Lemmy.ml has now blocked threads.net / Meta
2y 11mon ago by lemmy.ml/u/dessalines in meta@lemmy.ml from lemmy.ml
It should come as no surprise that the lemmy.ml admin team took about 2 minutes to decide to pre-emptively block threats / Meta. Their transparent and opportunistic scheme to commodify the fediverse and it's users will not be allowed to proceed.
We strongly encourage other instance administrators to do the same, given the grave threat they pose to the fediverse.
YOUR MOVE LEMMY.WORLD
Every time I see a picture of him I think it has to be edited or something. He’s like a walking Snapchat filter.
"Hello, fellow humans!"

Does any other human out there love smoked meats ?
The best part about the full smoked meats vid is when his "friends" (i.e. employees) come over. What really gets me is that the friends NEVER speak unless spoken to, because it's just a really awkward work event where Zuck has to pretend he has friends.
It made him look so gosh dang relatable.
No, that's not the word I'm looking for. Unlikeable. That's the one.
expired
Interesting, mine was 5 seconds long and muted.
I don't know about these smoking meats, but I enjoy human activities such as breathing air and walking with my leg.
Tyler Cassidy made also a good song about Zucc.
This could be the intro to a found footage horror film about a cannibal that smokes his victims.
Believe it or not, but this image is also not edited
That one definitely is edited lol. Reminds me of the android from that Queen album cover

I can't unsee it now lmao
Now I get why Stewie was terrified.
Good god that's terrifying.
How
He always looks AI-generated
That's because he's an AI.
I know, The Social Network told me
He likely has a skilled pr team that has crafted his image as unique, brilliant, and even all this alien/ lizard stuff. In general, he is simply a billionaire and for sure not have much in common with working people.
the lizard thing is unfortunately just antisemitism, and older than zucc himself. the whole alien lizard people running the world bit comes from David Icke, who is very much a fascist, and was inspired directly by old school Nazi conspiracy theory texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.

HELLO, FELLOW HUMANS
It looks like his face was stretched vertically at the middle of his nose, and someone blurred his undereye area and blended the bottoms of his eyeballs in. Disturbing stuff.
When you nut but she still Zucc-in
I would like to also add this argument into the discussion, since I've seen a lot of people who are voting for federating with meta, with the argument that defederating just because we don't like someone goes against the idea of Fediverse, and interconnected network of diverse servers that is should inclusive and allows people to connect.
It's quite the contrary - allowing Meta in goes directly against the idea of Fediverse, and we should fight it as much as possible.
This is a literal quote from the main header on https://www.fediverse.to/
The fediverse is a collection of community-owned, ad-free, decentralised, and privacy-centric social networks.
Each fediverse instance is managed by a human admin. You can find fediverse instances dedicated to art, music, technology, culture, or politics.
Join the growing community and experience the web as it was meant to be.
Judging by this main selling point of the Fediverse, it sounds to me like Meta shouldn't be in the Fediverse do begin with, and every instance should defederate from them by default.
Thanks for saving us lemmy.ml Admins.
o7. We're out here for yall, and we're gonna make sure the fediverse stays inoculated from threats.
I'm happy to call lemmy.ml my new home. BASED take!
Why do I keep seeing a plague doctor mask for your pfp
Thank you Lemmy.ml Meta can F off.
They really put the meta in metastasize!
This is brilliant!
All the way off!
Lemmy developers, thank you!
I hope Lemmy.world does the same.
I'm moving if they don't.
Same. I just wish there was an easy way to transfer. I just found the communities I wanted and I don’t look forward to making a new profile and adding them all again.
I already have an account ready to switch. It's still early days so it should be relatively painless if it means sticking with the Lemmy instance that knows capital will only expand and ruin things in the pursuit of profit.
I’m thinking the same thing…they’re trying to avoid blowback by breaking the fedipact by just….saying nothing.
I swear I’ll fucking leave if they don’t dederate with Meta
I really REALLY hate to bring up Reddit since I know everyone is sick of hearing about it, but this is just like when Subreddits were determining whether or not to go dark and some of the more popular ones opted to just say or do nothing because they didn't want to go against the grain.
FFS I wish people would grow a pair and fight back.
I was really disappointed to see many big communities just carry on.
I am on lemmy.world, but the inaction of the admins there made me create an account here on .ml as soon as I saw one of the admins being basically as "naive" as Mastodon's Rochko.
They're open as it seems (since I got to register today), but the sign-up process requires you to answer a few basic questions to verify you're not a bot or spam account.
A couple of minutes, don't know if I was lucky or not though. Remember to check your email if you provided it!
Mastodon.world said they won't pre-emptively defederate (but are prepared to do so as soon as they notice something bad), so I'm guessing lemmy.world has the same stance
I posed this question to the admins a while back. How does the community officially suggest instances to defederate. How do we vote on those choices? Where is the process?
This was during the lemmy.online thing, where that instance (which no longer exists) created a bot to basic just crawl reddit and duplicate posts to their instance. I immediately told the instance admin that they should stop and I asked the admins where the process was to submit a de-federation request.
All I got was a bunch of BS from users about how de-federation should be something we don't take lightly, blah blah blah, but all I was asking was where the process is. How are we even partaking in a system that's so ripe for admin abuse?
The lemmy.world admins aren't malicious... they're just in over their heads. They've struggled with the technical side of running the service and they haven't built out some of the social tools that an instance this side needs. Hopefully they mature quickly.
I hope Leemy.world does the same *soon
I would say we need a vote if lemmy.world should do the same. I would be for blocking meta.
People left reddit because of corporate f*ckery, and some of them are now making excuses for meta?? What kind of mental gymnastics is this?
So... you're not gonna try Threads then???

the lemmy.ml admin team took about 2 minutes to decide to preemptively block threats / Meta
The only sane approach to this "dilemma". Thank you for keeping the instance free of "threats" (I see what you did there)
Excellent. Big corporations go against the very idea of the fediverse.
Good riddance
...the lemmy.ml admin team took about 2 minutes to decide to pre-emptively block threats / Meta.
