this post was submitted on 09 Jul 2023
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There has been significant discussion in recent weeks regarding Meta/Threads. We would like to express our disappointment with the negative and threatening tone of some of these discussions. We kindly ask everyone to engage in civil discourse and remember that not everyone will share the same opinions, which is perfectly acceptable.

When considering whether or not to defederate from Threads, we're looking for a decision based on facts that prioritize your safety. We strive to remain neutral to make an informed choice.

First, there seem to be some misconceptions about how the Fediverse operates based on several posts. We’ve compiled some resource links to help explain the details and address any misunderstandings.

Fed Tips , Fediverse , ActivityPub

Initial Thoughts:

It seems unlikely that Meta will federate with Lemmy. When/if Meta adopts ActivityPub, it will likely affect Mastodon only rather than Lemmy, given Meta's focus on being a Twitter alternative at the moment.

Please note that we have a few months before Threads will even federate with Mastodon, so we have some time to make the right decision.

Factors to Consider:
Factors to consider if Meta federates with Lemmy:

Privacy - While it’s true that Meta's privacy settings for the app are excessive, it’s important to note that these settings only apply to users of the official Threads app and do not impact Lemmy users. It’s worth mentioning that Lemmy does not collect any personal data, and Meta has no means of accessing such data from this platform. In addition, when it comes to scraping data from your post/comments, Meta doesn’t need ActivityPub to do that. Anyone can read your profile and public posts as it is today.

Moderation - If a server hosts a substantial amount of harmful content without performing efficient and comprehensive moderation, it will create an excessive workload for our moderators. Currently, Meta is utilizing its existing Instagram moderation tools. Considering there were 95 million posts on the first day, this becomes worrisome, as it could potentially overwhelm us and serve as a sufficient reason for defederation.

Ads - It’s possible if Meta presents them as posts.

Promoting Posts - It’s possible with millions of users upvoting a post for it to trend.

Embrace, extend, and extinguish (EEE) - We don't think they can. If anyone can explain how they technically would, please let us know. Even if Meta forks Lemmy and gets rid of the original software, Lemmy will survive.

Instance Blocking - Unlike Mastodon, Lemmy does not provide a feature for individual users to block an instance (yet). This creates a dilemma where we must either defederate, disappointing those who desire interaction with Threads, or choose not to defederate, which will let down those who prefer no interaction with Threads.

Blocking Outgoing Federation - There is currently no tool available to block outgoing federation from lemmy.world to other instances. We can only block incoming federation. This means that if we choose to defederate with our current capabilities, Threads will still receive copies of lemmy.world posts. However, only users on Threads will be able to interact with them, while we would not be able to see their interactions. This situation is similar to the one with Beehaw at the moment. Consequently, it leads to significant fragmentation of content, which has real and serious implications.

Conclusion:
From the points discussed above, the possible lack of moderation alone justifies considering defederation from Threads. However, it remains to be seen how Meta will handle moderation on such a large scale. Additionally, the inability of individuals to block an instance means we have to do what is best for the community.

If you have any added points or remarks on the above, please send them to @[email protected].

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[–] GONADS125 12 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You can also see sentiments shared across other posts. The vast majority I've seen has been users here expressing concern and disinterest in federating with Threads. I'm going to go off of the cumulative discussions I've seen across posts rather than limit it to judging a userbase by comments in a single post.

I'm not saying that all users here share the exact same sentiments as I; rather the majority is opposed to federating with Threads. Maybe I'm wrong. But the outspoken majority I have seen is opposed.

[–] BURN 1 points 1 year ago (3 children)

The people who are unhappy with the idea are the ones making posts. People who are ambivalent or don’t care aren’t, and the likelihood is that a large portion of the users, if not the majority feel that way.

[–] Springtime 15 points 1 year ago

Please don't assume a "silent majority" in this matter.

From what I've seen so far, the majority of users who have expressed their opinion have spoken out against federation with Threads. Combine this with the fact that Lemmy's userbase grew substantially with former reddit users who not only are more likely to actively participate on Lemmy than they were on Reddit, but also left that social platform for reasons that mirror some of the sentiments expressed against Threads/Facebook/Meta, I don't think the idea of silent majority applies here.

If you are ok with Threads and all that comes with it, you are free to create an account with them. If you have an Instagram account, you might already have a Threads account automatically created for you by them. On the other hand, if you are a user who does not wish to interact with Threads, you wouldn't have the option to opt out short of finding a new instance that has defederated from Threads.

[–] GONADS125 10 points 1 year ago

I would agree with you if we were on reddit right now. You have to remember that a very significant population of the users here are the redditors who actually gave enough of a shit to leave, and try to start from scratch here.

From the beginning, what I was trying to state is that I felt my listed concerns were largely consistent with the vocal majority that I have seen discuss this topic among various communities on this instance. I'm not saying everyone shares my views. But we can see how things play out. I still see the majority of users here sharing these sentiments.

[–] lemmyshmemmy 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, this isn't reddit. People are here to avoid corporate social media, the majority don't want to federate with Facebook.

[–] BURN 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Some people are, not everyone. Personally I don’t give a shit about meta and am completely fine with federating. Doesn’t cause me any trouble. I really doubt it’s a majority who want to defederate anyways. Once somebody shows concrete numbers maybe, but all I’ve seen is a few very vocal whiners

[–] SpaceAape 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Corporate threads federation will literally kill lemmy. Again EEE. Google killed Xmpp the same way. And if your naive enough to believe otherwise you should just join threads instead.

[–] BURN 8 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Google didn’t kill XMPP - the just stopped using it. XMPP died because it wasn’t particularly useful outside of a few applications.

I very likely will make a threads account. Especially if it has a lot of the features from Reddit that I’m missing.

[–] Alkider 1 points 1 year ago

more power to you.