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Please defederate from threads.net
(aussie.zone)
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this post was submitted on 16 Dec 2023
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Discussion about the aussie.zone instance itself
founded 1 year ago
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Personally I think this is ridiculous.
First, there's the simple fact that Lemmy's interaction with Threads will likely be the same relatively rare/limited interaction we currently have with Mastodon. People might show up to comment from time to time, and we'll be able to @mention their users. But that's about it. It's not a serious issue for Lemmy instances to be concerned about.
But second, I think pre-emptive defederation here, regardless of whether we're talking about Lemmy or Mastodon instances, is ridiculous. If they start doing bad things, it is trivial to defederate at that time. If they don't, we're much better off letting them participate and benefit from the increased number and variety of users with whom we can interact thanks to their participation in the fediverse.
Don't fall for FUD when there's an opportunity knocking.
Meta/Facebook have been doing bad things for 20 years now.
They knowingly house hate groups. They've been doing bad things since the start...
What more does Facebook need to do to convince you they are awful for everyone but the ultra-rich capitalists?
Are you unaware or just ignorant? They caused a fucking genocide FFS.
they caused a what now
In Myanmar.
https://www.reuters.com/world/asia-pacific/un-investigator-says-facebook-provided-vast-amount-myanmar-war-crimes-2022-09-12/
Outing yourself with FUD talk. There are lots of reasons to keep skepticism alive ahead of any wrongdoing, given the difference in motivations between Meta and the Fediverse.
They will do bad things. They have a proven track record. So fear? Sure. No uncertainty or doubt though.
I agree, we cannot pass up the opportunity to get more interaction, especially when there is such little harm to us. At the end of the day we can choose to defederate with threads at any time, unless you have an account on their instance they shouldn't be able to track you, at least without exploiting a vulnerability in Lemmy or Mastodon.
Edit: I've had a bit of a think and changed my mind see comment in reply to the reply to this comment
More interaction is not the same as good interaction.
What's your motivation to be a Lemmy user? What keeps you here?
I am very afraid of what a big American company can do to this community. They see everything as a stepping stone to money.
I've had a bit more of a think about it and read that article about XMPP again, and I've had a change of mind.
Earlier I was thinking about the possibility of becoming mainstream, however, not being mainstream is probably what makes Lemmy so great. And would threads users even discover us or would they just try to suck the life out of Mastodon by talking over everyone? How would threads rank posts from Mastodon vs posts on threads?
Furthermore, if we became mainstream we might attract the attention of government which might try to regulate us. This could make admins and mods legally responsible for the discourse in their communities which could be discouraging for instances like ours. Remember, while email isn't regulated politicians don't understand computers beyond basic usage, so this is probably the same thing as Facebook to them. Even if we didn't become mainstream, mods and admins would just be slaves to Meta focussed on dealing with their large variety of users rather than trying to grow our own communities.
Another question I've considered is do we even need their users? My answer to that is no. Another thing that makes Lemmy Lemmy and even more so Aussie Zone is the quality of the users. Not just anyone will join, we get people who are more passionate about the bigger picture, people who demand something better, people who aren't afraid to try something new. Lemmy users are visionaries which is why we have such passionate arguments and why there is such a large bias towards progressive politics.
So yeah, I think we should tell Meta they're dreamin' and send em back to the pavilion. Or in other words: Fuck off Meta!
It's interesting how attractive the thought of becoming mainstream is. Bigger = better.
I wonder if mods & admins would just be overwhelmed, or if Meta would find a way of using their effort and hours to their advantage? ie use them as a free modding force for their product (indirectly). Labour for your Lemmy instance would become labour for Meta.
I'm surprised by your full turnaround in opinion. Some of your earlier thoughts are valid: they probably won't be able to track you any more than they currently can (through read-only Lemmy interaction) and more interaction does have its benefits.
I guess perhaps defederating them now vs later might come down to whether or not you see Meta as a person or a company. If a new person joins/federates then you generally don't want to pre-judge them, even if they've had a bad history you hope they can stick to the rules and participate well. Alas Meta isn't a person, they're a bit more like a government (they're bigger than some nations) and very single minded in their pursuits. They don't have the ability to turn around and go "apologies that I'm hurting people, I'll actually change my ways and start following the values of your community now".
Turns out I was wrong about the tracking and advertising they absolutely could do it and they absolutely will:
They could send ads masquerading as posts/comments and track you using images (since they are served from Meta's servers similarly to how tracking works with images in emails
I didn't think of that, if you federate then you essentially become a publisher of their ads and tracking. Ty for the link.