I used to think that there would be 1, main 'Fediverse' with all of the 'big instances' connected to each other. The recent Threads debacle has shown me otherwise.

The point of the Fediverse is that there is no one single entity, or group of entities, dominating it all.

Right now it feels like whatever the big instances do, we kind of have to go along with to be a part of anything. As the Fediverse grows, there will be more options to suit different types of users.

I think it's fine if big instances federate with Threads and it's fine if they don't. People can just join instances that align with what they want. It's not like defederating means being cut out of the Fediverse, that's not possible.

Great design. I'm eager to see how it plays out.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Essentially, Facebook's Twitter competitor Threads is gearing up to join the fediverse by integrating ActivityPub into their platform. Don't take my word too much on this but I believe this is due to the European Commission's Digital Markets Act which requires interoperability (similar to how iOS now requires sideloading in the EU). This is essentially their cheap way of complying.

The fediverse has a strong hatred of Facebook, for various reasons (from petty things like "embrace, extend, extinguish" to much more serious things like Facebook's compliance in the Myanmar genocide) and a "pact" was enacted of fediverse instances that are simply outright blocking Threads. Part of it is the fear that Facebook will federate its moderation problem and cause a headache (which, in my opinion, would be better dealt with by limiting Threads to followers only - Mastodon and Pleroma allow this).

Opponents of the Fedipact are optimistic this will help a more mainstream audience warm up to the fediverse. The fediverse has a reputation of being unwieldy and complicated to newcomers, and having a major platform like Threads integrating ActivityPub might help bring them in and see what it's like. Toxicity is cited as a reason for defederating Threads, but IMO I see more toxicity towards newcomers and outsiders coming from the people already on the fediverse, so I've been quite apathetic to the Threads thing.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yeah I'm in a wait and see with my instance. People act like it's one and done. When they start they'll be just another server to me. If they start becoming hostile and everything coming from them it's terrible then I'll defederate. Same as any other server.

People are worried about data being misused but, I'm sorry, that's what happens when we publish to an open protocol. Anyone can use it however they want, and yeah, they're are scum usage for it

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Agreed. I think Lemmy is more public than Mastodon and co. which do have some privacy settings for posts and account follows, but ActivityPub is inherently a public protocol. Appreciate everything you've done for Poptalk btw!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In some ways, I trust my data more with a highly scrutinized company such as Meta than a random weirdo spinning up his instance with a home server in his cabinet.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That's what I don't understand about the pushback. Yes we all want privacy, but Lemmy here and the fediverse is not built around the idea of privacy. It's literally a protocol that shoots out whatever you type to anyone who wants to listen. You can type on any server and it's going to end up on any other server. Can't be mad because someone like Meta is seeing that and going "Hm, we have servers, we could listen to that data."

[–] CaptainSpaceman 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

neither of you are looking at all the data harvesting that occurs on platforms like Meta and Reddit. Telemetry, keystrokes (not just submitted, but any key typed iincluding backspaced ones), and more, and NONE of that is harvested on this platform.

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

That's why I'm not switching or anything, my user will be on my instance, but if they federate and users true the surveillance instance that's on them