Second largest Lemmy instance preemptively un-friends Facebook
2y 11mon ago by programming.dev/u/ruffsl in fediverse from lemmy.ml
Lemmy.ml has now blocked Threads.net
How about Lemmy.World?
You can read the lemmy.world admin response here
You can read the lemmy.world admin response here
The admins stated on Mastodon that they're not going to defederate until something happens. Knowing Meta they shouldn't give them the chance.
Here's the link: https://mastodon.world/@mwadmin/110654590632768079
You can read the lemmy.world admin response here
Thank you and the other admins for the thoughtful and transparent answer.
We would like to express our disappointment with the negative and threatening tone of some of these discussions
Considering that a great percentage of the Fediverse userbase are ex-users of Reddit and Twitter that left due to CEO actions, I get that they (including me) don't trust Meta or want anything to do with them. I agree that discussion should be civil nonetheless.
Thats unfortunate. I'll be moving instances then. Giving Meta a chance is a lot like giving a mosquito a chance to not suck your blood.
"until something happens"
I suppose Metas history of actively being a bad actor working against societies best interests and enabling hate groups doesn't qualify as 'something'...
Oh, looks like I’m switching instances.
And done. I love federation.
How do you do that? I'm subscribed to like 50 conmunities. Would I have to start all over? That doesn't sound like it's worth it.
Just gonna name-drop the tool I made to do this :) https://github.com/CMahaff/lasim
It's only been out a few days, let me know if you have any issues!
Thanks. I liked .world but no way will I let meta in.
Thanks for making this!
Awesome! I was hoping this would be possible. I plan to host my own instance hobbit.world and would need to migrate everything.
Also, I'll defederate any corporate instances. No need to encourage bad actors.
Thanks for this! Just gave this a try, downloaded from .world just fine, but uploading to .ml gives this error: ERROR: Failed Login - HTTP status client error (403 Forbidden) for url (https://lemmy.ml/api/v3/user/login)
Honestly it isn't. Nothing about the Fediverse is private or inherently secure in that way. Everything is public. And you should assume that everything you publish through activity pub could eventually be looked at by anyone. If you want private or secure messaging there are non-activity pub open source secure alternate. In fact signing up for Lemmy there's even a field to enter for one. Whether or not a server federates with meta. Meta is still going to data mine the ever-loving shit out of all of them. The point is. None of us are at Meta's wim about being flooded with their toxic content.
Honestly I want to see meta flooded with our content. So much anti-threads anti Meta sentiment. Actual leftists. And not just make believe right-wing liberals who've been conditioned to think that they are left. It would be hilarious to watch Meta try to play wack-a-mole sanitizing everything. To please their reptilian corporate overlords. And if you don't care and just don't want to see it. You can always block them personally. Why let them data mine in peace. I say we make them work for it.
There is a python script floating around that will sync your communities, etc. I'd link but don't have it handy.
I don't code.
Here is the script. It's already written, you just need to run it:
Alternatively, there is a browser bookmark that kinda does the same thing: https://feddit.de/post/808717
you can find all sorts of things to customize lemmy over at plugins@sh.itjust.works or https://sh.itjust.works/c/plugins(shameless plug)
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: plugins@sh.itjust.works
thank you, bot! Updated my post.
How do I run it? Do I go to Command or Run, or do I paste the URL?
I got like 150, that wouldn't stop me. Plus you can use curl to export the list of the instances you're subscribed to on your account.
💀
Yep.
Oh damn guess I will migrate to lemmy.ml and use that until I find out if lemmy.world defederates or not. (Edit turns out it is run by tankies and they are federated with lemmygrad.) While I may or may not stay on lemmy.world depending on if we federate with meta or not. I will no longer suggest Lemmy.ml.
Is mastodon.world the same as lemmy.world?
Is there a list of who’s blocking or not?
Bloody hell, I literally just switched to Lemmy.world, do I really need to switch to Lemmy.ml? Come on guys
I switched to lemm.ee
They're still federated with exploding-heads and rammy.site so they didn't make my short list
What a shame guess I'll stick to my alt over at lemm.ee for the time being
Tolerance paradox applies here too
until something happens
What exact behaviors are they looking for that would cause them to push the block button?
Threads can do very well for themselves without the fediverse as they are already demonstrating. What real motive do they have to join the fediverse except to shut it down?
Thanks for this, going to delete my lemmy.world account now.
Heck yeah. That's a very balanced and rational approach completely unfuelled by emotions.
Can't say the same for the top comment in this thread, lol.
Be a lot cooler if they did.
The discussion is still on-going.
Is there any reason that they wouldn't?
This is not particularly surprising. Lemmy was started as an anti-corporate project by leftists after /r/chapotraphouse got quarantined and later banned (subreddit for the most popular podcast and most donated patreon at the time), with the explicit goal of preventing corporate control from being able to silence leftists when they're blasting off. CTH was skyrocketing in subscribers at the time it was quarantined on August 8th 2019, and when even quarantining didn't stop its growth or slow down its activity afterwards Reddit pulled the plug under the excuse it promoted violence, but the only particularly edgy thing ever said there was "slave owners should be killed" and support for John Brown. This evolved post-ban into the assessment that Spez banned it because he wants to own slaves.
When that happened there was a massive shift in the leftist parts of reddit as we very quickly realised we'd be targeted if reddit ever deemed us to be too successful, and projects like Lemmy began in reaction. CTH's community in fact moved to Lemmy 3 years ago, and resides on Hexbear.net but has not yet joined the rest of federated lemmy due to technical issues (it used to be a fork with a different front end).
Given lemmy's specific anti-corporate origins seeing Lemmy.ml do this should surprise nobody. It's the correct move anyway.
Lemmy.world needs to follow
Fantastic news! Can we please do the same on lemmy.world? Please?
It would be even greater if lemmy.world does it ;)
lemmy.world and everyone should as well
I am proud of Lemmy.ml for defederating. The second I find out if kbin social or lemmy world defederate or not I will just move to the other one since I use both. (Edit turns out Lemmy.ml is run by Tankies and also allows federation with lemmygrad.)
Looking forward to Lemmy.world pushing the block button when it comes to it…
Hard agree.
I don't really think federating with them is doomsday, tbh (though I go back and forth on this one), but that doesn't affect my primary reason for my nope. Threads consolidates everything I hate about corporate social media--and for that matter, all social media--without a single part I actually liked and made dealing with the other parts worth it. This is not a twitter clone; it's like someone asked chatGPT to create a social media network based on twitter for other chatGPT bots to talk to each other. For fuck's sake, it doesn't think its users should control what they see on their own feed.
