The arguments I’ve heard about tracking etc are misguided and don’t understand the actual risks.
Firstly, posts on the fediverse are already likely being consumed by advertising platforms like Facebook & Google. It would be trivial for big tech companies to setup relays that act as scrapers.
Secondly, the value in platform’s tracking individuals is for advertising. There is no mechanism for these platforms to identify you browsing the we if your instance federated with threads. Your instance won’t share cookie sessions etc with threads. It doesn’t increase your exposure.
Thirdly, these platforms have the know how to deal with spam and they will be incentivised to share that tech with other federated instances.
Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is an evil company. But I haven’t heard a decent argument as to why them joining the fediverse is a bad thing. We always have the option to defederate in the future.
Change my mind.
Basically this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
First they will add loads of new users and become the dominant instances. Then, they will add their own proprietary features that other instances cannot support. Finally, their extensions become the new de-facto standard, marginalizing the original implementations.
Since Meta has proven itself to be an evil company that does not act in good faith, it is better to not federate with them from the start.
Exactly this. In a federated network, the instance with the majority of users could dictate the protocol, forcing the smaller issues to continually adapt or die. See this post for a very real example of this.
But why do the current lemmy instances have to die if facebook decides to make ActivityPub+goldextra? We’ll just stay on our branch, maybe lose a few users who should know better. Facebook isn’t even making use of ActivityPub’s federation anyway, which is why we are here.
I’m actually afraid that they won’t defederate at some point but find some way to track the activities of the federated servers.
Becsuse you don’t move to the next phase until you reach a milestone. The embrace is the first step, to convert a small percentage of users of the original platform. Once you have those, you extend your features to have those users recruit more users to that specific instance or implementstion, since they are more feature-rich or stable or whatever. Then once you have a critical point of users on your instance, you defederate from all others and develop your walled garden which now has all the users and the content.
That instance will have all the users I don’t wanna read about. So I don’t care. Create another instance if they gobbled yours and move on. I’m an ex redditor, do I want another corporation to rule over me? Nah, thanks.
I was gonna say that I never expected or wanted lemmy/mastodon to become mainstream anyway, far from it. And like dual-booting linux and windows, there are just some things I won’t abdicate in favour of convenience or having more followers/software or being on a platform with more market power.
But you know what, it’s a spectrum, from the volunteer/libre-heavy to the hideous proprietary tyrannies:
??? > FOSS > wikipedia > reddit > google > microsoft > twitter > facebook > ???
Maybe if we are able to accommodate a large fraction of the mod community of reddit and let the flexibility of federated diversity and “3rd-party apps” flourish against facebook’s top-down approach we might create a wikipedia-like oasis…
But probably not, because there is too much money to make in appmaking rather than written content creation.
Yup, exactly this for me too. Been done a thousand times before by companies like them. Plus the fact that the fediverse is not run by any company is just really nice - we don’t need them.
Thanks for explaining it. Good job.
Even if they do go through with that and become bloated, doesn’t that just mean the fediverse’s userbase will be back where we started? Mastodon’s ceo/founder seems to agree
Doesn’t bother me much honestly, I’d rather be able to follow some of my favourite artists on Threads from the comfort of Mastodon/Lemmy, even if that’s only until Threads goes downhill.
No, because when (not if) Threads goes downhill they will have become the dominant platform with all the users and special communities (just like Reddit was and still is). I want Lemmy to become that platform, not Threads. The whole idea is not to be beholden to yet another corporate techbro overlord.
Until I’ve read your comment I always thought that I would be a good idea but now I’m all against it.
No amount of extension will force instances to change. I think your point assumes instance owners will want to have access to those users from threads for some reason.
I would only be worried about the EEE thing if meta assigned a team of developers to work on the Lemmy codebase full time.
Meta has blown 10’s of Billions on the their failed metaverse and you’re wondering if they will have a team of devs on Lemmy? They already do - it will start with the protocol first, not the UI, but you’ll start seeing PRs there too.
You’re probably right, we need to borrow the Linux model with some ahole at the top cutting out crap before it takes over.
No offense Linus, love your work.
