I appreciate the thoughtful response and agree - no need for a knee jerk reaction when there is still some time until a decision needs to be made, and there are still quite a few unanswered questions.

As long as you maintain this level of transparency I trust that you make the right decision for lemmy.world.

As usual, thank you!

Just keep one thing in mind: even Meta themselves are saying they'll wait until they have a billion users, and then they'll decide what to do.

Freely admitting they'll play nice (not even ads) until they have a monopoly.

Now it's not surprising, that's how companies like Meta operate anyway. It's just quite brazen for them to just say it outright. That shows how confident they are that nobody will challenge them.

So that's the kind of company we're talking about here.

Please don’t give Meta even an inch.

They wouldn’t be stepping into the Frediverse if they didn’t have a plan to either monetize the user base or destroy their competition.

Don’t let them take a pound and then some.

Embrace, extend, and extinguish (EEE) - We don’t think they can. If anyone can explain how they technically would, please let us know. Even if Meta forks Lemmy and gets rid of the original software, Lemmy will survive.

It doesn't start out with maliciousness. The rank and file technical staff at Facebook aren't evil. Facebook understands the value of top tier tech talent and top dollar buys you smart people.

The initial federation is rough, but the problems are resolved surprisingly quick. None of the doom and gloom comes to pass, and Facebook consistently acts as a trustworthy actor. Their employees aren't really different than their open source counterparts. They make good faith contributions to open source codebases. Their collective experience with distributed systems proves useful in solving growing pains as the Federation grows.

They eventually start to make proposals to ActivityPub. There's outrage but no one can come up with good technical objections, so they are approved. The doom and gloom didn't come to pass, and looks like it never will.

Facebook doesn't need malicious intent for what's going down. It slowly, maybe quickly, becomes the dominate actor in the space. Facebook is pouring money into making Threads the best it can be, and what's wrong with them trying to build an audience?

Thread's improvements set an increasingly high standard for what people expect. More uptime, cleaner UI, more responsive API calls, more personalized frontpage algorithms, higher resolution videos - more and more features. More and more cost. Even people who kneejerk reject Facebook recognize how much better their site is. There are still important reasons to go with Lemmy or Kbin over Threads, but FOSS projects have never been good at making their case in ways random-not-technical people can understand, let alone why they should care about them.

After a while, Facebook starts walling people into their platform. Starts with little things like how Reddit added video and picture hosting to replace Imgur et al. It's not malicious, but rather from TPMs who are under pressure to increase engagement. After a while what else is there? Just don't turn the heat up too many degrees at once.

It's wrong to think of Facebook as a uniquely bad actor. This isn't 90s/2000s Microsoft with blatantly transparent EEE aims. There have always been bad actors. There will always be bad actors. There are bad actors with us right now.

Facebook needs to make money, and they won't do so by directly charging users. There's only one path forward for Facebook in this, and it will come at the expense of its users and everyone else in the Fediverse.

Build something useful, then put up walls around it, and then exploit it for profit; the internet's monomyth. You don't have to read the writing on the wall, but it is there. Federating with Threads is signing your own death warrant.

If the Fediverse experiment is going to survive, it needs to be able to withstand these bad actors. One of the ways it can do so is to recognize and reject them. Facebook has so many resources and so much power and we don't have to run the experiment to know where this will go. It is important to explicitly say "your goals do not align with what we are trying to build, and therefore we will not voluntarily interact with you."

It seems unlikely that Meta will federate with Lemmy. When/if Meta adopts ActivityPub, it will likely affect Mastodon only rather than Lemmy, given Meta’s focus on being a Twitter alternative at the moment.

I'm glad you mentioned this, because this seems like the most important point that seems to often get lost. This is primary a potential issue for Mastodon servers, not Lemmy/Kbin/etc.

It's so bizarre to see people complaining about "kneejerk" reactions as if it's the user's fault and not Meta's.

Have you people just forgotten everything about Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook?

You're goddamn right the reactions are kneejerk, that's the point.

After over a decade of abuse, controversy, and horrendous practices that have defaced the very idea of social media and caused actual, real damage throughout the world, people have rightfully identified Meta as a monster.

And when a monster is coming for you, the kneejerk reaction is turn around and run.

It's very telling that all the arguments for allowing them in are basically "well, we can survive it". Like, everyone seems to be on the same page, here: Meta is terrible and wants to monopolize everything. Yet rather than the sensible thing and just get away from them, people are arguing we should fuck around and find out?

I came to the fediverse to be rid of big social media companies, not join them

Was this considered? https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html

Google essentially destroyed Jabber this way.

I was there and Jabber at the time also looked promising and Google adding its GTalk was the push everyone thought Jabber needed and everyone was welcoming it.

Meta will join Fediverse only if it will be still a threat to them, once users will switch to it (let's be honest, majority of users on Fediverse aren't purists, and if metra will have some unique features they will switch) they will defederate and Fediverse will lose meta users as well as old users. Just exactly as it happened with Jabber. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.

An address to Ruud and the lemmy.world team:

I would like to start by expressing my sincere gratitude and appreciation for the hard work you've done with lemmy.world. But I am strongly opposed to federating with Threads. Please read this comment in full, as I believe it outlines our community's sentiment and reservations.

I think it might be helpful to use an analogy that I think will help express the feelings of many of those within our community regarding the problem with the "wait and see" approach.

What's to say Threads won't follow in their very well-established footprints under Meta as a company?

If I go to a friend's house and their child spits in my face every time, I don't want to go to my friend's house. I tell them this. The friend says, "Well this time just might be different, let's just wait and see!" Meanwhile, this kid spits in my face without fail, every chance they get. There is a very consistent and pervasive pattern of this.

Why should I believe this kid won't spit in my face all of a sudden, when they've taken every single chance they could repeatedly, knowing that it was wrong and not caring what repercussions would befall them? Do you really think this kid is going to refrain from spitting in my face this time?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein.

