There has been significant discussion in recent weeks regarding Meta/Threads. We would like to express our disappointment with the negative and threatening tone of some of these discussions. We kindly ask everyone to engage in civil discourse and remember that not everyone will share the same opinions, which is perfectly acceptable.
When considering whether or not to defederate from Threads, we’re looking for a decision based on facts that prioritize your safety. We strive to remain neutral to make an informed choice.
First, there seem to be some misconceptions about how the Fediverse operates based on several posts. We’ve compiled some resource links to help explain the details and address any misunderstandings.
Fed Tips , Fediverse , ActivityPub
Initial Thoughts:
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.
Please note that we have a few months before Threads will even federate with Mastodon, so we have some time to make the right decision.
Factors to Consider:
Factors to consider if Meta federates with Lemmy:
Privacy - While it’s true that Meta’s privacy settings for the app are excessive, it’s important to note that these settings only apply to users of the official Threads app and do not impact Lemmy users. It’s worth mentioning that Lemmy does not collect any personal data, and Meta has no means of accessing such data from this platform. In addition, when it comes to scraping data from your post/comments, Meta doesn’t need ActivityPub to do that. Anyone can read your profile and public posts as it is today.
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.
Ads - It’s possible if Meta presents them as posts.
Promoting Posts - It’s possible with millions of users upvoting a post for it to 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.
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.
Blocking Outgoing Federation - There is currently no tool available to block outgoing federation from lemmy.world to other instances. We can only block incoming federation. This means that if we choose to defederate with our current capabilities, Threads will still receive copies of lemmy.world posts. However, only users on Threads will be able to interact with them, while we would not be able to see their interactions. This situation is similar to the one with Beehaw at the moment. Consequently, it leads to significant fragmentation of content, which has real and serious implications.
Conclusion:
From the points discussed above, the possible lack of moderation alone justifies considering defederation from Threads. However, it remains to be seen how Meta will handle moderation on such a large scale. Additionally, the inability of individuals to block an instance means we have to do what is best for the community.
If you have any added points or remarks on the above, please send them to @mwadmin@mastodon.world.
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.
We are judging lemmy.world admins based on their decisions and inaction is also some kind of a decision. Facebook is a threat and they’ve decided to not treat it seriously.
The admins are asking what the threat is, and the only response so far has been “but they are evil”.
I’m mostly interested in seeing if the fundamental ideals behind Lemmy work well against bad actors in practice. At least for a bit, and if they don’t, coming up with ideas that could make it better based on what we learn by letting them in for a minute.
“i want to be a toxic asshole to people with different understandings and values than me about the platform we all share” - you, pretty much,
you can still be civil and accept that people have differing opinions even when you have such strongly held beliefs. there may be a ‘correct’ answer but not everyone will immediately see that, and about already commiting to doing nothing, they literally cannot take any action on the matter yet because threads has no federation or defederation connections yet, and we have plenty of time to disuss it and come to a reasonable decision.