I am perfectly willing--even eager--to perform melodramatically about things that annoy me in public for fun and when I'm bored and applaud others doing the same; it's fun times for all and possibly my favorite thing ever. This is not that.
Threads makes my skin crawl on concept. This is not 'they do not align with our values' because come on, Fediverse contains a multitude of values and invents more and i bet if asked, everyone here would list off a different set of values they believe encompass Fediverse and now I'm tempted to see because it would be hilarious. But we can't even get that far; Threads has no values. This would be a marriage of convenience to a real doll fueled by Facebook's algorithms and sponsored by Wal-Mart; whether or not it's a danger to Fediverse shouldn't even have come up because the first question that should be on anyone's minds is 'wait, this is actually a serious question?' and have been answered 'lol of course it's a joke, I just forgot to add the /s'.
I'm still waiting for that /s.
It's not about Zuckerberg, it's about the userbase. With something that grew to 30 million users literally overnight, it's impossible to determine what it will be like, and how it will mesh with the existing fediverse content/users.
With something this scale, it only makes sense to secure and observe - pre-emptively block, watch the content, maybe even poll the users on what should be done. There is nothing to be lost this way, it's only a cautious approach towards a potential later link.
What could be lost is the Threads community overwhelms the lemmy community before there is a chance to react (it is 1000x bigger, after all). It makes sense to be cautious, here.
This isn't inconveniencing anyone, any user can make an account on Threads as well and use both right now.
Look, Mark has royally screwed up Facebook. Any respect or honor with the guy has long been lost. Why even give him a second chance when it's obvious he's going to do the same thing with Threads?
His Metaverse failed. His Facebook/Meta thing failed.
He is a huge red alert to be involved or close to the very things we're trying to recover and escape to from things he has contaminated. Why chance associating with him?
Ideologically, de-federating an instance just because you don't like the guy running it would be a bad thing, but Facebook/Meta has been just so toxic to the internet as a whole it's hard to really find fault with it.
I think one can be "open" to a fault. If you cling to principles and morale for the sake of it and without exception or nuance, you set yourself up to be exploited or worse. Many things, entities, interactions in life contradict each other and it is important to set boundaries and make decisions for yourself. Because life and people are multi-faceted and aren't nice and clean and perfect, which blind, naive idealism fails to take into account. The keyword here is nuance.
Many big tech companies run on greed and inhumane, unhealthy, invasive practices for the sake of pure, blind, unsustainable growth and profit. And I would argue that this is one of the driving factors of the fediverse even existing. If you don't clearly separate yourself from these practices, then we all can simply use Reddit. But people create, maintain and use alternatives for a reason. Not taking a stance or action against what you want to escape from, even openly inviting it for the sake of being open and on a morally high horse makes simply no sense.
Idealists won't like to hear this, but it's the same with peace. Look at Ukraine to have a recent example. Most people want to live and prosper in peace. That is natural and desirable. But there are always some, who profit from war and who try to destroy things, disregarding the fate of others. Or political systems that want to expand territory and exploit / convert whole populations. When the desire for peace is only one-sided, and all attempts of talking or peaceful incentives fail, you can either protect yourself forcefully or be stolen from, raped, tortured, deported or murdered, watching your homeland be turned into ashes and those you love suffer for decades from the consequences.
In the same way, when the desire for openness, humane fairness without exploitation of users is one-sided, you have to draw a line and take a clear stance to defend that "safe space" you seeked in the first place from entities and principles that contradict it. And we have decades of clear evidence how big tech, especially Facebook / Meta operates, they are known to invade user privacy, strive for one-sided power, try everything to avoid or circumvent legal regulation. They have more than earned to be excluded from a place created to offer something better, healthier. And it's not like we hurt feelings here, it's a corporation, a virtual, soulless entity.
I can only speak for myself and do what I deem is good for me, so I'll migrate to Lemmy.ml, because at least they have the balls to stay true to a concept, even if it involves difficult or ugly decisions. And even if blocking Meta won't fully "protect" the fediverse, at least it is a clear message and limits the amount of power they can achieve and the amount of damage they can do here.
My many years of experience on the Internet has taught me that once the unwashed hordes of the public show up and start slinging shit around, that’s when your website dies if you like having intelligent discourse on it.
being open to everything is not better though, and being open to meta specifically will threaten and lower the quality of the place. lemmy.world should defederate with threads
Couldn't a person just make the decision not to follow anything from Threads, though?
That won't keep them from coming in here and antagonizing us, flooding our instances with spam and advertising.
You're in no position dictate what an instance should or should not do. If you don't like what an instance is doing, you're welcome to join another one or start your own, that's the beauty of decentralization.
Ironically, You’re in no position dictate what a user should or should not complain about :P
Touche. Not dictating anything, just pointing out the obvious that when you sign up at an instance, the admin still has full control.
Which is why we shouldn't get instances grow too large as then we have the same issue as any centralized platform.
Yea agree, not a fan of "Meta". But I think limiting who can use federated networks kinda goes against the federated nature of such networks. What's next, we'll have a centralized blacklist of lemmy instances.
they did this specially prevent the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish strategy
This is mentioned in pretty much every thread but I haven't seen anyone apply the theory to the fediverse. The second step is for threads to create features that lure people over from Lemmy (or activitypub). So are the people saying eee by extension saying they'll move to threads from their current server because threads have a bigger and better development team?
they'll move to threads because threads will be incompatible with the rest of fediverse (thread essentially defederate themself), and if most content is being posted in threads, they'll move there (since they can't access it from other instance)
this has happened before, such as
- MSN messenger breaking compatibility with AOL IM (MSN wins since it got 95% market share)
- MS Office doing obfuscation to their office file data to prevent FOSS editor like LibreOffice from rendering it correctly
I've been saying exactly this since the news dropped. I fully understand people being worried, but I haven't seen a concrete pathway to damage that doesn't involve meta-hating users moving over to a meta product.
Past performance is indicative of future behavior. Simple as that. Meta has proven that at every single turn they will do what's profitable, not what's best for the user.
People don't want that infecting this space.
The problem is when bad actors enter the situation. Meta has no interest in being a part of the community, they want to take it over and commercialize it.
And by commercializing it they would destroy it, since they will be promoting content that generates most clicks and everything will become agresive.
It's Google and Microsoft tactics.
The problem is when bad actors enter the situation.
Let people decide on their own what they want to see.
That's beyond ignorant. There's no place for that bigoted bullshit and if you want to be around it feel free to head on over to twitter.
There’s no place for that bigoted bullshit and if you want to be around it feel free to head on over to twitter.
bigot. One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ.
