this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
128 points (99.2% liked)
/kbin meta
639 readers
1 users here now
Magazine dedicated to discussions about the kbin itself. Provide feedback, ask questions, suggest improvements, and engage in conversations related to the platform organization, policies, features, and community dynamics. ---- * Roadmap 2023 * m/kbinDevlog * m/kbinDesign
founded 1 year ago
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
If you have privacy concerns, you should probably not post here for time being.
It is prototype software. Doesn't remove EXIF geotags from photos, for example and posts here are public (and indexed by webcrawlers). Treat this as "open Internet" for your safety/privacy purposes.
It's not much of privacy I'm concerned about as much as community and visibility.
Meta is infamous for fostering insufferable users, meanwhile from what I have seen from kbin and lemmy, there is a lot more nuance and maturity in the communities here (for the most part) that I would hate to see overun by Thread users.
Secondly, it's one thing to be visible to the internet in general, but to have anything tied to Meta that they can scrape and sell is a concern to me. The fact that the fediverse is a prototype with vulnerabilities makes the likelihood of a company like Meta, who intentionally exploits vulnerabilities to harvest data, all the more likely.
Finally, almost every example of a large company joining a federation always ends with said company cannibalizing the federated networks, and I have no reason to believe Facebook won't do this. If I'm going to invest time and effort into making a community grow, I would rather not waste my time on a platform that is doomed to be consumed.
With this I agree. 1.2bn users is way more noise than I want to experience and I will, personally block the domain. As a kbin user, you'll have the tools available for that as well.
To think that the big companies that base their business models solely on datamining users already haven't been mining the shit out of our data is a bit naive, I think. They don't have to exploit vulnerabilities, make their presence known or launch huge products for it. All they (or anyone!) need is a $20/month linux VPS and a Mastodon installation. The fediverse does not have data privacy controls for content (beyond masking account e-mails/originator IPs).
I agree. Threads got 10M signups yesterday and they haven't even launched officially yet. They're already larger than the entire fediverse.
Many people will switch to their app. And at some point, they will most likely make interoperability hard (so we have to adapt to their "bugs" instead of it being the other way around).
I just want to make clear that I'm in the "Defederate the shit out of them"-camp, but I also don't think the fediverse is a place that puts privacy first - if privacy is your concern, then my advice is to stay away from fedi. For now.
Blocking the domain will not block the users, so in that regard there is nothing you can do about 1.2bn users coming here.
If 1.2 bn users join Threads, and only get content from Threads, they're just going to go back to Instagram. Facebook doesn't have an unlimited budget for this. If Threads doesn't gain traction, it'll be killed off as unprofitable.
That's the ideal scenario for the fediverse. Threads isn't able to federate with anyone else from the start, users don't see the point, Threads isn't profitable, Threads gets abandoned.
Right....
BUT -
You aren't going to see ANY of those 1.2bn users, until someone on THIS server follows someone on THAT server. That's the point of federation. It isn't like Twitter - you don't just see everything that everyone over there posts. It's no different on Mastodon - there has to be a social connection before posts start showing up here.
Put another way, if hateful stuff starts showing up on the Fediverse from meta users, it is because someone on the Fediverse is following the people posting hateful stuff.
When meta eventually starts federating - you aren't going to see posts from @asjmcguire until someone here is following my account.
As for if meta makes changes that makes federating hard, that's not our problem. If they make changes that make federating with THEM hard, that's their problem. There is no reason the rest of the fediverse needs to follow what changes meta make. It doesn't hurt us if they break federation with the rest of the fediverse. Meta is in reality no different to mastodon in that regard, it's just another platform - but for example Pixelfed isn't going to bend over backward to make life easier for meta.
But if you go to https://kbin.social/d/threads.net (obviously doesn't work yet), then you can block the whole instance, yourself, for your own account. It has the same effect as the server defederating, but it only affects you.
The only reason why that solution wouldn't be acceptable is if you believe so strongly against the very concept of Threads that you want to make that choice for everyone else. You want to forcibly hit that button on everyone's account and push your beliefs and opinions onto others.
