• @woelkchen
    link
    English
    59 days ago

    How do you know that Threads won’t inject ads as posts?

    Ads in Instagram are posts from accounts you don’t follow. Threads can’t make you follow promotion accounts you don’t want to follow.

    • @pivot_root
      link
      English
      39 days ago

      Depending on where they want to sit in the scumbag chart, there’s no technical barrier stopping them from selecting threads-hosted accounts with high metrics and injecting advertisement posts under their handles.

      • bizarroland
        link
        fedilink
        69 days ago

        Remember, the rule is “Embrace, Extend, Extinguish”.

        Threads is doing this. Kicking them to the curb regardless of the cost is the only solution.

        • @woelkchen
          link
          English
          19 days ago

          Threads had more users than the entire non-Threads fediverse within a day or two. Mastodon is not the competition.

      • @woelkchen
        link
        English
        39 days ago

        That would be A) identity fraud because it would be my favorite fair trade drink endorsing Coca-Cola without the ads being clearly separated as required by many jurisdictions and B) not targeted advertising in any way.

        Even if Threads posts illegally embedded extra ads: Users could just opt not to follow Threads accounts. Threads cannot just magically place ads in the feed. That’s impossible.

        • @pivot_root
          link
          English
          09 days ago

          identity fraud

          I’m sure they could find some way to have the terms of service agreement include a paragraph on how a handle is the property of Meta and not a user identity.

          My favorite fair trade drink endorsing Coca-Cola.

          Business accounts can be exempted from injected advertising.

          Without the ads being clearly separated as required by many jurisdictions.

          Post the ad as an image attachment and put the advertising disclaimer within the image? There’s a lot of ways they can make an ad disguised as a post, and not all of them are as easy to filter out as a quick text search.

          Not targeted advertising in any way.

          If @OutdoorsyOdin posts content about hiking and mountain climbing, you can make a reasonable guess that the subscribers are going to be interested in that kind of activity. It’s not targeted to a specific user, but it’s good enough to serve ads targeted at specific lifestyles or hobbies.

          Users could just opt not to follow Threads accounts.

          Exactly.

          Anyways, this whole thing is to show that they could try to enshittify their fediverse integration if they really wanted to. There’s no technological barrier preventing them from sending ads through ActivityPub.

          • @woelkchen
            link
            English
            19 days ago

            Threads has no influence on the terms of service on Mastodon. So no, Threads can’t allow to misrepresent profiles on Mastodon.

            • @pivot_root
              link
              English
              -29 days ago

              From my previous comment:

              selecting threads-hosted accounts

              ActivityPub literally will not let them impersonate accounts from other instances. That much should be obvious. The topic is about them impersonating their own users and using that to push ads through federation.

              • @woelkchen
                link
                English
                19 days ago

                The topic is

                No, that’s not the topic. The topic is ads being placed in the fediverse in a way only defederation could block. Even if Meta silently making posts in the name of my favorite organic orange juice advertising Coca-Cola was legal (it’s not), it would be easily solved by simply not following any Threads accounts. Also, Lemmy cannot interact with Threads anyway, so Lemmy servers defederating from Threads is completely pointless.

                about them impersonating their own users and using that to push ads through federation.

                No, that’s not legal. That would violate copyright, consumer protection, competition laws, and whatnot, at least in the USA and the EU. Mastodon users (!!) must be explicitly aware that a post is an ad, not the brands ticking off an EULA on Threads. Therefore Mastodon users could decide to follow a brand account were products are promoted (just as they can right now if that brand has a regular Mastodon page) but Threads cannot legally impersonate one account on Threads to advertise another account. That’s not a grey area.

                I didn’t set a timer but it took me at most a single-digit number of minutes to find documents and announcements about the FTC tightening the rules about deceptive advertising several times throughout the years.

                • @pivot_root
                  link
                  English
                  -2
                  edit-2
                  8 days ago

                  The topic is ads being placed in the fediverse in a way only defederation could block. Even if Meta silently making posts in the name of my favorite organic orange juice advertising Coca-Cola was legal (it’s not), it would be easily solved by simply not following any Threads accounts.

                  Let’s go with your idea of what the topic is for a second: have you considered how advertisement posts could appear in search results, hashtags, or the explore section? Or what if they decide to screw with the normal process and artificially inflate the number of boosts and favorites for advertisement posts? Okay, the solution is to simply have your instance users refrain from following any Threads accounts so the posts don’t show up anywhere—which is effectively defederation.

                  Also, Lemmy cannot interact with Threads anyway, so Lemmy servers defederating from Threads is completely pointless.

                  Irrelevant to what I’m saying.

                  That would violate copyright, consumer protection, competition laws, and whatnot, at least in the USA and the EU.

                  Copyright to what? A person’s name? A small string of characters that is a “handle”? None of that is copyrightable.

                  That would violate copyright, consumer protection, competition laws, and whatnot, at least in the USA and the EU.

                  Doot Doot @SomePerson@example — 4h

                  Looking for gifts in time for the holiday season? Head on down to Best Buy to pick up some amazing deals on Black Friday!

                  – This is an advertisement shown to you by Meta. Click here for more info. –

                  That would violate copyright, vonsumer protection, competition laws, and whatnot, at least in the USA and the EU.

                  As I previously mentioned, corporate accounts can be excluded to remove running afoul of competition laws.

                  Mastodon users (!!) must be explicitly aware that a post is an ad, not the brands ticking off an EULA on Threads.

                  As with my example toot above, that took all of 15 words. They don’t need to be deceptive about what is or isn’t an advertisement to push that shit through the ActivityPub protocol.

                  Threads cannot legally impersonate one account on Threads to advertise another account.

                  Your whole argument is predicated on the idea that a (personal) account on Threads is either owned by its creator, or is associated with a trademark. Furthermore, there are a number of different approaches they could take to argue that the ActivityPub support provides access to a feed of content, and not an individual identity.

                  In any case, you’re repeatedly glossing over the fact that my original point was to say there isn’t a way to prevent it AT THE PROTOCOL LEVEL.

                  • @woelkchen
                    link
                    English
                    18 days ago

                    Let’s go with your idea of what the topic is for a second

                    Considering that I’ve replied to another person with my explanation and got very positive feedback, I certainly know better than you. You’re not the person I’ve replied to. You interjected and then tried to educate to me what my comments are about.

                    have you considered how advertisement posts could appear in search results, hashtags, or the explore section?

                    Any brand account on a regular Mastodon instance would be the very same.

                    Or what if they decide to screw with the normal process and artificially inflate the number of boosts and favorites for advertisement posts?

                    Mastodon doesn’t have an algorithmic timeline, so that would lead to absolutely nothing.

                    Also, Lemmy cannot interact with Threads anyway, so Lemmy servers defederating from Threads is completely pointless. Irrelevant to what I’m saying.

                    Relevant to the comment I’ve initially replied to.

                    What copyright? Threads users gave it away when they signed up.

                    Nope.

                    Your whole argument is predicated on the idea that a (personal) account on Threads is either owned by its creator, or is associated with a trademark.

                    No, I made several good arguments, you just moved goalposts and declared they don’t matter.