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How does this instance feel about this growing pact against federating with Meta? (fedipact.online)

submitted 1 year ago by sleisl@sh.itjust.works to c/main@sh.itjust.works

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Meta/Instagram launched a new product called Threads today (working title project92). It adds a new interface for creating text posts and replying to them, using your Instagram account. Of note, Meta has stated that Threads plans to support ActivityPub in the future, and allow federation with ActivityPub services. If you actually look at your Threads profile page in the app your username has a threads.net tag next to it - presumably to support future federation.

Per the link, a number of fediverse communities are pledging to block any Meta-directed instances that should exist in the future. Thus instance content would not be federated to Meta instances, and Meta users would not be able to interact with instance content.

I'm curious what the opinions on this here are. I personally feel like Meta has shown time and time again that they are not very good citizens of the Internet; beyond concerns of an Eternal September triggered by federated Instagram, I worry that bringing their massive userbase to the fediverse would allow them to influence it to negative effect.
I also understand how that could be seen to go against the point of federated social media in the first place, and I'm eager to hear more opinions. What do you think?

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[–] 108beads@lemm.ee 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

"I also understand how that could be seen to go against the point of federated social media in the first place…"

Federating with Meta is different from federating with individuals. It's like letting corporations be treated the same as natural persons for the purposes of voting in political elections and exercising other civic participation rights.

Natural persons may have a variety of motivations for federating. Corporations have only one: to increase profit.

And please don't say "federate now, revisit later if needed." Recall the fable about the scorpion and the rabbit facing a raging flood. Said the scorpion, "oh please, rabbit, let me ride on your back as you swim across." Rabbit said "no, you'll sting me and I'll die." Scorpion said "no I won't; we're both in danger; I have children at home; we both want to live." Rabbit said "okay, if you promise not to sting me." So scorpion climbed onto rabbit's back, and halfway across the flood, scorpion gave rabbit a lethal sting. Rabbit asked why, and scorpion shrugged; "you knew what I was when you let me onto your back."

[–] merde@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago

fuck the zuck and all his instances. block the fecesbook and its nine other names

[–] Bdaman@sh.itjust.works 5 points 1 year ago (3 children)

If they cannot collect my personal info any more than any other Lemmy or KBin instance can, then honestly I don’t care. If they want to make it interoperable, ok good, I’m sure somebody will be happy. I will not be signing up for an account, and if I don’t go out looking for the content I may not ever even see it.

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[–] gravitywell@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago

I'm wondering if it really matters? I don't know how exactly defederation looks from other side but I imagine that a company like meta can easily run a stealth "proxy" instance that isn't advertised as being owned by them and use that to siphon content and present it to their users. It really wouldnt matter if the rest of the fediverse see the commends from threads users because more than likely threads users will outnumber the entire fediverse within a month and can happily exist within that walled garden.

Sadly as much as I agree with the sentiment, I don't think federating will have much effect at all.

[–] dr_dour@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Can Meta scrape the data off other apps like mastodon from federated communities? I don't exactly know how that works. I'm assuming mastodon and other not profit based apps don't track any data so how would meta joining the fediverse change it?

I think it's all but given that meta would have the largest number of users using its apps in the fediverse. Threads already has 2 million sign-ups in hours so it would be a miss to just defederate from it and lock down millions of users from interacting with meta users. Let's see how it goes.

Edit: 5 million sign-ups in 4 hours according to zuck

[–] MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They can scrape without federation. Scrapers are just scripts that will go to websites, collect the html data, keep what has been deemed valuable, collect all of the links to other pages on that page, stick them onto a stack and pick one off that stack to continue to the next page and keep going.

[–] Domille@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 year ago

yeah, so it really does not matter whether they are federated or not as far as our info goes. The only difference is how much content we see and how many people come in and out.

[–] eigenspace@sh.itjust.works 3 points 1 year ago

I don't have any firm opinions yet. I definitely feel the knee-jerk temptation to not federate with them, but on the other hand I guess federated Facebook products is pretty much what I want from them.

I don't care about Threads very much (at least yet), but I know a lot of people where my only way to get in contact with them is Facebook Messenger. So if I could contact them without needing to have a facebook account myself, I'd be quite happy.

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