If you simply don't like Meta, that's fine - I get it. I want to use FOSS stuff to see my friends. I want my friends to appear in my feed, and I want their hashtags to be sorted into my magazines. My wish to see my friends is just as valid as your wish to not see anyone from Threads. While Threads has some questionable people, they aren't the majority. It's much better for me to block the individual accounts that cause problems than it is for me to lose the ability to talk to all my friends.
Kbin gives you the power to go to the domain and block it yourself; this isn't Lemmy. Why do you want to take that choice away from everyone who is okay with people from Threads in their feed?
I don't want to take away that choice. I personally don't have a problem with meta joining the fediverse, and in fact today I downloaded the app and created my account. I'm excited by the possibilities of being able to speak to my friends from my Mastodon account.
My point was more for the people who think that suddenly 1.2bn users are going to be showing up in this kbin instance.
That's fair, reading it again I see I misunderstood you. :)
I apologize if I seemed hostile; I just get frustrated with people wanting to block whole instances here without cause (like the instance being primarily trolls or hate speech). On Lemmy it makes sense since only the admins can block domains (and it applies to everyone), but Kbin allows domain-level blocking on an individual level so it makes a lot less sense here.
what you (and other likeminded people) haven't understood is that these 2 are 2 different topics. Defederating with meta is not because people don't want to be near the users of meta. It is because meta is a huge corp and it is not here to promote the idea of a federated network. It is here to make profit and to exploit the network. Allowing them to be part of the same network will just cause harm to the network itself in the end.
I suggest you reading this article https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html which is the story of how google killed XMPP, written by one of the XMPP core developers. I believe you will see the similarities.
@asjmcguire
I think misunderstand. I do understand that. I used XMPP. I've read that article.
My argument is that the fedipact, if executed as desired by the people running it, will defederate from Meta and anywhere that federates with Meta.
So now you have 2 fediverses, completely separated from one another. One side has Meta; the other doesn't. If I want to post something and I want people to see it and react to it, I will post it to the side with more people. If I want to scroll endlessly without needing to stop and refresh or wait because the feed is stale, I will look at the side with more people.
The other side - the fedipact side - will slowly become stale and niche. There will always be hardcore users - people still use XMPP - but it will fade into what it was in 2020 and 2021. My Lemmy account - @EnglishMobster - is from 2020. My original Mastodon account is even older. I've seen this place grow and blossom into what it is now, and the fedipact is threatening that growth. People will leave the side of the fedipact and join the side without it... which is to say, the side dominated by Meta.
Instead of a big wide fediverse with open source projects living alongside random PeerTube creators living alongside movie stars... we have 1 niche one and 1 dominated by a large corporation. It's literally the same result as if Meta went through with Embrace, Extend, Extinguish... but done without the "extend" or "extinguish", a massive "own goal" by the FOSS community.
And worse - it doesn't stop Facebook from going through with "extend" or "extinguish" later. It literally just destroys communities for no reason, leaving us in the exact same situation that XMPP is in today.
I am fine with an instance saying "we won't federate with Threads". I'd rather it not be Kbin, of course, but I will move to an instance that does federate because my friends are important to me.
I am not fine with me being held hostage for that. I don't want to join Threads directly if I can avoid it; I'd rather use my Kbin account. But the fedipact is trying to make that impossible by saying "we will defederate anywhere that federates with Threads".
i'm sorry but you're naive.
do you know how FB or instagram work? Do you think that when you post, your post reaches your whole audience? I believe you know how they work but for some reason you chose to ignore now.
So, you've read the history of XMPP. Did you understand what google practically did? Simply put, meta will create new features on top of activity pub. Open source activity pub developers will be in a constant race to adapt their own projects in a way that will be compatible with meta's project. They will have no voice but to follow whatever meta decides. Users will start getting fed up that their open source instance is not behaving as well as their friend's meta instance. People will jump project and/or when users are polarised, meta will decide that they had enough with activity pub. It doesn't cover their needs and they move to another completely closed project. Users again are forces to choose side and the open source community is just left with the project which they adapted in favour of meta, but now meta is gone because they were never in the same boat actually.
