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it could happen to you rule
(lemmy.cafe)
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this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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People keep parroting that Threads will kill us all but won't explain how it could happen to the fediverse. As in, actual steps. Because Flipboard federated and I'm not flooded with news posts. Mastodon is used for Nazi instances and I'm not flooded by Nazi content, even if the maintainer don't block that particular instace due to not knowing it exists.
No, XMP is not a valid example. It requires specific people to be on that specific platform for you to connect with them, like iMessage and WhatsApp. The fediverse is nothing like that.
Can someone explain exactly how EEE will happen? Technically? Other than FUD?
EDIT: thank you all for the replies, there's definitely some good points that are worth considering that I couldn't find elsewhere.
Here's an example I can see happening.
Threads will want to implement post reactions to maintain parity with Facebook. Threads expands the ActivityPub spec to include reactions.
Now, every other instance will not be compatible with reactions. Users complain they cannot see reactions.
Admins have two choices now:
Refuse to implement reactions because they are not part of the spec. Users leave and join threads.
ActivityPub adds reactions to the standard, all instances must now support reactions. Meta has now started dictating the spec.
I feel the XMP fears do have some sentiment, and it's really a matter of how the broad username interprets these issues (including the Thread users which would be family and friends).
I don't think so. There are tons of ActivityPub implementations out there already that don't even support all parts of the official spec (Lemmy can't display attached images, for example). There are also implementations that have tacked on additional functionality beyond the official spec (again, Lemmy's downvotes).
It's a very flexible protocol that allows developers to pick and choose what features they want to implement in their services.
but none are widely used by such a massive amount of people as threads, and especially people who don't understand/care about spec compliance or even how federation works
honestly, i think in the best scenario, threads will create their own activitypub "fork", and most instances won't want to follow it, forcing the people who were on non-threads instances to chose between going to threads to keep in touch with their threads mutuals, or staying on non-threads instances and no longer having a reliable way of keeping in touch with those people.
worst case would be instances following what meta does and making them the spec dictators pretty much, the spec would become closed source and all other fedi implementations would lag behind in features compared to threads, and they can at any point change the spec and break other instances.
i think the point of defederating with threads isn't just the defederation, but is about sending a message that we don't want to play their game, we want to keep doing our things our ways. if they want to interract with the fediverse, they'll have to play by our rules, we don't want to follow theirs
There is an assumption that any changes or additions Threads may make to their implementation of ActivityPub beyond the official spec will break compatibility with other instances. It won't though, that's the point I was trying to make above.
Any additions they may want to make can absolutly be added on top of the existing official spec without breaking compatibility. Lemmy has downvotes but can still read comments and posts by Mastodon users. Mastodon users can post to Lemmy communities. You can see Pixelfed pictures on Kbin. Kbin posts can be read on Misskey. Misskey posts are visible on Mastodon.
All of these services have features that don't exist elsewhere, built outside of the existing spec, but the core content is all interoperable. Anything Threads may want to add can be done without destroying spec compatibility. Sure, they could still make a change that intentionally breaks compatibility, but why would they? Theres nothing in it for them. No one who's here is going to leave just because the Threads users are gone. The Threads users are already absent and we're all still here.
This is the kind of naivety that gets us deepthroated.
If they're "definitely not going to" then they don't need the power to, yes? They should agree to our terms.
I'm only here, specifically here, because communities I liked on Reddit pulled me. Granted, I like it here, but no platform is worth more than its content. If people get used to threads and threads leaves, people will leave with threads.
Ah, so kind of like how one would filter out unwanted messages on a Kafka topic? Makes sense
i just want to point out that, in the same way XMP is not a valid example of EEE, neither is Flipboard a good example of a massive megacorp federating. Flipboard’s algorithms have never incited violence in Myanmar and that makes 100% of the difference.
my concern is not EEE, and I agree that i don’t get why that’s the focus.
my concern is that we are dealing with Meta—an absolutely massive, soulless corporation which has shown dozen upon hundreds of times that it will prioritize the growth of its shareholders’ paycheck well before the afterthought of caring if its algorithms end up wreaking addiction and violence.
call that FUD if you want, i call it learning from well-documented experience.
Again, you're not actually making an argument about meta doing anything to make the fediverse worse than it is, you're not even arguing that metas actions in those other situations are directly applicable and will happen here, you're just saying "look at these bad things that Meta did before, sure other bad things must happen".
That is the literal textbook definition of a FUD argument.
Let's flip this around: Show me a thing that Meta has touched that hasn't turned to shit. Why risk the same fate when we don't have to? What is meta bringing to the table that would warrant foolhardiness on our part?
See the opposite of FUD is naivete, hubris, make-believe, not something one wants to be engaged in either.
I still really enjoy Beat Saber, I think it continues to improve
speaks volumes that a rythm game was the only example we could come up with from a company that has literally billions at its disposal lol
It was just the first thing that came to mind, but I know they also contribute to / fund the Blender Foundation.
Maybe 10k Euro a month, eyeballing from total amount and the fuckton of other donors. Two entry-level developers (blender indeed pays well starting at 58000 Euro p.a.). They should rather take that money and hire some moderators in Myanmar.
Their 2023 report isn't out yet, but "corporate patron" tier members contribute at least €240K/year, which is a not-insignificant amount of Blender's total €2,170,250 in income for 2022 (page 96). According to the same report, they also contribute development work to the Cycles renderer (page 95).
