Mastodawn

There are basically two irreconcilable camps in the Threads debate here.

- Camp 1, understandably, wants nothing to do with Meta and view them as an existential threat to the Fediverse for plenty of well-precedented reasons.

- Camp 2, also understandably, sees potential in connecting a managed platform that appeals to entities like news outlets and other services to the Fediverse, enabling us to access that information without requiring an account on a Meta-owned platform.

Camp 1 will not cede ground because they view the issue as existential.

Camp 2 will, I dunno, deal with it or move to a server where they can see what they want to see?

But given the scale of Threads already, widespread blocking of it will create a pretty noticeably weird gap in the federation graph, and make onboarding for new potential Fedi users even more confusing. That part, by itself, kinda sucks.

Andres Jalinton Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart
- Camp 3, instance administrators of small/ medium communities that can't afford federating with a massive centralized instance used by 10 / 100 times the amount of people that the fediverse is used to.

@Andres I mean that's a totally legitimate practical concern for sure, although I would consider it separate from "the debate."

Andres Jalinton Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart fair enough

Tim Chambers Dec 13, 2023

@Andres @mttaggart As a medium sized server owner I do not forsee any big spike in server costs. Think about it: the vast bulk of the traffic will be handled by Threads servers. You as an admin would only see new traffic from those accounts YOUR users follow.

hybrid havoc Dec 13, 2023

@tchambers @Andres @mttaggart Yes, that's not really a concern I have. I don't see Threads joining to relays, which is the only thing that would cause that level of growth.

Andres Jalinton Dec 13, 2023

@tchambers @mttaggart
Unless someone in your instance goes viral on threads. Every fav and reply will hit indieweb...

Andres Jalinton Dec 13, 2023

@tchambers @mttaggart
Not to mention that there is no limit on how many fav /unfav actions can a single user make.

Tim Chambers Dec 13, 2023

@Andres @mttaggart which is the edgiest of edge cases - and could happen now on the larger Fedi too.

Andres Jalinton Dec 13, 2023

@tchambers @mttaggart
That's true, can happen on the fediverse, but do you think Zuck will care if their users are DDoSing a fediverse instance?

James_inthe_box Dec 14, 2023

@Andres @mttaggart

- Camp 4, believes Meta is a terrible company with no ethics or morals, ergo refusing to have anything to do with said company.

Calvin’s IT Toots Dec 16, 2023

@Andres I’m perplexed by your suggestion that Threads federation could significantly affect affordability for instance administrators. Doesn’t an instance cache only copies of the posts from accounts that are followed by users of the instance? Are you suggesting that there will be significant cost associated with moderation if this influx of Threads users? What other costs are you concerned about?

Andres Jalinton Dec 16, 2023

@tech
Let's say one user from gluck goes viral on Threads, how many requests would that be?
Favs, Reply, Boosts...
Yeah, posts are cached, but requests are not.
Imagine federating with 100x more instances than the biggest ones currently here.

Calvin’s IT Toots Dec 16, 2023

@Andres Thanks for sharing this additional scenario. I can see some potential increase in costs and hassle, but I imagine the pros outweighing the cons. I’m looking forward to finding out what it’s like to be able to follow and interact with Threads users without having to experience Meta’s crappy algorithms or ads affecting my non-Threads federation. I’m also optimistic that blocking Threads.net will always be an option if my optimism turns out to be a mistake.

Andres Jalinton Dec 16, 2023

@tech
Good luck enabling genocides.
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2022/09/myanmar-facebooks-systems-promoted-violence-against-rohingya-meta-owes-reparations-new-report/

Myanmar: Facebook’s systems promoted violence against Rohingya; Meta owes reparations – new report

Amnesty International

Casually running on stock!Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart Google Chat was not ultimately good for XMPP wider adoption

@Skoll3 XMPP is the EEE example everyone runs to, and I just don't think a single example establishes a precedent. I'm not saying you're wrong; I'm saying it's insufficient evidence.

Michael Downey 🧢Dec 13, 2023

Morality vs Amorality

Gabriel Pettier Dec 13, 2023

@downey @mttaggart that's the most partisan and thus the least useful way to oversimplify this debate, congratulation.