When the typo is more accurate than what was intended to be written.
Amen! I made a longer post explaining my reasoning for blocking Threads and the decision took only 15 minutes.
Congrats on being based as well! I'm not on your server, but thanks for looking out for your users.
Thank you so much! Let's make sure the XMPP situation never repeats ever again.
The fediverse taking off is an existential threat to Meta. I have no doubt that they will take any actions they consider necessary to maintain control over most users.
Good riddance to Meta's bullshit. Stop them before they get to the first E in EEE.
Here's a sign to put up at the border between Lemmy.ml and Threads, which will surely have a 100-meter wall built on it with 50 kV electric fences, barbed wire, watchtowers, snipers, and whatever to keep those Meta corporate fuckers out.
Threads Quarantine Zone sign

Thank you for your integrity and ethics. This action sends a strong message to the capitalist leeches where we stand.
Hi guys, I'm new here from Reddit and I'm still learning about Lemmy and the Fediverse. Can someone ELI5 how not blocking Threads can negatively affect this community? Thanks.
Gonna go against the grain here a little bit, but why? If they are federated, it will mean that you can move off of threads more easily to other servers and not get locked into a walled garden. Encouraging companies to embrace federation will avoid the shit shows like we've seen at twitter and reddit, since users will be easily able to jump ship without much loss. Additionally, apps like threads make federated platforms much more approachable to newcomers and those who do not even know what the fediverse is.
I'd love someone to explain it to me, but this feels like a massive footgun.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Embrace: they embrace the fediverse, bring millions of new users to it and everyone is happy. The fediverse grows and the new meta instance gets a ton of content. Everyone is happy
Extend: meta begins to add features to their instance which clashes with or is unusable with other instances. These begin to pile up and issues develop.
Extinguish: meta unfederates from other instances. People are now forced to stay where they were and lose a majority of their friends and content from metas instance. Or switch over. Mass migration away from original instances. These instances die
How is that different from defederating now?
In the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish scenario, assuming they get to "Extinguish", the rest of the Fediverse becomes isolated and cannot connect with their friends and content.
If we defederate now, the Fediverse becomes isolated and cannot connect with Threads content, and cannot connect with friends who choose to be on Threads instead of a disconnected alternative.
expired
"Prevention" perhaps in the way of amputating a broken arm. If we apply the exact same scenario of the e-mail/Gmail to the Fediverse / Threads, we're talking about a loss of (or lack of) some functions, but the foundational connection will still remain. Meta can dangle carrots with their bells and whistles, but the people who want to be on a non-corporate instance will remain here. We can still receive content & comments, and we can proselytize the benefits of a non-corporate Fediverse while still offering the same content & comments.
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The difference is time. With time a federated Threads will build it's own massive library of content, suck in it's own users and then slowly make all of that proprietary and locked down from the rest of the fediverse.
It's a long con that's been done several times by big corporations.
De federate now and that content and those users will have to choose now. Meta or fediverse. The scales are still uneven, but less uneven than in that future.
Fediverse right now is mostly used by a small group of enthusiasts.
If Meta joins the fediverse, the people who join Lemmy/Kbin/Mastodon instances will still be the same group of enthusiasts.
If Meta leaves the fediverse, you will also still have the same group of enthusiasts, that you have here right now.
I don't get why the EEE meme is so prevalent here. XMPP never died and big tech never even harmed it.
Best case: Big corps joining the fediverse could make the ActivityPub the de facto standard for a new generation of social media. Similar to how HTTP, Email or the Linux kernel is practically used everywhere now.
Worst case: The fediverse will remain as obscure as it is right now and nothing changes.
Doesn’t seem so obscure anymore, reddit somehow successfully boosted an entire ecosystem for social media while completely failing to prove their profitability.
Yeah I believe that Lemmy has the best chances to compete with its proprietary inspiration, than every other fediverse product.
Mastodon needs endorsement of businesses/celebrities/politicians to become a viable alternative Twitter. This will probably never happen. The API changes in Twitter were far more brutal then the ones on Reddit, and many ended up joining Mastodon. Most will leave it again tho, because Mastodon does not have their favorite businesses/celebrities/politicians.
Peertube has no monetization program, which makes it even more irrelevant than Odysee.
Only Lemmy does not need huge amounts of cash or clout, to keep people on the platform. Reddit was a (relatively) democratic platform, most were anonymous and content for Reddit is easy to produce. Translating this into the fediverse with Lemmy works really well, as we can see here.
Threads will primarily influence Mastodon. Threads already eclipsed Mastodon in its first few hours. There is no need for EEE, because Threads has already decidedly won. Mastodon can not even scratch Threads. Threads is probably only interested in the fediverse, because of Tumblr. I personally think that Mastodon would gain more from Threads joining the fediverse, than Meta ever could, but we will see I guess.
Sorry to be blunt but nobody here should give a single shit that they "can't interact with Threads content" from Lemmy. Make an account there if you care that much. Lemmy is exactly the opposite of a corporate-controlled and monetized platform and the Fediverse is flourishing because a need arose to not let corporate fucks ruin everything they touch. If they're your friends, you can interact with them any number of ways, send them a link however you normally talk, obviously. This is shill talk.
I mean, lemmy.ml explicitly describes itself as a community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts (and I'm reasonably certain it's run by actual communists) so I'd have been quite surprised if they'd embraced Meta tbh.
one problem it that it has threads has a very large userbase and it will likely flood the fediverse so instances that dont block them may dont really have other content and from what i understand is that the content there is flooded with influencers. At least the type of influencers i think are annoying and too comercialised.
And with the flood of content server admins that only do it for fun will get a problem with moderation.
There was a dude in this comment section that left a link about some type of essay (the link contains something with 15 minutes).
You realize that accepting meta/threads terms you give them permission to sell your data right? They will sell it to advertisers. They help the fbi and others track your every step. Also on fediverse you info is stored locally if the server goes down you don’t have to worry about your info being accessed remotely. I think I saw something where they said that lemmy and kbin store your data for three days then it gets auto deleted. If I was a large instance I would block meta also. Everything meta touched dies!
