69
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by ruplicant@sh.itjust.works to c/agora@sh.itjust.works

Should sh.itjust.works preemptively defederate from Threads?

Threads is the not-so-new ~~reddit-like~~ twitter-like public forum platform by Meta, the same commercial company behind internet behemoths like Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. They're working on ActivityPub integration so that they can bridge (federate?) with the fediverse. As far as I know, the focus is on Mastodon instances, but in the future that could include Lemmy instances too.

Some have raised the question, worried about the future of the fediverse or even claiming that it goes against its definition.

What do you think should be done?

EDIT: correction

EDIT.2: The Vote is on! Go make your voice heard. You have until Friday the 29th.

Fediverse instances' status on federation with Threads

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 45 points 1 year ago

my take on it is that i am completely against any kind of bridging between the platforms. i do think the fediverse in general is in danger, by being a victim of the "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" strategy

as many on lemmy, i use this platform because of its decentralized, open-source, not-for-profit nature, and think the whole fediverse community would be in jeopardy if we don't act

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 22 points 1 year ago

Exactly. I'm almost always against defederation, but the risk of EEE is why I'm in favor of preemptively defederating.

[-] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago

would like to had this more informed and well articulated take on why federation with Threads would be bad

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 year ago

Defederation is meaningless, what matters is the dev side. Federating doesn't give them anything they couldn't get other ways for slightly more effort. The problems come if you allow contributions the greater community doesn't want to the code itself.

[-] your@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago

My bigger concern is content being overwhelmed by a flood of accounts that have a different online culture from what has grown and is still developing here.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] DeepChill@sh.itjust.works 44 points 1 year ago

I’m in favour of anything that prevents Meta’s enshittification of everything.

[-] Dirk_Darkly@sh.itjust.works 40 points 1 year ago

Facebook should be quarantined as much as possible.

[-] TrojanHam@sh.itjust.works 34 points 1 year ago

I'm for the preemptive de-federation.

[-] blackstampede@sh.itjust.works 28 points 1 year ago

Yep. Defederate.

I have no interest in welcoming Facebook/Meta/Zuckerburg's Big Goddamn Fucky Wucky Company to the Fediverse. I would vote to defederate from Threads and any instance federated with them.

[-] spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 year ago

If and when Meta becomes “federated”, I 100% will be on team DEFEDERATE.

[-] spiderkle@lemmy.ca 15 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Everyone must only answer this question for themselves: Do you want to have extra content at the cost of potentially more ads & tracking? Because that's their current monetization model.

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

How would another instance inject ads and tracking into this instance? If that's possible, then that's a serious security issue far bigger than Facebook, and is the real thing we should be discussing

[-] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I'm taking off my admin hat and commenting as a user...

One minor correction to OP's post: Threads is a X/Twitter clone, not a Reddit clone.

I'm in the wait-and-see camp. If Threads someday links to Lemmy, and if it becomes problematic for the function or culture of the platform, then I will be in favor of cutting them off.
As @ryathal@sh.itjust.works mentioned, the real risk is that Meta starts steering Lemmy development in its favor. I don't foresee that happening given that dessalines and nutomic oversee code contributions, and they certainly won't allow it.

As an aside, I'm not convinced Threads will last long to begin with. It isn't looking like the X killer that Meta seemed to be hoping for. Meta has been trying to artificially drive engagement by creating shadow accounts for Facebook/Instagram users, and sticking Threads posts in people's Facebook feeds. Integrating with Mastodon feels like a further attempt to entice Meta users to adopt a microblogging app that nobody asked for. At this rate it may fizzle and die before they ever get around to interacting with Lemmy.

[-] 50gp@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

can threads not just kill all other instances with their huge number of posts that would come through and hide everything else?

[-] merc@sh.itjust.works 16 points 1 year ago

Yeah, even if Meta acts with 100% good will, and the Threads users are wonderful and respectful, Threads is about 50x as big as the entire Fediverse, and Lemmy is a fraction of that Fediverse.

https://lemmy.whynotdrs.org/post/494473

Starting out with the floodgates open could lead to Lemmy getting overwhelmed. (Plus, it could cause server costs to skyrocket.)

It makes the most sense to start out with Threads blocked, then (if Meta is behaving) to allow a trickle in to see how that goes.

[-] ericjmorey@discuss.online 4 points 1 year ago

This is my main concern. The admins and mods are not ready for floodgates to open like this. And people using and enjoying Lemmy despite its imperfections will be soured quickly by the experience.

