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How does this instance feel about this growing pact against federating with Meta?

fedipact.online

Meta/Instagram launched a new product called Threads today (working title project92). It adds a new interface for creating text posts and replying to them, using your Instagram account. Of note, Meta has stated that Threads plans to support ActivityPub in the future, and allow federation with ActivityPub services. If you actually look at your Threads profile page in the app your username has a threads.net tag next to it - presumably to support future federation.

Per the link, a number of fediverse communities are pledging to block any Meta-directed instances that should exist in the future. Thus instance content would not be federated to Meta instances, and Meta users would not be able to interact with instance content.

I'm curious what the opinions on this here are. I personally feel like Meta has shown time and time again that they are not very good citizens of the Internet; beyond concerns of an Eternal September triggered by federated Instagram, I worry that bringing their massive userbase to the fediverse would allow them to influence it to negative effect.
I also understand how that could be seen to go against the point of federated social media in the first place, and I'm eager to hear more opinions. What do you think?

196 comments

  • Meta has repeatedly introduced features intended to scrape larger amounts of data about our lives and tie it all into one big profile that they can sell. This area of the internet feels like one of the few remaining areas that they haven't reached, and I'd bet everything I have that's why they're introducing this. I couldn't be more strongly against allowing them a way to link my data here with the data they have from my usage of their existing products. While I understand the idea of open federation to allow disparate communities to interact, one of the lines I'll draw is letting a massive corporation in like that.

    • They'll still be able to scrape the fediverse and all instances without threads federating with them. Defederating doesn't stop their access to your PUBLIC data on the fediverse.

      • Anyone can access the public data, but that is not a good excuse to invite them in through the front door. Defederating, at the very least, sends the message that they are not welcome to participate here.

    • I'm curious, are there policies for usage of data on a service like this? If you federate Meta (or any instance, or this instance), is that granting them the right to use your data as they wish? Assuming the answer is yes, could the Fediverse at large implement a broad, let's call it "Terms & Conditions", that must be acknowledged upon federation, regarding how the data is used? Or, if the answer is no, what are the limitations to how data in the Fediverse is used?

      Also, how useful is my data to them anyway, if they can't target me with ads? Certainly there are uses, but isn't the primary end-game just selling me something? If I'm on an independent instance, I'm not sure how much I care about them having access to my data.

      Edit: Mastodon founder Eugen touches on some these questions here. This is specific to Mastodon, I have no idea how much of this carries over for Lemmy.

      Will Meta get my data or be able to track me? A server you are not signed up with and logged into cannot get your private data or track you across the web. What it can get are your public profile and public posts, which are publicly accessible.

  • The day this instance federates with Meta is the day I leave. They, and any other big corporations, can fuck all the way off. We have seen where that path leads time and time again.

  • I would prefer Facebook/Instagram/Meta to stay far away from the fediverse that I use. I do not like anything about the online communities they develop.

  • I think we should preemptively add them to the defederated list at least until we get more info on what exactly they are doing. We are already having enough sync issues in the fedverse. We can come back to the subject in like a month with an agora vote on refederation.

  • I feel like this question might be missing a bigger picture: What's going on with the Internet?

    Facebook/Meta, Twitter, and Reddit are all owned by people in the US. We've seen in tbr past few election cycles that Twitter and Reddit in particular were vitally important to progressive movements in the US, while Facebook largely sat by unperturbed as their platform was used to plaster right-wing disinformation in every corner of the internet they could reach. Now, as another election cycle is gearing up, we see Twitter and Reddit doing things that make NO SENSE for a business, but make PERFECT SENSE if you were a MAGA nut trying to take over or dismantle a successful progressive platform, at the same time as you have Meta moving to infect and corrupt the one significant platform that offers a great alternative to both Twitter and Reddit.

    I'm not usually a conspiracy minded person, but the more I think about it, the more I conclude that this is the only explanation that can make any sense of Elon and (fuck)u/Spez deliberately imploding their platforms. When you factor in that both of them seem to also be encouraging right-wing provocateurs to return to their platforms while wholesale silencing any progressive dissent... this is a coordinated assault meant explicitly to tamper with the US political system while also driving right-wing fascism abroad.

    Do NOT allow Meta access. At this point, I'm not sure why the license doesn't explicitly blacklist specific bad actors like Meta from using the ActivityPub software in the first place.