I got this step, defederating essentially says to them that I dont consent to them getting my data.
But I'm really missing something here, since any instance that zucc controls that is federated to the large instances just exposes my data to zucc.
Defederating is one step, the instance owners have taken that step now, so far so good, well then zucc will just create a lemmy/kbin instance that they own, they join the fed and not even announce meta's affiliation with it, my data is still zucc'ed.
Yea that sucks!
I agree with you. I think this is a way to introduce people who aren’t tech-savvy into Activity Pub and Fediverse, which is ultimately a good thing.
Yes, Meta has a history of being untrustworthy, but I think a place that allows communication between a large population isn’t a bad thing either.
I would rather wait and see when Threads is full federated and what that means. We just don’t have enough information to make a decision.
I would rather 70 million people have joined Mastodon but that’s just not how things work and we need to be realistic.
Exactly what I'm thinking. Also why are server admins choosing what I can do on other instances? Am I missing something here? Why can't users be in control of who they interact with?
They are "blocking" threads only from their instance. Other instances can do what their admin prefer. If you are unhappy, you have to migrate to another instance closer to your tastes or host your instance (this is how fediverse is designed)
Yeah this is the point that irks me, each individual should get to decide for themselves, I totally get and respect the arguments for not engaging with Threads, but I don't want that decision made for me. And unfortunately it seems like most fediverse admins feel the same way, so "just switch instances" isn't necessarily practical
To be fair...you have the ability to fix this yourself by hosting your own instance.
Yes and suggesting that average users can simply set up a server and then navigate either Docker or Ansible just to maintain consistent content preferences isn't perhaps realistic. Even for tech-literate folks it's kind of a big lift, and I have to suspect it's one of the issues that could keep the Fediverse from enjoying wider adoption.
They can also just join an instance that doesn't mind facebook ads and mass surveillance.
So just the act of federating with them will subject me to ads? I assumed I would have to be using the threads app.
If you've used instagram in the past 3 years, you'd see how blurry they've made the line between post and ad.
I get where you're coming from but even if there was no way to block the ads, I still think it's fine as long as it stays on their instance. If I'm not seeing ads on Lemmy.ml/c/asklemmy but i subscribe to threads.net/c/meta and see one there I don't see the problem. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Idk if you disagree with what most fediverse admins feel is the way to go... I'm gonna say maybe find one that you do agree with and make that your instance.
I hear there's one called Threads you can try.
You can decide for yourself by making your own server or finding one you align with, that's exactly how this works.
Agreed, I've been on lemmy for like a month and already had to make several accounts on different instances because I'm just trying to see everything and instances keep defederating. I understand lemmy is young and growing fast and there will be growing pains, but threads isn't even on activitypub yet and they're already being blocked by half the instances.
I'll never make a threads account, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to interact with anyone from threads. That's the beauty of the fediversve: I can still talk to metas users without sacrificing my first born to the zucc.
NO....the beauty of the Fediverse is that corporate interests aren't welcome here. It's a new frontier and you're advocating that we extend an invite to the ones that fucked up the last frontier. Make a threads account if that's important, you have ZERO argument for the rest of us to need the ability to connect with them from a platform specifically designed for decentralized control.
Your comment has made me realize that I give literally zero fucks anymore about this topic. Have whatever opinions you want - I'm just gonna post memes and enjoy life ✌️ peace.
Same, but what is peaceful about this is not having any reason at all to give a rats what Elon Musk, Spez, or Zuck are trying to do next to wring more money out of their investments. Enjoy life as well.
Some instances will federate with Threads. Those will have much more content because they will be connected to millions of people. Over time, they get bigger than the ones that don't.
Eventually, all big instances are federated with Threads.
you have zero argument foe the rest of us
And neither do you. It's the admins of the instances that ultimately have the say. This isn't any more democratic than reddit. It's just easier to switch instances if you don't like something.
There will be plenty of instances for federation with meta and plenty without. No need to get worked up about it. This is what an open standards means. It means people can openly use it.
Go be an astroturfing corporate shill somewhere else.
Ya buddy I'm a shill. Meta is paying me big bucks.
You might not like what I have to say but pay attention the next few months. I fully expect federation to happen to at least some instances. Which will lead to influx of users on that instance over time.
I agree, threads connecting to the fediverse seems like it would be a positive step for everyone. I'm not sure how meta could kill the fediverse as long as independent servers exist. If meta is flooding the fediverse with spam or other influencer bs, then we can all just defederate.
I have an alternate theory that threads is never planning to support the fediverse. They are trying to attract users who are looking for a Twitter alternative, and right now the most compelling option is mastodon. But if threads announces activitypub support, then some would-be mastodon users might join threads instead, thinking it will all be connected. But if threads ends up winning all those users anyways, then they'll just say fuck it, we don't need activitypub.
threads is never planning to support the fediverse
Same thing I'm thinking. If they were going to support it, they would've done it already. And it wouldn't be an after thought.
I agree, threads connecting to the fediverse seems like it would be a positive step for everyone.
How did you even end up here?
So far I've only got a lot of unsatisfying answers (from a factual perspective). It seems to boil down to how much individuals on the fediverse fear Meta is in their capability of doing a full take-over. Personally, I feel like we're pretty protected form that. I've posted my questions, and still looking for some good answers here:
It's pretty damn simple actually. Let's say we fully federate with Threads, what will happen?
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Threads gets a massive amount of users, they already have 20 million sign-ups on the first day! Their user base will be gigantic
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We'll get a big influx of content (if Meta does the federation properly), huge communities will pop up on Threads and you'll join those communities. It's unlikely that Threads users will join communities hosted on smaller instances, why join a community with 1k users if Meta has one with 200k?
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Now Meta controls 99% of the users AND content. They can switch off federation at any moment. Maybe they cover it with "we have a new cool feature, but it breaks federation, sorry!" in that moment all our Lemmy instances lose most of their users and content. And you lose all your communities you joined
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Lemmy users will migrate to threads, because they want their content back, the fediverse dies (except for a few hundred to thousand hold-over nerds who won't give up)
Fuck Meta.
