Hey guys. I admittedly am mostly a layman to the Fediverse as a concept. So I am coming into this post with the knowledge that I don’t understand the technical intricacies of it.
I fully expect that Meta will act in as bad of faith as possible, that is something that I think we all agree on. But from what I understand about the Fediverse, I’m just having a hard time understanding how we would not be shooting ourselves in the foot unless we at least try to federate with Threads.
I am aware of Embrace, Extend and Extinguish.
Here are my understandings of the goals as a non-corporate fediverse:
- We love decentralization
- We love privacy
- We love self-reliance
- We would love to see the non-corporate federation grow
With those understandings, here are my questions:
Doesn’t the fediverse have an inherent protection and/or immunity from corporate take-over?
As I mention above, I am aware of Embrace, Extend and Extinguish. But, how is that a risk for the Fediverse?
QOL features, and gimmicky capabilities can be replicated.
The only thing we may not directly be capable of are 1st party Meta acct/apps integrations.
Aren’t we protected?
Threads requires effectively all personal data from its users. But only their users. We are not forfeiting any personal data by federating with Threads; we are isolated to, and protected by, our individual instances.
Is there anything currently stopping Meta from scraping the Fediverse for our content?
If even anonymized privacy is a concern, why do we think that defederating will protect us? We’re all posting our content on private servers which are wide-open to the public.
Won’t we grow & educate?
If we keep corporate instances in the federation, isn’t is safe to assume that the non-corporate instance will grow massively? Connecting with Threads and others will allow us to proselytize the benefits of moving off of threads, and improving their digital wellbeing. If we are not connected, they will largely remain oblivious to us.
EDIT: I think this is a benefit because the people who want off of Threads and into the Fediverse are the people who strive for Freedom. This atricle claims the fediverse is not looking for growth, but we do want it to grow with people who agree with its goals, right?
Aren’t we worried we’re forcing an ultimatum while the Fediverse is still in its infancy?
If we disconnect now, we are telling everyone “choose the shiny new Threads, or the clunky up-and-coming Fediverse”. This affects prospective users, and existing users.
What’s the harm in pulling the ripcord if we try it, and it’s truly not a good fit?
If we pull the ripcord now, we allow Threads to grow in their walled garden.
If we pull the ripcord later, we make an informed decision.
If we never pull the ripcord, we allow Threads to pull the ripcord if they ever so choose. That encloses them into their walled garden, which is exactly where they’d be if WE pull the ripcord now.
“What about an influx of low-quality content?”
This is a whataboutism I’ve heard. What’s stopping individuals from blocking their disliked communities?
“What if Meta doesn’t moderate well?”
This is another whataboutism I’ve heard. I personally think that Meta has a vested interest to moderate Threads enough to stay out of the news. As a publicly traded company, it’s in their best interest to not scare off their advertisers and shareholders.
If some low-quality moderation does persist though, we still have the ability to block users & communities.
Thanks for taking the time to answer any of these. I will likely have follow-ups, and if/when I do please understand I am asking them in a good-faith effort to try and clarify/understand.
Without engaging the questions directly (in part because I’ve been discussing this for a fair part of my evening already), thank you for articulating the major discussion points succinctly for folks to engage.
Myself, I’m receptive to good-faith corporate participation in the fediverse, from the standpoint to engagement and dialogue. I’m less enthusiastic about corporate participation in ActivityPub governance because, well… *cough, Redhat*. W3C is a good curator of protocols though, and I hope they are able to resist the worst tendencies of our corporate overlords.
edit to add because “post” is too close to “preview:” I’ve come around to not being keen on the “defederate first” plan of attack. I think the extra participation will be beneficial before it becomes detrimental. Moderation is a platform problem here, and maybe that is where the defederation hammer falls. I dunno. I’m gratified to see ActivifyPub be acknowledged as more than some toy protocol. I guess we’ll see what comes of it.