this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023

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[Facebook federation megathread] Downvote this post if you want lemm.ee to federate with Threads. (Updated) (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by sunaurus@lemm.ee to c/meta@lemm.ee

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Context

There have been a lot of posts and comments recently about Facebook entering the fediverse, and how different instances will handle it. Many people have asked me to commit to pre-emptively defederating from Threads before they even implement ActivityPub.

The lemm.ee federation policy states that it's not a goal for lemm.ee to curate content for our users, but we will certainly defederate any server which aims to systematically break our rules. I want to point out here that Facebook makes essentially all of its money from advertising, and lemm.ee has a no advertising rule - basically, Facebook has a built-in financial incentive to break our rules. ActivityPub has no protections against advertising, so it's likely we will end up having to eventually defederate from Threads just for this reason alone.

However, I would still like to get a feel for how many people in our instance are actually excited for potential federation with Threads. While personally I feel that any theoretical pros are by far outweighed by cons, I do want to use this opportunity to see how much of the community disagrees with me. I am not intending to run this instance as a democracy (sorry if anybody is disappointed by that), but I would still like to have a clear picture of user feedback for potentially major decisions such as this one. This is why I am asking every user who wants lemm.ee to federate with Facebook to please downvote this post.

Here are some reasons why I personally believe that Threads will have a negative effect on the fediverse

As mentioned above, Facebook is completely driven by ad revenue. There is nothing stopping them from sending out ads as posts/comments with artificially inflated scores, which would ensure that their ads end up on the "all" page of federated servers.
Threads already has more users than all Lemmy instances combined. Even if their algorithms don't apply to the rest of the fediverse directly, they can still completely dictate what the "all" page will look like for all instances by simply controlling what their own users see and vote on.
Moderation does not seem to be a priority for Threads so far, meaning that they would create massive moderation workloads for smaller instances.
In general, Facebook has shown countless times that they don't have their users best interests in mind. They view users as something to exploit for revenue. There are probably ways they are already thinking about hurting the fediverse that we can't even imagine yet.

By the way, we're not really in any rush today with our decision regarding federation

Threads does not have ActivityPub support yet today
Even if they add ActivityPub support, their UX is geared towards Mastodon-like usage - it seems unlikely that there would ever be proper interoperability between Threads and Lemmy
We don't really know what to defederate from - it's completely possible that "threads.net" will not be their ActivityPub domain at all.

So go ahead and downvote if you feel defederation would be a mistake, and feel free to share your thoughts in the comments! It would be super helpful to me if folks who are in favor of federating with Threads could leave a comment explaining their reasoning.

Update:

By now, it's clear that there is a group of users who are in favor of federating with Threads. The breakdown is like this (based on downvotes):

lemm.ee users: 136 in favor of federating with Threads
Others: 288 in favor of federating with Threads

While it seems to be a minority, it's still quite a few users. There is no way to please all users in this situation - any decision I make will certainly inconvenience some of you, and I apologize for that.

A big thanks to everybody who has shared opinions and arguments in comments so far. I think there are several well written comments that have been unfairly downvoted, but I have personally read all comments and tried to respond to several as well. I will keep reading them as they come in.

The main facts I am working with right now are as follows:

The majority of lemm.ee users are strongly opposed to immediately federating with Threads
Facebook has a proven track record of exploiting users (and a built-in financial incentive to do so)
We currently lack proper federation/moderation tools to allow us to properly handle rule breaking content from Facebook

Considering all of the above, I believe the initial approach for lemm.ee should be to defederate Threads, and then monitor the situation for a period of time to determine if federating with them in the future is a realistic option

In order to federate with them, the following conditions would need to be fulfilled:

There needs to be actual interoperability between Threads and Lemmy
Threads needs to prove that they are not flooding instances with rule-breaking content (mainly ads and bigotry for lemm.ee)
There needs to be a mechanism to prevent feed manipulation by Threads algorithms (potentially this means discarding all incoming votes from Threads)

Note: this is an initial list, subject to change as we learn more about Threads.

Again, I realize this approach won't please everybody, but I really believe it's the best approach on a whole for now. Please feel free to keep adding comments and keep the discussion going if you think there is something I have not considered.

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[–] _bonbon_@lemm.ee 2 points 2 years ago

DEFEDERATE!

[–] Zapp@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 years ago

You know, we've already got an app to go to deal with Zucks' social media hole. It would be nice to have a space that wasn't connected to it. Then we all get the best of both worlds.

[–] Zakarot@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

As someone who deleted Facebook in 2012 and has zero intention of going back to any of Meta’s products… I don’t see a need to defederate and would prefer not to.