Damn thinking about this, this is exactly what Reddit did with 3rd party apps
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Embrace openness by allowing 3rd party apps on the platform and gain user base in the process
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Once user base is high enough, start introducing features that aren’t available (chat, polls) in the API to entice users to abandon 3rd party apps for new features
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Once the users is high enough, cut 3rd party apps the fuck off and coerce users to use their app with no alternatives. Terminally online users won’t ask questions and will transition without hesitation to the official app to get their subreddit community fix.
It was even worse. Reddit didn't make their own app, they bought a third party app (Alien Blue) and made it worse.
But nobody cared about chat, polls, bought avatars or whatever, I was happy using RIF and rather didn't have those things. Reddit wants you to have and use those things so you spend extra money in their shop. One more reason to get rid of third party apps.
Once user base is high enough, start introducing features that aren’t available (chat, polls) in the API to entice users to abandon 3rd party apps for new features
Except in reddit's case, both Chat and Polls are features that were hardly used.
This, starting to feel a strong astroturf vibe here because 10 people upvoted the comment above you and yet nobody downvoted yours despite them being made within an hour of each other. It's like they have bots going and upvoting each other's pro-Meta posts. FUCK Meta and Reddit, these types of greedy CEO's who don't give a rats if they make the world better or worse as long as they make a buck are exactly the reason the people needed their own solution. Meta is literally the antithesis of everything decentralization is about. How the F did these people end up here if corporate control of their communication is just fine with them?
Damn, i can't believe how many people immediately jump to the astroturfing accusation instead of discussing the points you raised. I think we can all agree that meta is evil and we shouldn't trust them. The solution should be to build a network that's resilient to bad actors rather than thinking we can just block all the bad actors. As long as there are independent fediverse servers supported by their communities, it's hard to see how meta could totally take over the entire fediverse.
My bigger concern is that meta could gain influence over the activitypub standard, but that's not a battle we can win by simply blocking meta servers.
As long as there are independent fediverse servers supported by their communities, it's hard to see how meta could totally take over the entire fediverse.
It's only hard to imagine for those who haven't learned the history of facebooks nefarious practices, or don't know the many successful cases of EEE and sabotage these companies have carried out.
Luckily, many of us do remember, and are not going to let the cancer grow.
I'm just saying I've seen a lot of vague comments about how evil meta is (and i don't disagree) but very little discussion about how they would actually destroy the fediverse. At this point, it seems more likely that the fediverse destroys itself when all servers defederate from all other servers out of paranoia.
See this comment.
If meta gathers a ton of users and then defederates, then wouldn't we just be back to exactly where we are right now?
No, because they want you to get hooked to their content, like a drug. The third step of EEE is where they draw people away from open standards into their walled gardens. This was in the comment I linked you.
If the biggest fediverse communities are all ones on meta, then after they get the fediverse addicted to their communities, they'll draw everyone who was on it out.
I still don't understand how that would kill the fediverse though. The people who want meta content can make accounts on meta services. They're obviously not going to convince you and I to sign up there. And i would guess most others on the fediverse right now are people like us who are happy to be moving away from companies like meta and twitter. If there's some mass exodus where all the meta fanboys left lemmy, i think the rest of us would be okay with that.
Now if they actually find a way to break the activity pub standard, then that would be a serious threat, but I'm not sure how defederating would solve that.
It's been explained already, if you don't understand or believe it that's fine.
There are other issues beyond EEE however. If Meta can federate with an instance, it can collect all the available data within that instance. Cambridge Analitica would love that. Also meta blurs the line between content and advertising and that type of advertising is not healthy to federate with.
The people who want meta content can make accounts on meta services.
EXACTLY, so kindly stop arguing with people telling you that Lemmy users should not let them into this backyard due to Meta's history. You're being willfully ignorant and combative here while refusing to be persuaded by the people telling you exactly why it's a bad idea. You both don't understand (or won't) and are STILL arguing your point anyway.
If your arguments can't be distinguished from legit astroturfing, then you're obviously making terrible pro-corporate arguments on a decidedly anti-corporate platform. Read the room and take the freaking hint.
I feel like Threads and Bluesky could lift the entire fediverse ocean, give it content and legitimacy and server capacity. And if the fediverse chooses to Balkanize and fracture in response, before we’ve even seen what effects they have on the community, then yeah we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
give it content and legitimacy and server capacity
by concentrating said content and legitimacy within their walled garden servers. Then they perform the rug pull and shut the gates closed, they have all the content and we have nothing.
If they defederate we are just back to where we are now
Haha... I wasn't wrong when choosing lemmy.ml as my lemmy server 😉
The great part of federation is that users who want to use Threads still can, and instances who don't want to federate with Meta don't have to. People who want to double-dip can sign up for their favorite instance(s) of choice, as well as with Threads. Neither one has to have any app shut down and everyone still gets to make a choice as an end-user rather than be decided upon by an unmovable authority. Win win!
Great news, now let's hope every instance follows.
Joined a few Lemmy instances, but the admin team taking actions like these might make lemmy.ml my main place to go. Anything corporate is irredeemable.
Kudos...... It's very much appreciated and a refreshing change to not be let down by something you enjoy online.
I think a preemptive block on threads and meta is a wise move! I did it for both my Mastodon and Lemmy instances.
Thank you!
Meta will only go full on E/E/E on the fediverse, even by "accident" (like adding new features and breaking the standard). Better choke them off right from the start and build small organic communities instead.
Excellent news. I would have moved to another instance that did block if .ml didn't block them. Thank you for this lemmy.ml

I hope beehaw does it too despite their status a pro-liberal instance.
Based
Just joined lemmy.ml after being on lemmy world. Until they decide on blocking meta I have no reason to be there.
Yes excellent! No corporations!!!
I spent a month getting an instance set up on .world, wearing my account in, putting up with the lag and other constant problems... then I read about this threads™ nonsense and how .world were playing a "wait and see" game with an evil empire. Read this thread (heh!), moved to .ml. Much smoother and more glitch-free experience. Just have to start over again. So far so good!
