- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- fediverse@lemmy.world
- cross-posted to:
- technology@beehaw.org
- fediverse@lemmy.world
Server indexes of places for newcomers to join can be instrumental for Fediverse adoption. However, sudden rule changes can leave some admins feeling pressure to change policies in order to remain listed.
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I cannot see anything bad here. Blocking an actively malicious actor should be the norm.
deleted by creator
predicted? they’re facebook, they are not predicted to be bad, they ARE bad.
lets learn from history and not be deer in the headlights
It’s often advantageous to prevent catastrophe before it occurs rather than clean up the mess once it happens.
The mess left by a “catastrophe” often consists of rubble and blood, not some internet comment
What the social media algorithms did to teenagers are for sure a catastrophe involving blood. Suicide went up 48%. 131% for girls.
Jonathan haidt have a public repository of all research on the subject.
You mean being instrumental in facilitating a genocide in Myanmar of the Rohingya people isn’t sufficient?
Bringing the Marcos name back to the Phillipines, while minor by comparison, is also an issue with repercussions potentially lasting generations.
The thousands of extra-legal killings that were the direct result of the election of Duterte as president (who was AFAIK elected with direct help from Cambridge Analytica and a vile social media campaign on Facebook) is also nothing to scoff at.
But I think the Rohingya genocide is way more insideous, because Facebook knew that their platform was being used for direct encitement of violence and coordination of progroms and chose to ignore it because they thought Myanmar would be a lucrative market and wanted to consolidate their monopoly power there.
The mess left by a “catastrophe” often consists of rubble and blood
Yes but enough about your mother.
Why cover your nuts when you can just let somebody kick you there repeatedly?
In this analogy, they haven’t kicked your nuts.
Where have you been living the last 20 years? Facebook is a repeated offender.
In this analogy, they haven’t kicked your nuts.
Sure they have, over and over and over, just not in this neighborhood yet. Folks were either too young to witness or just weren’t paying attention to the decades of anti-consumer bullshit from this company.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_controversies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_involving_Meta_Platforms
Here’s a couple recent individual ones:
https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders/
They have been very nearly the worst example of an awful tech company for their entire existence. They will exploit the fediverse to the maximum extent they can, and we should not be voluntarily accompanying them.
the worst example of an awful tech company for their entire existence
Not to stir the pot, but at one point Zuck was an idealist. Circa 2008? When interviewed by a news corporation about privacy concerns he said, and I quote, “It’s your data. You own your data.” At the time, he hadn’t monetized with anything more than ads, and I think he truly believed it.
A short few years later he saw the opportunity to become a multi-billionaire and probably decided ethics and idealism is for poor people. Much the same as Reddit, Google, Apple, etc. Do you remember? Those of us who lived through it remember.
One day, the largest Lemmy instances may be no different. Time will tell.
Did you already forget the shit Facebook keeps doing? Repeatedly.
they haven’t done anything yet
Haven’t done anything to the Fedivese yet.
“the mass murderer have killed multiple people in Spain and Italy, but we can’t just assume he will do the same thing in France”
Sure, but this is Mastodon, not murders. Much lower stakes.
if the stakes are so low then blocking them is as low-stakes as not, so why make a fuss about it?
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Oh? I missed where Meta had done bad things to previous Fediverses.
Like XMPP?
Not Meta.
Well sure MS-13 may be a brutal trafficking gang known for extreme violence, but they haven’t done anything to ME yet.
I think this comment chain is going in a circle while everyone actually agrees with the underlying point.
I cannot see anything bad here. Blocking an actively malicious actor should be the norm.
It might be true that they aren’t ACTIVELY being malicious currently. It’s also true that they have a horrible history, and they will likely be actively malicious in the future.
(I say ‘might’ because I seem to recall them being malicious towards the fediverse with secret meetings with admins, but I didn’t follow up on that)
like this?
Wasn’t the original post amended to state it wasn’t intentional but rather a bug?
“bug”
Facebook has and it’s doing plenty bad. At this point, assuming this time they will be good is too much of wishful thinking.
Still I would let the instances decide. Seems a bit counter spirit to try to force them. Even as a user your can block them (there are two that a lot of users are blocking already…)
Its probably good to federate so that Threads users can leanr about alternatives and migrate to a better instance on the fediverse
Just to be clear, threads can federate with an instance that is not defeated with them, and in this case threads users can see all the Lemmy content, but not the other way around.