  • I am reposting my answer from another thread : Nothing good will come from meta ( or any other Gafa Microsoft included), ever. They will alway look for a way to corrupt any social media to their favor in order try to dominate the Web. At this point of the internet history anyone giving a speck of trust to them is dream walking into a disaster waiting to happen. There are already trying to bring Insta and activityPub service lol , and they didn't haven't started yet.

  • In the 1990s, Microsoft had an internal strategy called Embrace, Extend, Extinguish. Microsoft saw the emerging Internet as a threat to their business, so they wanted to kill it. The basic idea was:

    • Embrace: Develop software compatible with an existing standard
    • Extend: Add features that are not part of the standard, creating interoperability issues
    • Extinguish: Using their dominant market share, snuff out competitors who don't or can't support the non-standard protocol

    It was working for Microsoft, and was a contributing factor in their killing off Netscape. For those too young to remember, Mozilla is the open-source "liferaft" that Netscape created before their business was destroyed by Microsoft. But, these days it's effectively controlled by Google, who provides 85% of their funding, as long as they keep Google as the default Firefox search engine and don't rock the boat.

    The only thing that stopped Microsoft from destroying the open Internet was the antitrust case brought against them by the US Department of Justice. Antitrust action is the only thing that has kept innovation happening in tech. The antitrust case against IBM from 1969 to 1982 allowed for the rise of Microsoft. The antitrust case against Microsoft allowed for the rise of Google. Many people think we're overdue for strong antitrust actions against Google and Facebook/Meta.

    Facebook bought out every social competitor they could: Instagram, WhatsApp, etc. They can't buy out the Fediverse, but they have to see it as an existential threat. Because of that, they're undoubtedly going to try to use their near-monopoly status to kill off the Fediverse.

    The "Embrace" stage will likely be just implementing ActivityPub. That will convince a lot of people that Meta is really on their side, and are working hard to be a good Fediverse citizen. They'll probably even hire people who are current developers working on the ActivityPub standard, or who have developed key ActivityPub apps.

    The "Extend" stage will probably involve adding features to "ActivityPub Alpha" which Threads uses but nothing else uses. It might involve some Meta-specific things, like embedding Instagram in an unusual way. It might involve something that is really expensive for an independent server, but affordable if you're a multi-billion dollar company, like some kind of copyright check, or flagging if something is AI-generated. The features they're likely to add won't be offensive, they'll probably be good ideas. It's just that they'll add them before going through the standards process, and so standards-compliant ActivityPub implementations will seem old and outdated. That will convince many people to move their accounts to Threads, or will at the least reduce the growth for non-Threads ActivityPub.

    The "Extinguish" phase will be like when Google shut down Google Reader. Why bother having a standards-compliant way of doing things when usage is so low?

    So... yeah, block Meta.

  • I know I’m late to the conversation, but I stopped using Facebook 10 years ago. I left Reddit after Apollo stopped working, and now that Twitter is heading the same way I would prefer to not associate with them. I agree it stinks that it’s yet another platform that splits people up deciding how and whom they interact with, but I do not want meta to mess with something that works the way it should without corporate’s fingers in the cookie jar.

  • For me, being on the fediverse is an escape from big social. That’s the whole reason I’m here. Conversations are more organic, less restrictive, and generally better. Plus, it has an awesome DIY feel to it.

    I don’t want to lose that to Meta’s insatiable hunger for data.

  • No meta for me. They ruin everything that they touch. The Fediverse is the antithesis of all things meta; keep that shit outta here.

  • I have a lot of feelings about this matter. But my main concern is that I value the idea of privacy, anonimity and the right to reveal as much of yourself online as you are willing to do so. And Meta has shown time and time again that they are actively against the very concept of letting people be.
    Maybe not today, and maybe not tomorrow, but they will find a way to ruin this for everyone if it helps their bottom line.

    On top of that, it's opening the floodgates to a stream of content that will most likely drown out the individuality of our communities. We're still growing and building, I would love for us to have our own place before the Meta masses join.

    edited: spelling

    • The privacy factor indeed needs to be looked at more. I sought refuge in the Fediverse to prevent FB from getting enough data points to profile me down to the soul. I'm pretty sure a huge margin of users here came for the same. Federating with such a cancerous entity defeats the purpose of migrating to here to quite an extent.

