Gregory's ServerThe recent excitement surrounding Thread's arrival on the Fediverse is concerning. To understand why this is not a good idea, consider their economic interest in harvesting data, their poor moderation, and their manipulations. Nothing good can come from their federation. Don't roll out the red carpet for them.
 138 comments
@acrypthash @davidrevoy Death on Discworld was ultimately on people’s side, though. The same cannot be said for Meta. @davidrevoy Wait who is excited for Thread's arrival? Maybe I've got myself trapped in a filter bubble but I only see universal condemnation of Threads?  @stolas @fabiscafe @davidrevoy Following funny accounts by people who don't care about Meta, prefer algorithm Timeline, hate choice, etc.  @stolas That I can (in theory) follow and talk to people over there. The reason why I joined the Fedi to beginn with. @fabiscafe @stolas that's such a good answer. Some people are only focusing on some politics and forget that many people just use socials to interact with each other  @stolas @davidrevoy I'm kind of excited. If the Fediverse doesn't federate, why is it called the Fediverse then? The entire point is for different services to communicate based on standards.  > Don't let this happen to the Fediverse ... Wait, but only Mastodon is present in the media ... not the fedi.@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org  @davidrevoy  @davidrevoy If they want to harvest data, they'll do it with some random unassumingly-named node.
And they'll probably do it better than the MIT guy. It's true that they'll provide approximately nothing of value, but at least for a glorious 24h we get to call the normiest normies niggers.  @f4grx @davidrevoy I don't mean my personal data. If they want to harvest fedi data, they already can. They don't have to federate with their own service to be able to harvest it. Just make a server with a random name and one user and federate that with everything. People would never know it'd be Meta behind it. So 'oh no my data' isn't a good reason to defederate Threads @f4grx @diondokter @davidrevoy All it would take is one whistleblower from Falsebook Corp to expose them.  @Sh4d0w_H34rt @davidrevoy as if people will read that. We had a twitter influx of folks that all moved here with their friends and just carried on with their same old ways. They do not care what the platform is, they just care that their friends are here so they can all whinge about politics and climate change without doing anything tangible. They care nought for any ToS, not even the one of the server they reside on in a lot of cases. @Sh4d0w_H34rt @davidrevoy some instances on Mastodon say they are not the place for free speech. It's also concerning, yet we are here :) @davidrevoy there were a lot of vectors for anyone to start scraping the fediverse and harvest data
If they wanted to do it, they probably have already done it  @davidrevoy Also, time to popularize #FediArt instead of #MastoArt. #FediArt is less tied with a 'product' 😌  @davidrevoy If I wanted a threads account I'd open one All I want to know about threads on the fedi is which servers they are so I can block the fuckers @davidrevoy @davidrevoy Definitely not an easy discussion. Meta as a company deserves all the criticism, and I do not trust them at all. But … we always advocate for free and open services and protocols. Now that we get them, we say "no, not like that!" This is what we wanted, this is how we get users to interact with the fediverse, how we show them how easy it is to use privacy respecting services, this is how we get them to switch. Instead we build walls, exclude them, make it difficult and unappealing. @davidrevoy @jug I completely agree. If we want the fediverse to be a real competition to the established social media, this is a good thing. Now it is actually viable for people to follow politics/celebrity gossip/friends/etc on threads, so they can remove or stop using threads. @mrFred489 @davidrevoy @jug but do we want that? Perpetual growth is not always a good idea. @davidrevoy @jug @f4grx if we agree that Facebook is horrible, and that data harvesting can be used for bad things, it should be positive that we are getting a mechanism that over time could move people away from Facebook. Maybe it is not fantastic for existing small fediverse communities, but I also don’t think that it is completely negative. For the global society though, I think that it can be very positive in the long run. @mrFred489 @davidrevoy @jug people can already move away from facebook. But they dont wznt to. Something like threads means that they will just be able to invade our spaces without leaving facebook. @mrFred489 @davidrevoy @jug remember that the number of facebook users is much larger than the entire fediverse. We will be drowned. @mrFred489 @davidrevoy @jug people that stay of facebook are lazy. I dont want to go to matrix analogies, but ... @davidrevoy @jug @f4grx I don’t think that people specifically don’t want to leave Facebook, they just don’t care enough about privacy to give