Threads is officially starting to test ActivityPub integration

You know what, I was very confused why they would add Fedi integration but unidirectional integration makes a ton of sense from a corporate scumbag POV.

Jfc sounds like they're just paving over the community with a giant ad of themselves

Also, given the vast differences in daily active users, wouldn’t Mastodon become flooded, and eventually dependent, on Threads content?

Servers only pull subscribed user content, so it's not like the option is nothing or The Firehose. Meta can't push content into the Fediverse.

I think it's important to note that Meta doesn't have more power than anyone else here. They're just a large instance. They have the same forces keeping them honest as anyone else and their size doesn't change the incentives for mods and admins. Mods don't have an interest in working for Meta for free. If they're spending too much of their time moderating that content, Threads will be limited or defederated.

Given Meta's size and history it's understandable to be concerned. At the end of the day though, they'll either play nice or get bounced. I think we'll be fine either way.

https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html

I personally remain neutral on this. The issue you point out is definitely a problem, but Threads is just now testing this, so I think it's too early to tell. Same with embrace, extend, extinguish concerns. People should be vigilant of the risks, and prepared, but we're still mostly in wait and see land. On the other hand, threads could be a boon for the fidiverse and help to make it the main way social media works in five years time. We just don't know yet.

There are just always a lot of "the sky is falling" takes about Threads that I think are overblown and reactionary

Just to be extra controversial, I'm actually coming around on Meta as a company a bit. They absolutely were evil, and I don't fully trust them, but I think they've been trying to clean up their image and move in a better direction. I think Meta is genuinely interested in Activitypub and while their intentions are not pure, and are certainly profit driven, I don't think they have a master plan to destroy the fidiverse. I think they see it in their long term interest for more people to be on the fidiverse so they can more easily compete with TikTok, X, and whatever comes next without the problems of platform lockin and account migration. Also meta is probably the biggest player in open source llm development, so they've earned some open source brownie points from me, particularly since I think AI is going to be a big thing and open source development is crucial so we don't end up ina world where two or three companies control the AGI that everyone else depends on. So my opinion of Meta is evolving past the Cambridge Analytica taste that's been in my mouth for years.

If they opened as read only then they created API in a most convoluted way possible. If that ridonculous claim is true then I wonder when we see first third party Threads apps.

Just a nice high five for them not falling for corporate embrace and extinguish bullshit when it is in the embrace phase!

Kinda lame. I wonder what site allows it

Do you like snarky Wendy’s ads?

did you join fediverse to escape big companies

“Hey, do you like to be angry and argue with strangers? Come join Threads!”

If anything, this seems like a good reason to leave Instagram.

Considering a significant portion of their userbase adores ragebait, it probably works out quite well for them lol

the biggest instance ran by Mastodon devs

Did it?

https://fedipact.veganism.social/ lists instances with their decision.

List of instances, which will block Threads, listed by MAU

To see Instances that block threads.net click here

Nah, users can vote and then if they don't get the vote they want, they can go to another instance.

I see it as just virtue signaling. At the end, we can choose to not join those servers who defederate with them, but I can also think it's a stupid decision at the same time lol.

You might want to look up what patronize means, in the common phrase "don't patronize me" it's used sarcastically.

Essentially, replace the word with "helpful" in your sentence, and you'll see why it doesn't fit.

2017, previous phase is now complete, XMPP is virtually unheard of.

So it returned back to a state where it would have been without Google anyway.

All the Jabber clients and services combined were never even close to rivaling ICQ, AIM, MSN, Skype, or whatever else ruled the IM space back then.

It'll look like what we already have. Swaths of users self hosting, with lots of redundancy to deal woth instances that have problems.

And that might mean it needs to stay small, but that's OK. Not all success is measured in popularity.

Staying free, open, and undriven by this idea of a shareholder that will destroy anything good in the pursuit of profit.

