this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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FOSS bros: we’re all about user choice!
also FOSS bros: no not like that
It's pretty logical actually: The advocates of openness must be closed to one thing, and that is whatever aims to destroy openness itself.
Social Contract.
Exactly.
This is like inviting the Catholic church in an institution specifically built to protect former victims of same and similar institutions.
Given that anyone can start an instance and federate with Threads, or join an instance that does, freedom of choice is unaffected.
We just don't want history repeating itself like what happened with xmpp. Do you really think facebook of all companies is joining the fediverse with good intentions? Do you really think they're not trying to monopolize this?
I would like to point out that xmpp still exists. Google Talk does not. WhatsApp killed xmpp, not Google
XMPP still exists - and I use it for chatting with one person. Nobody I know uses it. Techies I know use IRC and, more recently, Matrix. Or discord, disappointingly enough.
And I mention techies because the rest of the world is just happy with WhatsApp/Messenger/Slack et al.
What I'm getting at is that XMPP feels pretty dead in my experience. But who knows, maybe it would be in this same position regardless of Google like you allude to.
I never mentioned google. And sure, xmpp exists but it's dead and would be much better off if not for big tech giants
Where did they even mention Google in their comment?
Because every time this argument starts, someone mentions how they don't want the fediverse to go down the xmpp path, and the argument has its origin in this article
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Last I checked, the people using XMPP are still running happily using servers and clients.
All 17 of them.
I gotta ask.. were you around and actively using xmpp around that time?
Because I was. And xmpp struggling had nothing to do with Google
You're downplaying your own part, in between those two statements.
Edit: spelling
How is Threads going to breach your privacy by federating with your instance? How is de federating from Threads going to protect your privacy?
Do you think this is Threads' final form? Embrace, extend, extinguish. This is what corporations do. Everything is a zero sum game in their minds, and they will act in the best interest of shareholders. That shit has no business here.
I was going to reply but you nailed it. Its about outmaneuvering smaller competitors and controlling the marketplace, and then harvesting user data for profit.
They can already harvest the data. Nothing on the ActivityPub is private
Sure, ignore my actual point. This is getting monotonous; enjoy Threads.
What point was that? If you don't join Threads, they don't have your data. They do have everything you publish to the Fediverse though, no matter what you do.
Yeah, yeah, parrot the line and then please explain how?
Extending means making extra functionality that others haven't implemented, so that your offering is more attractive. You use it to build a walled garden. Defederation just skips that step and does it for them. They don't even have to extend.
You missed the point of my comment. I don't need to explain how, I'm sure they've got brilliant engineers working hard on it. This is just how capitalism works, Meta isn't a benevolent force here, their ultimate goal is to make money off users and their data.
I don't need to figure out exactly how they will do it to know that they will.
Ah, so just fear mongering and hoping that the fear based knee-jerk reaction isn't actually playing directly into their hands.
Dude, Meta has a terrible track record. They've shown us time and time again that they are outright evil. Why would it be different this time?
What's the saying? "When someone shows you who their are, trust them the first time"
In this instance, Meta has shown time and time again who they are and you still believe they will do something right.
I'm not saying it's different. I'm saying that the current plan in no achieves the goal of keeping the fediverse open and out of the control of large corporations.
If you want to know how to prevent them from taking control, you better start working out the specifics of how they will do that. Otherwise your actions may end up helping them.
No one seems to have considered the possibility that Facebook are well aware of what people think of them. That they looked at the technology and thought "we don't have to do anything, those idiots hate us so much they will do the job for us and give us the private marketplace we desire"
Serious question: how?
Second question: why?
What are the mechanics by which they are going extend or extinguish the fediverse and how would they do that from a technical standpoint? Second, why when the entire fediverse with years of time behind it is a rounding error compared to a product they launched like 6 months ago. Why does Meta give a tiny shit about the fedi compared to TikTok, for example?
"Extend" typically means adding proprietary features to your own product that are incompatible with your competitor's product. For example, what if they added Gold (as in the old Reddit kind, not the current Reddit kind)? That obviously wouldn't work with Lemmy, or at least not right away. The Lemmy devs would have to try to play catch-up whenever Threads launched a new feature. And not every would be able to be made compatible with Lemmy in some way.
There are several potential reasons for this. They could see Lemmy as a potential future threat, and using the EEE method may squash the potential threat before it actually becomes one.
