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Embrace, Extend, Enforce (ƎƎƎ): A practical Strategy against potentially abusive Instances like Meta’s Threads
(fungiverse.wordpress.com)
this post was submitted on 29 Dec 2023
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So Twitter is dying, we all know that.
Former Twitter users have a few options on where to go next. Ideally Mastodon/Fediverse. Blue Sky possibly. Likely Threads.
Users who go to Threads or Blue Sky will just make it Twitter 2, specifically Twitter from before Elon which I'll be honest wasn't a particularly great Twitter to begin with. (That isn't to say the Fediverse is immune from the same fate, it just has some better protections against it.)
So option 1, Fediverse says "Fuck Threads", Twitter 2 is born and it's shitty for them. Fediverse gets a few new users, but mostly the Fediverse wonders why "everyone" is on Threads.
Option 2, Fediverse keeps an open dialogue with Threads. Threads users are more aware of the Fediverse. More Threads users actually migrate to the Fediverse. The Fediverse gets a wider range of users. If (when?) the Fediverse has to completely cut off Threads, the Fediverse will at least have more users, some of which will remain.
Another open question, does the Fediverse want former Twitter/Threads users?
Yes. More users, more thoughts, more opinions, more diversity, a better Fediverse. That isn't to say I want shitheads. We can and should still ban shitheads.
People that go to Bluesky or Threads are happy in their corporate gardens. The fediverse is not really an option for most of those people, anymore than Facebook is not really an option for me. If Facebook thought that threads could possibly lose more users than it gained, they wouldn't federate.
Facebooks interests are diametrically opposed to the fediverse's. They aren't "just another server", they are a multi billion dollar surveillance capitalist juggernaut. Thinking that you can somehow benefit from any kind of relationship with them is wrongheaded, IMO.
Why do people feel like we need rapid growth in numbers? The fediverse is still under development, and past events have often strained the infrastructure. Will threads users even be 'impressed' by our homespun alternative if it struggles under the weight of replicating millions of paid posts?
To tell you the truth, I am disappointed and saddened by what I see as the end of this whole fediverse experiment. To think that in the end we will happily give away what we worked so hard to build.
I don't need rapid growth, but I do want growth. Any* users we can siphon off of Threads is a win.
*Any assuming good faith users. I'm against active shitheads. The Fediverse should not reshape itself to fit Threads, Threads should reshape to fit into the Fediverse.
We are siphoning users off corporate platforms already. Almost everyone on the fediverse has left those networks to come here. They did it without Facebook or twitter federation, and people will continue to do that without Facebook or twitter federation.
Threads absolutely not "reshape" itself to fit the fediverse. They are playing to win, and winning for them means mass collection of analytics and social graphs to sell micro-targeted ads to their customers.
The fediverse is growing at the right speed, IMO, and inviting Facebook in to play, in the hopes of luring a few users is a bargain with the devil.
Considering the company's history, I am more than a little perplexed at anyone thinking that there is significantly higher than a 0% chance of the effort being intended in good faith.
To clarify users, you and I, not the company.
The two are inseperable, unfortunately. Every commercial social media company exerts control over their users in numerous ways, including bots ane opaque algorithms. Given their hisory of everpthing from complicity in genocide to actively taking part in political influence campaigns, there is next to no chance of them acting in good faith, if federated. They will simply use their significant resources to try to control and pollute the fediverse.
My take is that if the Fediverse can be destroyed simply by a particular instance being too popular, then maybe that's a problem with the Fediverse - not that instance.
So if we had 100 Mastodon instances, and each instance had 100 users, we have a healthy Fediverse of 10,000 users.
Now 1 of those 100 instances decides to do something. Maybe they make a moderation decision and become super pro Nazi. Maybe they add a new feature where you can video chat with other users.
Now Nazis are frowned upon. So if 1 instance of 100 users is full of Nazis, the other 99 defederate from the 1. The Fediverse now has 99 instances of 100 users and we have a healthy Fediverse of 9,900 users.
But maybe video chatting is a neat feature. Initially only 100 users can video chat with each other. Other instances add video chatting, but not in a compatible way. Some users can video chat with each other, some can't, & some don't like the feature at all. As a community the different instances and developers work together to figure out what should happen to varying degrees of success.
But let's change things. 1 instance has 7,000 users, a second instance has 2,000 users, and a few dozen instances have a few users, we still get a healthy Fediverse of 10,000 users.
But maybe the 7,000 user instance becomes pro Nazi. The smaller instance can defederate, but now you have the 7,000 user Pro Nazi Fediverse, and the 3,000 user Anti Nazi Fediverse. It isn't broken. The smaller Fediverse still exists, but it's smaller. Maybe the 2,000 user instance would rather rejoin the larger Fediverse. Maybe Nazis aren't that bad. Now we have a big Fediverse of 7,000 Nazis and 2,000 Nazi tolerators. The 1,000 user Fediverse still exists, but is MUCH smaller. Not great, for either Fediverse.
Or what about the video chat? What if the 7,000 user instance adds video chat? What if they don't want to share how it works? If you want video chat you have to move instances. Now our 7,000 user instance has 8,000 users. Now our 8,000 user instance adds ads. You can't leave if you want video chat.
The Fediverse can't be destroyed, but it can be shrunk. If it shrinks too much too fast, it might cease to be useful. If it grows too much too fast, it might cease to be useful.
In this case, I would argue MimicJar's point (Edit: Shit, I didn't notice who I'm talking to. Well, you make good points I guess, lmao), and say that even if we were to defederate with the large instance, we're still no worse off than if we had never federated in the first place - in fact, we'd likely be better off, since any anti-nazi users in your scenario would know where to find us.
The way I look at it is like, if Reddit were part of the Fediverse, they would've dominated in much the same way as Threads intends to. But the moment they even started pulling sketchy tactics, we could've jumped to other instances.
I mean, that's essentially what I did anyway, but with no clearly defined alternative, not everyone knows about the Fediverse, whereas they would've had that option if Reddit was federated. Plus, in theory, I'd still be able to view and interact with Reddit content from my instance, at least until they separate entirely - at which point (again) I would have the choice.
I personally believe that, given the choice, many people would decide to support smaller federated instances over corporate monoliths. Not most, but many.
Realistically it is in Threads best interest to pretend they care about the Fediverse.
In return the Fediverse should pretend to care about Threads.
In reality the Fediverse should "steal" Threads users. At some point Threads will do something really stupid (hopefully not immediately) and the Fediverse can go back to ignoring Threads, but having gained a good subset of users.
Agreed, I think we should very cautiously federate, while keeping in mind that they will inevitably pull the rug.
You sound so innocent it's almost cute. Option 2 will never happen because people are already aware the Fediverse exists and that still doesn't make it for them, what the want is the closed walled gardens, when (not if) the time comes to cut off Threads they'll just return to their posting there. With Threads closed off from the Fediverse, there is no incentive for them to keep their activity here.
I would argue that most people don't know about the Fediverse.
The Fediverse has maybe a few million users, depending how you count it.
Threads has 100s of million users. Even if only ½% of those move to the Fediverse, that's still a huge win.
Gonna start paying mods, admins, and instance runners? That is huge amount of extra work that they would need to put in. Slow growth is sustainable, rapid growth is very risky to platform viability.