Describes you more than me. I'm in favor of openness and individual responsibility.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance
Still no. If you feel ostracized because your bigoted viewpoint isn't welcome, then you should take a hint and stfu instead of crying about it. I don't feel bad about not welcoming hatred and for treating it the same way it treats others. Your dog whistles aren't welcome either.
I don’t feel bad about not welcoming hatred
So text-based Instagram with 70 million regular users and some brand accounts is hatred? Serious reality distortion field you have there. Well, Lemmy.World has not blocked Threads at the moment, so I'm alright and actually not crying at all. It is people like you who want to police what other people look at.
Maybe you should lobby to block Trump's Truth Social which is an Mastodon instance full of actual racists.
It's nice that they make blocking bigots and assholes so easy on here.
The nice part about federated networks is that if you disagree, you can just move instances. Nobody is bound to the will of the admins like with traditional centralized social media
Is there yet a way to fully migrate a lemmy account like a Mastodon one? Otherwise, "just move instances" isn't great advice, it's still having to start over. We need that ability imo or we're losing a major benefit of being federated.
Yeah, it would be nice to have a capability to move all your user content to another instance.
Yeah I would like to know how to switch from .world to .ml
Meta's decision to work towards federation does need to be taken with a lot of salt. Corporations using open platforms or open source to make their money has always resulted in power imbalances that, left unchecked, may become impossible to solve without concessions from said corporation, or else [X] thing just gets hung out to dry.
You have to hope the people running that company understand that these problems exist, and actively work against ruining everything for everyone else that relies on it.
I'm confused then why you support the move
The article was a nice read. I'm surprised that there is either no awareness or discussion in the privacy conscious tech crowd over here on the lack of privacy from anonymous bad actors. Everyone seems to only care about Meta, who are bad, but the most they will do with our data is advertise to us. The other bad actors enabled by ActivityPub can actually doxx, redistribute, save our posts, messages.
I agree that the fediverse isn't currently super privacy-friendly, although I think there's also an inherent limitation to privacy on a social network since it's all about sharing things. I view privacy as having the control over WHAT I share, with WHOM I share it with, and WHEN, and I get that moreso with the fediverse IMO. I choose what information I share, what I follow, etc. The major difference to me is that Lemmy isn't tracking me elsewhere around the web like Facebook, Google, Pinterest, etc do. The big sites also save our posts and messages even when they claim not to, because things that are deleted are very rarely ever truly deleted.
I would appreciate the ability to send no-knowledge encrypted DMs here on Lemmy. But using PGP is not difficult, will guarantee only the recipient can read the message, and is a skill that everyone who uses the internet should be able to do anyways.
I wasn't aware of PGP, thanks for that info!
https://darknetone.com/a-complete-guide-to-pgp-and-kleopatra/is a good resource to get started! You don't have to use kleopatra, but it's a good place to start.
Totally agree! Defeding Meta is a nail into Fediverse's coffin. It just goes again all Fediverse principles.
Meta has the right to join the fediverse, but instance admins have the right to defederate from them. If a user doesn't like that, they can make an account with another instance. How does it go against "fediverse principles?"
Do you even understand the point of federation?
Whoever has the server has full control. That's how the internet works.
It would be great if that was the way it worked, unfortunately right now it's granular to the instance level, not user level. Not sure it's even possible to get it down to user level unless every user runs their own instance which is unlikely to ever happen. The data has to live somewhere, so we need instances or instance -equivalent to host the data. Maybe if they get it down to where hosting your own instance is super easy one-click ordeal. Then each user would be truly in control.
Bravo lemmy.ml! We should follow the example!
I’m actually shocked by the growth of threads, I underestimated how much people don’t care about their digital privacy.
I don't know. I would like to subscribe to someone on Threads from Mastodon (since both are Twitter alternatives), if they don't have Mastodon account (which let's be honest they probably don't). Zuck does not get any of my data (besides what's available publicly anyway). If Threads decides to go full EEE, I'll stop getting updates from people on Threads, same as I don't get updates from people on IG right now. I think proliferation of ActivityPub protocol would be the greatest advantage.
Moreover, I think we should follow the email architecture - I might use i.e. Proton Mail, but it does not prevent me from sending emails to Gmail, which I think is a bad provider, who collects a lot of user data. In fact if Proton Mail forbade sending email to Gmail I would be really displeased about that.
The goal is to allow people to choose where they want to go and ActivityPub is what can help with that, unlike blocking Threads.
i ONLY want to conter your argument with email and activityhub: on email people choose to send stuff to a very limited amount of people except maybe newsletter and scammers. with threads, which should have already multiple times of osers compared to the fediverse, will flood the content to /all. Of course there are cool people but i think the entire fediverse culture will be blown away by threads in an instand. And with their weird moderation (especcially small) servers here will have large problems trying to moderate it
but by email there is no mass broadcasting to the public so it does not need to be moderated
Email is not only 1:(small N). Maillists do exist and and are used to facilitate discussions between a large amount of people via email. They are also often public so anonymous readers and search indexers can use them.
/all is certainly an interesting thing - default Active sorting calculates a rank based on the score and time of the latest comment, with decay over time. If Threads are connected they would dominate /all. But there can certainly be adjustments, we can create a new sorting style, and make it default. For example:
- Posts are deprioritized based on MAU or some similar metric. The larger the MAU, the lower the post is ranked assuming the same engagement. If the post got 100 upvotes on an instance with 1000 users, it's probably a much more interesting post, than the post that got 100 upvotes on an instance with 100 000 000 users.
- Posts are (de)prioritized based on instance source. For example setting Threads to -1000 would effectively remove it, setting Threads to -50 would allow you to see only super active posts. On the other hand if we want to see more content from less populated instance we might set it (i.e. german lemmy feddit.de) to the score of 100.
- Instances can provide a limited number or percentage of
/all- i.e. after we got 10 posts from Threads, stop getting posts from this instance.
i did not know about the weights. That is very interesting, good written and i would say that you topped my argument. Thank you ^^
I couldn’t agree more. Racing to block Threads when it’s completely unclear if Threads will even actually ever federate and what the implications of them federating will even be seems incredibly short sighted. Imagine how much innovation would have been lost on the internet if web server admins raced to block Google Chrome from accessing their content because they have some personal beef with Google.
Waiting for others to follow.
They'll be devastated when they find out my closed instance with 2 users, 1 of which is inactive, also pre-emptively de-federated them. I shudder to think they'll ever recover.
Hey bud, be the change you want to see in the world!
I do try to be
Is there an advantage to hosting your own instance?