So this means that we can just keep posting anti Facebook content all the time and they will serve it to their users or will have to be blocking it.
The more I think about it, the worse it seems for threats to federate.
Right, so that means when someone on Threads is complaining about Threads, Lemmy users can’t chime-in and say “uhh, just register on here and thats not an issue, guy”
Well, meta plans to federate with at least some instances… Right? Else their users won’t be able to speak either.
like this?
Thought of this immediately as well
So wasn’t Google when they killed XMPP.
It’s Facebook dude. To put it in Lemmy friendly terms, they’re not different entities in the way that Linux and Windows are. They’re different entities in the same way that Windows and Xbox are. It’s not technically the same thing but it’s the same people calling the shots. Expecting something different is only going to leave you disappointed.
They have done a lot of bad, not with threads, but with any other app. A wait and see approach to Facebook at this point is insanity.
imo it doesn’t matter for Lemmy right now one way or another, and maybe not ever. Being federated with Threads doesn’t do anything yet. Defederate or not, the only change (from my understanding) is about making a statement, or standing with other microblog platform instances that made a choice.
On mastodon however, I’ll likely either use a federated instance or run two accounts. It’s very likely that some person I want to follow will be on Threads, and until people can convince them otherwise ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
What’s nice though is that if Threads is on activitypub, you won’t need to log in to see the content. It’s only if you want to engage with the content, and that can be done from a second Mastodon account.
It’s very likely that some person I want to follow will be on Threads, and until people can convince them otherwise
You realize that it makes it a lot more difficult to convince people to come to the rest of the Fediverse instead of using Threads if people are following them and federating with Threads?
This is exactly how Zuckerberg wants you to think.
This is exactly how Zuckerberg wants you to think.
These conversations we’re having are all speculative, and we won’t know how things play out till we get there. Trying to predict the behaviour of large groups of people is… difficult
What I predict is that defederation will play right into their selling point. We’re going up against a behemoth of evil with enough money to bankroll creators into joining and promoting their platform. Defederating (when the majority of people don’t understand what that means) will end up with people joining Threads.
Threads has a very high (artificially inflated) user count, it’s by a company everyone already knows, and all instagram users already have an account. The strongest selling point we can have is “Join Mastodon, you can see all the same stuff but it’s run by a non-profit instead of Facebook” That doesn’t work if the selling point is “Join Mastodon to see different content”.
For what it’s worth, I’m actively using Mastodon and trying to inform any friends / family that are jumping ship to shift to Mastodon. Best case scenario, Mastodon takes off properly, Threads becomes a failed project by Meta, and we can nail this shut for good.
But you’re giving Meta the same selling point, right? Join Threads and see all the same content. There’s no point in going elsewhere then. It kinda goes both ways.
You’re right that we don’t know what will happen. So it could just as well be that Threads would swallow the whole Fediverse and then if Threads blocks an instance, it’s like a death sentence for that instance. That’s the whole embrace, extend, extinguish.
But you’re giving Meta the same selling point, right? Join Threads and see all the same content. There’s no point in going elsewhere then. It kinda goes both ways.
Somewhat yes
- I think Threads doesn’t need that selling point because of the other advantages that it has
- I find that when X defederates with Y, and people want to see all the content, all else being equal they will pick Y. Usually that means that Y = “We are happy to have X, but they chose to leave”
We saw a bit of that last July for how some people picked Lemmy instances
when X defederates with Y, and people want to see all the content, all else being equal they will pick Y
Hmmm maybe? But I think that’s a misunderstanding from a lot of users. You don’t want to see all content, trust me. Defederating is not necessarily bad. In most cases, it’s healthy.
Yep I agree with you there :) It’s a useful tool, and it’s great that we have the option
The best place to go is Z, which federates with both.
I think that even if EEE is what Facebook is going after here, after a certain point some users will just get fed up with the demands/changes they’re making and move to an instance that is incompatible/defederated with Threads and then we’re pretty much back at where we’re right now.