  • I dont think anyone should be federating with threads.meta. They dont have good intentions and are either just using the activitypub protocol because it was there and they needed something fast to take advantage of twitter quickly or because they actively are trying to take over and destroy the activitypub protocol. Either way the fediverse gains nothing from federating with them.

  • I'll put it this way:

    • on the one hand, there's React.
    • on the other hand, there's React.

    Or, to translate for those of us who don't speak "asshole":

    • Facebook has contributed to open source, they've created one of the most popular javascript frameworks around: React, or ReactJS. This is software made by Facebook, possibly even still maintained by Facebook, which you can use in your site today for free (and no, it doesn't make your site look like facebook).
    • On the other hand, React became its own monster, with some people misunderstanding it as the end-all-be-all framework. Also, it's nice but it's a lot and arguably better frameworks now exist. My point was that the company carried more weight on this project than maybe it should have.

    There are good arguments for blocking Facebook as a whole on the web, such as cookie tracking. I don't like Facebook, but I guess I would consider any people who have made the jump to federated platforms as potentially missing out on interacting with their forever-facebooked-friends. Seriously, why can't people just try another thing alongside Facebook? Why do they have to be ride or die facebook-fiends? I digress..

    • I don't think the comparison to react makes a ton of sense - Facebook created react as an open source project, but once you download react, you have a copy of it for yourself and you don't need to check in with Facebook any further. They don't own your react app or its data.

      I may be misunderstanding, but it sounds like threads will not be like that: they will be using an open standard that they did not create for a social network that will track you and gather your data every time you use it.

      (I am for defederation)

      • They would need to make some big changes to ActivityPub to allow the kind of third party tracking they do with facebook. One thing to consider is that defederating just means you can't interact with facebook users and they can't interact with you. If privacy is your concern, you should get off public forums like lemmy. Facebook can and may already be data mining from the fediverse, and you would never know it. Even after defederating, your data can and will still be mined.

        The only way to prevent facebook or any company from doing that is to block the IP addresses of every server and proxy they could ever use. That isn't going to happen, that info isn't even completely public.

        As far as react goes, facebook uses react, as do other developers. ActivityPub usage would work similarly. Keep in mind Facebook has already implemented other standards on the web already, such as http, tls/ssl, email, xmpp and lots more.

        I just don't want people thinking that defederating will somehow protect people from the prying eyes of facebook.. it will not. Facebook was the company who decided to track everywhere you go by way of you having a login to facebook a simply visiting sites which request the "like on facebook" button from facebook's servers.

        I think we would be safer being on the fediverse in an app like lemmy and consuming facebook content via ActivityPub than we would be the other way around: to use facebook as a gateway to access the fediverse. When we interact with facebook via lemmy, we do so more or less on our (or rather the admin's) terms. Facebook gets the same data as other instances would. But, if we were to decide that facebook is dope as hell and we should consume lemmy content on facebook via ActivityPub, we would be subjecting ourselves to viewing the fediverse the way facebook wants us to. Ultimately, we trust the maker of the app, not unlike how email clients work with the open standard of email.

        I don't care about federating or defederating. If the entire fediverse wants to defederate and make facebook look like the shit fediverse client, I like the sound of that. If some people want to connect with their forever facebook friends via federation, I like the sound of that too. At least in that case the forever facebook friends might learn there is more to the net than facebook (but that may not be relevant if facebook brings that part of the internet to you).

    • In my experience people do try things alongside Facebook. People actually actively use things alongside Facebook, but FB kind of became like a first point of contact for people. Like me and my closest circle of friends use a different messaging platform. The last time we messaged each other on Messenger was yeeears ago. And we're pretty active, text each other everyday. But if I meet someone new or just an acquaintance? I'm not inviting them that level of access to me. They can just be on messenger, which I check less frequently and I don't allow notifications from on my phone. Same goes for family, I have my parents on another messaging platform, but my cousins and other extended family? Nah... The tough part is when people transition from acquaintance to really good friend. Can't really change messaging platforms that easily. Happens less often with age, though...

  • If we could ensure 100% compliance with a meta-blockade then I'd be for it.

