this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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Should sh.itjust.works preemptively defederate from Threads?

Threads is the not-so-new ~~reddit-like~~ twitter-like public forum platform by Meta, the same commercial company behind internet behemoths like Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. They're working on ActivityPub integration so that they can bridge (federate?) with the fediverse. As far as I know, the focus is on Mastodon instances, but in the future that could include Lemmy instances too.

Some have raised the question, worried about the future of the fediverse or even claiming that it goes against its definition.

What do you think should be done?

EDIT: correction

EDIT.2: The Vote is on! Go make your voice heard. You have until Friday the 29th.

Fediverse instances' status on federation with Threads

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[–] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 42 points 11 months ago (4 children)

my take on it is that i am completely against any kind of bridging between the platforms. i do think the fediverse in general is in danger, by being a victim of the "Embrace, Extend, Extinguish" strategy

as many on lemmy, i use this platform because of its decentralized, open-source, not-for-profit nature, and think the whole fediverse community would be in jeopardy if we don't act

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 21 points 11 months ago

Exactly. I'm almost always against defederation, but the risk of EEE is why I'm in favor of preemptively defederating.

[–] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

would like to had this more informed and well articulated take on why federation with Threads would be bad

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[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 7 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Defederation is meaningless, what matters is the dev side. Federating doesn't give them anything they couldn't get other ways for slightly more effort. The problems come if you allow contributions the greater community doesn't want to the code itself.

[–] your@sh.itjust.works 5 points 11 months ago (2 children)

My bigger concern is content being overwhelmed by a flood of accounts that have a different online culture from what has grown and is still developing here.

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[–] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 3 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago)

it seems they are already testing the integration

[–] DeepChill@sh.itjust.works 39 points 11 months ago

I’m in favour of anything that prevents Meta’s enshittification of everything.

[–] Dirk_Darkly@sh.itjust.works 37 points 11 months ago

Facebook should be quarantined as much as possible.

[–] TrojanHam@sh.itjust.works 32 points 11 months ago

I'm for the preemptive de-federation.

[–] blackstampede@sh.itjust.works 27 points 11 months ago

Yep. Defederate.

[–] spacecowboy@sh.itjust.works 20 points 11 months ago

If and when Meta becomes “federated”, I 100% will be on team DEFEDERATE.

[–] captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 20 points 10 months ago

I have no interest in welcoming Facebook/Meta/Zuckerburg's Big Goddamn Fucky Wucky Company to the Fediverse. I would vote to defederate from Threads and any instance federated with them.

[–] spiderkle@lemmy.ca 14 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

Everyone must only answer this question for themselves: Do you want to have extra content at the cost of potentially more ads & tracking? Because that's their current monetization model.

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

How would another instance inject ads and tracking into this instance? If that's possible, then that's a serious security issue far bigger than Facebook, and is the real thing we should be discussing

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 8 points 10 months ago (2 children)
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[–] kersploosh@sh.itjust.works 13 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (2 children)

I'm taking off my admin hat and commenting as a user...

One minor correction to OP's post: Threads is a X/Twitter clone, not a Reddit clone.

I'm in the wait-and-see camp. If Threads someday links to Lemmy, and if it becomes problematic for the function or culture of the platform, then I will be in favor of cutting them off.
As @ryathal@sh.itjust.works mentioned, the real risk is that Meta starts steering Lemmy development in its favor. I don't foresee that happening given that dessalines and nutomic oversee code contributions, and they certainly won't allow it.

As an aside, I'm not convinced Threads will last long to begin with. It isn't looking like the X killer that Meta seemed to be hoping for. Meta has been trying to artificially drive engagement by creating shadow accounts for Facebook/Instagram users, and sticking Threads posts in people's Facebook feeds. Integrating with Mastodon feels like a further attempt to entice Meta users to adopt a microblogging app that nobody asked for. At this rate it may fizzle and die before they ever get around to interacting with Lemmy.

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago

This is my exact take as well. Defed if there is an issue, but wait and see first. I hate the kneejwrk reaction to circle the wagons here. I have been hating on Facebook for as long as anyone l, but this place badly needs content and users so I am willing to see where this goes.

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[–] nitefox@sh.itjust.works 11 points 10 months ago

Defederate pls

[–] Rosco@sh.itjust.works 9 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Wait and see. As much as I hate Meta, i don't think we have much to gain by being a walled garden. Maybe we have also much to lose if we federate, who knows. I would not complain much if we defederate. If we do federate, there should be a zero-tolerance policy. If Meta tries some bullshit, or if there's the slightest doubt, we should defederate immediately.