Mark Hughes Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart and isn't this at least de facto what Camp 1 are concerned about?

That Meta and the fediverse are incompatible and that whether or not you believe Meta's motives are good (Camp 1: 🤣, Camp 2: 🤗) it's impact will be harmful.

crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart Have you ever talked to people who belong to Camp 1 and are victims of Meta and tried to understand their reasons?

I can understand them very well.
Not taking these fears seriously makes them repeated victims of Zuckerberg.

Who am I to push these groups off the cliff again

@crossgolf_rebel I believe this post made quite clear that I do understand their reasons, and even agree with them.

crossgolf_rebel - kostenlose Kwalitätsposts Dec 14, 2023

@mttaggart 👍

Democracy Dies in Dumbass Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart My worry is that once Meta gets it's feelers into ActivityPub, they'll user their size and power to start demanding/coercing incremental changes in the way ActivityPub works to fit their needs...And their needs are, and always will be, directly related to the acquisition of money/wealth.

@ShredderFeeder I do not believe size and power have a lot of impact on ActivityPub's governance, but I can't speak with authority on that.

Democracy Dies in Dumbass Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart I think what they'll do is once they're ingrained they'll make a small change that "breaks something" in their favor, or to add a functionality, and hope that outside users will lobby to have that change made industry-wide.

threads.net is already blocked on my instance. I want nothing to do with anything and think Zuckerberg should go fuck himself with a Saguaro Cactus.

@mttaggart @ShredderFeeder as we've seen before though if you're a large enough majority of some piece of tech (web browsers, etc) you become de-facto standard even if you're not playing nice. We could very well see the situation a year or two in where threads starts adding their own extensions and the choice for other servers is comply or defed, pissing off their users who won't understand why they suddenly lost 3/4 their friends list.

@raptor85 @ShredderFeeder Is it the case now that Fedi servers must implement every aspect of ActivityPub?

Democracy Dies in Dumbass Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart @raptor85 That is an awfully good question, I have no idea. I only have a 10,000 foot view idea of how it all works. ;-)

I should hope we'll all be able to say "No thanks, we're not gonna do that" to any stupid attempt by Facebook to monetize it...

@mttaggart @ShredderFeeder not exactly, the problem is breaking changes, and there's often monetary incentive to make breaking changes. Say at some point all threads posts require a new field they want to use for tracking/etc on all posts, and their service rejects if it's not there or incorrect. It's not "required" but you effectively can't communicate with threads without it, so any servers not wanting to defed will HAVE to include it. Basically the ActiveX strategy.

@raptor85 @ShredderFeeder Again, I am not part of ActivityPub governance, so I can't speak with any authority. It may be a risk, but I also think it is simply too early to know how exactly Meta intends to make use of ActivityPub. For all we know, it's entirely a move to avoid antitrust litigation in the EU.

Binary Large Octopus Dec 14, 2023

@mttaggart
You might want to read up an insiders view on this: https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
I think there is good reason to keep them away with a stick.
@raptor85 @ShredderFeeder

How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse)

How to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse) par Ploum - Lionel Dricot.

@bloc @mttaggart @ShredderFeeder yep, this has been a common tactic in the proprietary software world forever, every time a big proprietary software giant "Embraces" an open source protocol it's generally pretty quickly followed by the next two steps, "Extend" and "Extinguish". Microsoft even coined it as a strategy, embrace than extend open standards with proprietary extensions in order to phase out competition.

@raptor85 @bloc @ShredderFeeder I would really, really, really like it if someone using EEE could find an example that wasn't XMPP.

It's the only one I ever see, and a single event does not a pattern make.

@mttaggart @bloc @ShredderFeeder
1. Web Browsers (IE/NetScape, IE had HTML extensions that when used broke pages in other browsers, and extensions like activex that could only run in IE that they pushed hard). They killed SO many browsers and held de-facto monopoly of the internet for a LONG time

2. Java was almost entirely killed by MS's extensions that made java applications ONLY compatible with windows, ironically google more or less saved it with android

1/X

@mttaggart @bloc @ShredderFeeder 3. Messenger apps, mostl used to use the same protocol, microsoft as well, they started including msn messenger with windows, extended the protocol, then cut off AOL and all the other third parties.

