this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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lemmy.ml meta
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Anything about the lemmy.ml instance and its moderation.
For discussion about the Lemmy software project, go to [email protected].
founded 3 years ago
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It should come as no surprise that the lemmy.ml admin team took about 2 minutes to decide to pre-emptively block threats / Meta. Their transparent and opportunistic scheme to commodify the fediverse and it's users will not be allowed to proceed.
We strongly encourage other instance administrators to do the same, given the grave threat they pose to the fediverse.
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Gonna go against the grain here a little bit, but why? If they are federated, it will mean that you can move off of threads more easily to other servers and not get locked into a walled garden. Encouraging companies to embrace federation will avoid the shit shows like we've seen at twitter and reddit, since users will be easily able to jump ship without much loss. Additionally, apps like threads make federated platforms much more approachable to newcomers and those who do not even know what the fediverse is.
I'd love someone to explain it to me, but this feels like a massive footgun.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Embrace: they embrace the fediverse, bring millions of new users to it and everyone is happy. The fediverse grows and the new meta instance gets a ton of content. Everyone is happy
Extend: meta begins to add features to their instance which clashes with or is unusable with other instances. These begin to pile up and issues develop.
Extinguish: meta unfederates from other instances. People are now forced to stay where they were and lose a majority of their friends and content from metas instance. Or switch over. Mass migration away from original instances. These instances die
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
How is that different from defederating now?
In the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish scenario, assuming they get to "Extinguish", the rest of the Fediverse becomes isolated and cannot connect with their friends and content.
If we defederate now, the Fediverse becomes isolated and cannot connect with Threads content, and cannot connect with friends who choose to be on Threads instead of a disconnected alternative.
expired
The difference is time. With time a federated Threads will build it's own massive library of content, suck in it's own users and then slowly make all of that proprietary and locked down from the rest of the fediverse.
It's a long con that's been done several times by big corporations.
De federate now and that content and those users will have to choose now. Meta or fediverse. The scales are still uneven, but less uneven than in that future.
Fediverse right now is mostly used by a small group of enthusiasts.
If Meta joins the fediverse, the people who join Lemmy/Kbin/Mastodon instances will still be the same group of enthusiasts.
If Meta leaves the fediverse, you will also still have the same group of enthusiasts, that you have here right now.
I don't get why the EEE meme is so prevalent here. XMPP never died and big tech never even harmed it.
Best case: Big corps joining the fediverse could make the ActivityPub the de facto standard for a new generation of social media. Similar to how HTTP, Email or the Linux kernel is practically used everywhere now.
Worst case: The fediverse will remain as obscure as it is right now and nothing changes.
Doesn’t seem so obscure anymore, reddit somehow successfully boosted an entire ecosystem for social media while completely failing to prove their profitability.
Yeah I believe that Lemmy has the best chances to compete with its proprietary inspiration, than every other fediverse product.
Mastodon needs endorsement of businesses/celebrities/politicians to become a viable alternative Twitter. This will probably never happen. The API changes in Twitter were far more brutal then the ones on Reddit, and many ended up joining Mastodon. Most will leave it again tho, because Mastodon does not have their favorite businesses/celebrities/politicians.
Peertube has no monetization program, which makes it even more irrelevant than Odysee.
Only Lemmy does not need huge amounts of cash or clout, to keep people on the platform. Reddit was a (relatively) democratic platform, most were anonymous and content for Reddit is easy to produce. Translating this into the fediverse with Lemmy works really well, as we can see here.
Threads will primarily influence Mastodon. Threads already eclipsed Mastodon in its first few hours. There is no need for EEE, because Threads has already decidedly won. Mastodon can not even scratch Threads. Threads is probably only interested in the fediverse, because of Tumblr. I personally think that Mastodon would gain more from Threads joining the fediverse, than Meta ever could, but we will see I guess.
Sorry to be blunt but nobody here should give a single shit that they "can't interact with Threads content" from Lemmy. Make an account there if you care that much. Lemmy is exactly the opposite of a corporate-controlled and monetized platform and the Fediverse is flourishing because a need arose to not let corporate fucks ruin everything they touch. If they're your friends, you can interact with them any number of ways, send them a link however you normally talk, obviously. This is shill talk.
I mean, lemmy.ml explicitly describes itself as a community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts (and I'm reasonably certain it's run by actual communists) so I'd have been quite surprised if they'd embraced Meta tbh.
one problem it that it has threads has a very large userbase and it will likely flood the fediverse so instances that dont block them may dont really have other content and from what i understand is that the content there is flooded with influencers. At least the type of influencers i think are annoying and too comercialised.
And with the flood of content server admins that only do it for fun will get a problem with moderation.
There was a dude in this comment section that left a link about some type of essay (the link contains something with 15 minutes).
Edit: https://sopuli.xyz/comment/879382
You realize that accepting meta/threads terms you give them permission to sell your data right? They will sell it to advertisers. They help the fbi and others track your every step. Also on fediverse you info is stored locally if the server goes down you don’t have to worry about your info being accessed remotely. I think I saw something where they said that lemmy and kbin store your data for three days then it gets auto deleted. If I was a large instance I would block meta also. Everything meta touched dies!
I got this step, defederating essentially says to them that I dont consent to them getting my data.
But I'm really missing something here, since any instance that zucc controls that is federated to the large instances just exposes my data to zucc.
Defederating is one step, the instance owners have taken that step now, so far so good, well then zucc will just create a lemmy/kbin instance that they own, they join the fed and not even announce meta's affiliation with it, my data is still zucc'ed.
Yea that sucks!
I agree with you. I think this is a way to introduce people who aren’t tech-savvy into Activity Pub and Fediverse, which is ultimately a good thing.
Yes, Meta has a history of being untrustworthy, but I think a place that allows communication between a large population isn’t a bad thing either.
I would rather wait and see when Threads is full federated and what that means. We just don’t have enough information to make a decision.
I would rather 70 million people have joined Mastodon but that’s just not how things work and we need to be realistic.
Exactly what I'm thinking. Also why are server admins choosing what I can do on other instances? Am I missing something here? Why can't users be in control of who they interact with?
They are "blocking" threads only from their instance. Other instances can do what their admin prefer. If you are unhappy, you have to migrate to another instance closer to your tastes or host your instance (this is how fediverse is designed)
I agree, threads connecting to the fediverse seems like it would be a positive step for everyone. I'm not sure how meta could kill the fediverse as long as independent servers exist. If meta is flooding the fediverse with spam or other influencer bs, then we can all just defederate.
I have an alternate theory that threads is never planning to support the fediverse. They are trying to attract users who are looking for a Twitter alternative, and right now the most compelling option is mastodon. But if threads announces activitypub support, then some would-be mastodon users might join threads instead, thinking it will all be connected. But if threads ends up winning all those users anyways, then they'll just say fuck it, we don't need activitypub.
Same thing I'm thinking. If they were going to support it, they would've done it already. And it wouldn't be an after thought.
How did you even end up here?