Fediverse
This magazine is dedicated to discussions on the federated social networking ecosystem, which includes decentralized and open-source social media platforms. Whether you are a user, developer, or simply interested in the concept of decentralized social media, this is the place for you. Here you can share your knowledge, ask questions, and engage in discussions on topics such as the benefits and challenges of decentralized social media, new and existing federated platforms, and more. From the latest developments and trends to ethical considerations and the future of federated social media, this category covers a wide range of topics related to the Fediverse.
Please keep in mind that with an open forum you could just as likely be talking to a Meta Employee / Contractor vs a regular human person. So when you start reading things so early on a platform that just separated from corporate overreach and those people you are reading are suddenly pro corporate, do a little critical thinking
Or, and I know this can be a difficult concept to grasp, some people may simply disagree that blanket defederation is absolutely necessary.
I'm certainly skeptical of Meta's intentions, and if they do start federating, I'll probably make an account on a non-federated instance as well, but this idea of "Anyone who disagrees with me must be a shill" really isn't an attitude that's particularly alluring.
No, it isn't a difficult concept to grasp. I'm reminding people that, unless you know who you are talking to personally, they literally could be anyone, especially people who are here with agendas.
Since Threads isn't federating yet, there's no particular rush to announce a stance. Especially while the developer is still playing catch up following the user growth.
Yep, and if Threads is enforcing the same TOS as Instagram, there’s no way that Meta is going to open the doors to the fediverse in general. I expect that when Meta does enable federation, it will be with a small number of vetted servers that agree to follow their TOS as well.
I understand people’s concerns with Threads, and don’t want to touch it with a ten foot pole myself, but a lot of the reaction posts are sensationalized.
I understand people’s concerns with Threads
No, I don´t think that you really understand the concern. Specially if, as you say, Threads will slowly federate this and that server, poisoning the fediverse.
If Threads begins federating, the "ten foot pole" is going to touch you, like it or not.
Independently from what Meta wants, do you want to federate with them?
Seems like you didn't really understand my point. Meta is very averse to, for example, any NSFW content, or using words that aren't G-rated to talk about other people. I do not think there will be a slow creep of Meta federating with server by server, because I do not think 99% of servers are willing to abide by those restrictions. If you want me to make up numbers, I think Meta will federate with 10 servers, at most, and that's it.
The other part of the equation, from what I understand, is authorized fetch. If servers implement that, that prevents Threads from accessing their content from a middle-man server if defederated.
So no, I don't want to federate with them. But I also think that writing off kbin because Ernest hasn't already defederated is a premature, knee-jerk reaction.
I do understand your point. You are case 1: Meta federates with remote instance with no contractual relationship.
Case 1 will never happen because Meta will never allow uncontrolled content over their platform, they will always, always demand that yous sign an agreement before you write anything on their servers. Their lawyers will never allow strangers to publish just like that.
I'm taking about case 2: where Meta federates servers who agree to sign a chart with Meta. A legal framework, which also involves content moderation control, data flow control, etc. And this will cause a big risk of Meta slowly pushing their changes into the protocol. The more servers follow the bigger the danger becomes for everyone.
It's not a knee-jerk reaction, it's a safety precaution against a corporation of which we know the methods. Do you know of a bigger predator to us?
They don't want your friendship, they don't care at all about this open source fediverse thing. We are a risk to their business, nothing else. Other fell before, other will fall after. There is nothing to gain here for us and everything to lose, so block it.
Mine won't nor will any of my other 3 Fediverse servers.
I know of a number of Mastodon servers that have already de-federated or limited threads.net, even though it does not yet connect to the Fediverse. Some are even limiting or suspending connections to servers that refuse to de-federate from threads.net and are trying to pressure other servers to do the same.
An Admin has no right to force their personal agendas onto all the people who are on their servers. People are competent enough to make their own decisions and can individually decide to block or limit Threads. I block servers on my server to protect members from hateful people.
I will limit threads.net if their moderation is inadequate, just as I do now for a number of Mastodon servers that don't do much to keep hatred and offensive content off their servers. This won't prevent anyone from following someone or being followed by someone, on threads.net. It just means that people on my server need to approve being followed and that posts from threads.net won't show up in the public timeline.
At this point, I haven't heard of any Kbin instances planning to de-federate but there's a ton of yacking about it on Mastodon. I finally muted the "threads" hashtag to get some peace from it.
I disagree that the admin of an instance doesn't have the right to moderate it how they wish. By joining the server you agree to let that admin control what content you see on your instance. That's how instances work. It's still on you to agree/disagree with the admin and how they run the server. That's why other servers exist and you have the complete right to associate with who you wish, or even run your own instance and run it how you like.
I do not agree with the people wanting to control other servers by trying to force defederating from threads. Independent admins running their own server is what the Fediverse is built upon.
This.
The nature of the Fediverse is that if you don't agree with your admin's running of things, you can pick a new admin. Or become one yourself.
The admin has every right to decide what their website interacts with.
I do not agree with the people wanting to control other servers by trying to force defederating from threads. Independent admins running their own server is what the Fediverse is built upon.
As long as authorized fetch is implemented (and correctly), intermediaries can't "leak" messages out anyways. If Threads wanted to read the contents of a boost, they would have to ask your server for that, and your server can tell them to screw off.
Does kbin or Lemmy implement authorized fetch? If they don't they should start working on it. And consider enabling it by default. I know versions of Lemmy >= 0.18 can talk to GTS (which enforces AF) so there is partial support for it. And nobody runs 0.17 because of how inefficient it is, so that won't be too big of a backwards incompatibility issue. No idea how it works on kbin land here, but it should be implemented ASAP if only so that any future enforcement won't break backwards compatibility.
Im not going to deny the threat of Extend/Embrace/Extinguish, but everyone defederating now, and threatening to defederate all other instances that dont do so as well, comes across as an incredible hasty and mostly an emotionally driven decision.
Come on, one thread is all about "if we do nothing now in two years Threads will have swallowed the Internet", and here it's like "if we do something now we're all drama queens".
Personally I think it's all very simple. Meta has an agenda, which is monetizing data through all means available.
This is not up to debate. It's a corporation, it has no morals and no other goal other than generating profit by selling users data to advertisers.
I'm saying this as a statement of facts.
The purpose of the fediverse so far is in complete contrast with that, so I think it's perfectly reasonable to assume that Meta's ultimate goal will be to alter the fediverse to suit their own goal.
Therefore, telling them to go fuck themselves while we still can seems like a very reasonable thing to do.
Everyone is free and welcome to make thir own servers, and so is Meta.
However, admins are also free to defederate from the servers they deem dangerous or inappropriate for any reason, and fuck, Meta has shown thousands of times that they're not to be trusted.
It's not the quality of the moderation which is in question but the embrace-extend-extinguish equation.