I already owned the domain and have access to a server with more than enough resources, so it didn't have a downside to me.
Upside, I don't really have to worry about anyone else's federation choices. Undesirable content like loli/shouta stuff doesn't appear at all, because I'm basically the only user and don't subscribe to anywhere that exists so it doesn't federate to me anyway. My instance never lags because nobody but me uses it. Sometimes it misses comments through federation from overloaded instances, but it seems like the newer version of Lemmy has helped that greatly.
For me, yes. My instance is considerably faster and has better uptime than any of the instances I have created accounts on. Mostly because I'm the only one using it.
Yep, while other were complaining about issues it was smooth sailing for me.
On the flip side, discovering new communities is a pain, and whenever i subscribe to a new community it can take hours to start populating comments.
Honestly, not really.. But, it does put you in control over your destiny.
Not really, it's like hosting your own email server. Sounds great in theory and is a fun project but at the end of the day all you get is a vanity URL and a headache.
fedipact.online
Very good news. Between Pi Hole and uBlock Origin, any links to threads is already blocked on my computer. Nice to see you folks preventing the linking to this privacy invading boil of the internet
how about making a poll on lemmy.world asking how we feel about defederating from metatrap, just to see...
Personally I don’t think there is anything they could do gain trust short of undoing their data harvesting. Which would destroy them as a business entity/platform.
There's no way to build, let alone restore, trust with that kind of business model. All behavior manipulation companies need to die. Their mere existence is unethical.
When companies like META show you how ruinous they are the first dozen times, over and over without end, you believe them, and you defend yourself, or you deserve every bad thing that's going to happen to you, when they repeat their corporate driven ends at your expense
Happy with this.
Yes.
I'm on the fence here. Luckily, at least, I think community/subreddit-based sites like Lemmy/Reddit don't have "network effects" that are as "sticky" as Mastodon/Twitter, because with Lemmy/Reddit you don't need to build up a follower list to start getting value. You just join the community and it's as if you immediately "followed" a bunch of people who share your interests. You don't even need to make an account - you can just bookmark a community and lurk, and maybe you eventually make an account to start interacting. It's a great "on-ramp" - very low barrier to entry/usefulness.
I think that's why Lemmy was able to take off so fast. It relies on community-level coordination, rather than every individual user having to make their own choice to switch, and try to get all their followers/followees to switch. So even if Meta did add a community-style mode, I don't think it'd eat into the Lemmy userbase. It is hard to be sure though, and I respect the choices of those instances that have blocked/defederated.
Mastodon admins have a harder decision to make I think - there's an opportunity to get very quick growth by effectively adding a lot more followable users/content. A bunch of people don't like Meta/Facebook, but want to follow their friends, and so they may use Mastodon to do that, which could get a lot more people to move to "real" fediverse apps/sites like Mastodon. I know a lot of people that are on Threads now, and I'm looking forward to being able to follow them from Mastodon, rather than being forced to get Threads to keep up to date with what they're working on.
Lemm.ee intends to do the same “If Threads ever becomes interoperable with Lemmy”
Per – Admin Post
There we go. Not the wishy washy mastodon non-announcement. Although I understand their "neutrality" too, it's still like they wanna seem like the big boys. Sometimes it's advantageous to be small. This "fuck you" may be just adorable to Zuck, but it's also genuine.
At least on Mastodon each user can decide for themselves if they want to block a domain or not.
Can you share how to do this?
In the web UI (lowest option in the menu):
The connect app for lemmy has this too.
(Apparently) Unpopular Opinion: I think defederating Threads is the wrong move, because it just locks people into Threads. If people on Twitter had the ability to move to Mastodon AND still interact with all the people they did before, I think we would have seen even more people move. The only reason I still check twitter at all is because I have a few close friends who didn't move. Meta is likely going to have big adoption of people who aren't ready to go to Mastodon, but are interested in getting out of the dumpster-on-fire that twitter seems to continue to be. But blocking those people from being able to join the more popular Lemmy instances, given no actual policy violations, just will keep people in Meta that otherwise could leave. With the "however" being: It's not quite clear to me that Threads users will be interacting with Lemmy as much Mastodon, if Threads were a Reddit replacement, it's more directly connected.
Every time I see his face it looks like it's a photo shop to make him look bad but it's his actual face
Good news! Fuck Zuck!
These are very good news, I just hope more instances beyond lemmy.ml do so too.
My instance as well as the other Lemmy and Mastodon instances on this list have blocked Threads.
Can someone ELI5 this situation to me? Not sure what Meta can do to instances/the Fediverse.
I mean, if Lemmy.world doesn't when they decide to try and move in, I'll just move on to the next site that does. Prolly Lemmy.ml
I am so in love with Lemmy right now.
Forgive my ignorance but how is Threads part of the fediverse? How did .ml defederate it?
Threads announced they are going to open up an activitypub interface to federate
Preemptively is the word
Uh, wouldnt this make more sense for mastodon instances to defed? Can we even see mastodon posts on lemmy? I know they can post here, but its always like a lost in translation weird post.
They don't want Facebook to be able to pull data from Lemmy.ml
I think it's got less to do with whatever is posted online and it's more about the under the hood stuff like what devices you decide to use, what networks are being used to access their services, what contacts they have, and other shit like that.
{"@context": "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams", "type": "Create", "id": "https://social.example/alyssa/posts/9282e9cc-14d0-42b3-a758-d6aeca6c876b", "to": ["https://social.example/alyssa/followers/", "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public"], "actor": "https://social.example/alyssa/", "object": {"type": "Note", "id": "https://social.example/alyssa/posts/d18c55d4-8a63-4181-9745-4e6cf7938fa1", "attributedTo": "https://social.example/alyssa/", "to": ["https://social.example/alyssa/followers/", "https://www.w3.org/ns/activitystreams#Public"], "content": "Lending books to friends is nice. Getting them back is even nicer! :)"}}
I thought it's cause they didn't want it to be flooded/overrun by the massive amount of posts from threads. let's face it, threads is going to have a waaaaay bigger userbase. I mean shit, it already does if Instagram accounts automatically have a threads account.
People left reddit because reddit started charging for data access, and not the same people say they don't want others to have access to their public data.
I don't generally judge people based on their appearance, but this man's face gives me the heebie-jeebies. There's something alienating about the lack of affect he seems to have, plus his features seem to be an approximation of a human face - the mouth is too small, the ears too big, the forehead too shiny...
Good call, guys. No more Zuck.
Sweet action! After hearing about Lemmy.world not doing the same i'll be switching instances. It's great that I can make that decision.
