this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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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.
Asynchronously talking to people? Not really. Or, I should say - not any where I'm able to contact those people.
While I have some of their phone numbers, I don't have all of them - and they're not likely to text me pictures of their new baby.
While I know a couple on Discord, that's far less than the number of people I know.
I don't think I know any of their email addresses. And this isn't the early 2000s where email chains are a thing anyway.
It's nice to be able to see what old friends are doing. I haven't talked to some of these people for years. A lot of them came from my time working at Disneyland; sometimes we were close friends; other times we just traded a couple shifts. Still others were just times we spent closing together, chatting about nothing and everything. I treasure their interactions and I want to see how they're doing - but I don't want to directly use Facebook.
Threads gives me the ability to check in on them from right here on Kbin. I don't need to leave this site. I don't need to give my info to Zuck. I just shoot them a follow, maybe send a message if they have to manually accept follow requests. I don't want Kbin to defederate because it'll take that from me for no good reason. (As I've stated elsewhere, the fedipact is self-defeating and we should fight at the "extend" stage, not the "embrace" one.)
I don't want to enter Facebook's walled garden, and right now the power of the fediverse is that I don't have to. The fedipact wants to change that - in their ideal world, I would have to. They won't stop Facebook, but they would be a pain in the ass for everyone who disagrees with their approach (again - fight "extend", not "embrace!"!), and there's a good chance their short-sightedness will destroy the fediverse.
But today, the fediverse is a collection of open websites. If Facebook wanted data collection they could just set up their own private instance with some innocent name and nobody would be any the wiser. They have nothing to gain from me interacting with someone on the fediverse; even if that someone is using their site, that person will likely be using their site regardless.
It really doesn't make any sense to enforce this stupid restriction of "defederate anyone who federates with Meta". There's nothing for anyone to gain, and a lot to lose. That's the main thing I have issues with. (I also don't think Kbin should defederate from Threads to begin with because it's meant to cast a wide net. You can make your own instance with tighter moderation if that's what you want - see Beehaw - or you can block the Threads domain. They're only on the "microblog" tab anyway unless they're replying to something they follow here.)
You won't be able to talk on threads if you don't first sign a legal agreement with Facebook.
You know who else want to talk to their friends: The islamic state. Do you really think for a second that Threads will federate with an instance of the islamic state? Threads won't federate. Why would they federate? Tell us. Zuck doesn't want you, you talk bad about facebook, he is glad that you are out.
No fediverse server can handle the amount of data of threads. I don't think you realize the size of these project.