[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

This is my exact take as well. Defed if there is an issue, but wait and see first. I hate the kneejwrk reaction to circle the wagons here. I have been hating on Facebook for as long as anyone l, but this place badly needs content and users so I am willing to see where this goes.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] nitefox@sh.itjust.works 12 points 1 year ago

Defederate pls

[-] Rosco@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

Wait and see. As much as I hate Meta, i don't think we have much to gain by being a walled garden. Maybe we have also much to lose if we federate, who knows. I would not complain much if we defederate. If we do federate, there should be a zero-tolerance policy. If Meta tries some bullshit, or if there's the slightest doubt, we should defederate immediately.

load more comments (10 replies)
[-] your@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 year ago
[-] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

oh shhh...people, today is friday, the day to open up votes here in The Agora. but this discussion has only been up for less than 2 days

is it too soon to start a vote? should we wait for the next week? i don't want to press anyone but feel some urgency about this issues since, in case we defederate, it should be done at rhe start od this process, it seems to me

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

Federate, let them get a taste of sweet Lemmy content, then cut them off. Will make the Threads experience feel broken for native Threads users.

load more comments (2 replies)

Serious question - I’m not up to speed on what kind of effort goes into defederating/refederating. If it’s easy, then is “wait and see” an option?

Alternatively, is preemptively defederating now and refederating later if we want also an option?

If both options are on the table, I say wait and see just because it’s unexplored territory though I agree that it probably won’t be great. If it’s a big pain in the ass to change our stance, also wait and see; that way we only have to do the PITA thing once.

If it's easy

It is, there's basically a setting on the server to block certain instances. So the admin would just update that setting to enable/disable federation. However, defederation doesn't delete any data on either side, it just stops the flow of new data.

So if you care about Meta having a copy of all content for some period, the better option is to defederate now and refederate later if they somehow play nice. There is a risk that Threads could defederate from any instances that blocked it, but I'm guessing they're not going to bother, I think they're just looking for data to scrape.

[-] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

It's actually relatively trivial to scrape the public data of any instance. If Meta really cared (which I highly doubt), there's nothing stopping them spinning up a temporary instance with a bot that auto-subscribes to all communities it knows about.

Defederating from threads doesn't change the fact that all information on any instance is pseudonymous, but very public.

load more comments (3 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

I can't bring myself to care whether or not someone using a Facebook app can get a shit post in their feed.

I don't get the point of pre-emptively de-federating. This would allow lemmy to have a wider reach amongst a general audience rather than be a niche community. We should only defederate after seeing if it's a problem or not to be federated with them.

load more comments (10 replies)
[-] corrupts_absolutely@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

my only concern is if they dont plan first class integration with lemmy instances, then it sort of means its just a bandwith hog that brings little value

if instead they treat other instances 'as equal' then i dont see an issue

[-] frogfruit@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago
[-] N0body@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

I think there should be some instances that at least try federating with Threads just to see how it goes, but I don't want it to be this instance. The existence of voting in the Agora alone is a reason not to want a massive influx of new users from Instagram. This instance is uniquely vulnerable to the threat Threads may pose.

[-] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

This instance is uniquely vulnerable to the threat Threads may pose.

Would you mind expanding on that? Why do you think that? If that refers to voting in the Agora, then I'd like to mention that users from other instances can't vote in the Agora. That is only for users of sh.itjust.works.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Gaspartame@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I was just checking this point before registering here, and this instance pleases me :)

Welcome aboard then.
As you can imagine, we're not counting votes from accounts made after the vote thread was created because that opens up a bunch of shenanigans. You're welcome to discuss here though. Thanks,

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

Don't defederate immediately, but do it automatically three months after threads goes live if users don't explicitly vote to keep it around. I wouldn't mind seeing how it goes at first.

[-] goat@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

Stay federated and if it's annoying, then defederate.

[-] Console_Modder@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

The fun option would be to flood threads with shitposts and make them defederate from us when they start to lose advertisers

[-] Zeppo@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

The way Threads works currently from what I understand is that they can send content to other instances, but not receive. Makes it seem even more useless if it's one-sided.

load more comments (1 replies)
load more comments (1 replies)
[-] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

It kinda defeats the entire point of the fediverse. It couldn't be more obvious what they want to do, and that's control it, or destroy it.

[-] rebelsimile@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

Please defederate from threads.

[-] PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

As much as I hate Meta/Facebook, we need activity and content to keep Lemmy alive, and Meta can potentially help provide that. If after federation, it turns out to be overwhelmingly toxic or the users provide no value at all, then defederate. If nothing else, doing it later will encourage Meta users to try other insrances.

load more comments
view more: next ›
this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
69 points (96.0% liked)

The Agora

1605 readers
1 users here now

In the spirit of the Ancient Greek Agora, we invite you to join our vibrant community - a contemporary meeting place for the exchange of ideas, inspired by the practices of old. Just as the Agora served as the heart of public life in Ancient Athens, our platform is designed to be the epicenter of meaningful discussion and thought-provoking dialogue.

Here, you are encouraged to speak your mind, share your insights, and engage in stimulating discussions. This is your opportunity to shape and influence our collective journey, just like the free citizens of Athens who gathered at the Agora to make significant decisions that impacted their society.

You're not alone in your quest for knowledge and understanding. In this community, you'll find support from like-minded individuals who, like you, are eager to explore new perspectives, challenge their preconceptions, and grow intellectually.

Remember, every voice matters and your contribution can make a difference. We believe that through open dialogue, mutual respect, and a shared commitment to discovery, we can foster a community that embodies the democratic spirit of the Agora in our modern world.

Community guidelines
New posts should begin with one of the following:

Only moderators may create a [Vote] post.

Voting History & Results

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS