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Embrace, Extend, Enforce (ƎƎƎ): A practical Strategy against potentially abusive Instances like Meta’s Threads
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this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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Why the hell would anyone (particularly fediverse users) give Facebook the benefit of the doubt? I genuinely can't understand it.
So Twitter is dying, we all know that.
Former Twitter users have a few options on where to go next. Ideally Mastodon/Fediverse. Blue Sky possibly. Likely Threads.
Users who go to Threads or Blue Sky will just make it Twitter 2, specifically Twitter from before Elon which I'll be honest wasn't a particularly great Twitter to begin with. (That isn't to say the Fediverse is immune from the same fate, it just has some better protections against it.)
So option 1, Fediverse says "Fuck Threads", Twitter 2 is born and it's shitty for them. Fediverse gets a few new users, but mostly the Fediverse wonders why "everyone" is on Threads.
Option 2, Fediverse keeps an open dialogue with Threads. Threads users are more aware of the Fediverse. More Threads users actually migrate to the Fediverse. The Fediverse gets a wider range of users. If (when?) the Fediverse has to completely cut off Threads, the Fediverse will at least have more users, some of which will remain.
Another open question, does the Fediverse want former Twitter/Threads users?
Yes. More users, more thoughts, more opinions, more diversity, a better Fediverse. That isn't to say I want shitheads. We can and should still ban shitheads.
People that go to Bluesky or Threads are happy in their corporate gardens. The fediverse is not really an option for most of those people, anymore than Facebook is not really an option for me. If Facebook thought that threads could possibly lose more users than it gained, they wouldn't federate.
Facebooks interests are diametrically opposed to the fediverse's. They aren't "just another server", they are a multi billion dollar surveillance capitalist juggernaut. Thinking that you can somehow benefit from any kind of relationship with them is wrongheaded, IMO.
Why do people feel like we need rapid growth in numbers? The fediverse is still under development, and past events have often strained the infrastructure. Will threads users even be 'impressed' by our homespun alternative if it struggles under the weight of replicating millions of paid posts?
To tell you the truth, I am disappointed and saddened by what I see as the end of this whole fediverse experiment. To think that in the end we will happily give away what we worked so hard to build.
I don't need rapid growth, but I do want growth. Any* users we can siphon off of Threads is a win.
*Any assuming good faith users. I'm against active shitheads. The Fediverse should not reshape itself to fit Threads, Threads should reshape to fit into the Fediverse.
We are siphoning users off corporate platforms already. Almost everyone on the fediverse has left those networks to come here. They did it without Facebook or twitter federation, and people will continue to do that without Facebook or twitter federation.
Threads absolutely not "reshape" itself to fit the fediverse. They are playing to win, and winning for them means mass collection of analytics and social graphs to sell micro-targeted ads to their customers.
The fediverse is growing at the right speed, IMO, and inviting Facebook in to play, in the hopes of luring a few users is a bargain with the devil.
Considering the company's history, I am more than a little perplexed at anyone thinking that there is significantly higher than a 0% chance of the effort being intended in good faith.
To clarify users, you and I, not the company.
The two are inseperable, unfortunately. Every commercial social media company exerts control over their users in numerous ways, including bots ane opaque algorithms. Given their hisory of everpthing from complicity in genocide to actively taking part in political influence campaigns, there is next to no chance of them acting in good faith, if federated. They will simply use their significant resources to try to control and pollute the fediverse.
My take is that if the Fediverse can be destroyed simply by a particular instance being too popular, then maybe that's a problem with the Fediverse - not that instance.
So if we had 100 Mastodon instances, and each instance had 100 users, we have a healthy Fediverse of 10,000 users.
Now 1 of those 100 instances decides to do something. Maybe they make a moderation decision and become super pro Nazi. Maybe they add a new feature where you can video chat with other users.
Now Nazis are frowned upon. So if 1 instance of 100 users is full of Nazis, the other 99 defederate from the 1. The Fediverse now has 99 instances of 100 users and we have a healthy Fediverse of 9,900 users.
But maybe video chatting is a neat feature. Initially only 100 users can video chat with each other. Other instances add video chatting, but not in a compatible way. Some users can video chat with each other, some can't, & some don't like the feature at all. As a community the different instances and developers work together to figure out what should happen to varying degrees of success.
But let's change things. 1 instance has 7,000 users, a second instance has 2,000 users, and a few dozen instances have a few users, we still get a healthy Fediverse of 10,000 users.
But maybe the 7,000 user instance becomes pro Nazi. The smaller instance can defederate, but now you have the 7,000 user Pro Nazi Fediverse, and the 3,000 user Anti Nazi Fediverse. It isn't broken. The smaller Fediverse still exists, but it's smaller. Maybe the 2,000 user instance would rather rejoin the larger Fediverse. Maybe Nazis aren't that bad. Now we have a big Fediverse of 7,000 Nazis and 2,000 Nazi tolerators. The 1,000 user Fediverse still exists, but is MUCH smaller. Not great, for either Fediverse.
Or what about the video chat? What if the 7,000 user instance adds video chat? What if they don't want to share how it works? If you want video chat you have to move instances. Now our 7,000 user instance has 8,000 users. Now our 8,000 user instance adds ads. You can't leave if you want video chat.