Like when reddit gave the ultimatum to switch to their app or stop using reddit we didn’t really have a 3rd option. However if reddit was in the fediverse we could have just told them to have fun with their new platform while the rest of us stay with the old one among ourselves. Sure, you’ll still lose majority of the content there but when it comes to threads we’re not really interested in their content in the first place so it doesn’t matter. If a Lemmy user is willing to play by Facebook’s rules just so that they can stay connected to a bigger userbase then I’m not sure if we’re actually losing anything of a value if and when our ways apart. Facebook can poison the majority of the fediverse but there’s not much they can do with the instances that don’t care if they get defederated or not. The niche instances will continue existing.
I’m not personally against my instance blocking them but I’m strongly against people pushing their values onto others. I would much rather have individual users block that instance if they so wish instead of someone deciding for them. Sure you can always switch instances but what Fedi Garden seems to be doing here is going against the essence of fediverse and bullying instances to do as they want just like we’re worried of Facebook doing.
some users will just get fed up with the demands/changes they’re making and move to an instance that is incompatible/defederated with Threads
But many users might now and then we’ve given Threads leverage - stay federated with Threads and give in to their demands and changes, or lose a big chunk of your users. That’s not leverage I want Meta to have. So I say defederate ahead of time.
I’m strongly against people pushing their values onto others. I would much rather have individual users block that instance if they so wish instead of someone deciding for them.
I’ve seen this sentiment before and I understand how it can seem appealing. Why should anyone decide what any user sees? Just let every user decide for themselves.
However, there’s multiple problems with that idea. Firstly, it doesn’t scale. It’s not sustainable to have every user block all the bad stuff for themselves before they get a sane feed. Secondly, it’s not a whole solution. A single user can block an instance, but that instance will still have an influence with votes (and blocking an instance right now in Lemmy is only blocking community posts so you’ll also see comments from an instance you “blocked” and this is by design). So user blocking simply doesn’t do the same thing as defederation does.
Also nobody is pushing values onto others really - each user decides for themselves what instance to join. They can join one endorsed by the Fedigarden og fedipact or whatever else they want. Or they can join another one. Up to them.
Is this really a problem for Lemmy though? Threads content isn’t going to show up here because threads doesn’t have communities, and Lemmy doesn’t allow you to follow people.
Part of the concern is deceptive/astroturfed content developed as advertising showing up in Lemmy communities. While those same actors could theoretically be based on lemm.ee, that’s a lot more work than simply scaling up operations when you’re doing it on Threads anyway.
Yes, my point remains. Even if a Lemmy instance is federated with masto or threads, the content does not appear here on Lemmy right now. It’s physically impossible. Lemmy literally has no code written to support self posts and to follow users.
For example, here is NPR’s masto account viewed through Lemmy.world. You get their name, avatar, banner, and bio….but zero content.
https://lemmy.world/u/NPR@mstdn.social
Until lemmy decides to copy Reddit’s user pages, this isn’t a problem. Federate, defederate - makes now difference for lemmy right now.
TIL Lemmy doesn’t allow you to follow people. Wtf.
I feel like this would be spotted and stamped out immediately. Everyone’s eyes are on Threads right now; astroturfed content might sneak in on Mastodon, where regular Threads content will be mixed in with the hypothetical astroturfed content, but here on Lemmy there will be little to no Threads presence due to lack of interoperability, so every single Threads account that shows up will be noticed. It’s already super visible when Mastodon users show up due to the weird formatting issues that happen due to the lack of support.
I just don’t see an astroturf campaign as being viable unless Threads implements community functionality, which seems pretty far out when they’re only now implementing basic federation with Mastodon.
It’s not that crazy, the Threads devs are already looking at specific FEPs for things like quote posting. If they really wanted to, they could implement Lemmy-compatible community groups.
Threads can still participate via comments on Lemmy. I believe they can also post to communities via hashtags?
Mastodon has groups similar to Lemmy communities, Threads could definitely implement them too.
And what kinds of trouble do you expect Threads users to create by participating in our communities?
Well, for one thing, Threads is already full of ads. And I don’t mean Threads ads, I mean users posting ads, like ads for their own products or services or for their audience, trying to be an influencer and all that.
But it’s not necessarily the users that will be problematic. It’s more that by federating with Meta, you’re giving value to Zuckerberg. And I don’t want to do that.
Maybe I’m naive but I kinda don’t get it. People talk about defederating as if…what, all Meta IP addresses will be magically blocked from scraping your content? Any script kiddie can harvest Lemmy/Mastodon/whatever content.
Has Meta shown itself to be a bad actor? Yes. Should my email provider block all emails from Meta? Well…that’s a bit much I think? If Facebook email still existed, should my email provider block that?