Staying away from meta is a decision in the basis of protecting the whole project. It is not because people don't want to be close to the users of meta. It is because meta is not here to promote the federated networks. It is here to make profit of it and they may even destroy it if they believe that this is the way to make profit. Siding with them is naive and will never bring value in the network itself.
None of that addresses the objection that has been raised though.
If instances want to defederate from meta that is perfectly fine, the Fediverse is supposed to be about choice.
Instances should not however be able to dictate what OTHER people on other instances are able to do.
By doing so - that part of the fediverse is behaving in exactly the same way that they fear that meta will behave eventually.
I don't get it. Nobody dictated anyone. People want absolutely none relation with meta and they want to be on a different network than meta. By federating with instances that federate with meta, everyone ends up in the same federated network while some pretend that they don't see each other. Meta is not here for the same values they are. Meta is not here for the values of the fediverse. Ostracizing meta is the only healthy solution if we agree that they have ulterior motives.
by not doing so, is like accepting meta as friend while at the same time you're waiting for the moment they'll stab you. Fediverse and activity pub have absolutely nothing to gain by allowing this.
@asjmcguire
Right.... so - the long and short of it is -
A company (any company) decides to integrate with ActivityPub, and the entire fediverse has a toys out of the pram moment every time that happens, gradually closing off into smaller and smaller federated circles, that stop federating with the rest of the fediverse.
A reminder, Tumblr are supposed to be adding ActivityPub.
Wordpress has.
Discourse I believe now has.
So who exactly is it that gets to decide which companies are and are not allowed to be part of the Fediverse?
It's all very very much like a dictatorship, whether you want to accept it or not - that's exactly how it is being operated.
Absolute strawman from the very first paragraph. Some people might complain about any company, but this uproar is specifically about facebook. Let's not pretend they are just any other company. They are among a short list of companies who have demonstrated just how awful a big tech company can be if allowd.
They have at no time in their history demonstrated any capability to be anything other than an example of all the worst things that Stallman or any of the OG greybeards would ever have warned us about. They are corporate greed exemplified, nearly to the point of parody.
@asjmcguire
I struggle to continue conversations when the argument is "if you're doing X to Y you are also Y". No, if you want to ostracise the biggest greediest corporation that we all know are here for different reasons than the reasons that the fediverse was created, no, you're not a dictator. You are just trying to protect your own values.
Same as when you don't allow hate speech, you're not a fascist who oPposEs tO fReE SpEeCh
Using words with very clear, historically set meaning, to describe the exact opposite thing is a very weird path to take.
Sorry I missed this in my prior reply and can no longer edit it.
It's not a dictatorship beyond any one instance, which is the entire point. You don't like that some large percentage of instances have said "no thank you" to Meta? Then you move to an instance that is happy to be embraced by them.
I'm waiting for the part where you explain the problem.
Just like today the folks who want to interact with the quality of discussion you get on facebook will be able to do so, and those who don't, won't.
I have scrolled this thread quickly so maybe I'm misattributing, but I feel like you've commented on how you and others will go to instances with "more users" more than once - as if this is some universal success metric.
I will go to the side which has quality discussion, and I'm exceptionally doubtful it's going to be the part of the fediverse that federates with meta. More users does not equal better discussion. I would argue that past a certain critical mass it almost guarantees lower quality discussion.
The fact that there CAN BE two fediverses seems to me a feature, not a bug.
If that's the case, presumably you're in the fediverse for other reasons? If audience size is central to you, wouldn't you be on reddit and insta/facebook?
I find the other demands going around even scarier to be honest.
"I don't want to federate with meta, but I also don't want to federate with anyone else who does federate with meta"
It's so terrifying that there are whole instances that are now attempting to dictate who the rest of the fediverse is allowed to federate with. And frankly I think it's a downward spiral if that is allowed. Because if they do it once, they will do it again and again.
How is that dictating anything? A given instance has no inherent right to be federated with, it's the entire point of federation. The folks who bizarrely want meta getting their claws into the fediverse expecting everyone else to go along feels much more dictatorial to me.
In one example the objecting instances do nothing more than refuse to interact with the instances they choose not to interact with.
