What does defederating from Meta's Threads.net actually accomplish? (lemmy.one)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Kurt@lemmy.one to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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Afaik, whenever an Activitypub instance has defederated from another it has always had to do with some combination of bad user behavior, poor moderation, and/or spam. Are the various instance admins who have decided to preemptively block threads.net simply convinced that these traits will be inevitable with it? Is it more of a symbolic move, because we all hate Meta? Or is the idea to just maintain a barrier (albeit a porous one) between us and the part of the Internet inhabited by our chuddy relatives?

(For my part, I'm working on setting up my own Lemmy and/or Pixelfed instance(s) and I do not currently intend to defederate.)

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[-] Kichae@kbin.social 44 points 1 year ago

Anything that lands on Meta's servers is open for Meta's use, however they see fit. Providing free training data for their algorithms just isn't something everyone here is ok with.

Many of us are here consciously because we're anti-corporate exploitation, not merely because our previous hangout spot fucked around, and Meta is king shit of corporate exploitation, and we want nothing to do with anything that's helping them.

[-] etrotta@kbin.social 14 points 1 year ago

If by algorithms you mean things like GPT, all data on the fediverse is effectively public and arguably even easier to be collected than the likes of reddit, and is almost definitely going to be used to train models whenever or not the fediverse federates with threads.
There's still significance in defederating though, specially when it comes to preventing "Embrace, extend, and extinguish"

[-] Kichae@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

Being publicly viewable doesn't make it public domain. We each maintain our copyright. Our posts are our personal intellectual property.

We can't stop them from using them, but that doesn't make them theirs, and it doesn't mean we should just hand them over freely.

If they're going to use them, they can at least make the effort to take them.

[-] Standingcat@feddit.fun 0 points 1 year ago

2032: did you or a loved one use lemmy? If so you might be entitled to a settlement.

[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago

Providing free training data for their algorithms just isn't something everyone here is ok with.

Defederating from Meta changes nothing in this regard.

[-] Kichae@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago

They can take. That doesn't mean we need be ok with giving. Just because they're ok with theft IP doesn't mean we need to be ok with them doing it.

[-] FaceDeer@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

What "IP theft"? By using a service built on ActivityPub you are inherently and deliberately broadcasting your posts to the public. Meta has just as much right to read those posts as I do.

[-] BNE@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 1 year ago

I'd counterpoint by saying that Meta isn't a person - up its not really a apples-to-apples comparison here. They're trying to get in here to make money. Pure and simple. I'd wager we aren't - we're here hour community.

Our wants and needs are opposed, that's why I'm not comfortable with letting them commercialise/monopolise whatever they want - especially somewhere that could offer us a more healthy online experience and upset their business model long term.

[-] farcaller@fstab.sh 3 points 1 year ago

Isn’t it subject to the same GDPR rules that the whole of fediverse pretends they don’t exist? All it takes is asking facebook what they have on you and unlike some “depersonalized” identifier you can ask for your data based on the activitypub id. It's actually much easier to go after a big corp with such a request as opposed to some random mastodon or lemmy instance.

[-] Gashole711@lemmy.world 12 points 1 year ago

There's a reason Meta can't operate Threads in Europe. They don't abide by the GDPR.

[-] farcaller@fstab.sh 1 points 1 year ago

I’m pretty sure the parent company knows how to deal with GDPR between facebook, whatsapp, and instagram. Whatever issues they faced in EU (most probably the EU's Digital Markets Act) isn’t directly related to GDPR, because if it was for GDPR compliance alone I guarantee they'd be in the appstore by this evening.

[-] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Pretty sure

Meta ordered to suspend Facebook EU data flows as it’s hit with record €1.2BN privacy fine under GDPR

The EDPB found that Meta IE’s [Ireland’s] infringement is very serious since it concerns transfers that are systematic, repetitive and continuous.

[-] farcaller@fstab.sh 2 points 1 year ago

That's a great example! I am actually aware of this case. Mind that the article quotes:

Meta’s sanction is for breaching conditions set out in the pan-EU regulation governing transfers of personal data to so-called third countries (in this case the US) without ensuring adequate protections for people’s information.

And we discuss the GDPR in the context of the data requests retrieval in here. So you’re absolutely correct in that they suck about following it to the letter, but I don’t think this particular one applies to this discussion.

[-] breadsmasher@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

meta abide privacy laws

you funny

[-] farcaller@fstab.sh 3 points 1 year ago

I would suggest you to sent a GDPR request to facebook (if you’re in a position to be covered by GDPR and have a facebook account) and to your lemmy instance (being lemmy.world).

Facebook will have a bunch more data on you, undoubtedly, but it will take no time for them to process the request.

Lemmy? Good luck with that. First try finding their privacy page and see what data they actually collect on you. Whom they send it to process. Try reaching the admins maybe? Lemmy has no tooling whatsoever to help with that so they will have to get their hands dirty with postgresql, too.

I like fb no more than anyone in this thread but let's be realistic. They do have a much better story of complying with GDPR specifically than anything in fediverse.