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].
Ribbit
Did meta went through their chat history and then contacted the authorities?
No, they received a subpoena and complied and it turned out to be a case involving abortion. Meta may suck when it comes to privacy for its own users, but I blame the states and not Meta for this particular issue.
That is 100% what happened.
Do you have and sources for that or are you just making shit up?
That is 100% not what happened lmao. Meta got subpoenaed to share the information because they declined to rat them out by default.
Source?
Did you read the post? Blocking an instance isn’t going to prevent what you post from being accessible. Also, companies in the US are legally required to abide by subpoenas for the most part. The issue with the abortion case had much more to do with the failures of states and the US than with Meta itself. I don’t use Facebook or Instagram, but I don’t think making a decision for the entire community to block others because someone is offended is the right approach. I’d much rather see the option for users to decide what they see and don’t see… that way you pick for yourself.
I would put a big portion of the blame on Meta. If the chats were end to end encrypted this wouldn’t be possible and they couldn’t give away the data.
iMessage is end to end encrypted yet Apple still gives info to the FBI all the time
I say blame the government that prosecutes women for what is considered healthcare in the rational world
Which would “only” be the metadata then, which is a lot more difficult to work with. But I also don’t want to understate how crucial metadata can be in the right/wrong hands.
Well… I mean it’s the US. There’s a reason why I only half-jokingly call that a third world country.
I agree on the metadata thing but I mean full plain text messages and images sent on iMessage. If you choose to use iCloud backup, Apple saves a copy of your encryption key so that you can access it on other devices.
So when FBI asks for someone’s iCloud backup that comes with the encryption key.
So it’s end to end encrypted, that much is true. But the key is accessible to the government which makes the entire exercise pointless.
Apple seems to have plans to encrypt iCloud going forward, which would prevent this. They were going to some years ago but apparently it caused a bit of an uproar with the federal government so they backed down as to not poke the bear too much.
I wouldn’t call that E2E then. Classic middle-man.
It’s E2E if you only use iMessage. Once you backup to iCloud, no more. They don’t really advertise the fact though that using iCloud pretty much makes it so the police can freely access your data with a warrant.
Ah, now I understand. That’s really shitty.
What a braindead take. Meta got subpoenaed to share the information because they declined to rat them out by default. I’m sure we’ll see the fiber of your moral character when you get subpoenaed with consequences if you fail.