Admins are in agreement that we don't want federation with Meta.
I don't see us currently federating with them - https://lemmy.ca/instances
We'll make sure it stays that way! I've added threads.net to our blocklist.
this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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Great to have an official answer. Thank you!
I decided to sign on here because of this stance. Also I missed the company of my fellow Canucks ;)
Welcome, good to see ya!
Cheers bud! 🍻
Thank you!!
This is great news—thank you!
It would be nice to see a post detailing why you are defederating this instance from threads.net
I know lemmy.world isn't blocking any instances but they aren't federating meta's Threads.net yet.
It would be great if you could explain why threads.net is being blocked.
Because f*ck Meta? Isn't that enough?
Whatever reason they have is enough. But it would be nice if it was stated.
I vote to block them as well. Don't let Meta get its claws on lemmy.ca content or user info.
How is defederating going to help here? I'm genuinely asking. Doesn't that just stop their content from showing on our feeds? It shouldn't affect the amount of user data they can collect which isn't much anyways because we're not using their proprietary software.
My understanding is that people on exploding heads for example can still read these comments too. They just can't reply. Or they can but we don't see their replies. Only the people that federate with them do.
Am I getting something wrong here?
I also dont underetand the tactic.
Couldnt anyone just start a single user instance and gain access that way?
I think only users of that instance see the replies and not even other federated instances with them, since the replication needs to sync with the source (of which none of them can do).
You're absolutely right!
Meta is a threat to the privacy of fediverse users, if there are fediverse instances that remain federated with Meta.
Ross Schulman, senior fellow for decentralization at digital rights nonprofit the Electronic Frontier Foundation, notes that if Threads emerges as a massive player in the fediverse, there could be concerns about what he calls “social graph slurping." Meta will know who all of its users interact with and follow within Threads, and it will also be able to see who its users follow in the broader fediverse. And if Threads builds up anywhere near the reach of other Meta platforms, just this little slice of life would give the company a fairly expansive view of interactions beyond its borders.
https://www.wired.com/story/meta-threads-privacy-decentralization/
I don't know if we are but I think we should. No interest in interacting with facebook in any capacity.
A lot of us just left a site because it was ruined by corporate greed. I don't think corporations belong in the fediverse. If there's a vote, I vote for defedding with Threads.
I think we definitely should.
I, for one, vote in support of defederation from Threads. No reason to allow Meta to use our content to boost engagement on their for-profit platform. And pull users away from places like Lemmy at that.
+1 for defederating
Federation with Meta would significantly increase network traffic and storage costs?
Then Meta would help everyone cope with the extra workload ... then help some more with a few changes .... then offer some new features ... then help with increased usage ... then offer more features ... then push out the smaller instances and take over everything ... then wall off ActivityPub ... then start charging people and advertisers .. then make billions ... then watch users rebel and start a new system and repeat it all again in 10 or 20 years.
ActivityPub is maintained by W3C not mastodon, or lemmy, or other fediverse system. Meta doesn't need federation to push W3C to do what they want
Pretty sure it'd only increase traffic if folks on a fediverse server followed someone on Threads. So unless there's a sudden gigantic flux of fediverse users following Threads users, it shouldn't have a huge near term impact.
I'm confused. Is threads even federated to lemmy? I thought it was more of a mastadon/microblogging thing?
Mastodon, kbin, lemmy and all the other fediverse apps all use the same api, activitypub. This means we can all interact with each other even with very different ui and content goals. Mastodon doesn't interact with lemmy much right now because the uis don't really mesh very well, but it's possible. If you see a post that has @<community name> in it that's a good sign it probably came from mastodon or similar.
That's interesting. I have a mastadon account but I've never used it to try and get on lemmy. I have gone from lemmy to kbin though, even though I have a kbin account also.
Any service which makes use of ActivityPub should be able to federate with other services using the same. Hence why you can see posts from people using kbin. You can usually tell when a mastodon user comments because their reply will start with an @replyingto @originalposter
What are the objectives of defederating?