Meta/FB have continually demonstrated their core business practices are unethical and that they will continue carrying them out without regard for laws or their users' well-being. There's no reason to wait and see. It's not logical to believe this time will be different.

Threads would bring such a large influx of hateful, racist, violent, bigoted political extremists to the fediverse. They will also do whatever they can to exploit users on this site for their own gain. Their modus operandi has been to exploit their users.

Instead of just conjecture and analogies, I will now provide factual information regarding Meta's practices as a company.

This really should be obvious by now.. but Meta mines and sells their user's information. Just look at the permissions you have to grant them for Threads... That alone should tell you there's no reason to "wait and see." Just look right now. They haven't changed...

FB users have to agree to all sorts of unethical things in the TOS, including giving Meta permission to run unethical experiments on their users without informed consent. Their first published research was where they manipulated users' feeds with positive or negative information, in order to see if it affected their mood. It did, and they successfully induced depression in many of their users!

Meta has played a very key role in spreading misinformation, perpetuating dangerous conspiracy theories, and radicalizing the alt right. This is present across nations, but it certainly contributed heavily to the climate of political extremism that led to a mass of insurrectionists to attempt to overthrow my duly elected government...

I will now turn to an article that surmises well the core practices of Meta as a company:

• Elevates disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories from the extremist fringes into the mainstream, fostering, among other effects, the resurgent anti-vaccination movement, broad-based questioning of basic public health measures in response to COVID-19, and the proliferation of the Big Lie of 2020—that the presidential election was stolen through voter fraud [16];

• Empowers bullies of every size, from cyber-bullying in schools, to dictators who use the platform to spread disinformation, censor their critics, perpetuate violence, and instigate genocide;

• Defrauds both advertisers and newsrooms, systematically and globally, with falsified video engagement and user activity statistics;

• Reflects an apparent political agenda espoused by a small core of corporate leaders, who actively impede or overrule the adoption of good governance;

• Brandishes its monopolistic power to preserve a social media landscape absent meaningful regulatory oversight, privacy protections, safety measures, or corporate citizenship; and

• Disrupts intellectual and civil discourse, at scale and by design.

I ask you now if you truly believe this is the sort of player you want on the Fediverse? Do you really want to federate lemmy.world with such a blatantly immoral and detrimental corporation?

I have really enjoyed my time here on Lemmy.world and have so greatly appreciated the hard work of you and your team. I have been donating to you to help with the costs of running this instance.

However, federating with Threads contradicts my philosophy and ethical principles, and I will be sadly canceling my donations and finding a new home should we federate with Threads in the future. I firmly believe that most users on lemmy.world share this sentiment. I hope this comment helped express the resistance and fears of our community.

Once again, I appreciate all the work you guys have done. But I respectfully and severely dissent on this issue.

EEE is underestimated there. Google was not the sole destroyer of Usenet, but its acquisition of DejaNews and its deployment of Google Groups both did lots of damage. So did AOL joining in. Sure, Lemmy post-EEE will still exist in some form, just as some feeble remnants of Usenet are still alive. But we want to flourish rather than just survive, I would hope.

Most telling is the likely culture invasion. I just saw news reports that extremist trolls are already leaving Twitter for Threads. We don't need that here. Exploding Heads is already defederated over what sounded like a much milder version of Meta's toxicity. So I'd want parsecs of distance between us and Meta, or as close to that as we can get.

I agree that it is not an emergency needing immediate action if you prefer to take it slower. But, from a distance at least, it looks to me like lemmy.ml has done the right thing in assuring their users that they want nothing to do with Zuckerberg.

We kindly ask everyone to engage in civil discourse and remember that not everyone will share the same opinions, which is perfectly acceptable.

It's really actually not acceptable to ignore what a bad actor Facebook/Meta has been. Catch up on the news if you need to. Cambridge Analytica scandal, unwitting social experiments, and the insane amount of intrusive permissions required just to use threads etc. They've been anti-consumer in an almost dystopian way and failing to call that out is an immoral stance. There's really no polite way to say, "that's a hell no, fix your attitude, or I'm out." That people have characterized folks telling you this is a deal-breaker as "blackmail" is the absurd stance here. We're asking you to stay true to the anti-corporate "power to the people" spirit that created Lemmy in the first place and call out Meta for being an obviously bad actor in this space, as a bunch of Reddit refugees... You actually arguing against this and acting like "both sides are fine" about it is being completely tone-deaf and is 100% antithetical to the purpose of the fediverse.

"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing." You've already committed to doing nothing during an important time with a "wait and see" attitude. Meta is still a face-eating leopard, a frog-stinging scorpion, or whatever analogy does it for ya. It's not a tough choice and there IS a right and wrong answer.

Looks like lemmy.world got hacked.

As always, appreciate the transparency!

Instance Blocking - Unlike Mastodon, Lemmy does not provide a feature for individual users to block an instance (yet).

This is the real problem.

The fact that there's even anything to consider is pretty concerning. This is a company that has actively performed research on whether they can intentionally give people eating disorders.

Just from a user safety point of view they have proven themselves to be entirely untrustworthy. And anyone even considering exposing their userbase to people like that is also entirely untrustworthy.

Instance Blocking - Unlike Mastodon, Lemmy does not provide a feature for individual users to block an instance (yet). This creates a dilemma where we must either defederate, disappointing those who desire interaction with Threads, or choose not to defederate, which will let down those who prefer no interaction with Threads.

This here is the sticking point. With mastodon.world there's no particular urgency to look for an instance that will block Threads because in a pinch I can block the site myself. With lemmy.world this is not an option at this point and is a direct data point in my preparing to move instances (again: I moved from lemmy.ml to here).

Embrace, extend, and extinguish (EEE) - We don’t think they can. If anyone can explain how they technically would, please let us know. Even if Meta forks Lemmy and gets rid of the original software, Lemmy will survive.

Uh ... all the XMPP clients survived. It's not like anybody snuck around into people's houses and deleted the XMPP apps when Google and Facebook decided to stop playing nicely.

The issue isn't "survival". The issue is "thriving". They can quite easily turn the Fediverse into an irrelevance again.

This is a balanced post, and it is very much appreciated. That being said, I am new to the Fediverse, and I finally found a viable replacement for Reddit that is less toxic (at the moment at least,) and where I can socialize. I only use Telegram and Lemmy now. This is all I have. I don't have friends in the real world. I appreciate your strategy, but you should think of how this influx of toxicity would affect people like me who have difficulties socializing and making new physical friends and maintaining those friendships.

This creates a dilemma where we must either defederate, disappointing those who desire interaction with Threads

Who are these people? 🤔

Thank you for this post.

My biggest worry is not privacy, I know lemmy doesn't store any personal info and whatever you post in public can be used by anyone (if you don't like it, you'd better off not posting at all on public forums).

Big corporate controlled platforms are well known for botting/astroturfing/vote manipulation/propaganda on top of a huge amount of shitposting, they are dozens of millions, that could very easily overwhelm lemmy and kill it on a whim, from a content perspective, this is what worries me the most.

I will trust you anyway to keep an eye on them and react quickly if necessary, like you proved you're capable of with the hacking situation.

I understand your open policy, that's a good approach in general, but I hope lemmy devs will consider adding a function to allow users to block instances, because I really don't want to see facebook shit here.

Thanks for being clear in what goes on in the decision making. As long as you're making your decision with the user's safety and privacy in mind, then I trust you'll make the right decision if/when the time comes.

Some points/concerns I'd like to bring up though:

Embrace, extend, and extinguish (EEE) - The biggest concern I have with this is rather than people thinking of us as separate platforms, people will start to associate us as Threads. We basically become Threads but for nerds/the paranoid/weirdos to many people. And as Meta begins to use their resources to introduce features lacking in most fedi sites, we'll eventually be seen as "shitty threads". Then after relying on threads for traffic and content without developing our own community, Meta yanks the plug, everyone who's still here will have to choose to prop up what remains of the fediverse, or join their friends on Threads, and then we start to see a decline in usership. Granted, because Mastodon is more of the Twitter analogue, they are more in danger of this happening than us. But we still get participation from Mastodon via federation, and they can still see and interact with us in various ways. If you have every received a comment reply where someone responds with @username, they are likely responding from a masto-like instance (you see this a lot in kbin, which is a hybrid of mastodon's/lemmy's interface), and there's a good chance we could also get those interactions from Threads users too. Also, nothing's stopping Meta from making "Threads but reddit" later down the line, and presenting a more direct threat.

Blocking Outgoing Federation - This is a little bit concerning that even if we do defederate, they will still be able to see us, and any interacting they attempt will have to be done from their end. I thought defederation would be a little more...secure. Like if people on threads decided to target communities on this instance, they could see everything we are doing, and then all they would have to do is sign up for lemmy, and commence. Basically all that would do is make us blind to anything happening on their end.

Regardless of whether Lemmy or other fediverse sites decide to defederate from Threads, there are definitely a lot of security concerns that should be addressed before federation occurs. Giving mods the tools to do their jobs and protect their users should be top priority for the development staff.

I don't have much of an opinion to add other than I wouldn't trust Meta even slightly -- but I do want to say that I appreciate this openness and thoughtfulness from the lemmy.world/mastodon.world admins.

Thanks for posting your thoughts; they seem completely reasonable to me. However, my personal choice if the decision was in my hands would be to take the same wait-and-see approach, but with the default switched: I would start defederating with Threads until we see how it seems to go with instances who don't.

If there was a guy standing in my driveway who I didn't know, I'd probably keep an eye on him a bit, but wouldn't worry much unless he started doing something threatening. But if the guy was the same one who beat the family next door to death, I'm calling the cops and making sure the doors are locked. Meta gets no benefit of a doubt me; we don't need their interaction and it's hard to believe much good can come from it.

I don't fault you for your opinion though; it's a grey area and I'm at a different spot than you in it.

I would prefer lemmy.world defederate from Threads and any other major social media giant's attempt at federation. My reasons for doing so have been covered really well in other comments in this post.

I just want to remind everyone this is a direct quote from Zuckerberg regarding people handing over their data to Facebook: "They trust me. Dumb fucks."

Coming to this 3h late but w/e

What are the conditions that will trigger defederation? It was mentioned via the "wait and see" approach. What is the See? What does Meta have to display, that they haven't already, to cause the needle to sway over to defederation.

The concern that I see is that if instances federate with it, their posts and interactions will become reliant on Threads users, due to sheer volume. This means Meta can then threaten to defederate with that Instance, and just to stay afloat that Instance will have to comply - or be left on the losing end of the "blame game" - Meta will say the Instance owner was the problem as its users cry in outrage for losing c/boomersdidnothingwrong.

By defederating early, it prevents instances becoming reliant on Meta users to comment and share. While they can see our content it basically becomes the new "reddit post of Twitter screenshot about reddit"

Another significant issue is that Facebook was widely panned in the Analytica scandal, and it's users targeted to sway votes. I came here to escape ads and look at memes not "vote for X" bullshit

A lot of people in the comments are missing the point that there's nothing to defederate from yet. Adding "threads.net" to the defederation list is pointless because:

A) Threads isn't using ActiviyPub yet, and we don't know if they ever will.

B) We don't know if that's gonna be the actual domain they would use on ActivityPub.

IMO the whole thing stinks of vaporware. I think Threads is gonna flop and fall into oblivion, but if the future proves me wrong they can certainly block them when that times comes.

Adding threads.net to the defederation list right now only serves to publicly make the statement "We don't like Meta" and serves no technical purpose whatsoever.

So many excellent comments against Federation, but in case my two cents contributes...

