this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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Fight For Privacy

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[DISCUSSION] Federation with Threads? (feddit.ch)
submitted 10 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Not sure if this is the right community to post this in, as we don't have any [email protected] or similar community, but it seemed the most relevant. Sorry if it doesn't belong.

I'm sure that at this point it has become common knowledge that , Meta's alternative to Twitter, is trying to implement ActivityPub into their site. If/when this goes through, this would make Threads an instance admin, giving then full access to all the data that is available to other instance admins. This would include all data that belongs to Lemmy/KBin/Mastodon/etc users.

My main question is, should we let them do this? Should we federate with them if/when they come online, or should we defederate? I know that does not usually defederate with others (we currently only have one instance blocked, bottom of ), but in this case, this is Meta we're dealing with. They aren't exactly a big fan of data privacy, which is the whole theme of this instance (our sidebar: "This instance is focused on providing security and privacy for its users").

It seems that most people on Lemmy/etc. seem to be in favour of pre-emptive defederation and that many other instances have already defederated (Lemmy.ca, dbzer0, Blahaj, Beehaw, Lemm.ee).

There may also be another solution, but I'm not sure whether this applies to Lemmy.

What does everyone else think? Should we stay federated with them? Should we defederate, like other instances have already done? Should we wait and see? I'd love to hear others' opinions on this.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I agree with this completely! I am also not generally a fan of such gatekeeping, but in cases like these I feel that it is not just justified, but rather necessary.

I once asked the admin and ... a defederation of such instances is not seen as an action to take.

Could you please rephrase? Not sure I understand this properly. What I think I understand is that the instance admin is not a big fan of defederation. Is that correct?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Sadly I can't find the comment-feed I had with the admin (was a year ago +/-), but yes as far as I remember the admin does not want to defederate other instances. Which is also a stance I understand, especially with the neutral mentality Switzerland has (and this is a Swiss instance after all).

I hope the admin comments so we can see the thoughts itself and not some phrases I remember hazily :)

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 months ago

I think i chime in for some comment. You got it right, i believe this open platform should stay as open as possible. But if i see that problems arise and users from this instance are having issues because of Threads or other platforms, i have to take action. And of course, there are borders to this openness.

I'm very aware, that Meta and the other big corporations are interested in our data and want to use them for their profit. But i don't think that defederation will stop them. They will harvest our data anyway, with just simple web crawlers.

I support anyone who wants to defederate them, but i also want an open platform for people to have a place to express themselves and communicate. And with the new instance block feature of lemmy v.0.19, people are able to hide specific instances themself, if they do not like their content.