I strongly encourage instance admins to defederate from Facebook/Threads/Meta.
They aren’t some new, bright-eyed group with no track record. They’re a borderline Machiavellian megacorporation with a long and continuing history of extremely hostile actions:
- Helping enhance genocides in countries
- Openly and willingly taking part in political manipulation (see Cambridge Analytica)
- Actively have campaigned against net neutrality and attempted to make “facebook” most of the internet for members of countries with weaker internet infra - directly contributing to their amplification of genocide (see the genocide link for info)
- Using their users as non-consenting subjects to psychological experiments.
- Absolutely ludicrous invasions of privacy - even if they aren’t able to do this directly to the Fediverse, it illustrates their attitude.
- Even now, they’re on-record of attempting to get instance admins to do backdoor discussions and sign NDAs.
Yes, I know one of the Mastodon folks have said they’re not worried. Frankly, I think they’re being laughably naive >.<. Facebook/Meta - and Instagram’s CEO - might say pretty words - but words are cheap and from a known-hostile entity like Meta/Facebook they are almost certainly just a manipulation strategy.
In my view, they should be discarded as entirely irrelevant, or viewed as deliberate lies, given their continued atrocious behaviour and open manipulation of vast swathes of the population.
Facebook have large amounts of experience on how to attack and astroturf social media communities - hell I would be very unsurprised if they are already doing it, but it’s difficult to say without solid evidence ^.^
Why should we believe anything they say, ever? Why should we believe they aren’t just trying to destroy a competitor before it gets going properly, or worse, turn it into yet another arm of their sprawling network of services, via Embrace, Extend, Extinguish - or perhaps Embrace, Extend, Consume would be a better term in this case?
When will we ever learn that openly-manipulative, openly-assimilationist corporations need to be shoved out before they can gain any foothold and subsume our network and relegate it to the annals of history?
I’ve seen plenty of arguments claiming that it’s “anti-open-source” to defederate, or that it means we aren’t “resilient”, which is wrong ^.^:
- Open source isn’t about blindly trusting every organisation that participates in a network, especially not one which is known-hostile. Threads can start their own ActivityPub network if they really want or implement the protocol for themselves. It doesn’t mean we lose the right to kick them out of most - or all - of our instances ^.^.
- Defederation is part of how the fediverse is resilient. It is the immune system of the network against hostile actors (it can be used in other ways, too, of course). Facebook, I think, is a textbook example of a hostile actor, and has such an unimaginably bad record that anything they say should be treated as a form of manipulation.
Edit 1 - Some More Arguments
In this thread, I’ve seen some more arguments about Meta/FB federation:
- Defederation doesn’t stop them from receiving our public content:
- This is true, but very incomplete. The content you post is public, but what Meta/Facebook is really after is having their users interact with content. Defederation prevents this.
- Federation will attract more users:
- Only if Threads makes it trivial to move/make accounts on other instances, and makes the fact it’s a federation clear to the users, and doesn’t end up hosting most communities by sheer mass or outright manipulation.
- Given that Threads as a platform is not open source - you can’t host your own “Threads Server” instance - and presumably their app only works with the Threads Server that they run - this is very unlikely. Unless they also make Threads a Mastodon/Calckey/KBin/etc. client.
- Therefore, their app is probably intending to make itself their user’s primary interaction method for the Fediverse, while also making sure that any attempt to migrate off is met with unfamiliar interfaces because no-one else can host a server that can interface with it.
- Ergo, they want to strongly incentivize people to stay within their walled garden version of the Fediverse by ensuring the rest remains unfamiliar - breaking the momentum of the current movement towards it. ^.^
- We just need to create “better” front ends:
- This is a good long-term strategy, because of the cycle of enshittification.
- Facebook/Meta has far more resources than us to improve the “slickness” of their clients at this time. Until the fediverse grows more, and while they aren’t yet under immediate pressure to make their app profitable via enshittification and advertising, we won’t manage >.<
- This also assumes that Facebook/Meta won’t engage in efforts to make this harder e.g. Embrace, Extend, Extinguish/Consume, or social manipulation attempts.