What's the difference between lemmy.world and Lemmy.ml? Completely different instances? Sorry I'm new and still don't understand everything
Its like one is hotmail and the other is yahoo mail. They are free services/hosts that allow you to access the activityPub protocol. There are hundreds of such providers, and you can even host you own on your own services if you wanted to/were inclined.
Lemmy is a specific layout of the ActivityPub protocol. Continuing the metaphor, you could think of Lemmy like an email newsgroup. All the different lemmy instances display and sort the newsgroups the same way, which is to emulate reddit.
Yes but you can access content from both of them from the other. Just browse to it or add the communities from the other to your subscriptions.
From what I can tell, .world is the main, biggest instance with the most people. That means whenever there are technical problems or waves of new signups, things tend to get a bit glitchy due to the system being overloaded. .ml seems to be a computer tech themed instance that doesn't have so many people, so there's not so much to overload all the circuitry bits.
Good.
This is the kind of thing that made me choose this instance in the first place. Thanks for making my online social place of choice feel safe.
Reasonable and wise.
I’m out of the loop what is going on?
Good Anakin, goood!
Awesome. This is great news. I just joined this instance and happy to see this position.
Is it possible for meta/threads not to read lemmy.ml posts as well?
My support to this decision.
I agree with this, cut off the sick limp before the infection spreads.
Burning threads? The Dragon Riders of Pern approve.
Good riddance.
How does it even work though? I haven't seen any Mastodon or other fediverse posts on Lemmy. What sub would the Threads posts appear in?
Is it me or he looks like Queen Elizabeth
God I can’t wait to stop seeing his face, so much of it lately
noice
Good thing, i don't want anything to do with Meta's crap either. If someone is complaining he can always do an account somewhere else.
Great move from lemmy.ml, now I hope other instances follows
🐐
Can someone eli5 what’s going on with this?
meta is trash and we don’t want its data getting all snuggly with ours. because ew.
now you’re up to speed.
edit: data privacy concerns are the main issue
If Meta can federate with an instance, it can collect all the available data within that instance. This seems to be what everyone is overlooking on the downsides of Meta federation.
Which is public data, you don't need to run an instance to have it. What am I missing?
As for me this is what I can't follow too, i understand that fackbook cant be trusted, and the federation is based on trust between instance admins to not do something fuckey.
So our data and rights (my country was victim of CA) are unsafe when federated with threads, these are what people are saying.
what is stopping facebook from creating a dummy instance, not disclose it is theirs, and federate with the instances that rejected the known threads instances?
exactly nobody is overlooking that, although some people may be unaware of it.
for the sake of the person to whom I was replying, I could be accused of oversimplifying the issue, perhaps. I’ve added a clarifying edit to my original comment.
Our data is already public though? The ActivityPub standard specifies that the majority of data we publish on any given instance is public through that instance's API, and a web scraper could be easily built that would comb through and gather all of it for advertising or machine learning purposes. The only real way to avoid that would be to take the sites themselves private, which would kind of defeat the point of social media, or to just not use social media.
This private data
is what Threads is after.
And, no, it’s not “already public.” Or, for your sake, I hope yours is not. Mine certainly isn’t, and I don’t want it to become so.
Oh yeah, the app is a monster that will eat all of your data. I thought we were talking about federated data they would get from the other instances, which is more or less public. My data as shown in that image is not public and I have no plans to hand it over to Meta.
well… you make a point that everything that you post on the internet is “public” in a sense, but there’s a pretty big difference in the effort required to scape it and providing direct API access to the data source which gives Meta access to much more than simply the contents of a post.
think of it as the difference of bing able to get a blood donation and sticking an IV directly into another person’s (or, in this case, anyone’s and everyone’s) artery, unfiltered, anytime, every time, on-demand, and without permission. forever.
no thanks!
Thanks for this visual. I'd extend the question to:
Will facebook be able to create dummy instances that would federate with the large/established instances and take our information?
I know fuck all about this.
one important distinction before I answer your question: Threads in a product of Instagram, not Facebook, and, although all are owned by Meta, each are run independently… but their business practices - and, thusly, their collective interests/goals/methods in and of data harvesting - are the same: invasive, exploitative, and, revolting.
Will facebook be able to create dummy instances that would federate with the large/established instances and take our information?
that’s exactly what Threads IS: a new Meta-owned service based on the same federated service that runs Mastodon and Lemmy (ActivityPub) and intermingles content and data from those services’ instances, and hence the widespread calls to defederate from it. so, it seems that you’re, at least, starting to get it. The calls to defederate (block) Threads is in the interest of keeping our data out of Meta’s hands. This would also mean we won’t see their content, but most people here don’t want to see that here anyway (or, at least, would rater keep the two separate).
edit: it’s also an example of Meta’s (and other large tech company’s) practice of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish with regards to emerging, independent technologies which they see as a threat to their control and profitability in the market(s) they control.
"Embrace, extend, and extinguish" (EEE),[1] also known as "embrace, extend, and exterminate",[2] is a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found[3] that was used internally by Microsoft[4] to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences in order to strongly disadvantage its competitors.
The strategy's three phases are:[12][13]
- Embrace: Development of software substantially compatible with a competing product, or implementing a public standard.
- Extend: Addition and promotion of features not supported by the competing product or part of the standard, creating interoperability problems for customers who try to use the "simple" standard.
- Extinguish: When extensions become a de facto standard because of their dominant market share, they marginalize competitors that do not or cannot support the new extensions.
Meta wishes to establish Threads as the new “standard” of the Fediverse which is antithetical to the entire concept of the Fediverse, which is to resist centralized, corporate control of the platform and to remain independent, open-source, and free.
any more questions?
I should've been more clear about my question, how would I, as a lemmy user, know if an instance has gone rogue (taken over by another entity, meta/fb/ig).
My actual worry is about an instance stealthily created by meat/fb/ig that is not identified as a threads instance/service. Say you have deferedated the fuck out of all known identified Meta created instance so they cant push trash content, then as an example:
an instance owner gets bribed and creates another instance to federate with established instances and gives control of it to FB. At this point fb/ig/meta know they'd just be kicked out again if they even peeped that they now own the inatance.
