Serious question for those that this is relevant to: if you don't understand how ActivityPub works, even a little bit, why do you feel the need to have opinions on how it should work?
Isn't this backwards as hell? Shouldn't you try to understand how something works, then ask why it is that way and if it's intentional?
Too many people here have this strange opinion that they have some sort of privacy, even if their profile/posts are set to "public".
This is just simply not true. We're on the internet. There's over 20,000 Fedi instances and there's just no way to manually parse them to make sure there's no "bad actors" using your "public" posts for whatever the hell they want.
We already see this happening with things like NewsMast which is aiming to be a "news" app where their users don't have to login or register to a Fediverse server, yet they will see posts by Fediverse users from bigger instances based on "categories".
Maybe do some research about how the protocol works and how it's VERY opt-out to the core, before you have opinions on it. Just saying....
I'm really tired of the holier-than-you people on the Fediverse!
No, Threads is not full of trolls and evil people just because Meta is evil. Threads is full of people who are not terminally online like we are. This is idiotic to want to block Threads by default. If anything let's show them there is another way.
No, the big Mastodon instances are not full of trolls and evil people just because they're the big instances. They're full of people who are into the Fediverse but for reasons that are theirs have no time, energy, or interest to join smaller instances. This is idiotic to want to block such instances. If anything let's teach them about smaller instances.
And right now, I see people building bridges with BlueSKy and I see very negative reactions from some people about that. Well... No, BlueSky is not full of trolls and evil people.
I'm so fucking annoyed with this bullshit attitude.
Honestly, if your response is "don't federate" every single fucking time, have you thought for a second that maybe, just maybe, you are in the wrong place? Fedi fucking verse. It's in the name.
If you don't want to communicate with people who are different from you, you're honestly no different from the people you are calling names. Please go to your instance that's defederated from everyone else, or even better, go on a closed Discord or something.
Fuck, I barely finished my second coffee and I'm already annoyed.
It’s funny to me that some people on Threads are saying Mastodon (mistakenly thinking it’s a one service) will always be ”small” and ”closed”. Well, soon we’ll be in the same crowd with the Threads people, perhaps with others like Tumblr too.
The Fediverse can expand unlike the other truly closed social networks. This is exactly like talking about the Internet in the 80s, ”it will be a small thing for the nerds, and always will be so”.
@sab I think the concern is more about tens/hundreds of thousands of toxic bros from Threads jumping into conversations on the fedi. We'll know enough not to follow them, but they'll be able to find us.
The fedi already has every kind of hate and -phobia and -ism present, of course, but if the wrong people from Threads get involved, that could go up by an order of magnitude and push us past a tipping point where our network of volunteer moderators just can't keep up.
Threads: I'm in a wrong party and don't know what to say. I feel awkward, everyone is so happy with their gym selfies. Everyone asking endless questions and asking things from the algorithm. Lots of people use it like Instagram, every post is a selfie with a meaningless caption. Some are copy-pasting the same sentence over and over again for each line. Endless quote-post memes... What the fuck is this shit I don't even...
Bluesky: A Twitter clone, but still very barebones. Notifications are still not working, there are no hashtags and I don't find any relevant content to me in any of the feeds. It's mostly Facebook-like what's up in life, furry scene and AI photos. No news, no tech/web scene, no nothing. Not to mention it's still invite-only and won't support ActivityPub (yeah I know the reasoning behind that but for me it's mostly bullshit, I look forward to trying bridgy fed).
Mastodon and the Fediverse: Here I'm at home on my own server. Most content, most features. A community is friendly but has also lots of nitpicking, some angry dudes. Still the most safest, most healthy and most customized, but somehow the most hated network elsewhere. "Too techie", they say. "Too difficult", they say. "No algorithm", they say.
Nostr: Kinda promising, but way too obscure, strange and even techier than Mastodon. Too much crypto shit.
Well, that's that. Sometimes I feel like Internet is ruined. But I believe in the open social web movement and I want to see this grow.