I remember when Facebook released the Messenger App. I think it was around the time they swallowed Instagram. Before that, messaging was all part of the same platform. With that transition, some (more extreme) privacy settings left the walls of the app and started crawling into everything our phones experienced. I didn't want to play that, so I held off as long as I could.

But eventually I couldn't text my friends the same way they could text each other. I wanted that feature, but I didn't want to feed my data into it. Eventually, I relented. I mean, shared payments and location sharing... Things I now take for granted.

But I could never take that data back. The data that fed Cambridge Analytica. The data that feeds politicians and special interests, with UI designed around the mind by psychological experts, and alorithms that optimize engagement regardless of the path to get there.

I don't want the Fediverse to be swallowed too. They ARE going to build walls that drive profits. They're incapable of doing anything else. It's their entire business model!

Please defederate while we watch to see. It's the safer default.

Best way by far would be to implement user-side blocking for specific instances. I personally don't want to see the corporate cesspool that Threads will be. But others might. And the fediverse as a whole will profit from more users and more mainstream engagement.

User-side blocking would combat the content-fragmentation problem and ads. Privacy is not really an issue (as already said: anyone can scrape your shit from anywhere anytime. If you don't want your personal data on the internet, then dont put it there)

It also keeps the power to the people. Moderation by people in charge of instances is really important ofc. But the last thing I would want is for them to become people dictating user behavior (as it is with some Reddit moderators and subs). Thankfully that's not the case here, but if we could keep as many decisions as possible to the users, that would be great.

Thank you for the actual sane and level headed response

so much FUD circling lately

Thanks for explaining your reasoning. I'm of the opinion that it's better to defederate, mainly for the reasons your post already covers, but I'd stress the quality of content is/will be Lemmy's biggest asset. I think many users (myself included) are on Lemmy to get away from the existing social media experience. Lemmy/fediverse is refreshing because it isn't governed by a mandate to grow quarterly profits at its users' expense; it feels like the internet in the late 90s and early 00s where people made content because it interested them rather than trying to garner views or promoting the most polarizing/inciting content (or even just downright trolling). I hope the admins can see what the risks are and take proactive steps in the interest of the community.

I think this is a reasonable response. I don’t want an admin that makes sudden, drastic changes without careful consideration, no matter the pressure from some members.

Don’t like it? Join another instance. That’s the magic of the fediverse.

I'm here because I wanted something far from Meta given their track record over the decades of being a privacy nightmare with their data collection and their apps and influence of the population their algorithms have had. They don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

To me whatever tech it is doesn't really matter. It could an old school message board. If Facebook isn't there I'd choose it over Facebook, since the tech itself isn't what makes something good. It's the organization behind it, and their long term plans for it and what they plan to do with the extra data collected from users beyond just public comments.

So it's personally why I have red flags for instances that plan to join with Meta, since I don't view something being fediverse to mean automatically safe and uncorruptable. These instances aren't even built with privacy in mind with ip logs available to admins. So that's even more of a reason why I don't want to associate with Meta instances. That instantly makes me highly skeptical of the ethics of the individuals running the instance, and the NDAs meta has had people they met sign adds to the suspicion.

I don't view fediverse as this magic armor that would protect users in instances that choose to federate with meta. It's something I see people have to be just as deliberate in when it comes to making a meta account or not.

If I had a say, I would vote to defederate from Threads. In the past, I would tend to lurk around social media sites instead of contributing all that much. I never really posted to Reddit, but my recent experience seeing how large corporations can ruin a good thing in pursuit of profits has caused me to loose trust in these kinds of entities. I do not trust Zuckerberg. I do not trust Meta. If there is no defedration, my plan would be to migrate to an instance that blocks Threads.

Thanks for highlighting the real issues.

People that keep mindlessly talking about EEE are doing more disservice than Meta itself.

Most people don't have a clear grasp of the technical concepts, keep talking about defederating something that doesn't exist yet, keep copy-pasting the same things over and over, and this slows the conversation about the fediverse philosophy, the real problems and the possible solutions.

The fediverse is it's in infancy, this could be a great chance to find some of its underlying issues and make it more resilient and healthy.

I despise seeing it wasted with mindless or disonformed copy-paste.

Ironically, even that's exactly the kind of behavior people here hate in Meta's platforms, but they keep perpetuating it here themselves.

Thanks for commenting on the issue, I appreciate the communication and it seems the community feels the same.

lwadmin@lemmy.world michelleg@lemmy.world ruud@lemmy.world can you let us know if you or any admins of lemmy.world took a meeting with meta or representatives of meta?

ruud@lemmy.world runs the 6th largest mastodon instance, and fosstodon instance admins (a smaller mastodon instance), were invited to an "off the record" meeting with Meta. The fosstodon admin, Kev, declined the meeting and notified their community about the correspondence going as far as to share screenshots.

In the correspondence, the meta rep said they were reaching out to mastodon admins, so if fosstodon got an invite, logic would figure they'd invite the admin(s) of a larger instance whom also happen to admin the largest lemmy instance in the world (lemmy.world)

I would love if the same level of transparency could occur here on lemmy.world

Were you folks invited, did you take it? I would really appreciate knowing if the people who run this instance have any relationships, formal or otherwise, with meta. A lot of lemmy users are here on the fediverse to escape the reach of companies like Meta when it comes to their social media.

Obviously no one is obligated to defederate from meta/threads when the time comes. But I would like to be informed.

I think it's important to know. I personally would like to know, I would like to make informed decisions on which instance is my home on lemmy - but without all of the info, our decisions aren't fully informed, so I have low confidence making any decision at this point.

Finally, I've posed similar questions before and have been accused by other users of wanting to attack lemmy admins if they did take a meeting, or for any reason at all. That could not be further from the truth. Online harassment is harassment, and is illegal in many jurisdictions. I don't wish any harm or ill towards anyone, including those who have different values or opinions than mine. Finally, I've always been cordial in my submissions on lemmy, I don't know what would make anyone think I'd start behaving differently now.