up on all the stuff they follow on there. So this actually gives them an opportunity to leave without compromising on their other interests. @jug this is absolutely not what we wanted. I do want people on the fediverse, I absolutely do not want them in Meta's grip. Meta is a horrible corporation, with horrible values, driven by a horrible man-child (yes, my English vocabulary is limited, 3x horrible in the same sentence because I have nothing else 🙂 ) . Trust is something that one have to earn, and they have a horrible (4x) track record. They don't get the benefit of doubt anymore, that's long gone. @jug @davidrevoy no, we want to exclude billionaires, and I am not sorry about that. I want a fediverse full of friends, not companies, and specifically not facebook.  @jug @davidrevoy you think Fedi users care about free and open protocols? A majority of Maston users doesn't care.  @davidrevoy that’s as beautiful as the background is ugly. Thank you for sharing!  @davidrevoy Mastodon really ought to have provided much better information to people regarding losing follows when moderation like this takes place. I have absolutely no idea who I'm about to no longer be in contact with as Threads causes this schism. The onus should never have been on me, the individual. It's a total UX own goal. edit - I know you have your hands full and I apologize for tagging you out of the blue, but this is such a big deal @Gargron @davidrevoy Anyone can data farm off of ActivityPub. We should welcome Threads with open arms. #Threads #ActivityPUb #Welcome    @davidrevoy nice drawing, I have to say. Nice picture. Exactly shows what you mean, your point.  @davidrevoy Just login and see for yourself how bad the content is. This is Instagram only with more words. This is yet another social network for content and not for discussion. Mark Zuckerberg ist unable to re invent Social Media!  @davidrevoy Not sure about this "excitement", you're the only person I've even seen mention it. They could always harvest data without a presence, so nothing is really changing. No need for false panic @davidrevoy it's not thread's arrival on the fediverse, but the connexion of the fediverse to thread. That's a completely different dynamic. @myrmidon I have no idea. I'm just a user. I understand those who are already defederated with them (as my instance), I understand those who are 'waiting and seeing'. But I'm also deeply concerned about those who praise this situation and try to normalise it as something positive. I don't see anything positive in it and I just wanted to say it. @davidrevoy It’s happening and once it’s on, it will be bigger than all of SocialWeb before them (at least an order of magnitude).  @davidrevoy On the original announcement post by Zuck on the federation testing of Threads https://www.threads.net/@zuck/post/C0zXcQmxO77/ there are multiple replies of people complaining about the sheer number of porn bots, accounts spreading misinformation, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and other stuff like that on Threads. I can't verify any of that myself as I don't use Threads (or Instagram for that matter), but I definitely don't need to see those kinds of posts and accounts on my feed thank you very much.  @davidrevoy An open web requires open protocols, so I'm okay with #Threads opting into the ActivityPub protocol, if it actually ever does. But it hasn't. Not yet. I'm also okay with certain servers being insular and excluding Threads. Kinda strange to do this before we know how Threads will approach the fediverse, but #socialmedia lives and breathes on this kind of thing. And the Fediverse is built to handle it too. @rwg  @markstoneman @davidrevoy @rwg At this point, it's no longer preemptive. While Threads hasn't started fully federating, its poor moderation alone is already a good reason to consider blocking it. Other fedi instances have been blocked for far less. @davidrevoy You're right. And it's worth knowing what ELSE Facebook/Meta knowingly allows on its services: https://creativegood.com/blog/23/instagrams-unmentionable-problem.html @davidrevoy We should be rightfully alarmed by this. We don't want to be integrated into the Zuckusphere   @davidrevoy On one hand, it's nice to see that the technology is being recognised as valuable, as a validation of AP-based social media. @davidrevoy Nothing good will come from Threads staying separated and gobbling up all the Twitter refugees either. Keep your friends close and your enemies closer. @davidrevoy I'm confused by the data harvesting argument. Isn't the fediverse already accessible to anyone? Why would it help them to federate? I do however get the other concerns. I hope server admins will be 'trigger happy' enough when things go south. At least the power is in the hands of many.  @davidrevoy : looks like I will need to write a post to go with that new picture like I did with https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html @maxmm77 Ok, good points, but I also see this side: harvesting data, on their side they can measure behavior of their audience who interacts with our post (how long a follower scroll/read my post, interact with it). And nudge them with timeline manipulation (sorting the post inside a specific context). Poor moderation is already a thing ( I see a user complaining about too many porn bots on https://www.threads.net/@zuck/post/C0zXcQmxO77/ ). @maxmm77 2/2 About manipulation, they are also known for the "pay to win" (politics, brands, etc... pay to get more visibility). This will probably have a similar effect on user of the fediverse. Thinking the network is cheated. @davidrevoy Hey thanks for your response! You're right on harvesting Threads user interactions with Mastodon posts, & I'm sure their timelines will be manipulated. I hope the interaction allows Threads users to realize they don't need Meta messing with their feeds. @maxmm77 Thank you and I agree with the defederation beauty.  @davidrevoy I understand the concern, but there is nothing in the protocol that allows them to harvest data according to the main Mastodon developer. Even displaying images from an Thread user won't give the IP back to Meta as images are copied and cached from instance servers. It is a post work reading. It alleviated some of my concerns at least. @davidrevoy @ariane I have a hard time understanding all this angst about Threads, besides a gross misunderstanding of how the Fediverse works. The misunderstanding is quite acceptable for an artist or most of the users, far less so for some mastodon admins who decided to block Threads. @Leuenberg @ariane Désolé de ne pas pouvoir comprendre, je ne suis en effet qu'un artiste et c'est chose normale. /s @Leuenberg I have a hard time understanding all that welcoming of Threads, besides a gross misunderstanding of how surveillance capitalism or Meta work. The misunderstanding is quite acceptable for technical people, but I'm quite relieved that a number of fediverse admins decided to block Threads. I'm therefore inviting anyone thinking Thread's arrival on the fediverse is ok to think again. @davidrevoy @ariane @RLetot @davidrevoy @ariane You should really read Eugene Rochko's paper I linked, he precisely address the argument of the embrace, extend, extinguish threat using also XMPP. @davidrevoy I thought the whole point of the fediverse was that instances were free to federate or defederate however they wished. When did we reverse that philosophy? @therionofthebeast Yes, nothing good can come from *their* federation. It doesn't mean that I criticize the concept or philosophy of federate/defederate. Instances are free to defederate with them. @davidrevoy I can think of at least one good thing. There might actually be some interesting content on here besides the constant Linux evangelism. Hell, I know of at least one person in threads that I would like to follow, and it’ll be nice to be able to do that without having to actually use threads! @davidrevoy@framapiaf.org It will be the end of a hope called the Fediverse.🤦♂️ Conflict only draws attention. Being mad and upset about Meta's Threads joining the Fediverse only further promotes Threads. The best defense is not to engage and ignore. Meta wants you to see Thread users and posts. They want you to be frustrated that the two cannot interact with one another, so that out of your frustration, you will join Threads. Meta knows how people think and feel. What better way than to have you frustrated with the status quo and engage? @Linux_Is_Best I largely disagree. Best defense is always to start communication about something. Not engaging and ignoring something is never effective. Not thank you for teaching me how I should behave by the way. @davidrevoy I will watch the situation and will react if needed. Means: when my users are getting harassed from Threads people, then I will cut the connection.
 @davidrevoy valid criticism and yet the people in charge act as if it’s impossible to have a moral standard. @davidrevoy If a decentralized social media platform is so fragile that it can be completely destroyed by the presence of one company, it meets the idea of the fediverse was never that viable to begin with.  @davidrevoy It isn't as if there's no precedence. XMPP (then called Jabber) was a promising open and federated chat protocol that fell victim to the double whammy by FB and the BigG. @davidrevoy @davidrevoy Love the artwork (as usual!) and agree with your concerns. Personally I'm all for interoperabiltiy, open standards, protocols, and source regardless of who uses them, but the discussions are still important and so is vigilience.  @davidrevoy @trendytoots Embrace, extend, extinguish. Where have we seen that before? @davidrevoy I think it was to be expected. It will certainly be tough but the open web will go out of it stronger than before @davidrevoy The hysteria over this is truly confounding. Threads will not be able to harvest your data once federated. Being able to follow someone without the need to subscribe to the same platform/ rules they use/ follow is expressly the value of a federated network for me… |
@davidrevoy True.