this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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Fediverse

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A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.

Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".

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"Threads is deepening its ties to the fediverse, also known as the open social web, which powers services like X alternative Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Flipboard and other apps. On Wednesday, Meta announced that users on Threads will be able to see fediverse replies on other posts besides their own. In addition, posts that originated through the Threads API, like those created via third-party apps and scheduling services, will now be syndicated to the fediverse. The latter had previously been announced via an in-app message informing users that API posts would be shared to the fediverse starting on August 28."

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[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 73 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Daily reminder to defederate from and block threads.net (and optionally all instances that do not do the same).

[–] haui_lemmy@lemmy.giftedmc.com 40 points 2 months ago

Exactly. Proudly presented by https://fedipact.veganism.social/ and https://fedipact.online/why among others.

You can read the human rights abuses that meta is facilitating above.

[–] admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 18 points 2 months ago (1 children)

So... Instances like lemmy.world, that this is posted to?

yes, I'm federated with them as well, but shit like this is why I dislike them being so big. In the end all the smaller instances can either have strong morals and integrity, or have access to the largest amount of content in the fediverse, but not both.

[–] Boomkop3@reddthat.com 1 points 2 months ago

It's going to take some effort to have the necessary restrictions while also denying the "help" from major orgs in developing the software

[–] flancian@social.coop 7 points 2 months ago (2 children)

@Dirk @xelar thanks for your view, question: defederating with threads seems reasonable, but why would you defederate "second level" like this? I ask as the instance I'm in decided not to defederate with threads for now and I'm personally OK with that.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago (3 children)

A is defederated from Threads, but federates with B. And B federates with Threads. Now Meta can cash out on your data via B.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 29 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Now Meta can cash out on your data via B.

Everything we're posting is public, anyone can cash in on it regardless of who you defederate.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Everyone can break into my house regardless of having a key or not. I still don't have my key delivered to them.

[–] DarkDarkHouse@lemmy.sdf.org 19 points 2 months ago

Everyone can break into the park you visit and talk to people at

[–] heluecht@pirati.ca 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

@flancian @Dirk Threads has about 200 million monthly users, 33 million daily users. The fediverse has just under 1 million monthly users. Do you really think that 0.5% has any relevance to Meta?

Also: What data do you think Meta will be able to use - and for what? They can't use this data to serve you ads, simply because they don't know you. They can't track you around the web because you don't have a Meta account.

[–] Dirk@lemmy.ml 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Threads has about 200 million monthly users, 33 million daily users. The fediverse has just under 1 million monthly users. Do you really think that 0.5% has any relevance to Meta?

Do you really think they would care about those users when they extend and extinguish the Fediverse?

[–] heluecht@pirati.ca 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

@Dirk How should they achieve it? The Fediverse contains of a lot of different systems that offer so much more than Threads could ever do.

[–] bilb@lem.monster 3 points 2 months ago

Nobody can ever explain how EEE could work in this scenario. They just parrot it and stop thinking.

[–] copygirl@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I don't think that's how it works and it would likely not be legal. By explicitly blocking Threads, you make a big statement about not wanting your instance's posts to show up there. Also from a technical standpoint, I don't think a "middle-man" instance will push posts from another instance to a third one. You'd have to explicitly scrape data that's not available via the API. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[–] Kraiden@kbin.earth 5 points 2 months ago

The fediverse is too new and niche to say that with certainty.

The legality is likely untested and certainly not enforced by pubspec yet.

I don't know enough to speak to the technicalities with certainty, but my surface level understanding is that that is exactly how it works, and it is one of the known flaws of the fediverse as it currently exists.

You might be making a statement, but server B is just a node and, frankly, doesn't care. If you federate with them, you federate with everyone they federate with as well.

It's uncomfortably like an STD in that regard.

[–] flancian@social.coop 3 points 2 months ago

@copygirl @Dirk yes, I also get the feeling this would not work in a compliant setup but it seems like a good idea to test this in e.g. a federation test suite.

Maybe @evanprodromou would know how this should work, or would know of someone who might be testing this kind of scenario.

[–] muzzle@lemm.ee 1 points 2 months ago

It's a way to force your morals on the others.

[–] Rubisco@slrpnk.net 31 points 2 months ago (2 children)
[–] JetpackJackson@feddit.org 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Who's the artist of the image? I like the art style

Also the scared Lemmy and mastodon :( I feel bad for them

[–] khaleer@sopuli.xyz 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] JetpackJackson@feddit.org 6 points 2 months ago

Oh sick I didn't realize it was his work, nice, thank you!