In the other example, a smaller number of instances want to tell the entire rest of the fediverse that they MUST interact with them.
No.
Factually untrue, it is not the same at all. It is also a kbin specific feature that someone on lemmy doesn't have access to, for example.
If they're 90-99% of the users/content and people are used to most of their communities being on there, then it becomes increasingly difficult to say "we won't support their standards". Allowing a monopoly on the fediverse can cause issues.
AND this is a very succinct explanation of exactly what the "Extend" part of "Embrace/Extend/Extinguish" is!
So. In 1 day, Threads has gotten more users than all of Mastodon combined. My friends are on Threads. They're not coming to Mastodon. I've tried. I couldn't even convince my fiance to join me on Mastodon for longer than a day, and we live together.
How would you suppose I talk to my friends? By joining Meta? Or by staying with FOSS on the fediverse? Because when you say "everywhere needs to defederate from Meta" you're also saying "You shouldn't talk to your friends here, nor should your friends be able to talk to you."
Quite frankly - I really enjoy that I can both be here and still be in contact with my friends. Meta can't track me here (as much, I'm aware they can still siphon data but they could do that regardless). I'd much rather stay here if I can. But if given the chance to choose, I'm going to move to somewhere that federates with Threads. Not because I like Meta - I hate Zuck almost as much as I do Elon, which is quite a lot - but because I'd rather see and talk to my friends than be locked in with a bunch of rando control freaks jumping at shadows.
If the fedipact had it their way, anywhere that federated with Threads would in turn become defederated. This will create 2 separate fediverses. People will have to choose which one they spend time on - even if they have accounts on both sides, one will always be the "primary" account.
I posit that for many people, the "primary" account is going to be the one with their friends and interests. It's going to be the side with the influencers they follow. Simply, it's going to be the one that federates with Threads. The other side will slowly wither and die, as all the content dries up and people move to where the network effect is strongest.
You can argue that we need to defederate because of "embrace, extend, extinguish". Tell me: what is the end result of EEE? A diminished fediverse, where most people use the single app that has all the people and all the content. How is that different than the splintered fediverse caused by the fedipact?
It's really not much different at all. If Meta goes for EEE, there is no stopping them. If the fedipact takes hold and rabidly defederated anywhere that glances at Meta, then the fediverse's network effect will shatter. The fedipact will simply backfire and shoot themselves in the foot as people choose the side with the larger network effect. It's ridiculous that the idea has gotten as much traction as it has; the fedipact's best-case scenario is worse than the worst-case of EEE.
If a bunch of people want to live in small segmented communities, that's on them. Beehaw is right there if you want it; that's what Beehaw aspires for. But large, general-purpose instances shouldn't bow to the whims of a loud minority that don't even realize the repercussions of their agitations.
The fediverse is at its strongest when we federate. That's what makes this place special. We've agreed that walled gardens are bad, and the one time that we have a chance to get a bunch of "normal" users on the fediverse everyone panics because they're afraid of EEE.
The fedipact isn't going to stop EEE. If Meta wants to do EEE, they're going to do it with or without the fedipact. We don't even know for sure that EEE will happen - it's true that Meta is a business, but there are plenty of open protocols you use every day that never got hit by EEE. L
All the fedipact will do is hurt people who want to use free software to see their friends so this loud minority can exercise their control over everyone.
You have the power to block the domain here if that's what you want to do. Please don't let your personal fears ruin the experience of others.
I'm okay with a small bubble of randos as my Fediverse, I don't need -- or want -- my social media to be "everybody".
I'm in a discord with my friends and that's pretty much all I need.
That's fair, but I personally want my social media to be "everybody".
That's actually what brought me here to Kbin - I loved that it had Mastodon integration and connected everybody to everybody else.
I was originally on Beehaw, which is very much trying to capture that "Discord with my friends" feel. And that's totally fine; I understand that and respect it and think it's valid.
But the point is that we have options. Kbin especially is great because these options can happen at a user level; you can go in and block entire instances from your user account, and it'll be just as if that instance was defederated. Admins don't need to maintain a short allowlist or a large denylist; you can curate it to your comfort level on your own.