The Fediverse can't be destroyed, but it can be shrunk. If it shrinks too much too fast, it might cease to be useful. If it grows too much too fast, it might cease to be useful.
In this case, I would argue MimicJar's point (Edit: Shit, I didn't notice who I'm talking to. Well, you make good points I guess, lmao), and say that even if we were to defederate with the large instance, we're still no worse off than if we had never federated in the first place - in fact, we'd likely be better off, since any anti-nazi users in your scenario would know where to find us.
The way I look at it is like, if Reddit were part of the Fediverse, they would've dominated in much the same way as Threads intends to. But the moment they even started pulling sketchy tactics, we could've jumped to other instances.
I mean, that's essentially what I did anyway, but with no clearly defined alternative, not everyone knows about the Fediverse, whereas they would've had that option if Reddit was federated. Plus, in theory, I'd still be able to view and interact with Reddit content from my instance, at least until they separate entirely - at which point (again) I would have the choice.
I personally believe that, given the choice, many people would decide to support smaller federated instances over corporate monoliths. Not most, but many.
Realistically it is in Threads best interest to pretend they care about the Fediverse.
In return the Fediverse should pretend to care about Threads.
In reality the Fediverse should "steal" Threads users. At some point Threads will do something really stupid (hopefully not immediately) and the Fediverse can go back to ignoring Threads, but having gained a good subset of users.
Agreed, I think we should very cautiously federate, while keeping in mind that they will inevitably pull the rug.
You sound so innocent it's almost cute. Option 2 will never happen because people are already aware the Fediverse exists and that still doesn't make it for them, what the want is the closed walled gardens, when (not if) the time comes to cut off Threads they'll just return to their posting there. With Threads closed off from the Fediverse, there is no incentive for them to keep their activity here.
I would argue that most people don't know about the Fediverse.
The Fediverse has maybe a few million users, depending how you count it.
Threads has 100s of million users. Even if only ½% of those move to the Fediverse, that's still a huge win.
Gonna start paying mods, admins, and instance runners? That is huge amount of extra work that they would need to put in. Slow growth is sustainable, rapid growth is very risky to platform viability.
I'm not. I'm saying Meta will most likely behave abusive, but not all the time and because Threads will be a major instance in the Fediverse soon, we will not be able to afford blocking it permanently.
And that's why, even if it may not feel good, we will need to find some handle of interacting with Threads that goes beyond simply defederating.
What do you mean by not afford to?
https://www.theverge.com/23990974/social-media-2023-fediverse-mastodon-threads-activitypub
In this article, The Verge is describing what they think may happen to the Fediverse in the next years: big time commercialization.
Now the current Fediverse can either try to adapt to this new stage and try to grow with it; or block it out entirely and stay small. These two factions are by some called "big" and "small fedi".
I'm a supporter of "big fedi", because I think people will just move to other instances that federate with the big ones if we don't. From my perspective, a big bull is charging right at us. We can either jump on it, ride it and try to taim it; or get trampled dead by it.
I disagree that those are the options. The fediverse is made up largely of people that are actively seeking alternatives to the very models of big commercial social networks. We have built and are growing this alternative in spite of the 'competition' from the commercial players. We don't need (or want) them. Facebook adopting the activity pub protocol does not mean we have to federate with them, and we should be beyond suspicious that they want to federate with us. No good can come of it.
The important thing for me is that the fediverse remains an alternative network, rather than simply an alternative 'client' for Facebook.
Ok, but if you do this, when comes the time when you try to grow the Fediverse again? Currently, the Fediverse has about 2M users, which are mostly on Mastodon. With the entry of Threads, this percentage will decrease over time. It will weaken or position further. Probably, there will be some companies that will try to compete with threads and if we are lucky, they are nice to us. But on paper, our percentage and our influence will decrease further. When is the point when you turn the switch to growth and claim room in the market?
So no, I don't see how it could work. I think we are currently in the best position that we will have in the next years and we should use it to our advantage.
Its pretty clear what they want: they see an emerging market and they want to claim and dominate it like they always do and they want to use us for their growth and they will use that growth for potentially bad things. That's all to be expected. But as long as they federate nicely with us, we should federate with them too. People will start asking themselves why some users have different domains and when important public figures start posting from the fediverse, word will get around. People thrive for freedom. I would go as far as saying that we have a responsibility here: our presence on Threads shows people the alternative to walled gardens.
And once important public figures have migrated in the Fediverse, temporary defederation will hurt Meta much more. Meta hugely underestimating what happens if the Left has pointed out the Fediverse as their new frontier.
How can all of that happen by just defederating? For me its a form of casting away responsibility.
The fediverse is not "an emerging market". It is in fact, competing for market share with the likes of Facebook. They don't give a shit about the technology, they just need the users. They feel threatened that people are jumping ship, and the best thing they can think to do is make sure they own the alternatives. Facebook will use its size and power to essentially turn mastodon into a Facebook client. In some ways I admire your optimistic outlook, but I cannot share it.