What is the trust model between instances, where/when does it break?
if the instance that meta now owns doesn't push out threads-content, they still have access to our data and I'll just be unaware of it and next thing we know we getting profiled from what we post in our private instances.
I should’ve been more clear about my question, how would I, as a lemmy user, know if an instance has gone rogue (taken over by another entity, meta/fb/ig).
Excellent question (due to the primary methods of how these companies hide their malfeasance)! The answer is in two parts:
- You wouldn’t… at least, not directly: Like many diseases, drug tests, or with identity theft, the only way you’d know is by way of detecting the “traces” or after-effects of it. What companies like this do - steal your personal data for their own profit - does not necessarily have a negative “primary effect*, but has a long-term secondary effect. That is, you aren’t negatively affected immediately, but, over time, these companies use your personal and private information to manipulate and take advantage of you for their own profit. It can be leaked or hacked due to their own irresponsibility or cheap security measures (or mistreated employees) and your money can gets stolen (or worse), and you can have your identity stolen or worse. All of these things have and continue to happen, and stronger and more comprehensive laws to protect against this sot of data and privacy failures at the corporate and government level are working through various governments as we speak, but… we also must work together to ensure that open-source solutions and communities do their best to ensure community and personal data privacy are enforced in the meantime.
- Meta and Twitter, another private companies have realized years ago that private data is the most valuable type of data. These companies will and have done everything to use any method at their disposal to guarantee their everlasting access to it. They are unscrupulous and unrelenting. The Fediverse is an open and open-source response to this trend, a viable alternative to everything from Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, and every other form of social media. As a result, ever form of corporate social media will and has targeted for EEE, that is Expand, Engulf, Extinguish (as addressed above), for it is recognized as the next-generation of online platform for communicative discourse/interaction.
so, the iterative control/model relationship is about to be wrestled out of the control of major corporations for the first time and major corporations are about to fight with the public over that. we’re about to see if that’s something which is realistic.
I wonder if there could be precedent set if a collective should come forth and file an antitrust lawsuit.
edit: this would all be very unprecedented, and the last time this happened wa in the 90’s, and I was on behalf of Netscape by the DoJ, so… I dunno. It was weird even then.
They don't even need to go that far. All data on lemmy is publicly available to anyone. You don't need an instance or even an account. Defederating from meta/threads won't stop them from reading all data out of the fediverse.
Meta wishes to establish Threads as the new “standard” of the Fediverse which is antithetical to the entire concept of the Fediverse, which is to resist centralized, corporate control of the platform and to remain independent, open-source, and free.
Exactly this to the point that it's getting me increasingly annoyed that people are advocating to let Meta in. Like..wtf are you talking about, this entire Fediverse thing is exactly the opposite of Meta, and directly a result in response to corporate control of online interaction. Why in the world would we want to connect with Meta?! This is the anti-Meta, anti-Reddit, anti-Twitter.
Assumption 1: Meta / Mark Z are objectively untrustworthy
Assumption 2: The Fediverse is a threat to the entire internet advertising machine
Assumption 3: Threads will be a hospitable place for right wing hatemongers. Therefore, federating with it exposes our most vulnerable users and communities to a deluge of (often invisible) hate and harassment.
Assumption 4: Most of the ways that they could use their billions of users and army of programmers to slowly choke us off would go through federation
I think if you believe all four of those assumptions defederation is the clear choice
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
I know we all dream of having all our friends and family on the Fediverse so we can avoid proprietary networks completely. But the Fediverse is not looking for market dominance or profit. The Fediverse is not looking for growth. It is offering a place for freedom. People joining the Fediverse are those looking for freedom. If people are not ready or are not looking for freedom, that’s fine. They have the right to stay on proprietary platforms. We should not force them into the Fediverse. We should not try to include as many people as we can at all cost. We should be honest and ensure people join the Fediverse because they share some of the values behind it.
Exactly. I don't understand why so many people have this mentality of 'the fediverse must grow, or it's a failure', but I think a lot of them are from the recent reddit exodus (I am too, for the record) and are addicted to the firehose of content that a massive social media platform brings.
I participated less and less on reddit in recent years, after joining in 2007, partly because it became such a behemoth. Nowadays, I am enjoying the modest size of my lemmy instance and the values I've seen espoused throughout. It's like a small(er) get together of like-minded people rather than an open-door rager - the first has always had more appeal to me, personally.
Really good read about the parts of the internet that people love, but that aren't profitable.
https://catvalente.substack.com/p/stop-talking-to-each-other-and-start
Thank you, I just finished the whole thing. It was a great read, and now I need to go and wipe my eyes from all these onions I've been chopping. :)
Growth is important to any social media ecosystem because you have to hit a critical mass of users to continue meaningfully existing - particularly, you have to have enough users to convince content creators to leave their current environment, since they're the most likely to be entrenched where they are.
That said, the distinction is that to a corporate/capitalist social media platform, infinite and exponential growth is the goal. To a FOSS social media platform, growth is simply a by-product of the real goal of meeting a public need.
I think the feeling of exclusivity that comes with being early to any scene is neat, but more users means more diversification of instances and communities, and we'll get to see the blossoming of hyper-specific, idiosyncratic, often deranged communities that made up the best part of Reddit. So growth isn't all bad.
I appreciate the elaboration and if I understand you correctly, I definitely think I agree.
The way I see it, if the instances & communities that make up the Fediverse grow like a garden (rather than an invasive weed - please bear with this analogy, lol) then eventually we should get small but active plots with new ghost pepper variants or even duran trees (talk about deranged!) that people can check out or share with those that are interested. That would be very cool, and would be a maturation I look forward to and will contribute to as best I can.
I fully agree with you, but in your last sentence would insert the word "organic"..."Organic growth isn't bad at all." Let this grow simply because more people tell their friends about it, not because come gigantic corp wanted to connect its hive-mind interface to our new frontier to assimilate the new technology into its own before killing it.