Hear me out… maybe i just am still figuring this whole fediverse thing out but I don’t see how it can be bad.

If there are ads or otherwise bad content on threads, I’m not going to see it unless I actively go follow treads accounts. Like I still have trouble finding/following content across federated instances, basically going there, getting the name of a community, coming back here, and plugging it in.
Any data they could mine about me they could get anyway since it’s either publicly available or not. They could just stave the fediverse under some other domain/IP that doesn’t even need to federate.
In the event they try to Embrace, Extend, Extinguish, they would just change the activity pub protocol in some way, at which point we would have two competing standards. Open source ActivityPub, as used by Mastadon, Lemmy, and the like… and Meta’s ActivityPub… if we don’t use theirs their extended (bad) version of the protocol, they essentially fork and we don’t get to see their content. So we’re just going to defederate now so they don’t have that carrot to dangle over us? Why not just know if they starts fundamentally changing the protocol we just let them break themselves back off from us? We don’t lose anything we aren’t giving up already by defederating.

The ONLY thing that fundamentally changes for me is I don’t get to follow any Threads accounts from the relative safety of the fediverse. At which point I probably have to bite the bullet and spin up my own dedicated instance so I can chose to not defederate. All that said I’m more concerned about this on the Mastadon side of things, as like you said it probably wouldn’t even integrate well with the Reddit style fediverse.

[–] sunaurus@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Thanks for the response! I want to point out one thing:

If there are ads or otherwise bad content on threads, I’m not going to see it unless I actively go follow treads accounts.

Unfortunately, this isn't true (as of Lemmy version 0.18.1). With their massive user base, Threads could easily ensure that all content by their users will always have huge amounts of upvotes. This would mean that any post or comment made by a Threads user would always be at the top of "Hot" or "Active". This also goes for any synthetic content (ads in the form of posts/comments).

Consider also that Facebook has full control over what their users see (through their algorithm) - effectively this means that they will be able to control what the top voted posts and comments are on all instances that federate with them.

[–] Zakarot@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Thanks for the clarification. I think my though process would still hold true on the mastodon side of things but this is Lemmy and I didn’t think that through fully.

So even if I only view my subscribed communities on non-threads instances, Meta could be using their algorithm to show/suppress posts from our side and artificially boost the upvote count to put them at the top of our pages…

I’m still in the “wait and see” camp as they probably won’t integrate as much with Lemmy 🤷‍♂️

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[–] PrivacyAdvocate28@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Defederate! For many people migrating from reddit was, in part, to get away from big tech, this would ruin lemmy imo

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 1 points 5 months ago

No.

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

I don't understand why anyone wants to have Facebook of all companies here. Really? Why is this even a question.

[–] formatc@sh.itjust.works 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Same. There really couldn’t be a worse potential company to be involved with.

If the “wait and see” folks want to interact with Threads people, just make a Threads account.

All that will come of federating with them is the fediverse drowning in a deluge of their awfulness. We have a nice thing here - allow it to grow organically and it’ll hopefully remain a nice place.

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Exactly. Just go to threads if you want threads.

I was going to add "That would be like having X on Lemmy" and the only example I could think of was Facebook

[–] StoicLime@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago (3 children)

That misses the entire point of federation.

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[–] focusforte@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Because most of us have friends and family who we want to keep in contact with that aren't nerds.

The fediverse is only ever going to be a playground for nerds until it has mainstream appeal or the very least is compatible with the mainstream. I want to be able to migrate completely away from having a Facebook account, but I can't because there are people who I want to and have to stay in contact with on those platforms.

If meta added fediverse support to Facebook, that would mean that I could completely get rid of my Facebook account move to a fediverse instance somewhere, or even self host my own, and still be able to keep in contact with those people who are never going to leave the mainstream site like Facebook, X, Threads, etc.

I've been saying it for years that it needs to be a legal mandate that any social media platform above a certain size should be required to support ActivityPub as a way to prevent them from having such a monopolistic hold that prevents netizens from being forced to have an account on their platform.

Maybe it's because I'm being short sighted, but I think the Fediverse is best when the individual users on the platform are the ones who get to choose who they connect with. Not the hosts of the instances.

[–] WarmSoda@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Why are you coming in hot making multiple long ass replies in a post that's
a. Two months old.
b. About a subject that ended all relevance two months ago?

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[–] Levsgetso@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Not a lemm.ee user but I think we should all defederate from threads. The fediverse is supposed to provide a safe space from these corporations, not welcome them with open arms, especially Facebook.

