I'm surprised it's taking them so long. It seems like it shouldn't be that much of a technical challenge for an organization with Meta's resources, especially when it was planned before the service even launched.
this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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They might be talking about data harvesting and revenue generation driven from federated sources.
If you mean from the Fediverse side, it's not really possible. At least not from Mastodon.
People have this misunderstanding, if they add ads, it will be for users of #threads, other servers will not see the ad. What about if they inject an ad to every post? That would make no sense, their income come from ads, but personalized ads, you probably hate them, but tons of people find them useful, besides they won't be able to have metrics for a wall of text or image at the bottom of every post for others in the #fediverse.
If your instance chooses to federate with them, how wouldn't it be possible for them to process that data?
From my post below: "If you follow someone on threads, they'll only get your username, server name, profile pic, and server IP. That's the same thing any remote instance gets. They'll know if you like/share/comment on their content because you'd be telling them. Besides that, they can't know anything. They only interact directly with your server, so they won't even be able to tell if you see or click anything you're subscribed to. In order to track you, they'd have to get info from your server (that isn't collecting it to begin with). They also don't have a reliable way to connect the sliver of data collected to an identity to serve ads to.
Really, the only reason they can collect as much about their users as they do is that they control their servers."
At least not yet.
If you follow someone on threads, they'll only get your username, server name, profile pic, and server IP. That's the same thing any remote instance gets. They'll know if you like/share/comment on their content because you'd be telling them. Besides that, they can't know anything. They only interact directly with your server, so they won't even be able to tell if you see or click anything you're subscribed to. In order to track you, they'd have to get info from your server (that isn't collecting it to begin with). They also don't have a reliable way to connect the sliver of data collected to an identity to serve ads to.
Really, the only reason they can collect as much about their users as they do is that they control their servers.
Could be just tactics. Remember the uproar the first time it was said threads would federate? Suddenly they were "not ready yet".
Now in the second go, the idea got already normalized and there are more pro-meta comments. And they will stay silent and non-intrusive at the beginning.
Zuck is really big into early adaptation (metaverse i.e.), they see potential in the fediverse and their first objective is to be part of it, then grow with it and finally take advantage of it, once the time is right.
It's really not a good thing that some people think the fediverse is going to go up in flames as soon as meta joins. That's obviously not going to happen and sets wrong expectations that could lead to more acceptance.
I've not seen any pro meta posts. Unless this is meant in the same vein as those calling out Israel are portrayed as pro hamas wrongly. What I have seen is a lot of baseless speculation, and uninformed opinion being thrown around as fact.
We should definitely keep an eye on every capitalist or authoritarian. Because they'd gladly sacrifice our lives and privacy for a few dollars more. But anyone who thinks integrating their own servers is going to give them any more information than the servers already give anyone who asks. Has a flawed understanding of what is possible and likely.
This is all akin to the people who never used XMPP claiming Google killed it. Which is another bit of fear uncertainty and doubt being thrown out to stir people up in these threads as well. I have used XMPP consistently for the last 20+ years. I'm logged in this very minute. They just had a 2023 Google summer of code conclude.
We should watch meta like a hawk. And of course not give them special treatment. But they want to connect to us. We have the keys and the power if they don't want to play by the rules. We don't have to federate with them. They're going to collect the data regardless. But the enemy of our enemy can still be useful.
I do imagine they have a dirty trick in mind and I'm not sure what it is yet. Perhaps they aren't either.
There's also an opportunity though. Threads users will get exposed to open source, independently-hosted alternatives they wouldn't have heard about otherwise. Some of them will switch. If those projects can offer a better user experience than Threads, more of them will switch.
I suspect the angle is something around avoiding regulation, they were happy with the previous "we're just a platform" arrangement where they could hold their hands up and waive responsibility for the content and users on it. Now that's actively being remediated by various governments, I think they're hoping they can make claims of reduced responsibility for what's on their site if it can come from elsewhere in the fediverse.
I'm not sure about specifics, but my gut feeling is that this is the angle
I think if that's all there is to it, I'd be pretty happy with it. Governments can still attempt to regulate their use of algorithmic feeds regardless of the source of content.
With a service that size, they're gonna have to move slow, make sure things don't break, and try to minimize downtime.
Take your time. Take forever.
Take your time, Mark III Zucker-borg. I'm in no rush for you to screw up yet another web site with your ads and your propaganda.
My takeaways:
Mosseri says that the Threads team wants to make it so the option to follow a Threads account on other platforms is available to “all public accounts on Threads, not just a handful of testers.”
You can only follow other threads accounts?
At the moment, he says the team plans to require accounts to be public and that users “explicitly opt in” to showing their posts on other federated servers. But the team is still considering making this the default, with the choice to opt out, instead.
They're planning on using the fediverse content and server space without providing any.
The Threads team wants to let replies from other platforms show up inside of Threads. “It’s a bad experience now that I have to leave the Threads app to see replies I’m getting from the broader community,”
It's the content they want the most, this makes it clear if you have to leave their app to reply to someone on another instance. We're the zoo.
This is a key one: follower portability. “Eventually, it should also be possible to enable creators to leave Threads and take their followers with them to another app / server,” Mosseri writes. “I believe that it’s important that creators own their relationship with their audience.”
The bolded words makes me think that they're not going to do any of that, lol
Please instance owners, don't wait and see.
In the view of Suckerberg and Mosseri : In the future there will be no Fediverse exist, only Threadverse
Well they can plan it if they want to, but I'm sure many instances will just end up blocking them and there isn't anything they can do about it. But on the other hand, having such a large backing is making things much easier for Threads.
Interesting. I'm on Mastedon, but not active. I'm curious if I'll notice any changes by next year.
You should pop over there now if "Everyone screaming at each other about Threads" is one of your interests.
Yeah it's out of control. My main instance is in fedipact, which I support, so I'm kinda set.
But it's like 50% of my feed and it's too much.
Is threads still even active? The few users I knew on it don't use it anymore.
That might be why they want to start integrating. Get a free user base and poach content to make it look like positive activity.
Is threads still even active?
Yes
oh damn.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
On Friday, two days after Threads finally started publicly testing ActivityPub integration, Instagram head Adam Mosseri shared a thread on Threads detailing the company’s plans for its continued integration with the fediverse.
Right now, it’s possible to follow a few Threads accounts (including Mosseri’s) from other platforms, but Meta has much bigger plans for Threads interoperability that Mosseri says will take “the better part of a year” to realize.
Mosseri says the updates will roll out “in stages,” and he recognizes that the “better part of a year” timeline is a long one.
“That’s a lot longer than I, or anybody on the team, wants, but it’s the reality given all the other work we need to be balance,” he says.
I’ve watched a Threads video from Mosseri on Mastodon, that rules!
Update December 15th, 5:57PM ET: Added screenshots of Mosseri’s thread.
The original article contains 171 words, the summary contains 142 words. Saved 17%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Ideally people would all form cooperatives and host their own instances on social media and their would be no corporate interests on the fediverse. The fediverse has a chance to to gain access to more content by federating with threads. But I don’t know if the costs or worth it. But if we don’t take the chance we may never have the mind share to become mainstream
Well I can't afford to pay for that much server traffic, can any of us?
Where will we be when meta own all the servers?
Exactly. Mastodon already is a disk space hog even with severely limited retention on my instance.
Dont trust facebook.