But I'll also recognize that it's not inherently a small community - you're taking a big community and slicing off parts of it, which isn't the same. But there are spots for that cozy feeling across the fediverse if that's what you want. I just don't think a broad flagship instance like Kbin.social should be one of those spots.
@EnglishMobster @0xtero @Roundcat So what you're saying is "ignore all the horrible shit Facebook as done, they have more people and that allows them to do anything they want" ?
I'm saying 3 things:
Facebook is going to do whatever they want regardless. They are a business, and they are in the business of making money. I don't like Facebook. I don't appreciate Facebook. I don't use Facebook (or Instagram, or WhatsApp...). Facebook will always do what is best for Zuck, and if Zuck leans into EEE that is what Facebook will do no matter what.
Right now, Facebook is giving me a chance to interact with my friends without using Facebook. That's huge; my friends don't share my anti-Facebook beliefs and are all still on there. I'd love to reconnect but want to do it on my terms. Federation allows that.
The fedipact is going to do more harm than good. It won't stop Facebook from doing what they want to do, as per point 1. If Facebook goes down the path of EEE (which we can guess but is technically not guaranteed - see how the Matter protocol is taking off), then Facebook will execute EEE with or without the fedipact. But the fedipact does Facebook's work for them by inherently splitting the fediverse into a "Facebook side" and a "fedipact side". This split is not healthy and many people will choose the side with a larger network effect - i.e. Facebook. Thus this accomplishes the same thing as EEE without Facebook doing anything other than Embracing.
Facebook is allowed to do what they want because they are a business with billions of dollars. They've done horrible shit but they're also mainstream, where my friends hang out and where the celebrities are.
If the fedipact didn't exist, I would be able to freely interact with the people on Facebook without needing to download Zuck's data vacuum. I'd be able to see my friends and talk to my friends without having to deal with all the... Facebook parts.
The fedipact threatens that because it will cause large communities (like Fosstodon, which has many open-source projects I follow) to defederate themselves from anywhere that federates with Threads. This splits the fediverse badly and in the fedipact's best-case scenario (for them) the only way I could even talk to my friends is by downloading and installing Zuck's app. I'd rather not.
@EnglishMobster Yep, might makes right, why bother resisting, gotcha.
I'm not even saying you're wrong about the damage that this could do, but you're also ignoring how FB being here and dominating will make the fedi be a place that many just don't want to be anymore.
And yeah, great that you can talk to your friends, but I see so many people be afraid of libs of tiktok, and other hate groups entering on an instance that, according to you, should never be defederated from because of its size.
@EnglishMobster IOW, yes, I can see this split ripping fedi in two, but I think you're wrong in thinking that the FB side will be the one that most of the people on here now want to be on.
It will end up just becoming another for-profit hole, exactly like the ones so many of us are trying to get away from.
That isn't what I'm saying. You can still ban individual users here on Kbin. I don't like LibsOfTikTok either, but I can ban them from all my magazines if I wish. I can block them personally.
Are you advocating for blocking anywhere that has any kind of extremist accounts of any kind? Lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works have open sign-ups; if LibsOfTikTok joined either of those would you want Kbin to defederate from all of Lemmy.world?
The vast majority of people on Threads are normal people. Extremists exist, yes - just as they existed on Twitter, and Reddit, and Mastodon.social, and Lemmy.world, and anywhere that has a large number of users with easy sign-ups. Heck, I'm sure Kbin has some too.
I don't personally think that those relatively small number of accounts is worth the harm that will be caused by bisecting the entire fediverse. And where do you draw the line? If Google got into the fediverse game, would you want to defederate from them, too? What about Amazon? Apple? Disney? Wikipedia?
If you want to get away from that, you're welcome to frequent another instance that has that moderation style. I already see you're not here on Kbin; I can't speak to the rules of your instance but I am completely fine with your instance defederating from Meta if it wants to be a small community. Beehaw is another great example of somewhere that will aggressively defederate to remain small; I am sure they will defederate from Threads as well.
As for your second point, I can give you my perspective. I chose Kbin because I want to spend all day on a site scrolling away. I don't like seeing stale content. I don't like being constrained to a small community where nothing happens.