I think these questions are important, and I intend to continue asking them until we have an answer, so that I can make a decision with confidence that I had sufficient information to do so.

I hope that seems as reasonable as I feel it is, though I could be wrong, please feel free to respond with your thoughts. I appreciate the discourse.

Thanks yall.

I'd prefer to nuke Threads from orbit; the very least we can do is defederate them.

I think it's important to defederate from threads as soon as humanly possible, their presence here will only bring us problems in the future, as has been shown by what happens when Big companies enter federated Spaces in the past (many people have already brought up Embrace Extend Extinguish already). Also like I've said before Meta has a really bad track record when it comes to their privacy and ethics policies, might not be in our best interest to welcome them into this family.

I do not wish to have any sort of connection with Threads / Meta. Absolutely note. Defederate.

Ribbit

I'm here for Lemmy, not Facebook/Instagram/Threads. If that community integrates with this one, I will move to an instance that doesn't. It's not about ads or EEE or privacy for me, it's about belonging to a social media platform that isn't toxic. FB and Twitter are. Integration with these or other communities like them are harmful to this one.

I keep seeing this argument about "but threads content!"

Who gives a shit about threads content? I didn't join Lemmy to read god damn threads content, if I want the god damn threads content ILL MAKE A FUCKING THREADS ACCOUNT. If I want to interact with those fuckheads...ILL MAKE A FUCKING THREADS ACCOUNT

This is seriously the dumbest thing brought up in favor of letting Meta in. Do you still see Facebook reposts on Reddit without a Facebook account and connecting reddit to Facebook? Yes? Then what do we care if we won't have a direct feed, because if it's worth a shit it'll be reposted everywhere.

Defederate and let those idiots who want threads TO MAKE A THREADS ACCOUNT. It's "free and so simple!"

I advise against even CONSIDERING a cooperation with META. That alone will make users think you are in it for the gains, that you can be baught. There is no value that META can bring to the Fediverse. And I hope in the future outgoing defederation will be possible too, like blocking certain instances from accessing our activity via the pub. But this request comes from Fediverse, and META will request other things from ActivityPub. They will seem to contribute while muddying the waters. They are a huge monster coming our way and we'd better start raising the walls.

This is a very level-headed and sincere explanation, and I love it. I support it 100%.

While supporting people's neutrality in moderation team, I gotta say that the best way to settle this would be giving users the choice of their own. Most people here are the ones who came from oppressed platforms that silence their users and they wanted to have a choice.

It could be solved like how lemm.ee did this, by giving poll to their users.

Federating threads would again make some of people to do the same mistake. It will be easy for them to fall in, for convenient posting and reach to Fediverse, most of them wouln't even know how this works, they would only tap the screen and accept that it just WORKS.

Instead we shouldn't give even a possibility for convenience to them, they should search for the REAL freedom platforms and know their existence.

People will come here sooner or later, but we shouldn't give them opportunity to not to.

Very thoughtful and measured response admin. Thank you for this. Given how you follow topics and people on Mastodon, I cannot come to a reason why Threads will be bad for fed.

I see it as a win, not because of meta and people using it, but because it'll introduce more people to federated services. If Threads takes off and Twitter continues to circle the drain, I can envision the National Weather Service (NWS) and weather spotters transitioning over. There is literally no chance of that happening now, but Threads might be what overcomes that inertia.

I was pretty close to filtering Threads from my feed because the topic had been beaten to death with some patently immature and paranoid discussions, I'm glad I didn't.

• Facebook is completely driven by ad revenue. There is nothing stopping them from sending out ads as posts/comments with artificially inflated scores, which would ensure that their ads end up on the "all" page of federated servers.
• Threads already has more users than all Lemmy instances combined. Even if their algorithms don't apply to the rest of the fediverse directly, they can still completely dictate what the "all" page will look like for all instances by simply controlling what their own users see and vote on.
• In general, Facebook has shown countless times that they don't have their users best interests in mind. They view users as something to exploit for revenue.

It's great to see you address this and display good understanding of all the facets and why they are or aren't a problem.

In particular, I appreciate that you recognize the issues with moderation and content monopolization that would most likely occur as a result of hundreds of millions of Threads users flooding the ecosystem.

This is a little corner of the internet that people have flocked to for very specific reasons, either to specifically escape corporate control or to seek an environment that is less toxic than the alternative. This is a nascent community that is taking shape, slowly. Connecting it to one of the largest, loudest and most toxic social media actors at this crucial stage of building the identity of Lemmy sounds a lot like playing with fire.

I think why many people feel so strongly about this matter is that we are dealing with a known quantity. From a corporate perspective, we know what Meta stands for and how they do business. We know they monetize outrage and seek to trap their users in parasitic feedback loops to drive engagement. We know they have no moral or legal scruples.

The same can be said about userbase. This isn't an unknown group of people with an unfamiliar culture that - who knows, maybe they're kind and nice? These are people from Facebook and Instagram, probably supplemented by plenty from Twitter too with how that platform is doing. We already know the culture on those platforms, it's been shaped by the outrage centric monetization and (lack of) moderation.

It's possible that not many of them will find their way over here, but in my brief time here I have already seen interactions with Mastodon users, both in comments and as posts on the All feed. Now imagine a platform with a thousand times more users than Mastodon. Yes, perhaps the tiger won't find its way in, but why leave the front door open and just pray it's docile?

Still, I appreciate the transparent communication once again, and it seems these are issues you are aware of, so I trust that you'll make a good decision when the time comes.

Take your time and don't stress yourself.

I'm not a Lemmy.world user, but this a top-notch response.

I appreciate the detailed and thoughtful response. Measured approaches are always best when you have time and resources to appropriately react down the road as you mentioned.

With that being said I have no interest in dealing with Meta, Twitter, or any similar company. Their leadership and shareholders only care about one thing - maximizing profits. If I want to interact with their products then I will go out of my way to sign up and use their services…simple as that. They’re not here on the Fediverse out of curiousity or the goodness of their hearts to stand up a lasting community.