To protect our data? They can create stealth instances and get the same data. I think we have to accept and be mindful that the things we share on the fediverse can be exploited by people we don't like.
To exclude their users? I understand they have partnered with Namecheap to offer users customized instances with their own domain. Is it even a technical possibility to exclude all their users' instances?
To make a statement? Okay, but then we need to do more than just defederate.
This article has been circulating around the fediverse and I think it greatly illustrates why it's so important to defederate from large corporations before they can get a foothold. It's about so much more than just them getting our data.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
In 2013, Google realised that most XMPP interactions were between Google Talk users anyway.
Isn't this what actually killed XMPP? XMPP still works, is still viable. But everyone stopped using it. That's got more to do with Facebook than Google, imho.
Yes. What they specifically did though was extend the protocol so that anyone who wasn't using their version of XMPP via Google Talk would be incompatible or seem "broken" when it really wasn't. It's just that they were using non-standard features, both incentivizing people to just switch to Google Talk and for development on the core protocol to slow down.
I bet money Threads is going to do the same thing. They'll introduce Threads only features that don't work with all the standard Activitypub implementations, causing frustration with Thread users and putting pressure on people to just jump ship to Threads from standard Activitypub implementations.
Okay, but again... so? That's just defederation. If that's the worst they can do to us.... So? That's also your proposed solution, so what!
I don't see a point in defederating. As long as the only data they get is the content of my posts and votes and replies I don't care. More people in the fediverse strengthens it and splitting up into kingdoms is basically what we have now. Defederation should be done only if being federated is harmful to the users here.
It's more about protecting ActivityPub protocol than anything.
Before we know it, thread will impose its proprietary protocol and the fediverse will simply die with it.
Honestly, I'm not sure if it will happen. Social media is already pretty much corporate world so we will see what will happen.
Okay but how does this protect the protocol? What is the difference between us defederating them, and what you describe which is essentially them defederating us? Why would they bother in the first place, then? I don't really think any of this is about us, but rather about Twitter and Google.
Like, does it endanger the HTTP protocol that we exchange HTTP data with them?
I think it's about keeping the userbase on ActivityPub as much as possible. When meta will start doing ActivityPub and probably change it, everyone will need to follow because Meta will own all the userbase and "subreddit".
At some point, they will decide to drop ActivityPub because it's not good enough for what they want to do. Just like what Google did to XMPP. And maybe Google was right about XMPP, I don't know.
Another reason is what you are saying, a personnal battle against Meta and big corp.
At the end of the day, will anything the fediverse Admin do will matter ? Only time will tell I guess.
One key difference with HTTP is just like TCP. Everyone uses it so it's much harder to just change it and fuck everyone else. ActivityPub is an easier target for this strategy.
I don't see anyone here arguing that this instance should remain federated with Threads. So far it's unanimous that we should defederate from them. I agree. We should keep this separate.
I honestly don't give a shit.
Of course you don't. I'm sure 95% of people don't. Most people don't bother taking a stand on things unless it affects something more substantial like their wallets.
Why should we defederate from threads genuine question? They can’t control us can they? Or is it because it would ruin many instances due to the amount of users posting content on threads resulting in many threads post on home feeds here on Lemmy?
Made an account here because of it; lemmy.world was my first server and I'm fairly against any federation with meta or any tech giant. Tolerance paradox applies here too!
I'm running a small Gotosocial based instance and will be defederating simply because I'm afraid of the bandwidth and general load when like there is 1+ billion new users federating via Threads.
Just wanted to ask, but how do you defederate a non federated platform like threads? Does it just block the website and its links on this instance?
Edit: nevermind apparently they also used ActivityPub so it makes sense. But as a non microblogging website like lemmy that is more like reddit than Twitter, what does defederation mean?
Pretty sure it just simply means content won't cross over in either direction.
I switched from my lemmy.world account to this one because I assumed this instance would defed from meta.
looks like the high and mighty took the bait:
They even federate exploding-heads.com
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