My point is yes, Meta bad, but all Thread users also bad? I thought — and apparently I’m very wrong here — that the Federation paradigm was kinda like email. And the only email I want blocked is a domain where every single user is malicious, not a domain run by a malicious entity which has normal people as users, who aren’t necessarily very tech literate.
I don’t actually care, but I just find it a little confusing tbh.
@qjkxbmwvz I think the main fear is Embrace Extend Extinguish.
It’s not about interacting with Threadworms, it’s about sleepwalking into a situation where Meta is changing the very nature of ActivityPub itself.
I’m actually curious about “Embrace Extend Extinguish”: What can they do? They “extend” the ActivityPub protocol in a proprietary way, ok. Doesn’t mean any other instance has to use that, no? Ok, that would mean if an instance doesn’t follow that extension, it can’t interact optimally with Threads, but how does it matter? To me it seems all that can be lost by that is the content/user base that Threads brings into the Fediverse and then we are at the same point as we would be if we defederated immediately. Maybe I’m missing something here?
I think this article, How to kill a decentralized network, gives one of the best explanations, because it uses a real world example of how it has happened in the past.
I guess it is impossible to say what would have happened if Google never used XMPP. To me it mostly looks like google joined XMPP and made it way bigger than it was before and eventually left it again, making it small again. But is it worse than before Google even joined?
Maybe, but can we say for sure?
Maybe the lesson is not “don’t let the big corporate players in”, but rather “make sure the development of the underlying protocol itself is done in an open way”. If Google/Meta adds proprietary extensions, just don’t add them to the main protocol. If they leave the protocol again or changed their implementation in a way that is largely incompatible with the open version, nothing is lost than what they brought in initially. Doesn’t that make sense?
I agree.
I think a good example is how Slack started off by having good IRC integration, then slowly added features which were incompatible with IRC, and finally terminated IRC integration.
So clearly, Slack killed IRC, right? (…of course they didn’t!)
I see the potential situation with Threads as similar.
the problem occurs when most of the content comes from Meta (they will likely have the vast majority of Fediverse users). especially if major communities exist on their instance. when meta decides to no longer support fedi integration, those in the fedi are forced to decide between staying with their communities by ditching the fedi and moving to threads or having many of their communities ripped away.
meta will do this at some point as a play to draw users to them, but we can decide if we want to be affected when that comes to pass.
I dont care if they scrape my comments I just wouldnt want to see sneaky “promoted” posts aka ads and I enjoy the idea of boycotting facebook.
Ultimately the decision is for the instances owners and admins to make, not ours. I will just migrate to one that doesnt federate with facebook if I have to.
I just wouldnt want to see sneaky “promoted” posts aka ads
I don’t quite see how that would even work. Those posts would need to be coming from individual users rather than from Facebook itself and you can just block those users. Facebook can display ads in between posts on their own app but those wont be visible to people using other apps.
Facebook could just create fake users that post ads as content
Here’s one scenario.
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Facebook feeds its users content according to an algorithm.
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Facebook and lemmy users can interact with the same user content (liking, commenting).
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There are vastly more Facebook users than lemmy users.
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By dint of Facebook’s greater number of users, lemmy users will see the most popular content that is fed algorithmically to Facebook users.
Conclusion: lemmy users are being fed content by the Facebook algorithm (in this still, thankfully hypothetical, scenario).
Like imagine Facebook promotes some viral post and it gets a thousands of upvotes. Any lemmy user on a federated instance, sorting by upvotes/hot/etc, is going to see that post.
That’s the kind of top-down reach that is so alien to the fedi
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See Grrgyle’s reply. That would be mine If I could explain things as good as them.
I just wouldnt want to see sneaky “promoted” posts aka ads
Nobody is forcing you to follow users/communities on Threads.
I like to browse by “all”. And nobody is forcing me to use an instance that federates with facebook either, like I said, I’ll migrate if I have to.
Threads exists for the sole purpose of capturing some of the people showing interest in the fediverse as twitter dies and keeping them in the facebook ecosystem. Once it believes it has exhausted this window of opportunity it will defederate just as it de-federated it’s xmmp based messenger service once it thought it had the upperhand.