I expect some (maybe a lot of downvotes) but I don’t trust Meta in the slightest.

Embrace, extend, and extinguish (EEE) - We don't think they can. If anyone can explain how they technically would, please let us know. Even if Meta forks Lemmy and gets rid of the original software, Lemmy will survive.

Regardless if we know the method in which they will attempt it, we know what they are and what their ultimate goal is. Just because you can't see the fangs doesn't mean you invite the menacing stranger in black into your home in the middle of the night.

Also, "Lemmy will survive" is a bit like saying "technically the earth will survive after climate change". We're not just interested in continued existence, but in the manner that existence takes. If Meta is allowed to set-up shop in the fediverse, they will come to define it, and new users will see it as the fediverse. By the time Lemmy.world defederates, it will be like cutting off its own arm and no one will want to leave Threads anyway.

Basically, let the fediverse grow without this snake in the garden. Let it form its own identity without Meta so it can serve as the counterpoint to it and refuge from it.

I'm not interested in the vast majority of Instagram content but that doesn't mean that an IG-based platform should be blocked because the vast majority of content is also inoffensive. The outlook that I could follow accounts from TV shows and comedians I like without logging into a dedicated service is exciting. Given that I'm pondering to move from another Mastodon instance to calckey.world, it's refreshing that the admin team does not cave to baseless hysteria (it's baseless because Threads doesn't federate with anything, yet, therefore any judgement of the effect on the Fediverse is not based on facts, especially when it comes from people like EU citizens for whom Threads isn't even available).

Additionally, the inability of individuals to block an instance means we have to do what is best for the community.

You could just file a feature request for Lemmy. 🤷 Chances are, given the influx of developers, that user-level instance blocking will be implemented before Threads adopts ActivityPub.

disappointing those who desire interaction with Threads

Maybe those rare few (deranged) people should just go create a Threads account? This is a very unconvincing attempt at appearing "objective".

I fully expect Threads to be vaporware, just like the Metaverse. The only way I see it replacing Twitter is if they're more aggressive with forcing Instagram users onto the service, which they might do, but more likely it's just going to be a flash in the pan.

Twitter will hold on for a while longer yet.

Hi, I'm new. Been hanging out for a few days and I like what this instance, this piece of software (Lemmy) and what the fediverse does, for a multitude of reasons. I'll admit I'm new to the federation stuff, so my knowledge is limited, but I deeply wish for the fediverse to gain a massive foothold and become the norm for how to do social media stuff in the future.

Before I share a thought, I figured I should say that the transparency is super appreciated, and I support the current stance regardless. That said...

On the topic of EEE:

It's been bothering me lately that the discussion of whether or not Meta will engange in EEE-type tactics is centered around whether or not they will try to squeeze out Lemmy or Mastodon. Isn't that a bit of a pointless discussion? The problem, and the reason why Meta federating with these open communities is so scary, is that if we allow them to become the biggest provider in the space alongside all the various instances that are running either Lemmy or Mastodon, is that they'll start dictating the future of AcitivityPub itself. Whether or not Meta will try to embrace and strangle Mastodon is sort of besides the point, the fear is that they'll do to ActivityPub what Google did to XMPP and probably many other companies have done to many other fun standards and technologies.

The reason I personally think we shouldn't federate, under any circumstances, is for exactly that reason. Sure, we'll (or I guess Mastodon-users) will only see a rise on content and people to engage with which is good and allows us to take part without being the person who refuses to use socks in the room, but it sort of also devalues Lemmy and Mastodon (moreso Mastodon) by making the "default choice" Threads, doesn't it? That gives Meta insane leverage over the protocol itself, and should they wish to, they absolutely could position themselves to dictate the future of ActivityPub. Even worse, they could build ontop of ActivityPub and choke our spaces out, just like they did with XMPP.

Why is this never discussed? I didn't see any thoughts on this in Rochko's post on the matter either, and I have to admit I feel slightly uncomfortable at the thought that this particular part of the discussion is sidestepped. It doesn't matter if they fork Lemmy or Mastodon, or any other client-software built on top of ActivityPub for that matter, what worries me (and maybe others) is by devaluing our own "platforms" we automatically crown Meta the king of the protocol, because they become said default choice and hold massive leverage over content.

This is probably the exact issue a lot of Reddit-users looking for new spaces are feeling right now; the content is sort of locked to that other place with no way to actively "force" (nor should they have, just to have that said) content to happen here. If we open the doors, federate, and Meta decides to make their interpretation of AP in such a way that Lemmy or Mastodon devs really can't effectively share that content both ways, it likely will end up killing them (and AP to a degree) in the future once that link is dead or dying, and users will end up leaving to follow the content they want. That drain is gonna leave a lot of instances barren. At the same time, in the here and now, by using "we're federated with Threads!" as a selling point effectively kills our current momentum too, because why not just register with Threads then? It's the bigger platform, all the users are there and it's company-ran and so safe to stay for a while. So that initial surge and following smaller surges just won't happen, because Meta sucked the wind out of our sales.

Just thinking out loud. I still think the position held in OP is good, and at this point I agree, but I wish the talk around EEE was about AP, not the softwares we're using to have this little panic attack on. Meta, if of ill-intent, has likely not set their sights at Mastodon and Lemmy, they're looking to embrace, extend and extinguish ActivityPub.

good argument but no thanks.i joined lemmy for avoid at alls cost main place controled by corpo. yhea sure at first they are doing nothing. but later?

Lemmy will survive.> wouldn't it be better to take care of it, not just "survive" ?

I personaly want to block Meta for good, don't want bots and ads posting things, don't want paid shills promoting propagonda, and never want my data collected and sold. mega corporates enriching themselves while controlling, spying, interferring and shaping our society without permissions.