Well said.
The Zuck is making his own fediverse instance, seems to mostly be a twitter competitor atm.
Admins with good sense are defederating that instance, because we know that they have nothing but bad intentions.
Serious question:
Is he sick? That he has no facial features whatsoever?
Have they even implemented ActivityPub yet? I have a feeling they won't actually go through with it anyway.
Thank you!
threats
Appropriate Freudian slip
Lemmy.ml is devil they said. Who ? Capitalist's Nazis fasicts
Awesome.
Very good! I sincerely hope all the others will too. If lemm.ee won't, I know where I'll be moving to ;)
Would anybody be surprised if he bled white goo like Ash in the movie Alien. He looks not quite human.
Bravo!
Great news! 👏👏👏 Hope other instances do the same.
Good
That’s the way to go
A welcome move. F**k megacorps polluting everything on internet.
thank you.
Excellent move. Hope bluesky is next.
They really want their tendrils in everything, don't they?
@dessalines cool!
Thank you for taking a stance!
Meta is a dying company. Let's help they follow their natural course to oblivion
I am a little new to this. What do you mean by not letting them in, or blocking them? Not allowing them to create a "lemmy.threads" instance or something like that?
Threads will support the same protocol as Lemmy (which is called ActivityHub), meaning Thread-content is accessible in Lemmy (and other services) and the other way around.
By blocking Threads no content from there will arrive here and the other way around.
Thank you for the clarification.
Its Nice to hear
Yes, thank you, I was anxiously looking forward to this.
Thank you!
That is great news!
Thanks 👏
Would anything change on Lemmy, even if you federate with Threads?
You follow communities here on Lemmy, while on Threads you follow people. The only way for a Lemmy user to find a Threads user, would be looking for their username directly in the search bar.
In that sense, what does a Lemmy instance gain from defederating with Meta?
Completely support .ml defederating. But most Twitter/Reddit exiles want/need a bigger network for the breadth and depth of content they got from those sites. Universal defederation does nothing but hand those users (and their data) to Meta.
I want to get Meta's data without giving them my data. If there are no instances that allow me to do that, I will cry.
"Most twitter/reddit exiles want/need..." Nope. You don't speak for me, I like it here.
"...Does nothing but hand those users (and their data) to Meta" OK? That's their choice to leave then, who cares?
Do you understand what the word "most" means?
But most Twitter/Reddit exiles want/need a bigger network for the breadth and depth of content they got from those sites. Universal defederation does nothing but hand those users (and their data) to Meta.
And? If they want to run from one corporate overlord to another that's their own prerogative. Most people here are here because they've had it with corporations fucking them. The people here don't need to compromise their worldview for the people who are either indifferent or opposing of their worldview.
I want to get Meta’s data without giving them my data. If there are no instances that allow me to do that, I will cry.
If you care so deeply about it there's a fairly simple solution, make your own instance of Lemmy and don't defederate Threads. If you feel like others also need to have that option make your instance open.
You're telling me to make my own instance because you want all instances to defederate?
Make it make sense.
At no point did I say I want all instances to defederate threads. I would be happy if all instances did but nobody can force all instances to defederate a specific instance. What I did I say is that if all instances do choose to defederate Threads then you can make you own instance and choose not to defederate Threads. As I just said, nobody can force you to defederate Threads from your instance. Does it make sense now?
Oh. OK. If I am forced to make my own instance, I will cry.
Cool.
So what’s this mean, no one can post links to threads or meta content?
👏
“Sad dial up noises”
For the purposes of discussion, can someone eli5 me on the pros and cons of federating with threads?
A big corporation has the opportunity to tweak things without sharing, offering unique benefits for people of their server, slowly sucking up all the users. Then suddenly there is no federation, as everyone wants the unique features.
Think about web browser and chromium. Google pretty much dictates the core features of the internet now a days.
I may me way off base to be honest, just my 2 cents
expired
Whenever I see Zuck I think of this song "Is Mark Zuckerberg a Ghost" by Nap Eyes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gq2YhOY55zU
Also, this is the right move. Facebook/Meta only wants to harvest our data and profit off it.

Nicely done!
So you need to put threads.net on you defederation list?
That's already done.
Nice decision
whats the threat here huh?
content bad i leave
NICE
You all can't catch a break can you?
This is good news that lemmy.ml has blocked threads though I have recently seen a tankie instance show up I assume we will defederate from them as well?
so like if i want to read threads.net can i like say i want to read it still? how would that work, like can i just bypass your ban decision you made for me or would i need an account on another server that has not banned threads.net?
Make an account on threads.net, maybe?
Maybe he's not a full on idiot but just idiot curious.
thats the case
i dont want to have an account there, just be able to (easily) read whats there or is it wrong that its the same protocol?
🥳
based
might be okay. trust people to filter them from feeds unless blatant exploitation spam. then bye bye any improvements they might offer is probably open sourced through use of fedi libs. devs copy code all the time
To be honest, I dont think this is that good of an idea. We need to stop talking about profile, but focus on the content in it. People like me could be able to follow friends and family over on threads, which could help in terms of user lock in.
Blocking them could be good idea if lemmy was big enough to compete.
Why can't people vote for this?
Can you change which lemmy server your account is on, or do i just need to make a new account on a server that doesnt ban anything? Does anyone have a recommendation on a server that allows all conversation, uninhibited?
Can anyone point out any servers who aren't federating for folks who want threads?
Very Rare Lemmy W
I don’t understand this logic. Don’t we want Lemmy to be more mainstream and user friendly? Preemptively blocking any mainstream attempt to connect and bring in more users just sounds slightly petulant to me. Like I get meta = shitty company but I don’t get why we shouldn’t encourage more people joining the fediverse. And getting external help in growing it. And threads was the first mainstream olive branch that showed Lemmy, Kbin, and mastodon has legitimacy worth building infrastructure to join.
Idk blocking other people categorically from connecting just seems antithetical to the idea that it should be a decentralized system free to all to join.
But I’m new here, so maybe Im mistaken on the ethos of Lemmy.
