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.)

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] TwilightVulpine@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (4 children)

People are fearful then meta will retract it/ defederate and take the majority of content with it (EEE). This would effectively kill the fediverse.

I don't see how that could possibly happen. It's not like they can buy the Fediverse. Seems to me far more likely that the Fediverse will be gain interest from people wishing to follow/interact with Meta users without being beholden to Meta and if/when Meta decouples from it again the Fediverse will be larger than before. Sure, some may come and go, but others will find interests outside of Meta.

Like everyone is pointing out, they already will be the largest instance. They are not going to gain that much by trying to trying to absorb the rest of people who are likely in the Fediverse from dissatisfaction with Big Tech and wanting to break free from their algorithms and restrictions.

[–] Kill_joy@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I think you're underestimating evil.

Competition is for losers.

[–] TwilightVulpine@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nah, I know they are evil, but I also know that there are things people want that they will never provide because they want full control and an advertiser friendly environment.

Like say, where would NSFW artists be more at ease? The Fediverse or an Instagram offshoot? Especially in the wake of Twitter falling apart.

Let's also not overestimate the scheming of tech tycoons are either. I believe Meta is making a blunder and I don't think we should stop them.

[–] NoneOfUrBusiness@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Let's also not overestimate the scheming of tech tycoons are either. I believe Meta is making a blunder and I don't think we should stop them.

You shouldn't underestimate it either. Even if this isn't their intention now, it's something they could easily do whenever they feel like it, and do you really trust Meta to have that power?

[–] TwilightVulpine@kbin.social 1 points 1 year ago

I don't think it's possible to take down decentralized social media unless it fails by itself, unless the ecosystem here is so completely unappealing people decide to get back to all the well known ills and dullness of Facebook.

Even compared to XMPP, it's not the same. Chat programs are a communication tool. Social platforms are communities.

I am not underestimating them, I don't know why this insistence that I must be. I think people are catastrophizing and spelling doom forgetting that we are seeing tech companies fucking up time after another, and also not giving enough credit to the advantages and potential that we have here.

If you think all it takes is peeking over the fence and the Fediverse will fall apart, the maybe it could never be. But I think the interest in something different will only grow now. I believe we can take users out of Meta instead.

[–] Zorque@kbin.social 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Considering pornographic content isn't allowed on threads... not really much choice in that matter.

[–] TwilightVulpine@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

That's my point though. There are things that will never find a home under Meta's umbrella, so it cannot just take it all over.

[–] ZagTheRaccoon@reddthat.com 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

while it will draw more users into the fediverse, nearly all of them will join directly with threads
users who would have joined other instances will be parasited to threads as the safest best supported option
whatever threads does, other instances will be forced to copy or risk losing feature parity with the most important player in the space.
existing users will get accustomed to the content from threads as occupying the dominant super majority of content on the site.

Threads will essentially be the space, with all currently existing communities left as periphery. Which is very bad on it's own because the decentralized space is no longer decentralized, and in fact is in the hands of Meta.

Meta will eventually wall itself off because not having control of your users social graph is an unnecessary threat. And since they are the space, so they will lose very little by walling off. When they do wall off, the fediverse will have it's communities deeply intermingled with Meta, and when people lose most of their friends and content to meta walling themselves off - most are going to choose to relocate to meta.

Slowly growing the decentralized space organically is important to avoid this kind of stuff. If we allow someone to become the hyper-dominant instance, the principle of de-federation ceases to matter because they have so much controlling leverage over the users.

I do still think this is a good thing, but it's a complicated good thing that could do more damage. I am very worried that they aren't starting off federated. That also means their internal community norms will develop isolated from what fediverse has tried to establish.

[–] TwilightVulpine@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I am extremely skeptical of 2 and 3, because it means people who already decided to drop mainstream social media platforms will go back on their decision, and it suggests that people want instances to be more like Meta, rather than for it to function in a user driven way that provides things that Meta will never be willing to offer.

If people can be tempted off of the Fediverse so easily, the problem is not Meta. Keep in mind that right now people are already choosing not to engage with Facebook. I'm not naive to assume that they won't have appeal and influence and dirty tricks. but seems to me like such a complete lack of faith in the Fediverse to assume that if Meta merely exists alongside the ecosystem, it's inevitable that everyone will jump ship. That sounds like what they wanted was a Big Tech-driven platform all along.

I don't think that's right.

Comes to mind also that Mastodon has had many years of headstart. How much of a slow growth does it still need?

[–] ZagTheRaccoon@reddthat.com 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Luckily, we'll find out not too long from now. Hope you're right.

[–] nekat_emanresu@lemmy.ml 1 points 1 year ago

He was right until he said that point. I think he killed the primary message with the add-on sentence.

[–] venia_sil@fedia.io 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

. It's not like they can buy the Fediverse.

They don't need to. They only need to buy the admins. And we know that some admins have annouced they are for sale.

[–] TwilightVulpine@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

In the Fediverse it's easier to escape that than it would in any other platform.