    However, that isn't going to happen and any instances that do federate with Meta will be the part of the Fediverse that exists to billions of people. Those instances will become the dominate instances on the Fediverse for people who want to get away from Meta but still access the Fediverse services. Lemmy, as it stands now, is only a few million people at most. We simply do not have the weight to throw around on this issue.

    It is inevitable that commercial interests join the Fediverse and the conversation should be around how we deal with that inevitability rather than attempting to use de-federation as a tool to 'fix' every issue.

    • Defederation can go as far as including any instance that federates with Meta, even if they don't do this directly.

      • It still doesn't change the very basic math of Meta having billions of users and the existing Fediverse, across all services, still numbers in the millions.

        A social network is only as strong as the size of a network. If you're trying to get an average person to join an instance are they going to want to join an instance with access to a few million people or an instance that can contact most of the planet?

        Cutting an instance off from the largest userbase of any service on the Internet is suicide for an instance.

        There are guaranteed to be instances that do not de-federate with Meta and so users looking to escape Meta will move to those independently owned instances as it allows them to get off of Meta services without losing contact with users and groups that they were previously using.

        It is disheartening to see how often de-federation is offered as a solution to any given problem or grievance. This mindset ensures that the network will be an ideologically fragmented mess instead of a single open social network.

    • de-federation as a tool to 'fix' every issue

      Completely agree. It should be reserved for extreme cases only: illegal content, bot instances, and calls to violence/hate speech friendly instances. That should be it.

      The tactic of EEE only really works if people are willing to go for the "extend" part of it. If we don't make concessions for the sake of interoperability, I think we'll be fine.

    • any instances that do federate with Meta will be the part of the Fediverse that exists to billions of people. Those instances will become the dominate instances on the Fediverse for people who want to get away from Meta

      This makes no sense at all. People who want to get away from Meta will drop those instances and move to the rest of the fediverse.

    • Agreed, defederation seems to currently be used for any instance that doesn't follow the allowed values that all instances must have. This is absurd and directly counter to the whole point of the fediverse in the first place. It's supposed to be linked to everything, and every instance can have wildly different rules and styles. At the end of the day all that should be largely transparent to a user who can sub to anything across the fediverse with a single account.

      Defederation needs to be reserved for actively harmful instances, which isn't just memes you don't like or hosted by a "big" company.

      • Big companies are actively harmful. Just read the example of xmpp and Google that is posted everywhere.

      • If I want Facebook, I'll go to Facebook. You're not going to guilt me or anyone else for not wanting this to also be connected to Facebook.

        How many websites is enough? Why does every community HAVE to be connected with Facebook? Meta is absolutely not a victim. They don't need defending.

        Some of us don't want our family to see every single thing that we do online, and that should be ok. Anyone who would insist on knowing that information about me is someone who I would stay very far away from.

      • I think a lot of the issue is the actual term. Defederation sounds like a lofty thing that we're inflicting on a server. It's just a block. Like you block a person or community on this instance, they still can type messages and they're still on the instance but you can't see them.

        If I'm running an instance then defederation is basically me choosing inserting a user onto your personal block list. You may like a certain type of humor and I think it's annoying. You may like Popping videos but I find them gross. I can choose, on my own to block those things and my blocking Popping videos or dead baby joke communities is my personal choice.

        But if I chose to add those items to YOUR block list then suddenly I'm in the wrong. It isn't up to me to say you can't like Popping videos (even if I find them gross) and I can't tell you that you can't read those dead baby jokes that you really laugh at (even if I think they're offensive).

        So why even allow a feature like defederation? Because there is some content that we ALL wouldn't mind having blocked. It's unanimous that nobody wants spam in their feed no matter their position on Popping videos or dead baby jokes. People don't want to see CSAM in their feed. Nobody wants to see random private data about people being posted in their feed. In THOSE, very limited, cases then the ability of the instance admin to add an item to your block list is a positive feature. You only need a small group of people (moderators and admins) to detect and block abusive material and their work is shared by every single person on the instance.

        Instead we have people who are advocating that we use defederation to impose their personal (or their group's) viewpoint on every other person on the same instance. This would be like me using my power to block spam instances in order to decide that you can't watch those Popping videos that you love so much. Suddenly this formerly useful tool is now being by others to curate what you're allowed to see on social media.