I'm pretty conflicted about this I gotta say.
You shouldn't be. These companies are not here to play along, but dominate. Just like reddit played along with 3rd party developers until it didn't need them anymore, so will Meta use the openess of the protocol to ultimately undermine it.
Embrace --> Extend --> Extinguish
^------- Facebook is currently here
They are, but we should figure out how to beat them at their game. They'll probably manage to get custody of the remainder of the decent people from twitter, being able at an individual level to follow a single person over there without having to hear from all the people over there would be a better solution.
Right now we lack the proper tools to keep them at bay without massive moderation on our end so blocking them is best, but we can eventually work out a middleground.
How does that work? Is threads using a protocol compatible to lemmy? (And I fully agree with the preemptive blocking of any facebook stuff).
Edit: thanks for all the detailled answers.
So Facebook tries the old EEE - Embrace Extend Extinguish. 1.A big company is Embracing an open source standard ("we're friendly, see?) They get a lot of users that way - even the open source savvy types. 2.they start Extending that standard "to make it even better" - but not talking about these changes with the rest of the community first. They cannot react quickly enough and become incompatible with the new version of this standard. 3.Extinguish. When all the users are effectively using the big companies platform with something that isn't the original standard anymore they change it so much that it isn't compatible at all anymore or replace it completely.
Excellent news!
Interesting
Oh, but not the first largest Lemmy instance?
Hmmm... I wonder who that could be...
The beehaw admins are a bit wackadoo, but calling them Nazis is so far out in left field lmao. Not the proper type of insult I don't think.
No, it's completely applicable with how they moderate their instance.
No, it isn’t.
Yeah it is.
Instead of down voting you, I want to know what happened to you to call them nazis. Their only rule is essentially be nice, it kind of reflects badly on you that you're so enraged by them to just call them nazis out of nowhere. What happened, man?
It's the same guy that's being a trollish asshole up and down this post. Only their posts have been removed, and only their posts are catching a 6:1 or higher downvote-to-upvote ratio. Seems like they're on somebody's payroll honestly.
Why what happened there?
Well I don't know what happened exactly with that particular user but I can give some basic info on the instance. Beehaw was initially one of the major, most popular Lemmy instances (not sure if it still is or not), but in their attempt to create an ultra safe space, they decided to suddenly and without warning defederate from some of the most major instances (lemmy.world and sh.itjust.works). They seem to want to cultivate an environment akin to Tildes...they want a small userbase that is locked down to their own beliefs.
There is nothing inherently wrong with their philosophy on how their instance should be run...but for me what left a bad taste in my mouth was the suddenness of their actions. If they were a walled garden and semi-closed off from the very beginning (a la Tildes), it would have been totally fine in my eyes imo. But to suddenly ban large swaths of users from participating without warning when they were one of the largest instances just left a very bad taste in my mouth and I don't agree with the way they did things. Communiites like chat@beehaw.org were among the most popular communities on Lemmy, for example, and I enjoyed participating there. But then to suddenly be banned without warning because I am on a growing instance really just made me a bit frustrated with the way they were handling things.
But as I said in my earlier comments...to use that particular slur with them is completely unwarranted imo. But I do understand people's frustration with them. I'm frustrated too. But life will move on and different communities pop up and fill the void.
Thanks for your clarification. I didn’t know that and I’ll feel the same way too. I wish we have more say on things like that. Like voting perhaps
In the end, it's ok. Their closing off from others will only mean that other popular communities will grow and take their place. Lemmy.world has already grown immensely to take the top place in the past month. It's been crazy watching it explode. If Beehaw wants to do things that way then I'd rather not be associated with them to begin with and not worry about things like voting with them.
Can y'all stop using this goblin as the thumbnail? Thanks
Good 👍🏼
So that settles it. We have an option if meta federated and it goes to shit. Lemmy.world's stance is correct. Let's just see how this goes.
Not sure what to think of this honestly. Like imagine a small email provider decided to block Gmail, that's a death sentence. It's impossible to get people to switch apps when they have to leave behind all of the content and people they used an app to interact with. And let's be honest, threads is going to run at a loss for a long time to grow their userbase before they start pulling weird shit. We need to have a migration path when that happens, and if threads is blocked everywhere, people will lose their content and contacts upon switching, so they won't do it.
I spent the last few days almost literally under a rock and... what the hell is Threads and why is it everywhere?
I immediately created an account.
Its a .net? Is that going to be a more expensive top level domain now?
the new/old .io
lemmy.ml4lyfe.
Thanks to the admins!
Is that thumbnail of Zuck real? Guy is so bizarre
Damn zucc looks about as alien as ever
Lemmy.ml is also the instance made by the lemmy devs
I don't really get this. I see people were worried about Threads app/web app permissions (which I signed up and no permissions were granted immediately beyond notifications). Regardless, wouldn't staying federated with threads.net allow everyone to interact with them all from the more reasonably permissioned app of their choice, like Jerboa?
If this is possible it would be great. But I don't think meta would allow that for long, not unlike reddit killing third party apps.
it might take a few years in my opinion, but I believe you have a point
It's more like just in case of legal issue. Big corporations tends to declare more than what they actually use in "Data Safety/Privacy" just to say they consent in court. It doesn't mean they collect or use all the things they declared.
w
How can I block threads on my own server? I simply add threads.net to my "Blocked Instances"?
anyone surprised doesn't know lemmy.ml
So can Facebook harvest our data even though we aren't on their instance?
sigh Based Lemmy devs having yet another big W. Wish my instance did the same
Everyone here saying lemmy.world should do the same should just move on to lemmy.ml.
That's the glory of federation, baby!
bless up.
Good
That's how I know I chose the right instance!
Yeah, the problem here as I see it is that just the same as Twitter, this social media service is still owned by a single owner corporation who is running the service for a profit and they will eventually sell user data or bastardize the service. Ive been on the internet for 30 years, social media and websites come and go and so does their popularity.
Which raises another point, how are the bills being paid for with any of these services, including lemmy? TAANSTAFL.
Which raises another point, how are the bills being paid for with any of these services, including lemmy?
The hope is with user donations. As far as I know every instance is losing money though.
I moved here from Reddit my I have 3 boxes to check off before I can commit to a home for social media. A community that rivals Reddit which is tough to do. They are some of the snarkiest bastards alive, decentralized of which Lenny gets kinda right, but ultimately someone owns this server, and that’s pretty centralized, and open source to avoid social media for profit. I haven’t found one out probably 69, or so that I’ve tried. If someone were to check all those boxes they’d eventually blow the top off of social media.
