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Are we defederating from Threads?
(lemmy.ca)
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this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023
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What are the objectives of defederating?
To protect our data? They can create stealth instances and get the same data. I think we have to accept and be mindful that the things we share on the fediverse can be exploited by people we don't like.
To exclude their users? I understand they have partnered with Namecheap to offer users customized instances with their own domain. Is it even a technical possibility to exclude all their users' instances?
To make a statement? Okay, but then we need to do more than just defederate.
This article has been circulating around the fediverse and I think it greatly illustrates why it's so important to defederate from large corporations before they can get a foothold. It's about so much more than just them getting our data.
https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Isn't this what actually killed XMPP? XMPP still works, is still viable. But everyone stopped using it. That's got more to do with Facebook than Google, imho.
Yes. What they specifically did though was extend the protocol so that anyone who wasn't using their version of XMPP via Google Talk would be incompatible or seem "broken" when it really wasn't. It's just that they were using non-standard features, both incentivizing people to just switch to Google Talk and for development on the core protocol to slow down.
I bet money Threads is going to do the same thing. They'll introduce Threads only features that don't work with all the standard Activitypub implementations, causing frustration with Thread users and putting pressure on people to just jump ship to Threads from standard Activitypub implementations.
Okay, but again... so? That's just defederation. If that's the worst they can do to us.... So? That's also your proposed solution, so what!
It's more about protecting ActivityPub protocol than anything.
Before we know it, thread will impose its proprietary protocol and the fediverse will simply die with it.
Honestly, I'm not sure if it will happen. Social media is already pretty much corporate world so we will see what will happen.
Okay but how does this protect the protocol? What is the difference between us defederating them, and what you describe which is essentially them defederating us? Why would they bother in the first place, then? I don't really think any of this is about us, but rather about Twitter and Google.
Like, does it endanger the HTTP protocol that we exchange HTTP data with them?
I think it's about keeping the userbase on ActivityPub as much as possible. When meta will start doing ActivityPub and probably change it, everyone will need to follow because Meta will own all the userbase and "subreddit".
At some point, they will decide to drop ActivityPub because it's not good enough for what they want to do. Just like what Google did to XMPP. And maybe Google was right about XMPP, I don't know.
Another reason is what you are saying, a personnal battle against Meta and big corp.
At the end of the day, will anything the fediverse Admin do will matter ? Only time will tell I guess.
One key difference with HTTP is just like TCP. Everyone uses it so it's much harder to just change it and fuck everyone else. ActivityPub is an easier target for this strategy.
I don't see a point in defederating. As long as the only data they get is the content of my posts and votes and replies I don't care. More people in the fediverse strengthens it and splitting up into kingdoms is basically what we have now. Defederation should be done only if being federated is harmful to the users here.