Facebook is currently the social media defacto standard. Instances can always defederate in the future. The EEE argument doesn’t fit in this situation.
Microsoft was the standard when the phrase was coined
You forgot the biggest concern that people have.
Remember that Meta’s strategy has always been to buy out or kill competitors before they grow too big. This time, when the competitor is immune to normal methods, they’re all so friendly and cooperative. Why the complete 180, did they suddenly turn good?
Please read this: https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Is your mind changed?
No, because they can’t buy the fediverse. We’re immune as we can defederate at anytime.
I appreciate what you’re saying though. This smells like Facebook it’s realizing where the future of social media is and they want to be a part of it. The difference this time is that they can’t own the social media.
Edit: typo
I’m gonna try just a bit more.
Meta can’t buy the fediverse, like Google couldn’t buy XMPP. XMPP userbase was consumed regardless. My main point is that if allowed to grow into the largest or one of the largest instances, Meta has the ability to cause a lot of damage.
What can they do? They might add new features, such as custom reactions, or new types of post embeds, or something. Developers now have to choose between having broken posts, or trying to catch up Zuckerberg’s nonstandards, like if it were the browser wars.
When the average user sees broken posts or can’t follow their favourite people anymore because of defederation, they just have a reason to move to a better instance (Threads or some other instance that hasn’t defederated). Defederation works if done early. If it’s done too late, only the hardcore Meta haters will be left.
That’s the worst case. Given their track record, they will use an opportunity to backstab us. I don’t know what I will say if people just let Meta pull an EEE that everyone saw from a mile away. In any case, I consider Meta a massive risk for not much benefit (do we even want a wave of Meta users?).
When the average user sees broken posts or can’t follow their favourite people anymore because of defederation, they just have a reason to move to a better instance.
This is where I think the EEE argument falls apart. Facebook, Instagram, & Twitter are all currently defederated instances with far better features and more people to follow and interact with. The EEE argument doesn’t affect the existing fediverse users. Maybe if Twitter federated there would be users moving between Facebook Threads and Twitter but not from the existing fediverse.
I’m a bit late, sorry.
I disagree with that. A large defederation would make an impact, which I think would cause some loss of the growing portion of normal people here.
I guess for the final thoughts I’ll ask, how much do you trust Facebook/Meta here? I said this before, but I consider them a risk not worth taking.
I don’t trust Facebook at all. But firstly, what we’re building needs to be resilient to bad actors. Secondly, it’s not a zero sum game, something can be beneficial for Facebook and the fediverse. Thirdly, let’s be honest, no one that is currently on Mastodon is ever going to migrate to threads. And something like Threads is the only way most people would join the fediverse. You can hate Facebook and still think that Threads may be beneficial for the fediverse, they’re not mutually exclusive positions.
Sorry, but I think you’re missing the main point.
The risk is not to be tracked, the issues is Eembrace, extend, and extinguish (EEE): https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
They are currently competing with Twitter and Bluesky, they just need users to kickstart their new platform. That’s where the fediverse comes in. All Meta has to do is to convince the instances to give them users.
Meta has a lot of money to throw at UX, they will design a better one than Mastodon. Their instance will also be more reliable (since they have money for lots of computational resources). This will allow them to spread their influence on the fediverse (so that people follow others on Threads), growing up to be the largest instance, and then just defederate from everyone else to “stop spam”. People will then move to Threads so they keep following their friends there (because their friends signed up for meta, since it was all compatible anyway).
And only then, they will start to harvest data and put ads in front of you.
While I agree with all of that, I wonder if it’s not a good thing regarding users.
Lemmy right now feels like the reddit I joined a decade ago, content and user wise.
And these are the people I want to interact with. While reddit today, like Facebook and Twitter, have a very large user group I don’t want to interact with. Mostly memes and boomer talk, nothing original.
Not sure if I understand…
Wouldn’t that mean you’d prefer the fediverse to be separate from Meta as well?
But that’s not all Reddit has; think of the more niche communities, like DIY, knitting, rock climbing, game-specific subs, basically anything hobby-related. Also many of the city-related communities. Those are the places people here generally miss from Reddit, and those are the places where Meta will try to make their community the largest, and will use to pull people to their instances.