In no other place I can write a status update as freely as this, as long as this or with a low bar as this. I LIKE this 100%. The same can't be said in those other places I'm experimenting with out of curiosity. There I'm the weird kid. Here I feel like myself.
The sheer number of #Zuckerberg (and others) #quislings in the #Fediverse is going to kill it. Inside of five years #independent, #distributed#SocialMedia will be dead for all practical purposes, and the people holding the daggers covered in its blood will be those who were inside it.
@sour@fsf@dsfgs The pro-#Facebook/#Threads crowd is just number-obsessed. They think more people means more legitimacy or something. The fact that the Fediverse is small is for me the appeal; for them it is a source of shame or something.
They want Zuckerborg's (sic) "connect all teh thingz!" ethos, forgetting about things like "community" and "consent" and other soft things you can't attach numbers to easily.
"Meta's fediverses", federating with Meta to allow communications, potentially using services from Meta such as automated moderation or ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta's behalf.
"free fediverses" that reject Meta – and surveillance capitalism more generally
The free fediverses have a lot of advantages over Meta and Meta's fediverses, some of which will be very hard to counter, and clearly have enough critical mass that they'll be just fine.
Here's a set of strategies for the free fediverses to provide a viable alternative to surveillance capitalism. They build on the strengths of today's fediverse at its best – including natural advantages the free fediverses have that Threads and Meta's fediverses will having a very hard time countering – but also are hopefully candid about weaknesses that need to be addressed. It's a long list, so I'll be spreading out over multiple posts; this post currently goes into detail on the first two.
Opposition to Meta and surveillance capitalism is an appealing position. Highlight it!
Focus on consent (including consent-based federation), privacy, and safety
Emphasize "networked communities"
Support concentric federations of instances and communities
Consider "transitively defederating" Meta's fediverses (as well as defederating Threads)
Consider working with people and instances in Meta's fediverses (and Bluesky, Dreamwidth, and other social networks) whose goals and values align with the free fediverses'
Build a sustainable ecosystem
Prepare for Meta's (and their allies') attempts to paint the free fediverses in a bad light
Reduce the dependency on Mastodon
Prioritize accessibility, which is a huge opportunity
Commit to anti-fascist, anti-racist, anti-colonial, and pro-LGBTQIA2S+ principles, policies, practices, and norms for the free fediverses
All self-aware communities on #Fediverse should suspend #Threads just as @aral has done. There's no need for a toxic corporate experiment with the aim to expand the monetisation of #HumanRights violations. #Privacy
All these folks tut-tutting about various #fediverse instances preemptively blocking #threads should be aware that many instances are taking this step because Threads is full of #transphobic and outright fascist types that #meta is either unable or unwilling to moderate and instance admins are just treating it the same way they would any other instance that has that issue.
Now that for-profit tech companies are beginning to implement #ActivityPub, I think it's important to establish what we want with the #fediverse and whether federation with #Threads, #Flipboard, Tumblr, and the like bring us closer to or further from those goals.
With that in mind, I've come up with a few statements (in no particular order) that describe what I think is an "ideal fediverse" — a fediverse that's not necessarily realistic but that we should aim for:
No actor controls a large portion of visible activity.
Users can move between instances without penalty.
Creating and running an instance requires minimal effort.
People on or entering the fediverse understand the variety of available options.
There is no downside to using free and open-source platforms over proprietary ones.
These definitely aren't comprehensive, and if you have anything you'd add, let's discuss that! They're currently helping me reassess my stance on Threads now that Flipboard is also entering the stage, and I hope they're helpful for others as well.
I'll elaborate on these five statements in the comments.
New blog post: Understanding ActivityPub - Part 4: Threads
A first detailed look into how Threads implements ActivityPub. Learn about the data that is shared (or not), an interesting implementation of HTTP signatures, and Threads' take on quote posts in ActivityPub.
Hey hcommons.social and the #fediverse: we've made the decision not to federate with #Meta and #Threads. We do not feel that we can adequately protect members of our community from potential attacks from anti-LGBTQ+, anti-Black, anti-academic, or other extremists who can freely create accounts and sow hatred on Threads unless we block the server. We do not want to allow any kinds of connections that would make our most at-risk users less safe.