If the fediverse splits, we will go back to 2020-era Mastodon. It will be a bunch of niche communities without much in the way of updates. You'll read your whole feed in a few minutes, and then you need to find something else to do. That's probably healthy, but it's not somewhere that will keep me coming back (there's a reason why I never use my Mastodon account).
The other half will have constant updates. A new feed every refresh. If I post something, I'll get a bunch of likes and follows and comments straight away. It's an incredible dopamine hit, each time.
If given the choice... why would I choose the slow one? The one where I'll get... maybe 3 likes from some strangers. The one that doesn't have my friends or family or anyone I actually know.
I realize not everyone agrees, but I've been around the block to know that people crave the network effect and will go to where it is strongest. It's why the Mastodon Migration failed. The only reason why Lemmy/Kbin is taking off is because Reddit's moderation team is actively ruining Reddit's network effect. And one of the reasons why Threads is taking off is because Elon just destroyed Twitter's network effect.
@EnglishMobster As I don't like writing books, I'm going to keep it short. A badly moderated instance is hell for other instances, and their users. There's a reason why people should be banned from platforms, and it's very common practice to defederate from instances with a lot of abusers.
So yeah, having individuals just block individuals doesn't scale, and having no good moderation makes for a horrible platform.
Sounds like you just want to be on threads then? You prioritize infinite content and scaling up, talking to your friends and centralization over not being beholden to a big corporation so why keep insisting on ruining it for everyone else here then, just go there instead? Fediverse is not going to replace conventional social media in any near future, if ever.
Huh? Where exactly did I say that?
You’ve summed up pretty much exactly how I feel.
The Fediverse solutions are better because of interoperability. While I feel Meta needs to be watched closely as far as their moves and intentions in the space, I’m worried by shutting out any large company projects utilizing the Fediverse, the concept will never “take off”.
And I’ve seen some argue that they don’t want it to take off. That they’d prefer the Fediverse stay niche, and I wholly disagree. The way this is all designed allows each user to choose the experience they’re going for, and shoehorning the entire Fediverse into some vision of a fringe and niche network that no influencers or corporate interests are on at all, is just begging for it to stay irrelevant forever.
Ideally, we wind up in a situation where Meta content can easily be filtered away by any individual user, should they feel that is necessary. But if Threads takes off, I’d rather be able to interact with that content from right here than have to actually become a user of their entire platform.
I'm not against corporations integrating with the fediverse, but I do think that federating with Meta will be a net negative for the fediverse as a whole, atleast in its current state.
First of all, In a purely practical sense, since we're still struggling to keep different instances in sync with the amount of content that is here today. We're going to have a real bad time trying to sync threads content, while they can probably sync the rest of the fediverse without breaking a sweat. I am afraid that we're going to drastically increase the compute necessary to maintain a cohesive fediverse, and that we're just going to hand Meta the keys to the castle as they are the only one able to provide this service at that scale. This is probably less of an issue for Mastodon, where you subscribe to users and not communities.
Furthermore, I'll come out and say that I like that this place is more niche. I've found a lot more joy posting here than i did on reddit or twitter, despite the lower user count. I don't think that access to a large user base is necessarily going to make this a better place for the group that is here now. I think we as a fediverse needs to grow a bit as a community before we can even hope to take in Meta without it warping the entire community to the point that its no longer itself.
People don't get the technicalities of syncing so much data. And I'm not even talking about the costs.
Imagine the face of your sysadmin when you tell him that you're gonna run a carbon copy of Threads on his infrastructure. They haven't seen the size of the archive of reddit.
One day it would be fun to talk about the costs though.
The servers of the fediverse cannot handle the load of facebook. The case is closed before it even begun.
Create your own instance and ask for federation with facebook: Threads won't federate with you. Because they don't know who you are and you did not sign any LEGAL AGREEMENT before you publish on their service through federation. You really think that you can push your content on their servers before you abide to a legal agreement?
You cannot make everything about "your friends". At the end of the day "your friends" use for free an infrastructure worth billions functionning in a legal framework. You didn't think about the business problem and you didn't think about the legal problem.