ActivityPub itself is also actually a neat feature to offer. It's basically Single Sign-On (aka SSO) without a few steps. (This is not me giving Facebook the benefit of the doubt. Companies can have multiple reasons for doing something, and I cannot believe this is the only reason Facebook would experiment with ActivityPub.)
As for your point about TikTok, TikTok itself is already too big to use the EEE method. (It usually only works on smaller competitors.) Facebook is using a different method for that: it cloned TikTok. Their version is called Reels.
As for the "rounding error" comment, Facebook actually had "accounts" created on Threads for all of its Instagram users, so, while there may be billions of accounts, not all of them are active. As a matter of fact, I've heard Threads use dropped pretty significantly after its initial launch. In that case, Facebook could be using a strategy I've seen both Sony and Microsoft use in regards to their game consoles: whenever Sony is in "second place" in the its console war with Microsoft and losing users to them, it tries to get people to migrate back over by adding features its userbase wants. Whenever Sony is on top, however, they tend to stop listening to customer feedback and sit on their laurels. I've seen Microsoft employ a similar strategy, too.
sometimes, it's just about the principle.
and if the principle is "keep zucc the fuck away from the fediverse", i'm all for it.
But it doesn't keep him away. Defederation means they consume all of the data from ActivityPub, you consume none of theirs. You are creating a walled garden for them that makes it harder for Threads users to leave.
It's not that simple.
Their instance will be sent the data only if the post originates on an instance/community that is still federated with their instance. If a new post or comment is made in a community who's instance isn't federated with their instance, it will not be sent via ActivityPub. A more detailed explanation of how that works is in this post.
Someone failed ethics class really hard.
This critique of "user choice means that every instance should try and be as open as possible and try and federate with as many compatible entities as possible, so that any user, from any instance, might find and interact with content from everywhere" is as valid for instances blocking Threads as it is for blocking instances for allowing hate speech and bot-boosted corporate ads.
Personally, I prefer those to be blocked and have "user choice" mean users choosing to participate and promote the instances they believe are more useful, because my "user choice" is "I don't want all kinds of bullshit to arrive unfiltered at my feed".
So many people here are acting like lions, jaguars, attack zebras etc don’t exist. There is no way on this earth that meta is coming into the fediverse with good intentions. Just because we advocate for FOSS doesn’t mean we have to be foolish and vulnerable. Being closed to meta is consistent with being supportive of FOSS, because make no mistake, meta is here to kill the fediverse.
relevant xkcd my friend ;) The fediverse is still open.
Yeah, can't expect people in power not to use it to further their agenda.
You just sounded like:
🙄
Seriously, why are there so many people ignorant of the damage Facebook has done not only to social media, but to democracy as a whole? You're aware of Facebooks role in Trump's election in 2016, aren't you? Haven't you heard of Cambridge Analytica? Of the Russian troll farms? Of the millions of fake Republican Facebook accounts?
(Sometimes I wonder: Is Lemmy getting filled with shills, or are people THAT clueless? Has the pandemic suddenly affected our long term memory or something?)
How can you not know about this? Seriously!
Yes, I’m aware. Fediverse also has nazis, they’re everywhere. I can put on my big boy pants and block them as I see them, instead of an admin doing collateral damage and preventing from talking to all the other people who won’t leave Threads.
Okay first, you have no fucking idea how online harassment works. I've seen numerous cases of people being attacked, even doxxed, hy hordes of assholes. Imagine a single mother who can barely have time to work and attend their children, to deal with this shit. And you know? It happens ALL THE TIME to BIPOC users on the fedi.
"Hey, the nazis are invading Poland, why aren't you on the frontlines carrying your gun?" As if there wasn no such thing as innocent CIVILIANS. In a world where speaking up is punished by dogpiling, harassing and doxxing, people just prefer to flee because their admins don't do shit to defend them. Ask ANY Black person on Mastodon what it's like to be harassed online.
Second, forcing people deal with the problems of harassment puts the burden of blocking on the end user. (From another POV, it's the e-mail spam problem if you think about it. Dogpiling is a social form of DDOSing someone, and there's no way to prevent it except by mass blocking the source of the attacks.
Letting an instance admin defederate from a problematic instance protects ALL the admin's users with minimal effort on their part. If a threads user is defederated they can as well switch to another instance, nobody stops them.
Are they not happy with how their instance is treated? Demand changes to the instance, after all they paid for it, didn't they? Oh they didn't? Then who's finacing and controlling it then?
Consider defederation the invisible hand of the market turned visible.
Defederation is NOT damage. On the other hand, people suffering emotional distress from harassment IS damage.