On the topic of not needing to be federated to scrape data: yes, posts are public, but (at the moment…) a part of privacy comes from simply not being examined closely. Meta announcing their introduction into the Fediverse immediately shines a light on it in its entirety in a way that would dwarf disgruntled Redditors signing up.

Not allowing them to make that claim by denying them outright would be preferable, if the decision is to not federate.

Defederating from Threads in a preemptive fashion is nothing more than reactionary nonsense based on bad history. It literally makes no sense. Who the fuck cares what Meta does? All of the "consequences" I've read so far come across like bad fanfic at best. The analogies to Microsoft are false equivalencies.

I'll make it simple: I'll leave if lemmy.world defederates things preemptively. People need to understand that this idea has been around forever and has worked forever. Looking a gift horse like Threads choosing to join up (if it actually does federate - I highly doubt it) in the mouth is absolutely insane.

Why are the doomers not talking about how best to steal users from Threads instead of just assuming this entire thing collapses the second a company with capital joins? How can this be considered a sustainable (again, looong-ago proven) system if a single company can pop in and ruin it?

Something to consider: I’m not even sure Threads will actually implement ActivityPub.

I think it’s been an amazing talking point for them this week, to differentiate themselves from Twitter for shareholders in a way that sounds like it can justify their growth ambitions beyond Twitter’s. Every other differentiator (our moderation will be better, our community will be friendlier, our UX will be better…) is subjective. A “we’ll do just like X but better” strategy is not a very compelling long-term growth strategy, particularly when Twitter is the model, and Twitter tried so hard and failed so hard to exit for many years before Musk even expressed interest.

But if your killer growth feature is that you mean to tap into that “something-verse” that shareholders have a weak understanding of (surely if it ends in “-verse”, it’s gotta be massive! Particularly if the press has been describing it with dramatic words as the only credible alternative to Twitter so far), then it does sound like it could grow further than Twitter could have.

The reason I’m not buying it, is that the integration between a massive social media service like Threads and the small ActivityPub servers of various versions everywhere would probably be a massive technical and human headache, that Meta can’t completely control. And that is not in their wheelhouse. But something that is in their wheelhouse more than in Twitter’s, is to successfully monetize various forms of closed social media. But the only way that vision can be sufficient as a financial strategy, is if they first prove that they can in fact pull that off. And I actually think they totally can pull it off.

So with that, I don’t think it’s impossible that once Meta has grown Threads sufficiently, and then that they run successful ads on it, that they might announce that they’re dropping the ActivityPub plan altogether before it’s even released. Their stock might take a dip that day, but I could imagine that the hope is that by then they will have proven that their service doesn’t need it after all, in which case it should be a small dip. And before that, the stock will have increased a lot based on the fediverse promise.

I’m not saying that Meta is not going to actively invest in it and try it; in fact, they legally have to, now that they announced it, since it’s a public company, or else it would be fraud. But my guess is they might be counting on other upsides to work out well enough that they don’t need to deliver it in the end after all.

We’ll see…

There's a lot of more convincing arguments than I could make about this matter made by other users in this thread so I'll just say that I don't want to be anywhere near anything even vaguely related to meta. It is a cancer and should be denied and boycotted at every opportunity.

If this instance doesn't defederate I will just switch to one that will. Neutrality towards them might as well be complicity because they will abuse it.

I know my input doesn't help the conversation but I just don't see how Threads could harm the fediverse through Triple-E. The ActivityPub protocol is already set in stone, the fediverse already has a few million users collectively, the software is independently developed and established. You can argue that they can update the protocol and do it that way but that falls flat as it would require consumers.

Threads already is up to 100 million users. The only thing they gain is more content. But that probably wouldn't matter since engagement over there is already high. They can't gain credentials because the protocol doesn't allow it and any content scraping they can do now without an account.

Now, keep in mind I understand what Meta is and what it does/has done. But, I just don't see how the company could directly harm the rest of the fediverse, especially when removing them is as easy as defederating. The only thing I could see as a potential problem is Spam/Content ads. But every social network has those and is handled through detection and moderation.

I think the interesting part is that the Threads display layout is already built with federated content in mind. They will most likely go through with this even if it's not with the current fediverse. They might just create their own if they can't connect with the current one which sort of defeats the purpose of connected federated social networks. Or maybe yet, adopt AT Protocol and just connect with Dorsey's BlueSky.

Either way, I don't have much of a dog in this fight. But I do like the calmer and more level headed approach some of the major instances are taking.

Finally a sane, and non impulsive post about this.

Can someone explain to me why/how a Lemmy instance would federate with Threads anyway? I get it with Mastodon - they are both Twitter like apps, it makes sense. You could theoretically follow a Threads account and just have their posts appear in your Mastodon feed. I don't quite understand how that would even work here.

Thank you for a well reasoned post. I'm not a fan of the Zuck, but understand the implications a lot better thanks to what you wrote. Whatever is decided, I stand with you.

I am new to Lemmy and Fediverse in general. Hypothetically, if Threads and a Lemmy instance is federated, how will users from either environment see the content, since the posts operate on different principles?

I understand Mastodon instances and Threads can potentially blend content. However, Lemmy operates in parent post with hierarchical comments which is different than Mastodon.

Are there Mastodon and Lemmy instances blending content? Or perhaps this impacts Kbin more since it supports both post publication types.

Thanks. Any clarification helps.

For me it's more of a personal preference.

I like that the smaller community vibe we have going on. Federation with meta and a sudden influx of content, good or bad, might not be the experience I want.

I think it's fine to play it by ear, and an obligatory "that's the beauty of the fediverse" (:

I didn’t realize that defederation only breaks the link in one direction. I don’t like the idea of my posts being exported to Threads where they’ll have an entirely different discussion on them.

Moderation

Beehaw: Well well well, how the turn tables.

Thank you for the calm and well thought out post on this. I was getting tired of the knee jerk reaction posts that had little substance to back up the assertions.