- Therefore we should defederate and still keep working on making improvements. This strategy of “better clients” is only viable in combination with defederation.
PART 2 (post got too long!)
I did, if you read it. Past and continued malicious behaviour + open manipulativity means that what they say cannot be trusted.
Trust is not required in this equation. The fediverse exists as a technical system and we can see how it operates. Within the context of those bounds I see no path for meta to break it and no one has been able to explain one beyond vague generalities like “they can’t be trusted”.
I gave examples in part 2 in my post of various routes to destroy activitypub, or nore importantly, destroy or consume the existing network of people.
Even if there aren’t formal Communities (as in, like Lemmy), there are still communities of people.
Yes, but the point I was responding to was saying that communities like fediverse@lemmmy.world would lose all its users when they went to threadiverse@threads.net when that’s simply not even possible
It is absolutely possible if fediverse content is presented as-if it’s just from threads, and then the majority of posters in communities become threads users, and then they either subsume or defederate.
You can post to lemmy communities from in mastodon via @-ing, which Threads could easily add as another feature later. And referring to more general communities the same principle applies.
I gave examples in part 2 in my post of various routes to destroy activitypub, or nore importantly, destroy or consume the existing network of people.
Your points boil down to “Threads will be easier to use and more attractive so people will use that”, congrats, that’s the case regardless of whether or not you federate. That’s not a result of federation, that’s a result of meta having a lot of money to make good apps.
This entire argument hinges on the idea that the Fediverse is filled with great content that Meta will just steal and present to their users when quite frankly that’s just untrue. The fediverse is still a pale imitation of Reddit that is severely lacking in content and is still likely to die from never entering the virtuous cycle required to get a social network off the ground.
Your points boil down to “Threads will be easier to use and more attractive so people will use that”, congrats, that’s the case regardless of whether or not you federate. That’s not a result of federation, that’s a result of meta having a lot of money to make good apps.
They boil down to much more than that. Even if it’s harder to use, Facebook has the ability and the means to run campaigns to promote their own stuff even if it’s worse. Furthermore, it’s not just about that, it’s also about the fact that federating with them entwines us with their communities, and given their size it will not take long for our organisation and communities to be entirely stuck to theirs.
This entire argument hinges on the idea that the Fediverse is filled with great content that Meta will just steal and present to their users when quite frankly that’s just untrue. The fediverse is still a pale imitation of Reddit that is severely lacking in content and is still likely to die from never entering the virtuous cycle required to get a social network off the ground.
Seems pretty alive to me, actually. And the risk is not just Facebook/Meta taking our content, but more us being sucked in by theirs and having their algorithms and strategies used to manipulate us and make us too dependent on their own infrastructure to sustain our own communities again, especially if they cut us off after ^.^ (the threat of which can then be used as leverage or to outright subsume large instances).
Even if it’s harder to use, Facebook has the ability and the means to run campaigns to promote their own stuff even if it’s worse.
Federating doesn’t change that.
Furthermore, it’s not just about that, it’s also about the fact that federating with them entwines us with their communities, and given their size it will not take long for our organisation and communities to be entirely stuck to theirs.
Oh no, we’ve recreated Reddit with millions of users and a thriving community, what a nightmare!
Seems pretty alive to me, actually.
Then go check whatever instance you’re on three times throughout the day and do the same on Reddit and notice the distinct lack of change and movement on Lemmy/Kbin.
more us being sucked in by theirs and having their algorithms and strategies used to manipulate us and make us too dependent on their own infrastructure to sustain our own communities again, especially if they cut us off after . (the threat of which can then be used as leverage or to outright subsume large instances).
If you don’t want to be manipulated by the algorithms that the Threads instances use to surface content, then don’t subscribe to people on Threads, it’s really not that complicated. If Meta leaves later and you find yourself desperately missing content, then guess what? That’s not Meta killing the fediverse that’s Meta having kept the fediverse alive for a while.
