this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2024
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Fediverse

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A community dedicated to fediverse news and discussion.

Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".

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"Threads is deepening its ties to the fediverse, also known as the open social web, which powers services like X alternative Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Flipboard and other apps. On Wednesday, Meta announced that users on Threads will be able to see fediverse replies on other posts besides their own. In addition, posts that originated through the Threads API, like those created via third-party apps and scheduling services, will now be syndicated to the fediverse. The latter had previously been announced via an in-app message informing users that API posts would be shared to the fediverse starting on August 28."

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 months ago (2 children)

@Dirk @xelar thanks for your view, question: defederating with threads seems reasonable, but why would you defederate "second level" like this? I ask as the instance I'm in decided not to defederate with threads for now and I'm personally OK with that.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago (3 children)

A is defederated from Threads, but federates with B. And B federates with Threads. Now Meta can cash out on your data via B.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Now Meta can cash out on your data via B.

Everything we're posting is public, anyone can cash in on it regardless of who you defederate.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I don't think that's how it works and it would likely not be legal. By explicitly blocking Threads, you make a big statement about not wanting your instance's posts to show up there. Also from a technical standpoint, I don't think a "middle-man" instance will push posts from another instance to a third one. You'd have to explicitly scrape data that's not available via the API. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

The fediverse is too new and niche to say that with certainty.

The legality is likely untested and certainly not enforced by pubspec yet.

I don't know enough to speak to the technicalities with certainty, but my surface level understanding is that that is exactly how it works, and it is one of the known flaws of the fediverse as it currently exists.

You might be making a statement, but server B is just a node and, frankly, doesn't care. If you federate with them, you federate with everyone they federate with as well.

It's uncomfortably like an STD in that regard.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 months ago

@copygirl @Dirk yes, I also get the feeling this would not work in a compliant setup but it seems like a good idea to test this in e.g. a federation test suite.

Maybe @evanprodromou would know how this should work, or would know of someone who might be testing this kind of scenario.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago (2 children)

@flancian @Dirk Threads has about 200 million monthly users, 33 million daily users. The fediverse has just under 1 million monthly users. Do you really think that 0.5% has any relevance to Meta?

Also: What data do you think Meta will be able to use - and for what? They can't use this data to serve you ads, simply because they don't know you. They can't track you around the web because you don't have a Meta account.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Threads has about 200 million monthly users, 33 million daily users. The fediverse has just under 1 million monthly users. Do you really think that 0.5% has any relevance to Meta?

Do you really think they would care about those users when they extend and extinguish the Fediverse?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

@Dirk How should they achieve it? The Fediverse contains of a lot of different systems that offer so much more than Threads could ever do.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 months ago

Nobody can ever explain how EEE could work in this scenario. They just parrot it and stop thinking.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 3 months ago

The 0.5% on fedi are more likely to be the technical users that actually produce usable content.

How many thread users are bots or passive consumers? They may be good for serving ads to, but they're not so food at retaining and attracting users

[–] [email protected] -1 points 3 months ago

It's a way to force your morals on the others.