There has been significant discussion in recent weeks regarding Meta/Threads. We would like to express our disappointment with the negative and threatening tone of some of these discussions. We kindly ask everyone to engage in civil discourse and remember that not everyone will share the same opinions, which is perfectly acceptable.
When considering whether or not to defederate from Threads, we’re looking for a decision based on facts that prioritize your safety. We strive to remain neutral to make an informed choice.
First, there seem to be some misconceptions about how the Fediverse operates based on several posts. We’ve compiled some resource links to help explain the details and address any misunderstandings.
Fed Tips , Fediverse , ActivityPub
Initial Thoughts:
It seems unlikely that Meta will federate with Lemmy. When/if Meta adopts ActivityPub, it will likely affect Mastodon only rather than Lemmy, given Meta’s focus on being a Twitter alternative at the moment.
Please note that we have a few months before Threads will even federate with Mastodon, so we have some time to make the right decision.
Factors to Consider:
Factors to consider if Meta federates with Lemmy:
Privacy - While it’s true that Meta’s privacy settings for the app are excessive, it’s important to note that these settings only apply to users of the official Threads app and do not impact Lemmy users. It’s worth mentioning that Lemmy does not collect any personal data, and Meta has no means of accessing such data from this platform. In addition, when it comes to scraping data from your post/comments, Meta doesn’t need ActivityPub to do that. Anyone can read your profile and public posts as it is today.
Moderation - If a server hosts a substantial amount of harmful content without performing efficient and comprehensive moderation, it will create an excessive workload for our moderators. Currently, Meta is utilizing its existing Instagram moderation tools. Considering there were 95 million posts on the first day, this becomes worrisome, as it could potentially overwhelm us and serve as a sufficient reason for defederation.
Ads - It’s possible if Meta presents them as posts.
Promoting Posts - It’s possible with millions of users upvoting a post for it to trend.
Embrace, extend, and extinguish (EEE) - We don’t think they can. If anyone can explain how they technically would, please let us know. Even if Meta forks Lemmy and gets rid of the original software, Lemmy will survive.
Instance Blocking - Unlike Mastodon, Lemmy does not provide a feature for individual users to block an instance (yet). This creates a dilemma where we must either defederate, disappointing those who desire interaction with Threads, or choose not to defederate, which will let down those who prefer no interaction with Threads.
Blocking Outgoing Federation - There is currently no tool available to block outgoing federation from lemmy.world to other instances. We can only block incoming federation. This means that if we choose to defederate with our current capabilities, Threads will still receive copies of lemmy.world posts. However, only users on Threads will be able to interact with them, while we would not be able to see their interactions. This situation is similar to the one with Beehaw at the moment. Consequently, it leads to significant fragmentation of content, which has real and serious implications.
Conclusion:
From the points discussed above, the possible lack of moderation alone justifies considering defederation from Threads. However, it remains to be seen how Meta will handle moderation on such a large scale. Additionally, the inability of individuals to block an instance means we have to do what is best for the community.
If you have any added points or remarks on the above, please send them to @[email protected].
Threads is already significantly bigger than the fediverse. They seeded their network with Instagram which already has more than 2 billion users. If people on the fediverse wanted the shiny big tech experience they’d already be there. I’m not against defederating with them but I don’t think they need to federate at all to attract users based on uptime and features and a larger network. We’re here because we don’t like them.
I suspect Facebook’s interest is not in users, but in content. I don’t have an account but Threads seems to be mostly thirsty grindfluencer nonsense, which isn’t the appeal of Twitter and friends. Regardless, if the Fediverse survives this particular threat simply because it wasn’t big enough to be eaten, then I’d still be concerned. There will always be another bad actor coming down the pipeline.
Out of curiosity I checked it out a couple days ago. It’s been years since I’ve actually been on Instagram so I had to reset my password. Anyway you are absolutely correct about the influencers posting to get attention with lame jokes and low level memes. They don’t even let you have a feed of just people you follow. In the time I was there 35 companies tried to track me over 600 times. They can keep it. I think every instance should block them but that’s just me.
That’s basically what Instagram is and that’s plenty successful. I don’t think the Instagram bootstrapped user base will care about or even like the fediverse content. I honestly don’t really even expect meta to go through with it since I don’t see how it benefits them so my personal prediction is this is all a hubabaloo about nothing. I hope the fediverse gets big enough to sustain itself and good content and discussion, but I don’t think I really care about it getting as big as Facebook.