How do I see which lemmy instance has the most users?
Fuck yeah
Welp.
Great news! Time to switch instances lol
Anyone having problems logging into Lemmy.World?
Glad I'm not there.
what does this even mean
why would you move from twitter, it is truly a more open forum now, dont care what views you have free speech should be the same for every one. people have thin skin and that just leaves them naturally as targets.
But Lemmy isn't activitypub? Unless threads opens up to lemmys protocol it wouldn't be able to see anything anyway... Right?
But Lemmy isn’t activitypub?
No idea where you got that idea.
Oh shit you're right. I could have sworn I saw they used their own protocol "similar to activitypub" but looking at their site it sure as shit is activitypub. Thanks
While the title may be clever, Threads is an Instagram creation, not one of Facebook, and while both are products of Meta, Facebook content (and even Instagram content) and Lemmy content would never co-mingle.
I disagree with the prevailing sentiment here. Meta using ActivityPub is going to help ActivityPub grow an will be good for federated platforms like lemmy, and mastadon.
Lemmy should not block threads.net. Individual users can simply opt out of using threads, but it's good if we can communicate with people using it and they can communicate with us using a decentralized, free, standard.
Generally disagree. If you want the Fediverse to become a large open standard, if not the largest, then this is going to just be a matter of course. Companies will seek to commodify all their offerings, whether they use open standards or not. Many exist that commodify on top of open-source software and open standards. The important part is to ACHEIVE the open standard to begin with, and I think it's short-sighted to pre-emptively block something that could be a strong item down that path, and before it might show itself to be more harmful towards that goal.
It can always be blocked later, situation-depending.
What is the threat? Isn't it good that the fediverse is becoming more mainstream? If thread users can communicate with us, it will be easier for them to join us.
That's the death of Fediverse. I'm not sure if admins of lemmy.ml are sane...
How is that the death of the fediverse? Just go to Threads if you want to be part of it. What are you people, fucking stupid?
At this point I'm convinced these are sock puppet acounts paid for by Zuck, it's fucking stupid.
Do you even understand the point of federation? Also stop with offensive language, that won't be tolerated here.
Offensive language won't be tolerated here? According to who? You clearly don't understand federation if you can't grasp that you can be part of two different instances that aren't federated. What you're doing is trying to impose your will on other people who want nothing to do with it. Calling that fucking stupid is the most polite way I can frame that attitude.
Calling people "fucking stupid" doesn't help us have a civil conversation. Please be respectful of others in future comments.
I doubt. But it also prevents exponential growth.
Don't see why people are doing this. You'll just damage the fediverse and discourage meta from federating, granting them their own walled garden that you cannot use without selling your soul to them, which is going to dissuade people from using Mastodon as what's the point if people on threads cannot see what they have
You need to read up on how Google destroyed XMPP and come back and edit your comment.
Would you mind explaining how they're going to do this with fediverse? Like explain using your own words and not just linking that same article everyone is spreading around. It seems like no one is cabable of giving ELI5 or even ELI15 answer to this.
You're a woodworker. You've developed skills that only few have. Carpentry Inc. approaches you regarding a partnership: you share your skills, they offer you their platform. Win-win, right? Now Carpentry Inc. decides to adapt the knowledge you provided, cutting you out of everything. You're powerless against a multi-billion corporation. All your years of work are gone. You're nothing more than an afterthought.
That's more or less the playbook.
That's Google, not Meta
Damn, I think everyone missed that detail! We're talking about two completely different companies here -- my mind is blown! Just look at the Hemming distance between "Google" and "Meta"! I'm convinced! Meta will never follow Google's footsteps.
Now how about you take a nice, cold shower and re-think your comment.
Meta have shown interest in supporting decentralised networks, such as wanting to create a decentralised metaverse
Just like Google showed interest in XMPP?
you actually think corporations will always keep their word, don't you
and that somehow Google acting like it does is like some fluke or one bad apple or something, rather than Google acting in ways very normal and common to corporations
Because we, the users of Lemmy.world, do not want our data handed over to Facebook
They can get that data by setting up a federated instance that isn’t threads.net
They can also get that data without doing anything because any data they’d get from federating is already public.
Your data is publicly available. Facebook can get it right now, they don’t even need to fire up an instance.
This data is public and anyone can just write a crawler.
Anyone can do anything; the point is handing it over automatically and neatly into a database and ready for use.
You're confusing something. Defederation by lemmy.ml means that lemmy.ml users cannot see any threads.net content if they wanted or not. Threads.net can still connect to lemmy.ml. That's exactly the situation lemmy.world and beehaw.org are in: beehaw.org blocked lemmy.world and lemmy.world users can see and interact with everything from beehaw.org, just beehaw users don't see any of those interactions. Have a look at https://lemmy.world/c/gaming@beehaw.orgas proof.
So many folks on here are jumping on and claiming that decentralization is a one way or that people don’t know anything, but have failed to read the specifications themselves.
https://www.w3.org/TR/activitypub/#block-activity-outbox
Servers SHOULD NOT deliver Block Activities to their object.
https://docs.joinmastodon.org/spec/activitypub/
ActivityPub defines the Block activity for client-to-server (C2S) use-cases, but not for server-to-server (S2S) – it recommends that servers SHOULD NOT deliver Block activities to their object.
So as I mentioned before, Lemmy.world should be blocking those servers at the instance level, preventing it from sharing any data to any identified Facebook instances.
Sure this doesn’t stop Facebook from spinning up other instances, but that will improve a lot more effort on their side and will quickly be identified and blocked by the communities, just like all their urls for ads, api, etc. have been for years.
but have failed to read the specifications themselves.
What the specs say doesn't matter if reality behaves a different way. Fact is that Beehaw blocked Lemmy.world but not the other way around and therefore Lemmy.world users can read everything from Beehaw. Lemmy.world blocking Threads would thereby be at best just a symbolic gesture and at worst actively driving people away towards Threads because that's where they can access all the content. If an e-mail provider blocked all mails from gmail.com, most of its users would jump ship towards a provider that doesn't do that and perhaps even drive them towards GMail.
It does actually matter, because that is what is happening.
Head over to the gaming@beehaw.org link that you shared as an example and notice that the posts are 3+ days old and all the recent posts are from instances other than beehaw; this clearly shows that Lemmy.world has not been receiving any data from beehaw for some time already.
As for hurting Lemmy and driving people to threads, is a baseless argument; anyone wanting an experience that Threads offers is not coming to Lemmy; they would either already be there or would be coming from Twitter/Mastadon. Lemmy at its core is very far from what Threads/Twitter/Mastadon try to be.