This is an excellent read on the idea.
https://extranewsfeed.com/tolerance-is-not-a-moral-precept-1af7007d6376
In a nutshell "Tolerance is not a moral absolute; it is a peace treaty."
I agree. But not everyone on that app are people who share greedy and hurtful ideas. Thats just extreme generalization imho.
Just feel’s antithetical to FOSS and decentralized social media. I came to Lemmy because a corporate douche was ruining Reddit because management and users had different ideas about what is and isn’t acceptable uses of that platform. Lemmy throwing up a big ol firewall because someone does it differently to them just isn’t what I expected to find here. Maybe that’s my fault. But Lemmy has a content and user drought. And I’m okay with that as long as it’s showing growth. I mean it takes a long time to build up content and communities.
But with beehaw defederating everyone they don’t like and the official Lemmy devs now basically doing the same thing to threads when the fediverse finally starts to go mainstream and attracting a wealth of new users just leaves a “throw the baby out with the bath water” impression on me.
But it seems like I’m the oddball one out here judging by the downvotes and overall negative responses from Lemmy-ers but it’s just my perspective.
The fediverse is a space built to escape these corporate profit machines. So you're ok with them invading that space?
Federating with Threads might help the fediverse grow, but Threads has the ability to become the largest instance within it. Then they'll be the ones to defederate from us. After that happens the fediverse will be worse off than if they never joined.
The fediverse is a threat to corporate run social media. Threads joining the fediverse is step one of their inside job to bring it down.
I came to Lemmy because a corporate douche was ruining Reddit
And now you want corporate douches to have a foothold here?! C'mon man, figure it out.
Exactly, I feel like I'm taking crazy pills here. Why did people even create accounts here if not to be free from corporate enshitification?!
We want new users, but not any random users at any costs.
I'd rather see the community growing slowly but organically than adding a bunch of random people with a toxic Instagram logic.
We don't have to be 10s of millions to enjoy it here either.
Organic growth is good. Growth for the sake of growth makes no sense outside an environment where you need those metrics to convince investors.
I would also contend that it’s good for creating more content for people to consume. Lemmy desperately needs more content to be able to provide a compelling experience for most people to put up with the cumbersome nature and awkward aspects of the fediverse.
Now block the Genocide-denying, racist, fascists that are from Lemmygrad.ml, the same site the self-proclaimed authoritarian Admins manage
Hi there! Looks like you linked to a Lemmy community using an URL instead of its name, which doesn't work well for people on different instances. Try fixing it like this: meanwhileongrad@sh.itjust.works
Is Twitter banned as well?
Is it federated?
Twitter is not federated
It was a rhetorical question.
preemptively blocking an instance just because it’s owned by meta and not due to bad conduct is cringe as fuck
In what universe are you living in that meta does not have a history chock full of bad conduct?! Frog, meet scorpion.
Oh, and stop misusing "cringe" while you're at it.
you should watch minority report
this is not a misuse of the word. this does make me “have an inward feeling of acute embarrassment or awkwardness.” via google and It is “so embarrassing, awkward, etc. as to cause one to cringe” via merriam webster 👍
This platform is built on getting away from large corporate ownership. It would make 0 sense to allow it. Just use another instance if you want/need to see their content.
Okay but isn’t lemmy.ml the one that’s developed by tankies…I don’t think we should be setting our moral compass so close to theirs, guys…AKA if they think something is right it’s probably wrong…
*lmao didn’t realize I was ON the tankie server, whoops my bad. What I meant to say was tankies gooood.
you’re thinking of lemmygrad.ml.
also, there’s a difference between communists and tankies. it my not seem like a big difference to many, but under real scrutiny, tankies are typically just ultranationalists who use th virtues of communism to praise dictators and autarchs and their actions, whereas those who follow the values of communism and socialism still value things like social equality, workers’ rights, and justice.
I'm not sure where you draw the line, but you don't have to look too hard to find self-described communists defending the actions of the current Russian government which is very confusing to me. From what I understand, that is a good description of the people who run lemmy.ml, and they have allegedly been deleting comments by users discussing the Ukraine war, so i wouldn't be surprised if this comment is deleted.
I’m not sure where you draw the line
I was pretty clear about that in my previous comment. I can clarify if you have specific questions, however.
From what I understand, that is a good description of the people who run lemmy.ml
then I suggest that you have bad information. exactly what is the source? could you please link to it?
and they have allegedly been deleting comments by users discussing the Ukraine war, so i wouldn’t be surprised if this comment is deleted.
please link to these allegations, too, please… deleted comments are typically under the purview of community moderators (who have their own political opinions), not to the instance admins. also, especially offensive comments may be removed not for the political opinions they contain but for the manner by which they are expressed… I can’t say more without knowing all the facts, so please provide the evidence of these… allegations.
Honestly, the person you're responding to has been responsible for at least half of the shitty and downvoted comments in this thread. I'm convinced the dude is a corporate shill astroturfing at this point.
Lemmy.ml is hosted by the developers of Lemmy; their political views are kinda irrelevant here, I don't think there's a single political party that wants MORE of Metas influence in anything
Please dont be so preasumptious. Because nazis think it is a good idea to stay hydrated it has to be bad? Please look at the problem and why they decided it and not on the political standpoints.
Here is a post of someone with concrete arguments why federating with meta could be bad: https://sopuli.xyz/comment/879382
I’m relatively new. What evidence is there to support this claim? I got the impression that lemmy.ml was supposed to be FOSS centric.
I mean, I googled it to be sure before I typed it, so I’m not sure where all these apologists are coming from…
I think you need to cite your sources… Edited: I think you are referring to this: https://lemmy.eus/post/1643Also this: https://lemmy.eus/u/dessalines@lemmy.mlThanks for informing me. It’s quite alarming that these members follow inherently authoritarian ideologies.
I just googled “is lemmy.ml run by tankies” “
”…and like a hundred things came up, not sure why you’re having issues.
There’s people confirming it and how they even prefer it. 🤷
*edit: links being weird, I’ll try again: https://lemmy.ml/post/54417