        As far as Facebook, I imagine a lot of people would want to see content on Facebook via Lemmy. There will be instances that don't de-federate and those instances will see most of the user growth because they offer users both Fediverse and Facebook content... any instances that block Facebook will simply have a slightly different Fediverse with less people and less content.

        The average user simply doesn't care about joining the battle against the corporate overlords, they're looking for the app that lets them see funny videos the easiest. Having all of the motivated ideological users in their own isolated bubble will ensure that Meta's section of the Fediverse can more easily be taken over by EEE. Meta will be the only developer developing features for the version of ActivityPub that is used in their network and so it will likely be adopted faster. Not having people developing FOSS-versions of ActivityPub extensions, apps and tools that are directly competing with Meta will create friction for people who want to transition away from Meta services and ensure their continued market dominance.

        Federate with them, develop better tools and features, and then take their users away. Providing a better social media is how you beat Meta.

        TL;DR

        1. Federation isn't the tool for this kind of ideological splintering and;
        2. Not federating with Meta services will ensure that they get all of the benefit of having an open source protocol without any competition for their userbase.

  • If any community of the fediverse willing accepts getting into bed with a major, for-profit corporation, then it does not deserve to be a part of the fediverse. There is zero chance that Facebook (they don't get to simply rebrand) is doing this to be a supportive part of the fediverse. They are doing this because we are a threat to their profits and the best way to kill us is from the inside.

  • Not that my opinion is wanted here cz ppl generally dont like me. But fuck zuckerberg, dude is hot garbage and honestly I seriously hope elon and him somehow both die in their dumbass cage match. If it means anything ill talk to my co admin about defederating from zuckerbutt

  • I won't maintain a membership on any platform that is federated with Meta in any way. That's an absolute, 100% dealbreaker. Same with Microsoft, Google, Amazon or Apple. Anything they touch turns to assgarbage.

  • I don't see why they would bother with the fediverse as it exists to be honest. To me it seems like a liability from their point of view. Not sure if they've spoken more about this but Facebook getting in more shit by having their users exposed to stuff that they don't explicitly control doesn't seem like something they'd want.

    That being said, I feel like defederating with them if needed is a solid idea but their sheer size may make that decision difficult for instances that are looking to grow given that they've already amassed twice the accounts of the Lemmy fediverse in a few hours. Now not all growth is good growth like you've mentioned but there's no partial defederation so either you leech on some of their userbase or you don't.

    I see some places going for growth if that's an option which may not necessarily be a bad choice (unless they impose strict rules to follow if you want to federate with them) given that facebook has the capital to bury us with if they choose to so our compliance probably won't have a very big impact on how things play out in the long run.

    • It's because companies like Meta want all the power they can get. As you said, there's no reason for them to join the fediverse, other than to control it or kill it off, that is.

      I'm not against Threads existing, especially with the way Twitter is going. People need an alternative and I don't believe that Mastodon is the answer for many.

      But Threads and the fediverse can absolutely exist separately, and is why I support defederation.

    • I know people will hate this but I think zuck is just a nerd with the money to do anything he likes but he's not really very social and not really into sports or anything so like many of us he spends his focus on tech stuff and science fiction.

      He obviously kinda loves the idea of the metaverse, and yeah Facebook is riddled with problems but they've never really done any of the really immoral and anti competitive things bill gates Microsoft did so I think it's jumping the gun a bit to instantly jump to EEE - it's possible he just genuinely believes the future is going to be a federation of open source protocols and he simply wants to live in that future.

      That said there's a lot of problems inherent in letting any big company gain any form of dominance over open social networks especially one as frequently socially problematic as meta

      • not really into sports or anything so like many of us he spends his focus on tech stuff and science fiction.

        I've heard he does Jujitsu or something like that.

  • The design on that "pact" is... wow. Really putting our best feet forward there. Just needs a geocities logo and a visitor counter.

  • Don't like it personally you can't trust these companies to do anything but be malicious actors, it might drive more users to the rest of the fedverse but there are huge risks and these companies have already broken laws time and time again.

  • Honestly, this would be a non-issue if we could block instances at the user level. Since they’re not federated yet, and User-level instance blocking should be coming, I say we wait and see.

    • I wish there was a way to grey-list an instance, to where a user has to seek out and subscribe to content that admins don‘t want spamming users by default, so it doesn‘t get added to the „ALL“ feed for everyone else.

      Just give users more control.

196 comments