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[–] Ghostc1212@sopuli.xyz 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

I don't believe that federating with Threads will be completely apocalyptic, and I actually believe that the commercialization of the Fediverse is the way it will take over the internet. You can't run the entire internet on a crowdfunded and volunteer-only basis, after all. The beauty of the Fediverse is that competition is easy and enshittification is difficult due to how easy it'll be to simply take your activity somewhere else, meaning that companies like Meta won't be able to do the type of things they're known for.

That being said, I believe that for technical reasons, as well as the fact that it'd be very easy for Meta to strangle their competition in the cradle if we (Referring to the Fediverse as a whole, as this isn't even my instance) cooperated with them, nobody should federate with Threads until the Fediverse is large, resilient, and technologically matured enough to survive a hostile takeover attempt by a corporation like Meta. Basically, defederate from them for now, and reconsider at a later date when the Fediverse has had time to establish itself. I think in the future, the Fediverse will be able to easily deal with Threads being popular and enshittifying itself, but I simply don't think we're there yet.

[–] Eve@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

You can't run the entire internet on a crowdfunded and volunteer-only basis, after all.

Actually..

Every single website or app on the internet is at least partially built on free software. The internet as we know couldn't exist without the crowdfunded and volunteer-only work of open-source folks.

Most content on the internet is produced for free by users. Websites like Reddit can't exist without the free work of their moderators.

So what is left to finance in order to free us from vampire companies? Hosting fees? That's cheap compared to the other costs..

The beauty of the Fediverse is that competition is easy and enshittification is difficult due to how easy it'll be to simply take your activity somewhere else,

Not sure about that, see how the migration from Twitter, Reddit and other shitty platforms takes time? You can't just leave if the people you like to interact with stay on the other side. That's how they got us. The main selling point of Thread today: "come, many people you know are already there!"

meaning that companies like Meta won't be able to do the type of things they're known for.

They wouldn't get into it without a plan to monetize it, that's the type of things they're known for..

Overall, I think people over-estimate the cost of running things on the internet. We already "paying" most of it just by producing meaningful content. We don't need tech companies to take their share in the process, we only need time and brain work to make the Fediverse easier to use so that our friends on the other side decide to join us here.

[–] aphlamingphoenix@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I have some questions about federation. Is this an ok thread to ask in?

Basically... The model of federation I have in mind is an opt-in, mutually agreed one. Is this not the case? In other words, I assumed that federation with Threads would require both Threads and lemme.ee to agree to federate.

If that's the case, then the question being posed should be whether we should opt in to federation with Threads, no? So I feel I must be misunderstanding something. Can someone help me understand how content from Threads could wind up in my feed through not specifically degenerating from Threads or through some kind of mod inaction?

fwiw, I am against federation for reasons I've seen posted commonly among other respondents, so I won't bother to list them out. That is as unlikely to change as Meta's reputation for user data collection.

[–] sunaurus@lemm.ee 1 points 2 years ago

Most instances use a federation blocklist, so it's opt-out. Technically federation allowlists also exist, but manually maintaining an allowlist nowadays (with thousands of instances out there) would be quite painful, unless you really only want to federate with a small handful of instances.

[–] JeffCraig@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

For real guys, we need a better way to debate, propose and vote on de-federation.

[–] nuez_jr@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago

Don't forget the 'not a democracy' part 😉

[–] ghariksforge@lemmy.world 0 points 2 years ago (4 children)

I have a lot of friends on Twitter who are now migrating to Threads. They are not going to come to the Fediverse no matter how much I annoy them. Federating with Threads will allow me to interact with them.

Also if the Fediverse works with Threads, a few of those people might come over.

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[–] Kuvwert@lemm.ee 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Threads, Facebook, Meta, ZucctheSucc can go pound sand.

If Lemm.ee doesn't defederate I'll need to move to anther instance or host my own. I'm not willing to feed them data to enrich the evil shits that run that company.

[–] focusforte@lemmy.world 1 points 2 years ago

I think someone needs to educate me because based on my understanding of the Fediverse all they have to do is access the data stream from this instance they don't have to have full federation with them. If zuck wants your data they're going to get it because that's the way the federated platforms work.

The only thing that defederating would do is prevent you from accessing data from their platform. The only thing that de-federating them will do is prevent users on this instance from accessing or having communication with any user on that instance. If meta wants to get data from lemm.ee or any other federated platform All they have to do is read the data that's published by the servers. There isn't really anything that any fediverse instance can do to prevent other platforms from reading information. Just receiving.

[–] RagingNerdoholic@lemmy.ca 0 points 2 years ago

Updoot from me. Fuck the zuck suck.

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