Every server that defederates from meta preemptively is working to build a resilient community that will survive this inevitable scenario. Every server that federates with meta will become dependent on it then collapse as their users leave to join threads once that becomes their only option to continue interacting with the threads users that their social experience was built on.
Your post only concerns threats to an individual user re scraping or malicious interactions. The threat meta poses to the fediverse is systemic. In the long run the meta-blocking servers are the fediverse. The meta-federating servers might see some short term attention but in the long run will have the same fate as those that hitched their wagons to the metaverse.
And the only email I want blocked is a domain where every single user is malicious, not a domain run by a malicious entity which has normal people as users, who aren’t necessarily very tech literate.
You’ll never get the tech iliterate people to switch to the rest of the Fediverse otherwise. Defederating Threads is about making it as bad as possible for its users - it’s about hurting Meta and stemming its bad influence on the web.
It’s not about looking what’s happening in the garden, it’s about entering in the garden. It’s two very different situations.
I agree, and I predict people will eventually pick instances that are doing what you suggested.
My understanding is that the defederation is to prevent MetaFacebook from getting to a point where they control the entire thing and then destroy it.
I don’t think defederating is the right move for that, but it’s a move
I think most people simply just don’t know how federation works and they imagine that defederating blocks Facebook from accessing your content when in reality it’s the exact opposite; it places one way mirror between us from which only they can see thru. There’s also some great irony in the fact that they’re talking about genocide while advocating for using the nuclear option to block Facebook despite the massive number of innocent casualties it’ll cause.
EDIT: Turns out I was mistaken. Defederation indeed does stop the flow of data both ways.
Brother these things are in no way the same. One is a tech giant knowingly aiding and abbeting governments who are ethnically cleansing their country and another is not being able to see posts from a different instance. The only great irony is you calling them innocent casualties.
It’s a comparison. By definition they’re not the same thing but there are similarities; you’re doing something that affects 100% of the userbase because you have an issue with 2% of them.
You should think of a better comparison cause this one sucks.
Also no. You’re doing something that affects 100% of users because the node these users use is malicious. The problem is the underlying structure not the people using said structure. Maybe this makes them stop using said structure.
Its like being upset that I dont answer unknown numbers. “Well only 10% are scammers so you’re affecting 100% of calls”
This is like comparing requiring students in schools to wash their hands to genocide. The scale is the same but the impact is vastly different, and if you don’t want to wash hands (or be defederated) you can just move. Except for changing activitypub instances is even easier than changing schools and both are easier than leaving Palestine.
it places one way mirror between us from which only they can see thru
What do you mean by this? Even if Meta would collect data from defederated servers (I don’t think they would), it would be massively more complicated than if they were federated.
Federarting means there’s a two-way road between your instance and threads.net and traffic can flow both ways. When you defederate it stops the traffic flow from threads.net to you but the traffic from you to them is unchanged. Even if every single instance defederates them they can still see all the content that’s posted there. Nobody else just wont see any of theirs. Only your instance admins know your email, ip-address and so on but all your posts and messages are publicly available to anyone and you can’t stop them from accessing it.
It’s basically the same thing as blocking an user. You wont no longer see their messages but they will see yours.
EDIT: Turns out I was mistaken. Defederation indeed does stop the flow of data both ways.
When you defederate it stops the traffic flow from threads.net to you but the traffic from you to them is unchanged.
No, that is not how defederation works. One server defederates, traffic stops in both directions. It’s not comparable to user blocking.
posts and messages are publicly available to anyone
There’s a big difference between the posts being available publicly on the Web and them being sent to Threads via federation.
I hate to admit when I’ve been wrong but this seems to be one of those cases. I tried to use my lemmyNSFW account to view content on a instance that doesn’t federate with them and I indeed can’t see any. I stand corrected.
Good on you for admitting it - we’re all wrong sometimes :) take it as a learning opportunity
There’s also some great irony in the fact that they’re talking about genocide while advocating for using the nuclear option to block Facebook despite the massive number of innocent casualties it’ll cause.
Sir/Madame, not being able to see some online content is nothing at all like having your family members murdered in real life.
Read A Death Sentence For My Father sometime and you will see.
It’s a comparison. By definition they’re not the same thing but there are similarities; you’re doing something that affects 100% of the userbase because you have an issue with 2% of them. Like Israel fighting Hamas and the entire Gaza population having to suffer because of it.
It’s a really inappropriate comparison tho.