4. Office Docs/XML, extended to rely on windows components to render correctly

5. RSS, google reader gained super-majority of the market, killed off all competition, pushed integration to their other products, then killed it off, nearly killing RSS entirely.

2/X

@raptor85 @bloc @ShredderFeeder Thank you! I really appreciate the time you took to respond; I learned a lot.

@mttaggart @bloc @ShredderFeeder 6. IRC, Slack integrated IRC, gave it multimedia extensions, became an EXTREMELY popular client for it, then killed IRC support migrating to their own proprietary protocol.

7. kerberos, microsoft extended the protocol to break support of standards compliant implementations on linux/unix systems.

and the list goes on and on, obviously microsoft has long been the biggest user of the strategy, all the way back to lotus notes :/

Democracy Dies in Dumbass Dec 13, 2023

@raptor85 That's why I blocked them before they even started. No-one on my server will ever be able to get used to seeing IG idiots on their feeds.

Some Guy Named Chris Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart Camp 2 here, but I do understand where Camp 1 is coming from. Mastodon might have seemed like an unspoiled village paradise and now we're talking about letting in a Walmart.

I personally think the more people see Mastodon the more migration away from the junk food platform of Threads might make sense. I don't think we'll lose anybody in the other direction. However I've only been here for a year or so, so I am not as knowledgeable on this as I should be.

josh buermann Dec 13, 2023

Mastodon instances are "managed platforms", the difference is that Threads is managed by the dictates of whatever it is management thinks the market is dictating. Lies, for instance, are cheap to produce and sell very well, and so will remain at the core of meta's business model.

@buermann Is there a mainstream source of information or news that you consider trustworthy?

josh buermann Dec 13, 2023

The top content in Meta's networks are not mainstream sources but Shapiro, Bongino, the Occupy Democrat twins, and a long tail of desperate 'influencers', none of whom have any editorial standards let alone editors. The corporation is at odds with mainstream sources and suppress them if they don't cough up the dough for promotional traffic, while whitelisting popular misinformation hubs from moderation to farm the clicks.

@buermann And this is exactly why being able to access Threads accounts from Fedi is so interesting.

Say I have a news source I trust like the Los Angeles Times, or individual journalists who write for that organization. From Fedi, I can choose to follow those sources and interact with them, without dealing with the rest of that dreck.

I wish those outlets would come here. But if they don't, It'd still be cool to choose to have that material in my timeline.

josh buermann Dec 14, 2023

That would be a distinct benefit. I don't know why the flagship lefty rags haven't kept a presence here while continuing to supporting traffic on xitter when they could trivially follow the LA Times' example of cross-posting everywhere.

https://press.coop/@latimes

Los Angeles Times :press: (@[email protected])

700 Posts, 0 Following, 1.47K Followers · News from a West Coast perspective. ( feed imported by https://press.coop )

press.coop

@buermann One stated reason is that the culture here was so anticorporate that it prevented useful engagement. And I saw it happen—to say nothing of the normal Fedi scolds about how to present content. It's exhausting, and for minimal benefit for those outlets

josh buermann Dec 14, 2023

The minimal benefit for leftwing outlets would be helping community controlled social media become a viable alternative for their followers so they could keep some faint hope alive of taking the keys back from Zuckerberg Inc's genocide algorithms.

How could the "I demand you put content warnings on all political posts" folks that can't figure out the mute button be any worse than a sea of bargain basement brownshirt bluecheck trolls being promoted to the top of all your replies?

@buermann Okay first of all, I hope we're not including the LA Times in "leftwing outlets." But anyway.

It's not so much that it's worse, but maybe just as annoying plus dealing with all the other weird nuances of using Fedi, like choosing an instance, navigating fediblocks, maybe even running an instance, convincing readers to look there...it is more than most outlets bargained for from social media.

josh buermann Dec 14, 2023

Oh no, the LAT floats from one billionaire's pocket to another. Present ownership seems like an improvement over either the predator Sam Zell or mercenary Heath Freeman.

"convincing readers to look there"

I'm only arguing for a minimum maintenance presence here so when people do take a look around they don't immediately leave due to their conspicuous absence, surrendering opportunity after opportunity to build something better whenever the silos take another piss on their users.