[–] sbv@sh.itjust.works 3 points 10 months ago (9 children)

This. Lemmy feels too small. If we get decent content from Threads, it'll be a boost to our communities.

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[–] your@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)
[–] ruplicant@sh.itjust.works 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

oh shhh...people, today is friday, the day to open up votes here in The Agora. but this discussion has only been up for less than 2 days

is it too soon to start a vote? should we wait for the next week? i don't want to press anyone but feel some urgency about this issues since, in case we defederate, it should be done at rhe start od this process, it seems to me

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[–] KazuyaDarklight@lemmy.world 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Federate, let them get a taste of sweet Lemmy content, then cut them off. Will make the Threads experience feel broken for native Threads users.

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[–] ryathal@sh.itjust.works 6 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I can't bring myself to care whether or not someone using a Facebook app can get a shit post in their feed.

[–] PrincessLeiasCat@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Serious question - I’m not up to speed on what kind of effort goes into defederating/refederating. If it’s easy, then is “wait and see” an option?

Alternatively, is preemptively defederating now and refederating later if we want also an option?

If both options are on the table, I say wait and see just because it’s unexplored territory though I agree that it probably won’t be great. If it’s a big pain in the ass to change our stance, also wait and see; that way we only have to do the PITA thing once.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago (1 children)

If it's easy

It is, there's basically a setting on the server to block certain instances. So the admin would just update that setting to enable/disable federation. However, defederation doesn't delete any data on either side, it just stops the flow of new data.

So if you care about Meta having a copy of all content for some period, the better option is to defederate now and refederate later if they somehow play nice. There is a risk that Threads could defederate from any instances that blocked it, but I'm guessing they're not going to bother, I think they're just looking for data to scrape.

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

It's actually relatively trivial to scrape the public data of any instance. If Meta really cared (which I highly doubt), there's nothing stopping them spinning up a temporary instance with a bot that auto-subscribes to all communities it knows about.

Defederating from threads doesn't change the fact that all information on any instance is pseudonymous, but very public.

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[–] corrupts_absolutely@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

my only concern is if they dont plan first class integration with lemmy instances, then it sort of means its just a bandwith hog that brings little value

if instead they treat other instances 'as equal' then i dont see an issue

[–] Socsa@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

Don't defederate immediately, but do it automatically three months after threads goes live if users don't explicitly vote to keep it around. I wouldn't mind seeing how it goes at first.

[–] goat@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago

Stay federated and if it's annoying, then defederate.

[–] AbackDeckWARLORD@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago (10 children)

I don't get the point of pre-emptively de-federating. This would allow lemmy to have a wider reach amongst a general audience rather than be a niche community. We should only defederate after seeing if it's a problem or not to be federated with them.

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[–] N0body@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I think there should be some instances that at least try federating with Threads just to see how it goes, but I don't want it to be this instance. The existence of voting in the Agora alone is a reason not to want a massive influx of new users from Instagram. This instance is uniquely vulnerable to the threat Threads may pose.

[–] Barbarian@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (2 children)

This instance is uniquely vulnerable to the threat Threads may pose.

Would you mind expanding on that? Why do you think that? If that refers to voting in the Agora, then I'd like to mention that users from other instances can't vote in the Agora. That is only for users of sh.itjust.works.

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[–] Gaspartame@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (1 children)

I was just checking this point before registering here, and this instance pleases me :)

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@sh.itjust.works 5 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Welcome aboard then.
As you can imagine, we're not counting votes from accounts made after the vote thread was created because that opens up a bunch of shenanigans. You're welcome to discuss here though. Thanks,

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[–] PlzGivHugs@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago

As much as I hate Meta/Facebook, we need activity and content to keep Lemmy alive, and Meta can potentially help provide that. If after federation, it turns out to be overwhelmingly toxic or the users provide no value at all, then defederate. If nothing else, doing it later will encourage Meta users to try other insrances.

[–] frogfruit@sh.itjust.works 4 points 10 months ago
[–] MonkCanatella@sh.itjust.works 2 points 10 months ago

It kinda defeats the entire point of the fediverse. It couldn't be more obvious what they want to do, and that's control it, or destroy it.

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