The arguments I’ve heard about tracking etc are misguided and don’t understand the actual risks.
Firstly, posts on the fediverse are already likely being consumed by advertising platforms like Facebook & Google. It would be trivial for big tech companies to setup relays that act as scrapers.
Secondly, the value in platform’s tracking individuals is for advertising. There is no mechanism for these platforms to identify you browsing the we if your instance federated with threads. Your instance won’t share cookie sessions etc with threads. It doesn’t increase your exposure.
Thirdly, these platforms have the know how to deal with spam and they will be incentivised to share that tech with other federated instances.
Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is an evil company. But I haven’t heard a decent argument as to why them joining the fediverse is a bad thing. We always have the option to defederate in the future.
Change my mind.
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Basically this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
First they will add loads of new users and become the dominant instances. Then, they will add their own proprietary features that other instances cannot support. Finally, their extensions become the new de-facto standard, marginalizing the original implementations.
Since Meta has proven itself to be an evil company that does not act in good faith, it is better to not federate with them from the start.
Yup, exactly this for me too. Been done a thousand times before by companies like them. Plus the fact that the fediverse is not run by any company is just really nice - we don’t need them.
Facebook is currently the social media defacto standard. Instances can always defederate in the future. The EEE argument doesn’t fit in this situation.
I think that since the fediverse is still big enough without threads, it isn’t too bad, but they are a bit of a threat.
The one thing I would worry about is that a massive deluge of content from Meta would drown out anything else from Lemmy, and would effectively reduce Lemmy to just a client for interacting with Meta. Unless an individual could block Meta specifically (or any one instance) it would effectively kill the All category.
Also would the flood of new traffic make it impossible for individuals to bear the cost of small instances?
That’s just what I think anyway. I’m not totally against federating with them, but very skeptical.
I just wanted to chime in here and add this lame-assed meme template to things we should retire in the fediverse.
Stephen Crowder is a bigoted chode, and using him for your meme template only undercuts whatever point you want to make.
Find a new meme for this purpose. Let’s do better.
I have no idea who Aaron Crowder is. Do you have a suggestion for a better meme template?
The Lisa Simpson presentation meme is perfectly cromulent for soapboxing.
But if you didn’t know, Stephen Crowder is a right-wing Fox News presenter and commentator (he often hides under the dubious label of “comedian”) who has been booted from YouTube several times for homophobic and racist content. The meme format is okay in itself, but I’d love to not see his smarmy mug in it.
The great thing about memes is anyone can make a new one. I eagerly await the replacement for this one, which to my nose has gotten quite stale.
Remember how Facebook bought Oculus and people thought it was gunna be great because VR was finally getting really strong financial backing but they ended up just making their own VR walled garden that requires you to sign in with a facebook account and you are only able to selectively play with PCVR players if they allow it on their app store?
How is this relevant? Meta isn’t buying the fediverse
Facebook didnt buy the entirety of VR either. But they did fracture the userbase and if you cant spend so much on VR you’re stuck buying into metas walled garden now (Reverb lacks fundamental features) This sorta ground is what Meta is going to go for. They are going to target the largest, most manipulatable audience (which is a lot on here) and swallow them
But they obviously don’t have consumers’ best interests and rights at heart or even care about them for that matter, which they’ve demonstrated time and time again
They are anything but benign and I don’t think anything good can come from their involvement
Just the fact that they will bring so many users to the fediverse through their own locked down platform is a problem in itsself, bad intent or not because it destroys the decentralisation if there are millions of users all on one instance belonging to one company
Facebook is evil. But the fediverse should be resilient to evil bad actors, no matter who they are.
Pablo Escobar did a lot of great things in his local community. Many considered him a great guy. He’s the Facebook of Columbia. Meta is a predatory shit company that would put everyone in a suicidal depression to make a dollar. At least Escobar’s products had an up side for some people. Meta has no ethics. Only a fool invites a serial killer into their home because they like your new kitchen knives and want to have a look.
Facebook is reported to be using a shadow profile of non-facebook users. Mastodon stated that whenever you interact with a Threads user it will be recorded by Facebook. All they have to do is join a conversation as a lurker, and your data is sent to Facebook. Given a few more points such as time of day and topic they can start to narrow downwho you are. Add your profile picture, and manner of speech an AI, which they have a multitude of, can generate a probability of who is communicating. Over numerous interactions the law of six degrees of separation will have you nailed down. In some countries this is potentially a problem over data retention, but they’ll have lawyers looking night and day for a way around those trifling laws. Willingness to federate might be seen as consent by default in some cases.
This highlights my point. This attack vector exists with or without threads. Facebook and friends can already scrape fediverse posts and map them to users. Defederating Meta instances won’t solve this vulnerability. Which is my point, people don’t understand the actual risks.
It’s worth saying, though, that Threads hasn’t joined the fediverse yet. They could be pulling an Apple, who committed to opening FaceTime and changed their mind. Let’s see.
