principals alone are shared by quite a few I guess.
If we end up hooked up to the machine we were trying to escape from then coming here was near pointless.
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.
On one hand: great, federated tech is catching on.
On the other hand: fuck these clowns, they're not participating in good faith. If Meta wants to join the fediverse they need to interoperate fully with other instances instead of using activitypub to poach fediverse users.
I'm 100% convinced Meta is pulling a classic embrace, extend, extinguish move here.
Meta should be fully jetisoned from the entire federation. If people want threads, join threads. edit: If people want their sports and brand posts then aggregate using RSS for corporate and non-corp social media. The whole purpose of the fediverse was to be NOT linked to tech bro empires.
Given that we've watched communities like Reddit become more closed, I would rather Lemmy not do the same. The best thing an instance can do is keep them on a very tight leash, and kick out at the first sign of a rule being broken.
What Lemmy needs, above anything, is engagement. Be open to the users from Threads, instead of punishing them because you hate Meta. Many people joined Lemmy because the idea of the fediverse meant freedom to choose, and while instances are free to allow/deny who they want, it shouldn't be a detriment to users that want to experience Lemmy.
Seconded. Fuck Meta.
Hard agree. Fuck da Zuk.
If the majority of us are truly here specifically to enjoy the freedom of choice, then it would follow that peering with Facebook wouldn't be a major risk for active users here, and possibly an opportunity to reach a less savvy audience.
Lemmy and mastodon are platforms good for connecting broadly. There could even be a separate instance that is a subsidiary division of a major player.
And as far as hoovering up our data, we're already out here putting it out there. Don't put sensitive data on here and don't sign up for an instance owned by surveillance-capitalists.
If this functions to poll users broadly, then count another one for NOT federating. I came to Lemmy to not have my feed dominated by a tsunami of corporate junk curated by one of the worst influences in modern society. And if the counter argument is that I can block their content, then you can go join threads. I have no desire to be on a service where the majority of other users are constanly being fed crap from Meta and then interacting here, even if I can't see the initial influence. I can go elsewhere, sure, and will if they federate, but I like it so far and would rather not. But consider, at least, the kind of thing .world will become if the only people here are people who think, "Hey, maybe Zuck's new project won't be so bad!"
I agree that we should defederate. I like it here, but I'll definitely change instances if Lemmy.world decides to federate with threads (or any similar platform) and isn't very cautious about it. No hurt feelings of course, if I'm not part of the majority here, but from the responses I've seen so far it seems like most people here agree.
I do respect one thing, and it's that everyone I've encountered in this discussion is interested in keeping the fediverse alive and well. ╰( ‿)╯
I can see it playing out fine either way, although it's certainly more turbulent federating if we are to see their content and it washes out the other communities (which to my understanding is unlikely since it's user based content like Mastodon). As others said, they already have our data, too.
Instead, I just wish the more... extreme communities didn't defederate already. I'd love to see Meta users react to Hexbear or Exploding Heads in an unfiltered, unadulterated way (or those much much worse instances that everyone defederates from). Instead they get us relatively tame, generally nerdy Lemmy users. I didn't even know what a Tankie was back in the before times!
I'm in favor of federation. The point of federated networks isn't that there are no evil corporations, but rather that they can't cause damage.
What Facebook can do:
- read your public data (they can do this wether anyone federates with them or not)
- let their users publish content to other Fediverse users
What they can't do:
- serve you ads
- serve you an algorithmic feed
- impose their ToS or rules
- collect data for analytics/tracking/marketing
- force you to use a certain client
- make changes to the protocol or design
I think this is mostly relevant for Mastodon servers due to the format of the content, but the arguments are the same.
Absolutely the same for me. Threads must not be allowed.
If meta wants to data farm lemmy, what's to stop them from hosting a 1 user instance, being federated with lemmy, and....? Profit?
I'm not worried about information going that way, it's an open source deal, information is already going that way.
As for getting more content from another instance? I'm not against it, as long as it's regulated, and at risk of defederation if it gets out of hand
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.
Fuck anything and everything about Meta. Don't let them near this.
I am in agreement on this one.
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"
Yes.
I agree. Defederate.
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.
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.
Federate with
Defederate from
I think every lemmy instance that is concerned about its users should defederate. If their users start mingling with our communities, the comment sections and the posts would be completely different from what we see today. Today we have a small but passionate user base and should remain that way. New users should know about lemmy and join any instance on their own, and not by their threads client.
When I came to fediverse, I thought it was all about the freedom to connect with people without the blessings of corporate overlords. But it seems like I was wrong. It's all about a bunch of small dicked individuals wanting to impose their own blacklists on others.
Facebook will definitely pay the admins and mkae them sign a NDA. If I was the admin and they offered me $5-10million, I'll sure sell you guys to facebook so I understand if Lemmy.world Admins did the same.
No it shouldn't.
As much as I hate Meta/Facebook, we need activity and content to keep Lemmy alive, and Meta can potentially help provide that. If after federation, it turns out to be overwhelmingly toxic or the users provide no value at all, then defederate. If nothing else, doing it later will encourage Meta users to try other insrances.
I think that interoperation with big walled gardens is part of the reason why #activitypub exists. Furthermore, there are no technical measures to completely shut off #Threads, and the social measures are unlikely to work.
I know the risks, I'm old enough to remember #Microsoft embracing and extinguishing browsers and open documents, #Goggle defederating from #XMPP and #Facebook 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 #Meta 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.
No.
Yea.
Permanently Deleted
world won't defederate from the right without a long drawn out process (see Exploding Heads for example). However, if someone posts "Karl Marx is great" or "Communism makes sense" or "capitalism is bad", you'll probably see a defederation before the enter key is hit. (Hexbear).
lemm.ee or lemmy.ml are where it's at. I don't think it's great for power or userbase to be focussed on one instance. lemm.ee has 0.19 and world doesn't despite their junior and senior infrastructure folk from their full 7 week interview process for volunteer positions.
Edit: People are on Lemmy likely because the actions of corporate Reddit went too far. In what universe would that demographic be cool with Facebook...