Finally, a thought out response. If Threads federate with Mastodon or Lemmy (unlikely, different type of platform), I'd say the advantage is on the open source side, since it offers an ads-free experience. If Meta pushes ads on the Fediverse, of course, defederate.

Good response, glad to see it's being so carefully considered, however..

Lemmy does collect personal data. This instance requires an email address, which is personal data. I appreciate that this isn't federated or available to meta in any way, but it can't be said that Lemmy didn't collect it.

My main question is: What is Meta's goal with federation?

Been trying to figure this out for a while. To get our users/content? The entire fediverse is tiny compared to Threads. EEE? Entirely possible, and others have pointed out how they'd do it, but they haven't federated yet and it feels like it'd be near pointless given the content disparity, though an evil corp will always try to monopolize. To get around EU gatekeeping laws? Possible, and would explain why they haven't launched in europe yet.

Yeah for real. It seems like we have plenty of time before this is happening to wait and see what our options will be.

But, but, EEE and that blog from a dude talking about XMPP... Also, Enshitify.

There's a lot of people here making demands on the behalf of others. I mostly don't care if Threads is defederated or not, there are pros and cons, but I REALLY don't like this self righteous imposing arguments I see here, and while I love the idea of the fediverse its clear that humans will keep being tribal, and there's no solution for that.

I completely agree!

Said it before and I’ll say it again. All this blabla stuff I don’t care about:

IF ZUCK HAS A PART IN THIS, I AM OUT. OUT OUT FUCKITY OUT.

How will Meta handle moderation on such a large scale? Probably the same way they moderate their current billions of users... Algorithms, misinformation labels, faceless fact-checkers, and "content hidden".

I'll move to a different instance the day Lemmy.World federates with Threads. I came here to avoid corporate influence over my social media, especially from Facebook.

Let's take this discussion to Threads! You can trust us.

Moderation - If a server hosts a substantial amount of harmful content without performing efficient and comprehensive moderation, it will create an excessive workload for our moderators. Currently, Meta is utilizing its existing Instagram moderation tools. Considering there were 95 million posts on the first day, this becomes worrisome, as it could potentially overwhelm us and serve as a sufficient reason for defederation.

Meta generally does a pretty good job at moderation though, so I don't feel like that's such a big issue? If anything it's a benefit, because if Threads were to federate Meta's moderation team would to start vetting posts on LemmyWorld and if there isn't already hopefully soon we will have a way for moderator decisions to be shared with moderators from other instances.

Many hands make light work, and Threads adds a lot of hands.

Ads - It’s possible if Meta presents them as posts.

That would be illegal. Ads must be clearly labeled and Meta is generally a company that follows the law.

Promoting Posts - It’s possible with millions of users upvoting a post for it to trend.

Um... if millions of users upvote a post, surely it should trend?

Embrace, extend, and extinguish (EEE) - We don’t think they can. If anyone can explain how they technically would, please let us know. Even if Meta forks Lemmy and gets rid of the original software, Lemmy will survive.

Again, that would be illegal. Microsoft's EEE tactic almost bankrupted the company and it was a sympathetic president who let them get away with just a slap on the wrist. Even though they got off lightly, they still had to avoid the "Extinguish" step of EEE and eventually they even walked back on "Extend"... leaving just the Embrace component, which is quite positive. Meta's not going to touch EEE with a ten foot pole.

I agree, Threads probably won't federate with Lemmy, but if they did I'd welcome it personally. I think it would be a net win.

lwadmin@lemmy.world

If Lemmy.world federates with Meta/Threads, I will delete my accounts and ditch Lemmy altogether.

It’s shameful that this is even up for discussion.

What an embarrassment.

Thanks for posting your thoughts. I agree the wait and see is a decent approach. Hopefully by the time they add federation (which will affect Lemmy as if they can talk to Masto they can talk to this server without defed), Lemmy will already have some of better features about user level instance defed and outgoing defed options.

My main complaints with Meta is that people have already started using our word (Threadiverse) to describe the Threads community.

A very reasonable response, well said.

I want to stay federated with threads and oppose defederation. Just putting it out there.

Kudos for being rationale thinking for this.

I just left Facebook. And am considering leaving it all behind. Still, do what is best for Lemmy.

Let's defederate

I appreciate this approach and agree that it’s unlikely that Meta will even want to federate with Lemmy. They’re trying to pursue a short form blogging format.

They’re unlikely to even want Lemmy content on their servers. Nonetheless, I agree with a “wait and see” approach.

If Lemmy hitches its wagon to Threads, I am fucking OUT.

Blow me.

While I think that we should rightly be very wary of Threads/Meta, I do also think that it is still too early to judge. It's hard to accurately predict what will happen in the future given the relative youth of Lemmy and the Fediverse. (Admittedly, I'm also relatively new to the Fediverse, so what do I know?) Given Meta's track record, we should be very aware of the possible red flags and make plans for possible future malicious actions, but for now I'm okay with waiting and watching.

instance Blocking - Unlike Mastodon, Lemmy does not provide a feature for individual users to block an instance (yet). This creates a dilemma where we must either defederate, disappointing those who desire interaction with Threads, or choose not to defederate, which will let down those who prefer no interaction with Threads.

this is troubling language, and so obtuse that one couldn't be blamed for wondering if someone is being deceitful. meta's business practices are antithetical to everything the fediverse has come to represent. "those who want threads" vs. "those who don't want threads" is not the question, and that should be obvious to everyone. the question is: to associate with unethical institutions or not? and let's not hide behind "democracy". you don't legalize murder because enough people want you to. and you shouldn't "pull a Reddit" and abandon and disenfranchise your userbase. in that case, who even needs to worry about EEE? what do you call it when you do it to yourself? sellout, lick boots, and capitalize? give me a break.

Any negativity on my part was disappointment that the admins took so long to express their position, leading me to believe that I had left reddit for nothing, that lemmy was going to get trashed by threads and the admins were going to wait and see like the mythical boiling frog.