Like yeah, losing /r/trebuchetmemes is no great loss. But there are other communities where the larger userbase is beneficial, and losing those is a great loss.
Agreed.
And I was hoping to get away from all the memes and boomer blaming…
Boomers do deserve a lot of blame lol
Which boomers? All of them?
Anyone who supported reagan or trump basically.
The “user kick start” argument is interesting and not something I had heard. The fediverse does have active users which is valuable for growing a social media platform. However, Facebook would only need to convert 0.1% of it’s users to the new threads and it would drawf the fediverse. So I’m not sure of that’s their angle.
It’s still a free userbase that they didn’t have to grow.
They might not go down that route if they are successful from the beginning to establish a community. But they are still competing with Twitter and Bluesky, so they probably approached the instance admins to get an insurance that there would be activity from the start.
The last thing they want is to be the next Google+ (which they managed to beat). You have to guarantee buzz from the very beginning. After the metaverse flop, they cannot afford another one.
Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth XMPP the Wise? It’s not a story the Corpos would tell you.
these platforms have the know how to deal with spam and they will be incentivised to share that tech with other federated instances.
Based on what? These private companies aren’t going to share anything because they owe it to their shareholders not to.
I dont think any of your points are wrong, it’s just the association with Facebook people are anti. The fediverse has a great reputation for being completely removed from profit motive driven mega corporations. Facebook joining is gonna make people question the fediverse is my understanding.
I just wanted to chime in here and add this lame-assed meme template to things we should retire in the fediverse.
Aaron Crowder is a bigoted chode, and using him for your meme template only undercuts whatever point you want to make.
Find a new meme for this purpose. Let’s do better.
I have no idea who Aaron Crowder is. Do you have a suggestion for a better meme template?
The Lisa Simpson presentation meme is perfectly cromulent for soapboxing.
But if you didn’t know, Aaron Crowder is a right-wing Fox News presenter and commentator (he often hides under the dubious label of “comedian”) who has been booted from YouTube several times for homophobic and racist content. The meme format is okay in itself, but I’d love to not see his smarmy mug in it.
The great thing about memes is anyone can make a new one. I eagerly await the replacement for this one, which to my nose has gotten quite stale.
I believe he’s Steven Crowder, not Aaron, just a quick heads up.
I’ve been around long enough to see many projects be extinguished.
To your first point, these companies essentially have infinite money compared to you, me, everyone combined on Mastodon. They can and will figure out a way to track you across servers and they will figure out how to exploit that. Cookies weren’t supposed to be used for tracking they way they are, but the money hoarders figured out how to exploit them. Browser fingerprinting wasn’t a thing, but it can now be used to track you. How you type and how you speak online can be used to ID you.
If you think that Facebook is willing to share anything, I just don’t agree. Facebook will create Threads, they’ll put it on the Fediverse, they’ll align, then eventually they’ll start building features that Mastodon, Lemmy, etc refuse to or literally can’t or won’t have the time to do, and then they’ll start selling how they’re so much better and you should come join them, or they’ll say they’re more secure, or they’ll just smear the others. People will flock to the new and better, because hey it’s still on the Fediverse and open, eventually they’ll close it off and strangle the life out of the Fediverse. I’ll still be on the Fediverse, but these platforms are all about content. If people stop showing up, they can still exist, but they’re basically useless. It’s happened before, it’ll happen again.
Facebook has open sourced loads of their internal tools, for instance PrestoDB. Open sourcing their internal tools is an advantage for Facebook as they get contributions from other developers. Fediverse tooling would fit this model.
Open sourcing internal tools is completely different to open sourcing your product. Companies aren’t trying to sell their internal tools, so open sourcing them can often save money that they’d otherwise have to spend supporting them themselves. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is the concern, and it seems pretty likely that Facebook will try and take over the Fediverse by luring people in with propriety features.
Facebook will do what’s best for Facebook. If Facebook joins the Fediverse then sharing tools to reduce spam will benefit Facebook. So I predict that Facebook would share such tooling.