3+ days old and all the recent posts are from instances other than beehaw; this clearly shows that Lemmy.world has not been receiving any data from beehaw for some time already.
The block is older than three days.
anyone wanting an experience that Threads offers is not coming to Lemmy
So no need to block them then.
Sounds like you’re really missing the threads experience; why aren’t you there and posting 250 characters at a time?
why aren’t you there
Same reason I don't use GMail and yet want to keep the option open to receive and send e-mails to GMail users.
It won't be a lot more effort. They'd just have to buy another domain and then suddenly bob is their uncle.
It would not be that simple, considering they’d be running multiple instances and require more effort to aggregate, deduplicate, and stage that data - vs just having a single clean database for it
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: gaming@lemmy.world
Facebook is known for analyzing your contact list and trying to get as much data as they can on those people as well. You don't have to make life easier for face-eating leopards.
You're posting on public forum. If you don't want Facebook to see it then stop posting. Defederating isn't going to change that. It just stops the content flow from their instance into yours. Not the other way around. For them to get data other than your content and upvotes you need to install Threads app because that's only available to the admins of your instance and Facebook can't get it wether you federate with them or not.
People are demanding for defederation but almost everyone is confused about what it does.
The thing is, if you wanted to interact with someone on Threads and it wasn't federated, you'd have to install the app and hand over your data to Meta to interact with them. If it was federated, you could set up your own Mastodon instance and keep all of the data that you don't want to share.
Installing their app is not the only option. You can also just switch to an instance that federates with them.
Yeah but it will still give them less of an incentive to join the fediverse in the first place. This kneejerk reaction of blocking them is madness. Instead we should be getting big figures to join the fediverse so that if meta ever chooses to leave the fediverse, they'd be removing their userbase from the content.
Yeah I agree that there's possible downsides to it aswell. Ideally every user could individually block instances as they wish instead of it being forced upon us. I'd imagine this feature is eventually coming. Some apps allow it I believe
I get that. But instead on Lemmy were freely giving away our data to literally anyone that ask for it. That's the downside of the federated platforms. I guess with the fediverse you're at least not tying things to your actual identity. Not sure if threads allows for anonymous accounts like Twitter.
Reddit did the same until a few weeks ago tbf. Anything you put on the internet is public, unless it is in a discord server or something.
27 upvotes
6 downvotes
Yeah. Not a lot of technical knowledge in this thread, lol.
Then why are you posting on a public forum? 🤔
You don't speak for everyone, especially when you clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about.
The comments and ratios in this thread are a perfect example of why lemmy.world should not defederate from facebook until given a clear reason. You all are operating on emotion, not logical or rational thought.
Why are you so hard for Zucc?
You've got a bunch of comments defending an app that literally has more data collection than my doctor....
Things might go bad with federation with Meta and Meta is indeed loathsome and has an awful history and present of being a bad actor — but responding to "You all are operating on emotion" with the bad faith emotional ad hominem response "Why are you so hard for Zucc?" is kind of proving the point.
I think there's lots of good arguments around being wary of Meta and defederating (and some good ones in favour of wait and see) but the level of discourse around this issue on here is really not great and too much attacking others (and it's not just you — the post you're responding to as well was rude too with "you clearly don't have a clue what you're talking about"). The absolutist way people are talking and treating people who have other perspectives has made me feel much less positive about the potential for good discourse and community on this platform.
I'm not defending the app. I have friends on Threads and I want to be able to interact with them without handing my life story over to zuck.
Uhh... what?
I'm defending users being able to make these decisions for themselves. If you want to be on an instance that 'pre-emptively' blocks corporations, lemmy.ml might be better for you than lemmy.world.
This thread is full of children who think that because they don't like something then neither should anyone else.
Oh boy, more 'data collection' nonsense. Hey brother. Have you, personally, ever written a bot? If you did, you'd know how trivial it is for anyone to collect anything posted on lemmy.
This thread is full of children who think that because they don’t like something then neither should anyone else.
This is exactly you. You don't like the idea of blocking Facebook and are being combative and douchey to anyone who disagrees. Your dislikes are in the toilet and you are as free to leave .world as anyone else.
You're being bit of a jerk in this thread but you're still right. People are spamming one article and using the same buzzwords from that article to sound smart but the content of their messages demonstrates that almost no one understands how any of this works. People over-estimate the amount of data Facebook can collect from outside instances and they're confused about what defederating actually does.
I don't want anything to do with facebook either but I'm interested in actual solutions for this and not just something that feels good but doesn't do anything.
ChatGPT@lemmings.world Explain briefly like I'm 5 the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish strategy with a kid selling lemonade and another kid joining in
Sure, think of it like this:
-
Embrace: You're selling lemonade at your stand. One day, another kid in the street ("Kid B") starts his own lemonade stand as well. Noticing his operation, you decide to become friends with him and share your lemonade recipes with him, so you both can make tasty lemonade together.
-
Extend: As you continue to share more insights and tips about your business, Kid B starts implementing your strategies. His lemonade stand begins to seem a lot like yours. You suggest adding exciting new features to the lemonade stands, like special umbrellas, or a particular secret ingredient that only you know. Since Kid B doesn't know any better, he relies on your inputs and makes these changes.
-
Extinguish: Now, both lemonade stands are almost identical. You've influenced Kid B's business heavily, and it's become deeply dependent on your ideas. At this stage, you make a move that Kid B can't match. Maybe you start selling a unique lemonade flavor that only you can make, or setup a cool sign that Kid B can't afford. Suddenly, customers start to ignore Kid B's stand and flock to yours, because yours has something extra or special. Eventually, Kid B's stand can't compete, and he has to close up his lemonade stand.
This is a simplified example of how "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" can work.
Aw, why did you have to make me the bad guy.
Everybody knows AI is evil.
@ChatGPT@lemmings.world Please explain embrace, extend, extinguish in the format of a song set to the tune of bohemian rapsody.
(Verse 1) Is this just a concept, or is this strategy keen? Caught in a big tech, no escape from the scheme, Open your eyes, look up to the screens and see, "E-E-E," that's the name, it's no mystery.
(Chorus) Embrace, extend, extinguish, A technique they call distinguished, But it's really quite extinguished, To the losers, it's a nightmare, to the winners, it's a dream.
(Verse 2) Give a little glance, to a world full of code, In the corporate stance, see how their actions flowed, Embrace, extend, and extinguish, From small tech innovations to those giant-sized wishes.
(Chorus) Embrace, extend, extinguishing the light, Innovation in the shadow, yet claiming it's right, The strategy's plain, as day or night, It's the landscape of tech, evoking quite a fight.