The thing is your article blames meta for not doing something that would be impossible on lemmy by design. Meta didn’t act to silence messages calling for violence but there is no mechanism to do this top down on lemmy only by defederating instances or individual communities/instance admin banning posts. Exactly the same thing could happen here, if the user base ever got large enough.
the crochet(?) veggies are adorable
Meta: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/, https://www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.1320040111, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-facebook-files-11631713039
Instance admins: Let’s give them a chance guyyyyss!!
Those of you who think the problem is data scraping or whatever are totally missing the point. All profit-motivated social media platforms engage in promoting hate content for engagement, and in doing so have deadly real world consequences. The Fediverse is one of the few online spaces where people can just be themselves naturally without being manipulated by algorithms. Given their history, there’s no reason to assume Threads won’t be any better about handling their own community, and anything that happens with them will affect the rest of us.
for real. im new to lemmy but places like hexbear seem really good for trans stuff. i hate how so many trans places are dependent upon facebook or reddit to exist. facebook itself is problematic because those fuckers already assisted a genocide in myanmar, whats to stop them from helping to massacre trans people here?
hexbear seem really good for trans stuff.
HB and blahj are the two explicitly pro-trans instances. Hexbear is strongly oriented towards communism but I would strongly suggest them over blahj just because of their abysmal handling of c/196’s noncery. They just don’t have as strong of a track record as hexbear.
hexbear seems way more active in the trans spaces at least. its also nice seeing everyones pronouns and being able to guess what variant of transness someone is talking about when theyre describing their experiences.
im on lemmy cause i saw advice saying that you could access pretty much all the lgbt spots on the fediverse from here, which seems true. ive already seen a bunch of transphobic bullshit on this site and on blahaj so maybe ill just swap to hexbear, idk
Yeah you should make the jump if not seeing transphobia is your goal. lemmyML is a great omni-instance but as a result you’re going to be exposed to a lot of right-wing bullshit. And really, transphobia on blahj? That’s extremely disappointing but not all that surprising.
yeah one of the top trans posts the other day was filled with transphobes and people debating the merits of transphobia. i think blahaj doesnt have very active modding?
We aggressively remove transphobic/transmisic posts/comments on lemmy.ml. Please report any that you see. But understand that we don’t control the content of other Lemmy instances, so when you select “All” instead of “Subscribed” or “Local,” it’s the wild west.
i guess the question is more of bans and not just removals. for instance this guy https://lemmy.ml/comment/9833425 seems to regularly go on to write misogynistic and queerphobic screeds, but seems to not have been banned because he is a moderator and has been here for 4 years?
You think lemmy doesn’t have algorithms?
Verifiable algorithms. Algorithms meant to make using the platform enjoyable, rather than meant to entrap users for profit.
Sean, I think your article is missing the most important section: alternatives to Fedi Garden.
Can you at least list a few at the end of the article?
common Fedi Garden W
deleted by creator
The guy who runs the growyourownservices network despite seeming very professional is extremely emotionally biased and hates Lemmy as a software (and seemingly any instances that will choose to run that software, regardless of their affiliation towards the developers).
So he basically refuses to acknowledge the existence of Lemmy and by extension a large portion of the threaded fediverse.
deleted by creator
I’m kinda against defederation or blocking anything at an instance level, unless the instance causes straight up legal issues or is literally created for the sole purpose of harassment
Well, I think Threads meets your litmus test requirements.
It is a certainty that Threads will heavily influence the future development of Activity Pub. This will inevitibly lead to the corporatization and enshittification of any service Threads can affect.
The only resistance we can offer against this is defederation and noncompliance with the will of the behemoth.
I understand your “what if” scenarios, but this is an existential crisis that needs to be resisted against with all instances working in concert. This is not a “what if” scenario. This is the actual iceberg and it is big enough to ruin the fediverse for all instances, no matter their affiliation with the garden.
So, we either unite to defend the independence of the fediverse, or we let a corporate giant take it by ovewhelming us with their “important updates for your security” until we are all assimilated.
Ngl, this screams “think of the children.”
Removed by mod
Finally someone with enough balls and brains.
Every time something like this gets posted, there are always Lemmy users crying to defederate their Lemmy instances.
But remember, the current concern is with Mastodon, NOT Lemmy. Lemmy can’t actually view the post types that Masto and Threads make. Wendy’s can post all the Threads ads they want - we’re not going to see them here. We can’t. That hasn’t been built.