Radieschen Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart I've been trying to wrap my head around this and maybe camp 1 should defederate from any instance that federates with Threads. Maybe it's better to have a clear gap instead of a weird gap.

@radieschen That gap would be yawning, though. Doing a second-order defed would knock out a massive amount of the Fediverse.

Radieschen Dec 13, 2023

@mttaggart It depends on how many would defederate from Threads.

I just think it can lead to really weird situations because a conversation might have a different vibe depending on which platform people look at it.

Let's imagine Bob's instance is federated with Threads, which is Mallory's home instance. Bob posts something, and Mallory and some of his friends post toxic replies. Alice's instance is not federated with Threads, so Alice will not see the toxic content itself. But people on Bob's instance will somehow indirectly react to it, by referencing it or just picking up a different tone themselves. Alice will only see part of the conversation and be like "wow, people are weird today".

Am I missing something or is that what it might look like? Maybe it's not such a big deal and I guess it's already a problem on the Fediverse today.

I think Threads will have some influence even on instances that are not directly federated and I kinda have a need for a non-commercial Fediverse.

falun Dec 14, 2023

@mttaggart That last bit is impressive because I didn't think it was actually possible to make it more confusing.

In that regard it's a laudable achievement.

@mttaggart personally I find that there's still value in federation with Threads. Even if you make it a "limited" federation, at least it gives users the choice if they want to see content there or not.

There are going to be government agencies, news agencies and other organizations would establish themselves on whatever platform that they believe is where the mainstream is. As much as we constantly make noise to have them come to the fediverse or "Mastodon", that's not where your average users are as much as we try to say otherwise. Most people are on either Threads or Twitter for microblogging, for the most part. Other platforms are still niche.

These organizations still provide vital information about local communities and safety information, no matter how problematic the platforms themselves can be, there's still valuable information there.

@deltatux This is essentially my position, but with the understanding that for a huge chunk of Fedi, that will simply be unpalatable. and that to achieve this, I may have to move to my own instance.

@mttaggart ya, I get why they make their stance to oppose federation but at the same time, it's my understanding that a lot of flagship or "major" instances are open to federating. The main Mastodon instances (Mastodon.social & Mastodon.online) seems to signal in the past that they're open to federation. Right now I'm seeing that pixelfed's creator is actively playing with the only Threads account that's being federated right now (in its limited capacity).

Not sure what Jerry's thoughts are regarding Threads federation. I know some regional instances are either open to federating or open to limiting/unlisting Threads so it won't flood the public/instance timeline but still give people the choice to see Threads content if they so choose to.

Personally tried running my own instance, even with running Akkoma which is quite lightweight for single user instances, I can't even find the time to keep up with sysadmining these days because life lol. So I'm hoping the instances I'm on are open to federating with Threads (either fully open or even limited/unlisted is good too).

@deltatux Untagging Jerry because the poor guy has made his stance clear enough on other posts, but yeah you and I are on the same page here.

@mttaggart ah ok, I think I might have missed it, so was he for it, open to limiting or not looking to federate?

@deltatux infosec.exchange/@jerry/111575098089860174

Jerry Bell :verified_paw: :donor: :verified_dragon: :rebelverified: (@[email protected])

I have threads silenced on Infosec.exchange, .town, and fedia.social. That means people here won’t see stuff from threads, but you have the option to follow and interact or outright block the threads instance. There are some, though, that are hyper opposed and not finding that to be sufficient. Hypothetically speaking, if I were to create another instance that did hard block threads (activitypub, DNS, firewall, etc), would what would be the type of instance would you like to see? [ ] Mastodon vanilla [ ] Mastodon+glitch [ ] Iceshrimp [ ] Something else (comment) [ ] You are dead to me for not yeeting threads into the sun

Infosec Exchange

@mttaggart ah thanks so much, good to see that it was recently addressed, thanks!

@mttaggart @deltatux On the same page here too. I like the ability to follow somebody if they chose to be on Threads. But I also don't want to see the volume of noise that Threads generates drowning out everything else. It is nice to be able to keep up with something there without needing to be subjected to having a Meta account or seeing ad’s and such other promoted things (do they do that there? No idea honestly, but I assume so.)