I see it as an opportunity to tell people on Threads to leave Threads and use an open platform, such as Mastodon, instead. Then eventually Threads will shut down, because everyone moved :D

You mean as instance blocking? Because the Lemmy devs have stated that it's not going to work the way everybody's assuming it's going to work.

So far the way that it's been laid out it'll only block communities on that Lemmy Instance, users will not be filtered.

That's ignoring the fact that Lemmy's blocking system is already flawed in it's design and isn't really an effective tool against malicious users.

So we really shouldn't treat blocking even of instances as personal defederation, because it isn't and unless something really changes and Lemmy's development it never will be. You can on Mastodon because Mastodon's blocking system is much harsher as well as the fact that federation highly depends on following, but lemmy works much differently and also has a significantly weaker blocking system (I should also add it does not respect mastodon's blocking system) so because of that being able to block instances should not and cannot be considered an alternative to defederation, especially when it comes to malicious instances.

Why would you want to defederate at all? It’s akin to hiding your head in the sand, except done on a community-wide scale. Just because you can’t see the nazi over there in the bushes doesn’t mean he isn’t squatting there, observing you.

Why in the world are you cautiously optimistic? What would give you the idea that meta would do anything but what's in their shareholder's interest. My biggest question is, do we know if activitypub is secure enough to keep them out of its software?

Though this is more federation with a wheel and spoke model than true decentralization where each pier communicates with other piers directly. Each have their place for sure, but they cannot be interchanged because they are not the same thing.

They have orders of magnitude more users than all Mastodon instances combined already.

So we can let Mastodon die on the vine or chance it dying? Ok, I know my choice.

It’s not like the majority of people are already on open protocols. I’m sure Threads dwarfs Masrodon usage just as Twitter and possibly even BlueSky.

IF Mastodon was dominate I might have a different view but it’s not. If Threads federates then there is an opportunity to push people to other clients which make switching to a Mastodon/ActivityPub server much easier. That’s literally only upside. It’s not like the people on Mastodon now are going to leave it for Threads.

I wouldn't call it an obsession, but there does need to be a critical mass of users before a social networks become useful.

If it federates with ActivityPub, it won't be.

Thanks, that's actually precisely what I was interested in reading. That admin team totally rocks for motivating their decision with such a comprehensive argument.

That post is outstanding and is a wonderful writeup that highlights the danger of associating with a company as morally bankrupt as Meta.

I'm also worried that due to content moderation policies, Threads might choose to federate only with a few handpicked mastodon instances. Thus provoking a huge increase of users in these instances because they want to interact with people on threads and causing a centralisation issue, because people will start joining this instances far more than the others.

It would also render useless self hosting a single user instance for yourself.

Ah, yes that is a fair enough concern. Thanks. There are lessons in the fate of XMPP (and HTML with IE I guess?). However ActivityPub seems to have so much more momentum than XMPP ever had. This makes me more optimistic about Fedi.

Also, unlike with messaging which is much more dependent on a small number of people you interact with, I think microblogging is much more personal. If Threads would join, grow big, and then defederate 5 years later I may miss out on following some people but that still wouldn't make me leave Mastodon. I left Twitter after all.

Still, it's a reasonable and interesting concern.

Is it so much of a problem if the rest of the fediverse doesn't follow suit. Most of us and the original devs are here because we don't like mainstream social media and the direction it's going.

So sure threads can show up and start trying to call the shots, but I think if we only except them if what they do is in our best interest it will be fine as we can just break off again and do our own thing if they start trying to head the project in their own direction.

As I don't think most people on here care whether threads is part of the fediverse or not.

My point is they only have power if we go with what they want, and due to the open source nature of this just because they have money and a lot of employees doesn't mean they can take control.

Isn't the entire point of these platforms and the nature of federation is that they get to decide who they federate with and when, and even why?

EEE was the first issue folks brought up when threads was announced. It's always been apart of the conversation.

what wrong with facebook rejection

how is irrational

I'm surprised @[email protected] isn't one of those select few accounts.

It's settled then, meet me by noon at the church.

non

Fair.