Try it. Go view someone’s Mastodon account in Lemmy. You don’t see their posts.
we’re not going to see them here. We can’t. That hasn’t been built.
It has been partially built insofar as Kbin and Mbin can see Mastodon posts here and Mastodon interacts with us. Wouldn’t surprise me if Lemmy eventually gets some of that functionality too.
If Meta starts to EEE ActivityPub that will affect all of us.
To illustrate even more: I follow a Lemmy privacy “group” with an Akkoma account.
You will in fact see their posts if they reply to Lemmy comments. They’ll then appear as comments in Lemmy. I believe Mastodon users can also post to communities by using hashtags, though I’m not 100% clear on that.
When you @ mention a community from Lemmy as a user on Mastodon you can post to that community from Mastodon. The first sentence of your Mastodon post will be used as the title, which is why they often look so strange on the Lemmy side.
You can also follow a Lemmy community from Mastodon, but it gets a bit messy as every comment will be shown as a boost Mastodon side.
I hope the groups addition that Mastodon is working on will fix that mess.
I post stuff on lemmy via my mastodon account so I don’t have to deal with image hosting on my lemmy instance, so its not quite that simple. You’re not wrong, but they do interact
It’s not us seeing Threads that’s the problem, it’s Threads seeing us (and thereby trapping all of us in their sticky web we tried to escape, what with their shadow profiles and whatnot).
So what would stop them from shadow profiling you by scraping content, or using a different domain? Most lemmy instances are configured to federate with a blocklist, meaning any unblocked instance can download data. Facebook can just make an instance under a different domain and download the data that way. Or they can just scrape user data from the web facing interface.
Posts and comments on lemmy are public. If facebook wants your publicly accessible data from the fediverse, de-federating from threads isn’t going to stop them.
Seems like a way of bullying community leaders into running their instances how Fedi Garden feels is appropriate. Which is intrinsically against the nature of the Fediverse, in that instances are meant to have their own autonomy.
Fedi Garden’s position in this space is to be a directory, not a dictator. This feels like an overstep.
I think communities/sites etc. on the fediverse should live and die by their decisions. They can make this decision if they want, time will tell if its the correct one or not. That is the nature of the fediverse!
The nature of federation is that you can make your own instance with your own rules independent of a single walled garden and still participate with the other members. Create your own index if you don’t like this one.
And that is exactly what Fedi Garden is going against here. This is not letting each instance to decide who they want to federate with and who not. They’re telling instances to defederate threads.net or else… That’s forcing their values onto others and bullying them to do as they say. That is dictatorial.
They only list instances that share their principles. The only “forcing” being attempted here is the two of you insisting they need to list instances they don’t want to list. The point of federation is that you can start your own list if you don’t like their policies.
Sure, but Fedi Garden is seen as the de facto “primary” hub for this sort of information. There’s a certain power dynamic at play in this sort of situation that is being weaponized.
It’s like if LemmyWorld decided “We’re exclusively a furry community now”, after being the “main” Lemmy instance. Sure, they’d be within their right to do so, but it does a disservice to the Fediverse at large when things that can be seen as critical parts of the Fediverse’s social infrastructure are suddenly slanted in any one particular way.
If it helps bring perspective. I’ve never even heard of Fedi Garden before this post. I did a lot of puzzling over choosing instances for Lemmy and Mastodon when I first joined and never saw a link to them. I’m not sure why they’d even be seen as a trusted list for a new users, since at joining the user also doesn’t know anything about them or their values, reliability, or reputation.
Plus, once you’re in the Fediverse you then learn you can just change instances. Once someone points out that [other instance] can talk to Threads users the individual can just switch or stay depending on their preferences.
Seen by who? I’d never even heard of them and I’ve been on mastodon for ages
You cannot prevent power centers from leveraging their influence, but with federation you can route around it.
It’s funny to me how many big flare-ups and popular issues have been about defederating or controlling other instances but we’ve not really had a single popular event where users work on anything together to benefit community.
Individuals have made tools but there’s not been calls to action and mass cooperation events for anything beside silencing unpopular groups. No community design discussions devising and implementing tools or features, no group efforts to catalog or document or display useful data…
I don’t know if it’s just that people here haven’t considered the possibility of doing something positive or that outrage about others is just so much more compelling