A facebook client that can chose to defederate from facebook? The overall vibe on Threads is already not exactly great. Threads growth is limited (altough it could franchise at some point).
It would be good if the market outside Threads would continue to grow at such a rate that it is too expensive for Threads to pull EEE. As it is currently. As long as this is the case, the fediverse has a chance of surving.
Ah but then it's too late. You think you are going to eat facebook's lunch, but it's gonna be the other way around.
I think its not clear yet who will be eating whose lunch. It will be probably be a continuous back and forth.
Normally companies like Facebook just buy their competition, and either kill it or control it. They can't buy activity pub so this is their strategy instead. Their goal is still the same: kill or control. Why on earth would you want to partner with someone who has that attitude towards you?
Its a monopoly, its behaving like a monopoly. But because of network effects, we cannot just ignore it, we have to go in direct combat.
At least if you want the Fediverse (with a diverse instance-landscape) to become big, confrontation with Meta is inevitable.
If you don't want it to become big, that's fine, but then we have a different opinion there.
Network effects are already in play even before Facebook adopts federation. I, like many others here have sacrificed the convenience of a Facebook network for a better alternative. The fediverse is growing in spite of it's disadvantage in terms of network effect. Let Facebook die of enshittification and it's users will find the alternatives. Rather than "direct combat" with the giant, I prefer to say "the only winning move, is not to play".
Interesting point. With activitypub, Threads could try to avoid enshittification.
The Problem: Threads, Mastodon and the other Fediverse apps will soon not be the only players in the Fediverse. At least letting die Facebook of enshittification will not work at this point. And additionally, if Threads decides to franchise its own instances, you have tiny thread-instances all over Social Media not even operated by Meta and that seems pretty resistant to enshittification.
Enshittification is what happens when companies have to really start making money. They often lose money in the race to build up a strong userbase. Once they have that, they start ruining the experience by showing too many ads and/or charging for access. Facebook isn't going to invest in federation if it doesn't have a very solid plan, devised by a huge team of well-paid professionals, to protect and grow its profit margin. Anything they touch will enshittify eventually.
Mmmh, you could be right there.
Ok, but you have still the other competitors. And even if you count them out, there will always be instances that federate with Threads. That's how the Fediverse works. Yes you can do coordinated actions, but only to a point. For letting Threads enshitificate, you would need an air-tight wall from Threads to all other instances and that's not possible.
Yup, that is how it works, and how Facebook will exploit that openness. I only hope that more people will come around to my point of view and refuse to engage with hostile networks like Facebook.
Ok, so we have come to a conclusion here. That's fine. What I'm not sure about is whether these two standpoints will complement each other in some way or work against each other in the future.
I at least will take some interesting points away from this.
Why is what too late?
Say threads has like 100 million users. Your instance federates with 1 million users. Then you federate with threads so now you federate with 101 million. You get some new users by saying "hey check it out, interact with Facebook without having an account there". Later you decide to defederate from threads and go back to your 1 or 1.1 million users. Who is going to stay on your instance? Anyone attracted by federation with Facebook is going to leave, along with any existing users that got used to/enjoyed federating with Facebook.
Fair point - but: along with threads, hopefully there will be many other instances with, say, 20 million users combined. So the instance will still have 20 million users federating. And if the reason for the defederation was justified, maybe other instances will jump along too and then Threads loses 21 million users as well.
I guess we'll just have to wait and see. I will personally not be on any fediverse instance that federates with threads.
Yup.
I will and if it is only to argue with insta-kids about the Fediverse. ha ha :)
We can either chose to drive and contribute to the change, or hide away from it and eventually get rolled over.
It's already proven that it is a mistake to jump on the bull (or, for matter of analogy, the smart truck) and try to tame it. it's already engineered and moved by big money so that its controls will never be available to us. Smarter than trying to tame it (a useless fight) or leave ourselves be trampled by it (a useless sacrifice), we can simply jump aside.
Why is it proven? Also: isn't the whole Fediverse situation kind of unique?
There's nothing unique to the current Fediverse situation. In the days of old people had their own web pages and web servers too, and we had protocols to announce changes to people too (hello? RSS? X-Headers?), we linked to each other as well (directories, webrings) and we had chat (IRC). Yet we still landed on CorpoNet.
In fact I'd surmise the current situation is worse. Whereas with the old ad tried protocols you could actually host a web server with content on a potato, or on an old beeper, nu-protocols tend to be quite resource hungry. I oft hear that people have to pay two bills for Mastodon: one for the web service and another one for the amont of storage and traffic that it generates; from what I hear Matrix is similarly heavy compared to, say, IRC or XMPP. Dunno if it's still true or not but I also recall that stuff like Lemmy depends on DNS, meaning you have to be able to buy your own domain and depend on that kind of central authority (wasn't the point of Fediverse stuff to be decentralized?). Rather recently a good amount of Lemmy servers were oopsied because one of the .tld authorities pulled the rug from under an entire top-level domain name.
I meant unique in the size and numbers of users. I think at a certain point, you will lose some beginner-friendliness if you want it to scale.
Well, then you could just as well call the web itself not enough dezentralized. The Fediverse just builds on that.
Ok, that's not so great