[–] troed@fedia.io 12 points 2 months ago (2 children)

It's awesome that Threads federate with Mastodon. I follow several accounts on Threads I otherwise wouldn't be able to, just as I bridge with Bluesky.

Me federating with Threads makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to what they could or could not do with my data.

[–] Kraiden@kbin.earth 34 points 2 months ago (3 children)

No. Threads federation should be treated the same way as a wolf joining a "sheep's right to not be eaten" meeting. Deeply unsettling, highly suspicious, and troubling. Facebook does NOT want the fediverse to succeed, and any claim to the contrary is fucking sus.

[–] oxjox@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Other than general assumptions and track-record and being a business that sells user data, is there any actual evidence or clear and present ways that Meta could do harm to the Fediverse / its users?

All I've read is that it seems suspicious and we shouldn't trust them. I totally agree with that but I'd like someone to give some examples of what they could do as a member of the network. I've read how they could post advertising – how would that work?

I ask because, like the previous comment, the idea of following people from other, more popular, federated platforms from the comfort and security of "open source" (?) platforms is appealing. At the same time, if this is leaving me and my platform vulnerable to something specific, I'd like to either proceed with caution or not proceed at all.

The biggest loss for me when leaving Twitter was losing access to so much happening in my community and local news and government organizations. They're all still posting on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and not moving to the open social web. More and more are moving to Threads though so it would be nice to maintain / regain exposure.

[–] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The basic idea is that a huge company with infinite money creates software that supports an open standard, such as Threads. Next they spend significant amounts of money driving users to their software, rather than an open software equivalent. Once they've captured a huge percent of all users of the open standard, they abandon the open standard, going with a proprietary one instead. They'll make up some new feature to justify this and sell it as a positive. Because they control almost all of the users at this point, many of the users they don't control will decide to switch over to their software, otherwise the value of the open standard drops significantly overnight for them. What's left is a "dead" open standard that still technically exists but is no longer used. You can find plenty of past examples of this pattern, such as Google and XMPP.

[–] oxjox@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Sorry, but that makes no sense at all. Why go through all that trouble when they’ve already accomplished the end goal you’ve outlined?

[–] a1studmuffin@aussie.zone 5 points 2 months ago

To kill any competition and ensure they retain control over future standards. Money. It's pretty straightforward.

[–] HKayn@dormi.zone 4 points 2 months ago

XMPP didn't die, so why would the Fediverse?

[–] troed@fedia.io 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That's your opinion. It's problematic when people conflate their gut feelings for facts.

[–] Hadriscus@lemm.ee 5 points 2 months ago

There's quite a bit more than a gut feeling here. Meta is a malignant cancer and having nothing to do with it while promoting the fediverse is the wisest course of action.

[–] xelar@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Theres no balance when one instance floods the whole network with millions of users. Soon people will mean that "threads" is whole "fediverse" .

[–] troed@fedia.io 4 points 2 months ago (2 children)

ActivityPub is pull, not push. Threads isn't pushing anything into my feeds.

[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] troed@fedia.io 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] davel@lemmy.ml 5 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] troed@fedia.io 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)
[–] admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Well, that convinced me. Thanks for your insight on the matter, I now know how to value the rest of your comments.

[–] admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

troed:

It's problematic when people conflate their gut feelings for facts.

Also troed:
I understand activitypub better than creator of Lemmy

[–] troed@fedia.io 1 points 2 months ago

What has argument from authority to do with facts?

You only get posts from those you subscribe to. That's the "pull" part.

[–] admin@lemmy.my-box.dev 2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I thought it was push after subscription.

[–] troed@fedia.io 1 points 2 months ago

Well sure - but you need to actively subscribe (e.g. pull).

[–] VolumetricShitCompressor@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Fuck the Zucc

This won't affect the Fedipact instances like dbzer0, right?

[–] DoucheBagMcSwag@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 months ago

Nope. But world agreed to it and this could hurt the fediverse in the overall since world is the majority

[–] beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 months ago

Embrace, extend, extinguish.

[–] vzq@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 2 months ago

But why?

Simply put, there aren’t a lot of us, we don’t like them, and we aren’t particularly nice people, even to people we don’t dislike a priori.

It seems like a poor business decision.

[–] istanbullu@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 months ago

The largest social media operator in the world had to adopt open source concepts and ActivityPub in order to compete. I see this as a huge win.