We understand that this may disappoint some of you, and that you may wish to seek another instance that will allow you to communicate more freely with your friends on that network. Please read more about our reasoning on our team blog: https://team.hcommons.org/2023/12/15/threads/
With Meta beginning to test federation, there's a lot of discussion as to whether we should preemptively defederate with Threads. I made a post about the question, and it seems that opinions differ a lot among people on Kbin. There were a lot of arguments for and against regarding ads, privacy, and content quality, but I don't...
I feel the post doesn't really address my concerns.
Really? You think Threads will take over and rule Mastodon? Threads is its own platform, users on the fediverse can still join Mastodon #servers of their choice and leave. I expect we'l see plenty of anti #threads Mastodon servers pop up. If Threads were to somehow get an influence in Mastodon, just switch to #lemmy switch to #pixelfed switch to #firefish So many choices.
This seems to not really understand the risk Threads poses. Threads is its own platform, yes, but it will dominate the visible content of any instance that federates with it. It's very dangerous to depend on a massive, profit-driven corporation for activity on the fediverse, as the things we value on the fediverse (decentralization, transparency, even distribution of content between instances, etc.) go against the corporation's motives. Meta does not stand to benefit from any of the things we value, and most of the Threads userbase (i.e. casual Instagram users) probably won't notice or care about federation. Meta does benefit if everyone depends on them for content, as then they can pull people to Threads just by defederating. People will choose to go to Threads where the amount of activity is what they're used to over staying on their Mastodon instance after activity has plummeted and they can't see most of the people they follow.
This is a big one. Meta might capture the mainstrean fediverse. Lets just be real the average regular internet user wasn't going to join Mastodon in the first place. Not that they wouldn't want to it just isn't on their list next to #facebook#instagram#tiktok#youtube#discord or even #twitter . Actually I take what Meta is doing as a compliment to the fediverse. Remember Twitter at one time under #elon#elonmusk banned the talk of Mastodon or something like that. Threads might not have our interests at heart but they are already mainstream so why should they not allow their users be federated with us?
Yes, there are definitely a lot of people that the fediverse is just never going to appeal to. But of those who are interested in the fediverse, more will be inclined to join Threads due to it having most of the content & just requiring an Instagram login. There is a pool of people out there who will try out the fediverse if they're introduced to it — that's how we all got here — and if people can interact with the big Mastodon, Kbin, etc. instances from Threads, many will choose to do that when they wouldn't have otherwise.
Oh awesome, I open my app to find the #fediverse in a giant collective panic because a social platform owned by a giant company dares to join it.
Fedi: “I want an open platform where everything is standardized”
(#Threads enables ActivityPub)
Fedi: “NOT LIKE THAT ANYTHING BUT THAT”
If you declare an open standard and provide the clearly superior ecosystem, you relinquish control of who uses it just by it being open. You can’t have it both ways. Ever.
Okay #Fediverse, let’s get something straight. We are all grown ups here (hopefully) and can make choices for ourselves. We alive in a society that allows us the freedom to choose for ourselves what to do.
Why would you allow or want to be part of an instance where they choose for you who or what to block? I understand that there are BAD people on #Meta, just as there are on EVERY platform on the internet.
Give the regular people on each platform a chance to been seen.
With yesterday's announcement that Meta is starting to test Threads and ActivityPub integration, I see the #Fediverse is at an all time high again of whining and crying and being butthurt over it all.
I get stating your opinion about not wanting them here or whatever, but come on people, don't sound like a little 2 year old who lost their pacifier. It gets old, quick.
Just mute/block and move on and be done with it all. It's really that damn simple.
How Threads will integrate with the Fediverse (plasticbag.org)
A case for preemptively defederating with Threads (kbin.social)
With Meta beginning to test federation, there's a lot of discussion as to whether we should preemptively defederate with Threads. I made a post about the question, and it seems that opinions differ a lot among people on Kbin. There were a lot of arguments for and against regarding ads, privacy, and content quality, but I don't...