WTH would they develop cycles it's not like they're making movies or such. Or really anything that's not interactive. But yes meta does a lot of open source work in general. Probably should've specified "a product they make money with".
Hmmm page 95 values the EPIC megagrant at 87,540 yet they're in the corporate patron tier, should be platinum.
Don't forget this report is for 2022, not 2023. The grant for 2023 might be closer to the 2021 level since they're back in patron tier. I can only speculate on what their interests in Cycles is, but maybe they use Blender for making ads and such.
I'm sure their open source contributions aren't out of charity though. They're getting a return on their investment somehow, even if only in the things they use the projects for. I think the open source work would be a better comparison for their ActivityPub integration either way though.
Honestly, lots of PC gaming fans are unhappy with Oculus focusing on the broad consumer market, but the Q2/Q3 are genuinely impressive pieces of hardware/software and are the first devices to actually meaningfully push VR even somewhat into the mainstream.
Huh, if only there was an example of Meta existing on a decentralized platform where I could choose to visit them and interact with their stuff but I didn't have to.
Oh huh, would you look at that, turns out this little decentralized network called the worldwide web has been running it this whole time!
But in the scenario of lemmy / mastodon, you only ever interact with your chosen frontend / instance and it only communivates to facebook through activitypub not through the general web standards. Even if facebook were to just embed a bunch of js code as an activitypub text feed, your chosen instance would still have to choose whether or not to render it by default, or to give you the option, or to block it entirely.
It’s like people don’t want to email people with Gmail addresses because Google at some point killed off XMPP*, in fearing that email altogether would be killed off.
That’s a pretty good example actually. React has been a boon to webdev imo, and I love using it. Yarn too.
Don't forget the less sexy stuff like watchman
Waving a pithy saying around in place of an actual argument, doesn't make it any less of a FUD argument. I mean can you even name 14 open source projects that facebook has destroyed? Or just 14 bad vibes you've gotten?
omg you think im pithy ☺️
There's no good product that Meta has ever touched that's been made better after their involvement. Why go for bat for a company that has consistently shown it's goal is to make things worse for the end user?
I'm not going to bat for them, I'm just not spreading FUD and getting whipping myself into a panic over a non issue.
Again, I urge you to stop using FUD generalities like "they have the midas touch of poop, everything they touch turns to poopy", and present an actual grounded explanation of how federating with them will cause an actual problem.
Well look, I don't have enough insight into the design or backend for Lemmy or mastodon, but Facebook has heavily invested into their network, and likely aims to grow.
How could they do that? All of this seems blockable on the client end (meaning I'm not good/shitty enough to work at Facebook) but imagine:
Basically do some scummy behavior using our public statements, questions and comments, all to get more attention devoted to what's happening on their site (and its associated ads).
So what? The Lemmy meme communities make posts way faster and more frequently than any other communities. Did I solve that by demanding my instance admin not federate with those instances or communities? No, I just unsubscribed from them.
And if Threads send encrypted / locked posts to Lemmy that cant be read on Lemmy clients then you just defederate from them then.
So? How does Threads forcing their users to sign in make your experience using Lemmy any worse?
No need for an antagonistic tone here, just conversing with you.
I think this would be a problem now for people like me who enjoy browsing all, where the feed would get overwhelmed by facebook-sourced content.
And I don't like meta as a company, so it shouldn't be a surprise that many people do not want to provide any data whatsoever to them via threads etc.
Except that you're posting publicly and there is absolutely nothing that prevents Meta from scraping all of your lemmy activity as it is.
Precisely my 2nd point.
I thought your second point was ~ 'Lemmy instances shouldn't federate with meta because you don't want them getting your data', not, 'it doesn't matter whether or not we federate because they can scrape that data off Lemmy anyways'.
How could a company that sells data misuse or sell our data? It is the people who are wrong because I am not capable of critical thought
And yet you haven't explained "how", you repeated a few buzzwords. If they want to "steal data" they are able to by simply creating their own instance.
What specifically will they do / can they do, to tank the fediverse?
Others have given technical ways fb can eee, but I'm more concerned about rapid uncontrolled growth and corporate political sanitization.
Say you have a community dedicated to pointing out corporate greed. Your community federates with threads and wow it's really taken off suddenly you have gone from hundreds of up votes to tens of thousands of them. Wow this is great, but huh, why has my post about Facebook only got 3 up votes. Huh why does the word communism spawn a 200 comment chain of alt righters yelling. Why is there an obviously sponsored post at the top. Why is everyone saying "unalived" and using 🍉 instead of 🇵🇸.
I highly highly recommend reading this post: https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
It's just not in their interest to be a normal part of the fediverse. It's in their interest to compete with mastodon. Mastodon is not competitive because it doesn't have billions of dollars in its budget.
EEE works the way it always has. Add features not present in Mastodon that only work on threads. People want those features and join threads, Mastodon users are missing out. Long time Mastodon users create a second Threads account so they can interact properly with their friends, and eventually abandon their old Mastodon account.
I used Mastodon but the same applies to firefish etc, any fediverse technology that will interact with threads. It probably won't impact Lemmy.
I've also yet to see a technical explanation for how defederating would have the slightest effect on hindering whatever plan they have.
Not having to participate in the decline.
Whole point of fediverse was to get away from all that shit, why let them crawl in?