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].
If you are supporting corporate surveillance-capitalist social media, you’re a stooge for it. It’s that simple. Are you necessarily a bad person for it? Of course not! But I still don’t want you in my space while you’re doing it because that shit infects everything it touches ranging from its attitudes (“why is my timeline empty instead of having the site tell me what I want to read?”) to its culture (“outrage keeps eyes on ads”).
And again, you and I have different underlying warrants, I’m guessing. I don’t view “a mass of Twitter- or Reddit-style users” to be thriving. I left Twitter (YEARS before Musk took it over!) precisely because it wasn’t “thriving”. It was merely loud. (And I never was on Reddit.)
And here’s the thing that the “the line must go up” crowd doesn’t seem to get.
It’s alright to have different spaces for different tastes. I don’t care if people go to Twitter or Instagram or Bluesky or Threads or whatever other place surveillance capitalism sets up to generate outrage. That’s their choice and if that’s how they want to live, more power to them.
I just want them to stop coming into the spaces I enjoy while doing it. We already have Twitter. And Gab and Parler and FrankSocial and Bluesky and Instagram and Facebook and now Threads. They don’t have to be here too.
It’s always a little weird when people use this talk of “it’s okay to like different things” when what one side wants is to exclude people and they don’t care what anyone else wants. Just seems like a soft, pseudo-philosophical way to say “I don’t want them here”. Which to be fair you are also saying directly. But no, this is not alright, this is just gatekeeping.
But on top of that it’s interesting to know that even though you treat other people as if existing in bad platforms changed them so that the platform has become an inextricable part of them and vice-versa, as if allowing Facebook users in is equivalent to handing the keys to Mark Zuckerberg. Even though you have been on one of these bad platforms and it doesn’t seem like it tainted you in that manner. What’s with this platform purity mindset? Now that you are over them you think the time is up for people wanting to shed them and doors should be shut?
Spare me this “line must go up crowd” talk, I’m not interested in inviting people because of Capitalism, just to raise numbers for the sake of raising numbers, I’m interested in it because these are people that I like, that I think will contribute to this place and we communities we have here. And lets be clear, many of them need it. There are whole communities that simply haven’t gotten off of the ground yet, we don’t have as many people as we need to thrive as it is.
Gotta say you may never have been on Reddit but you could have fooled me, this way of playing with connotation to make people look bad is something I saw plenty there.
If they want to join the Fediverse as actual “citizens” (so to speak) I’ll be the first to welcome them with open arms. It’s them behaving as they have been (manipulated into) doing on said platforms that is not welcome.
If they come to the Fediverse knowing it’s a different place, knowing that it’s got a different culture and a different set of expectations, they’re welcome. The more the merrier. What I object to is having them use the toxic corporate surveillance capitalist systems (that manipulate them into being antisocial) to then also connect here.
It is META I do not welcome. Its users are welcome to … join us. Just not on Meta. Because Meta’s products are explicitly designed to turn on the outrage by careful (quasi-algorithmic) selection of what their eyes fall on. And if they’re connected to us while that happens, that spreads to us. If the same people ditch Meta and join us, I have zero objections.
Do you see the difference?