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].
Hey - thank you for this response, it’s the first one I’ve seen that tried to take the question “How could they EEE?” seriously.
What I still don’t really understand is - how is this different from just creating a better competitor, without the federation at all? If you’re worried about people choosing a superior, shinier corporate product, then surely they’d do this even without federation. At least with federation, we’re not excluded from the walled garden, and don’t have to have an account on their platform to interact with users we know or like there.
I have a Facebook account because there are people in my life that I want to communicate with on there, and that is my only way of contacting them. If FB was a federated platform, then I wouldn’t have to have that account to do that.
The only (EEE-related) risk I see is that if Threads federates, they could then choose to defederate one day. But that would just make them into a walled garden again, the situation we already have today.
The way I see it is two fold.
One, any success on Lemmy/Mastodon will contribute to their platform as well. These platforms are all about content and critical mass. By federating, they get access to “free” content. At their current states, these platforms are drops in the bucket for Facebook so I doubt it’s a primary interest.
Two, if they can get their content in front of Lemmy/Mastodon users, they hope some of those users will see it as “grass is greener” and switch sides. There’s another comment in here where someone mentioned all their friends moved to FB Messenger but they didn’t want to, but all their friends were using it, and it had features that weren’t supported in standard texting, so they eventually gave in. Imagine that, but you can also see your friends feeds in front of you, just not some of the bonus stuff. It dangles the carrot closer to your face. Not only do you know about it, but now you also directly see it.
This is all leading up to the “extinguish”. They probably see the fediverse as evidence people are willing to move off Twitter, so they may also be willing to swith to Threads if they aren’t too invested. On top of that, they may see the fediverse as a potential future threat. And it’s much easier to kill off that threat early than to wait until it has evolved and grown. Again, these platforms are about critical mass, and if they can nab at it before it reaches that point, they’re more likely to succeed in killing it.
Elsewhere I’ve contextualized the Reddit uprising away from the API changes and towards a broader question of “What actually is Reddit? Who is it for? Who gets to decide what direction it goes in?” Spez and the admins have an obvious answer, but they only own have the software and the servers. It’s the communities that make Reddit, and communities are not owned by anyone.
I like the Fediverse because it reflects that. It’s up to the communities to form themselves and decide what rules they want and what servers they will reside on. Participating in the Fediverse means you provide some small amount of influence of what direction it goes in. Allowing a company like Facebook in means they will also get to influence it.
I was trying to weave a narrative on how Facebook could slowly dominate and bend the Fediverse to its will and its interests - even if they aren’t actively trying to do so. I suspect they don’t have time to slowly ramp up Threads and I’m skeptical they are actually interested in federating. But there will always be more bad actors.
An engineer notices a significant delay between when new posts appear on Threads and when they appear on the public API. There was a database issue their team resolved a few months ago, but another team owns the API server. They file a ticket and details their fix in the body.
The intuition was correct and the issue is quickly fixed. A project manager tracking growth metrics notices a slowdown a few months later. After finding the ticket, they notice an increase in growth when the API issue was introduced, and the slowdown occurring not long after it was fixed. They are not comfortable with intentionally reintroducing it, but the conclusion is in the data.
Later a very senior engineer learns all this. They like the Fediverse, but that’s not what they are worried about. Their last performance review was poor. Their manager softly sounds the alarm about the next one. Their parent’s nursing home is burning a hole in their finances. They can’t afford to lose health insurance. Putting their kids through college is on the horizon. Their org chart has already been cut down over the last year, and there are rumors of more layoffs next year. Important people are asking difficult questions about Threads.
Maybe just a fifteen minute delay so Threads can reach its target numbers.