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].
False equivalence, anything with network effects are vulnerable to EEE attacks. Here’s a whole list of decentralized protocols google killed: https://drewdevault.com/2018/05/03/Google-embraces-extends-extinguishes.html I’m sure you’re familiar with the Microsoft examples already.
Linux has a benevolent dictator at the helm. A community does not.
What difference does it make? Community led or not companies can profit off of open source. Look at Truth Social. It’s a Mastodon instance.
The article is bunk, giving Gmail as an example of EEE. Really?
Give me a concrete mechanism by which simply federating with Meta will lead to the extinction of the Fediverse. Please. I’ve asked this many times at this point and nobody can come up with a mechanism.
It’s like saying connecting your email server to Gmail will lead to the email protocol being extinguished. Google killed XMPP but 99% of XMPP users were Google Talk users anyway. Killing Google Reader did not kill RSS and AMP has nothing to do with this.
Google created AMP and then killed it. They didn’t take over some open source “network effect” protocol
I think you understand the mechanism fine, I mean it’s literally in the name of the attack: embrace, extend, entinguish. You said it yourself: “Google killed XMPP but 99% of XMPP users were Google Talk users anyway”
That’s what we are afraid of - a future where the vast majority of fediverses users are owned by Facebook, and the federation will slowly start to “accidentally” break until normal users are forced to join meta to interact with the new communities that develop there. Federation would allow Meta to use your content, for free, to attract naive users into this trap.
It’s two way… Lemmy users would be able to see Threads content of which there will likely be a much larger amount of.
I’m not talking abstract top-level view. I mean one concrete idea for an update they can do that will “extend” in such a way that leads to “extinguish”
But let’s consider your scenario. Meta join ms Fediverse and quickly becomes a majority of Fediverse users. A few years in the future they start making some updates and they don’t like the limitations of ActivityPub so they drop support for Federation.
Consider the position of the Fediverse before and after this hypothetical. To me, unless you believe that a large majority of Lemmy users will migrate to threads, then the position can only be a stronger position. With much more development, exposure to the mainstream, and growth stimulated by Meta’s involvement (other sites like Tumblr for example are also considering federation)
Yes! Thank you! This needs to be posted so much. Its disappointing how naive people are being to this. You cant trust them. If you want thread’s content, join threads. Absolutely no reason to fed & let meta kill Lemmy:(