Embrace, Extend, Extinguish is the concern, and it seems pretty likely that Facebook will try and take over the Fediverse by luring people in with propriety features
I don’t understand this argument. Who do you think would be lured from Mastodon to Facebook Threads? Is there a feature that Facebook could introduce that would make you consider moving to Facebook? I can’t think of one.
Well we don’t know what those features are yet, otherwise people would already be trying to implement them! It could be anything though, maybe the servers are just much faster, maybe the UI is more slick, maybe they’re the first to implement a load of the features we like from RES, maybe they sell you some extra content for that vendor lock-in. Whatever it is, if they implement it in an unfriendly and/or incompatible way, they start a schism with the rest of the Fediverse; if they’re sneaky and wait until they’ve already got their claws in before doing this then they take a chunk of the more casual users with them.
All this isn’t guaranteed to happen, but it seems relatively likely and therefore something people should be prepared to deal with!
maybe the servers are just much faster, maybe the UI is more slick, maybe they’re the first to implement a load of the features we like from RES, maybe they sell you some extra content for that vendor lock-in
They already do this though, it’s called Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. That’s why the EEE argument doesn’t make sense. The distinguishing features people keep talking about already exisit in a wall garden yet Mastodon has users. The features that Mastodon users want is freedom and control. Threads can’t compete with that but Threads can introduce millions of users to the concept of federation.
these platforms have the know how to deal with spam
Lol they have the know how to generate spam.
Remember how Facebook bought Oculus and people thought it was gunna be great because VR was finally getting really strong financial backing but they ended up just making their own VR walled garden that requires you to sign in with a facebook account and you are only able to selectively play with PCVR players if they allow it on their app store?
How is this relevant? Meta isn’t buying the fediverse
Facebook didnt buy the entirety of VR either. But they did fracture the userbase and if you cant spend so much on VR you’re stuck buying into metas walled garden now (Reverb lacks fundamental features) This sorta ground is what Meta is going to go for. They are going to target the largest, most manipulatable audience (which is a lot on here) and swallow them
But they obviously don’t have consumers’ best interests and rights at heart or even care about them for that matter, which they’ve demonstrated time and time again
They are anything but benign and I don’t think anything good can come from their involvement
Just the fact that they will bring so many users to the fediverse through their own locked down platform is a problem in itsself, bad intent or not because it destroys the decentralisation if there are millions of users all on one instance belonging to one company
Facebook is evil. But the fediverse should be resilient to evil bad actors, no matter who they are.
But if they see potential profit in harming, whether directly or indirectly, it they will likely take that opportunity
Yes but the fediverse needs to be resilient enough to deal with bad actors. It’s a probably that needs to be solved for the fediverse to grow, we should run towards the challenges instead of from them.
The one thing I would worry about is that a massive deluge of content from Meta would drown out anything else from Lemmy, and would effectively reduce Lemmy to just a client for interacting with Meta. Unless an individual could block Meta specifically (or any one instance) it would effectively kill the All category.
Also would the flood of new traffic make it impossible for individuals to bear the cost of small instances?
That’s just what I think anyway. I’m not totally against federating with them, but very skeptical.
I think this comic does a good job of illustrating one of the the issues. Facebook’s business model is getting people to use their platform, then trapping them there and squeezing them for money. The Oatmeal - Reaching people
There was a similar thing about Apple using the “blue messages” to socially exclude anyone using a different brand of phone - but I can’t find it just now
You can’t put Facebook and positive in the same sentence.
I agree that Facebook is an evil company. But there are instances when Facebook does good things, like open sourcing PrestoDB. Facebook only does good things when it benefits them. I’m arguing that this may be an instance where the Facebook and the fediverse align.
I’ll give you an ELI5 answer:
Have you ever been playing with your same age friends and then a bunch of older kids come by and ask to join? You say yes and then they take over the field and ball and start playing the game they want and dominate the play. Pretty soon it’s the older kids’ game and you’re sitting on the sidelines.
We should stop calling them Meta. You cant just change your name and pretend like nothing happened. Fuck em
Nice try Zucc. This just makes me want to defederate Threads even more.
You got me :( I even used ChatGPT to try and sound more human - Zuck