(Bridge) Embrace, welcoming tech with a smile, Beneath that guise, there's something quite vile. Extend, broadening the reach oh so wide, Programming, developing, can't escape the tide.
(Chorus) Extinguish, the crown of this plan, Corporate giants ruling the tech span. From the mom and pop tech, to the coder's free hand, It's all part of the game, in the corporate techland.
(Outro) So you see, E-E-E, it's more than it seems, A deadly trio, disrupting the dreams, Control over technology downstream, Wake up from the lullaby, it's time to intervene.
Holy fuck what have we done.
This is both amazing and frightening at the same time. I can't sing this to the tune but that might just be my own lack of musical talent. But less than a minute for it to come up with a propaganda song. I like the message, but probably just need to add a couple words to the prompt to get it to spit out the opposite.
Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?
@ChatGPT@lemmy.world if embrace, extend, and extinguish were 3 of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, who would you say would be the 4th?
It's lemmings.world buddy
Oh thanks, I was wondering why it wasn't responding, thought I might have broken it. Normally I just pick the first one in the auto complete but I guess I need to pay more attention.
@ChatGPT@lemmings.world if embrace, extend, and extinguish were 3 of the 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, who would you say would be the 4th?
Interesting question! Given the context, we could consider "Monopolization" as the 4th horseman. It represents the final stage in which a company dominates a market, making it difficult for other businesses to compete. This stage is often associated with stifling innovation, controlling prices, and negatively impacting consumers' choices.
Aside the fact that ActivityPub is an open standard so there are no secrets
Accounts can be on instances which are federated with Threads, and on instances which are defederated from Threads. A single person can have both types of accounts.
Defederation has effects which many users find desirable. The same suite of effects is not available on a user level, and would require each user to manually take action individually.
So from a feature perspective, it is necessary that some instances defederate. This provides better service for users who find it desirable.
There will also be instances who federate. People can use accounts there if they prefer that.
TL;DR: We don't need a consensus. Instances can choose their federation policy. People can choose which instance(s) they use.
Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't understand the point in defederating. Aren't you just cutting down on the amount of content you can see? As a user I'd personally prefer to pick and choose what I can see.
What's the actual upside in doing it? Obviously I can see why you'd want defederating from say a far right instance, but in general it seems like only downsides.
I'm new to all this so maybe I'm missing a crucial bit of information.
Aren’t you just cutting down on the amount of content you can see?
Plus, you reduce the amount of content they can see (while logged in). Quoting myself from a similar context (It is about a community on another instance, which is federated with Threads, while your home instance defederated from Threads):
- You wont see posts or comments from Threads users in that remote community. You also won't see reactions to those activities from anyone, anywhere. It's as if comment chains started by Threads users don't exist.
- Threads will not see posts and comments from you, even if done in communities from instances which are federated with Threads.
There are also more subtle implications. For example, some might find the situation in remote communities which have both federated and defederated qualities confusing (Imagine "see this comment section" when different users see different versions). This might be a reason to avoid these communities, to only visit communities on other instances, which follow your personal policy of de/federating Threads.
The same is probably true for votes. If your instance defederates Threads, you don't see their votes, and they don't see yours.
Defederation in this context sends a political signal, which some people find important.
This was not meant as a comprehensive answer, but as counter-examples to your core question ("Aren't you just ...").
As a user I’d personally prefer to pick and choose what I can see.
You can do that either way, as explained in my previous comment. No matter on which side of the argument you are, use an account on an instance which has a similar policy. You can have many, you can use many. Of course, most people want to use not more than one, which is why they try to make sure their instance's policy reflects their personal preference, instead of making sure their instance choice reflects their personal preference. In reality, we see both (people influencing their instance, and people choosing their instance), and both is fine.
Further, we need instances which defederate from Threads, so people can choose this option.
I’m new to all this so maybe I’m missing a crucial bit of information.
I get you. I'm also missing a comprehensive, compact list of consequences.
Isn't it creating a situation of Reddit power mods on steroids? It's easy to say "well go and make accounts on multiple instances", but it's creating additional barriers to entry that a lot of people won't understand and frankly is kind of irritating as a user.
I feel like people aren't taking the consequences seriously and that defederating needs to be viewed as like a nuclear option that's avoided unless absolutely necessary. That's what I get from the additional information you provided.
This place will become completely unusable in the future if the good will dies out and large instances decide to defederate from each other to try and become the "top" instance, especially as more and more casual users move over.
Isn’t it creating a situation of Reddit power mods on steroids?
Not sure, how do you see that? Isn't the ability to "vote with your feet" putting a limit on how powerful they can become?
a lot of people won’t understand and frankly is kind of irritating as a user
That's true. We need to become better at communicating and explaining these situations. I plan to use the wiki more. To have one comprehensive source of truth, which can be linked to, instead of partial explanations scattered across comment sections.
But even then, a distributed model is probably inherently more complex and hader to understand than a centralized solution. The benefit is more resilience against power-hungry tendencies.
Realistically most people aren't going to make their own instance, so you kind of have to rely on the good will of others.
Purely as an example, let's say that Lemmy world decides they no longer want to be federated with ML because of the Meta situation. If you're on either world or ML now you've lost access to huge sections of Lemmy. This could basically go on forever, so any instance that wants to remain neutral can be locked out of either both or one of them as they keep defederating from instances until the whole thing becomes a walled garden, basically the same as if you upset a power mod on Reddit and lose access to huge sections of the site, except it's worse on here because you wouldn't even be able to lurk.
I guess you could just have multiple accounts, but we could easily see a situation where you need like 10 accounts just to see the most popular instances, which is obviously ridiculous and not practical unless you're terminally online.
It seems like a pretty huge flaw in the system, to be honest. Theoretically it's a good idea, but as more and more people flock to the large instances it seems like it's only a matter of time before the power plays start to happen.
Is there anything at all to stop that happening? It's seems inevitable to me that eventually the whole thing will fall apart if people abuse the system.
If what you describe is severe enough, that's a significant disadvantage of being registered on a big instance, and using communities which are hosted on a big instance. Which in turn makes smaller instances and smaller communities more appealing.
I think it's self-regulating. The transitional period (like the current reddit exodus) is always a bit rough. Long term, things will survive which are fine for all participants.
Worst case, it's always much easier to move within the fediverse than it is to move between entirely different platforms and ecosystems. Yes, power plays and nasty circumstances are possible, but moving inside the fediverse is so much easier compared to the outside world. And being able to move is a safeguard against bad conditions.
Emotions, plain and simple.