A community index of servers added a new rule recently, that requires every participant to defederate from Threads. Some admins are unhappy.

Server indexes of places for newcomers to join can be instrumental for Fediverse adoption. However, sudden rule changes can leave some admins feeling pressure to change policies in order to remain listed.

    • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
      102·
      2 months ago

      predicted? they’re facebook, they are not predicted to be bad, they ARE bad.

      lets learn from history and not be deer in the headlights

    • Instigate@aussie.zone
      74·
      2 months ago

      It’s often advantageous to prevent catastrophe before it occurs rather than clean up the mess once it happens.

        • poVoq@slrpnk.net
          44·
          2 months ago

          Where have you been living the last 20 years? Facebook is a repeated offender.

        • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
          29·
          2 months ago

          In this analogy, they haven’t kicked your nuts.

          Sure they have, over and over and over, just not in this neighborhood yet. Folks were either too young to witness or just weren’t paying attention to the decades of anti-consumer bullshit from this company.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_controversies

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_involving_Meta_Platforms

          Here’s a couple recent individual ones:

          https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders/

          https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/netflix-ad-spend-led-to-facebook-dm-access-end-of-facebook-streaming-biz-lawsuit/

          They have been very nearly the worst example of an awful tech company for their entire existence. They will exploit the fediverse to the maximum extent they can, and we should not be voluntarily accompanying them.

          • Kindness@lemmy.ml
            2·
            2 months ago

            the worst example of an awful tech company for their entire existence

            Not to stir the pot, but at one point Zuck was an idealist. Circa 2008? When interviewed by a news corporation about privacy concerns he said, and I quote, “It’s your data. You own your data.” At the time, he hadn’t monetized with anything more than ads, and I think he truly believed it.

            A short few years later he saw the opportunity to become a multi-billionaire and probably decided ethics and idealism is for poor people. Much the same as Reddit, Google, Apple, etc. Do you remember? Those of us who lived through it remember.

            One day, the largest Lemmy instances may be no different. Time will tell.

            • ccx@sopuli.xyz
              3·
              2 months ago

              Slight difference is that Zuck has had control from the start, whereas other companies might have had “don’t be evil” leadership that was… optimized away for financial reasons.

              Not that it really matters nowadays. Just an observation.

            • octopus_ink@lemmy.mlEnglish
              1·
              2 months ago

              I don’t really see the point of this comment.

              • Is it that we should not hold Threads at arms length because [citation needed] Zuck was once a tech idealist and had lots in common with current fediverse denizens? (setting aside my doubt for the moment)

               

              If so, I don’t really care how nice and kind Zuck was when he was a freshman in college. I care about what he has done since then, and leading up to now.

               

              • Is it that one day I may not like something large Lemmy instances do, so should not be so anti-Threads?

               

              I don’t even get that idea, so I am guessing that can’t be it.

               

              Much the same as Reddit, Google, Apple, etc. Do you remember? Those of us who lived through it remember.

              I lived through using 8" floppies, so yes, I remember.

              Which of those are open source projects that anyone can fork and/or run their own instance of at any time, providing a place for people to seamlessly transition from Reddit, Google, or Apple if they don’t like what those companies do with their platform? The comparison you are trying to make falls apart immediately.

              • Kindness@lemmy.ml
                1·
                2 months ago

                Take it at face value. The comment is a historical correction and gentle reminder that we only have one chance to prevent data from walking out the door, regardless of how friendly the platform is. Once your data is out, it’s out. Guard it well.

                Is FaceBook detrimental now? Yes it is, unquestionably.

                Was it always? No, it wasn’t.

                Should we de-federate? Absolutely. Yesterday and retroactively, if possible.

                Which of those are open source projects that anyone can fork and/or run their own instance of at any time, providing a place for people to seamlessly transition from Reddit, Google, or Apple if they don’t like what those companies do with their platform?

                Reddit. Once upon a time.

                I lived through using 8" floppies, so yes, I remember.

                Ah, 8" floppies. Good memories. And bad. “Please read that… Why aren’t you reading it? If you’re not going to read it, spit it out… Let go. Now try again. Why is it blank? It wasn’t blank after I wrote to it. Why did you wipe it? Damn.” It was the best of times.

                I was so excited when 3 1/2" introduced attached switchable write protection. The peak of convenience.

    • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
      37·
      2 months ago

      Facebook has and it’s doing plenty bad. At this point, assuming this time they will be good is too much of wishful thinking.

      Still I would let the instances decide. Seems a bit counter spirit to try to force them. Even as a user your can block them (there are two that a lot of users are blocking already…)

      • delirious_owl@discuss.online
        6·
        2 months ago

        Its probably good to federate so that Threads users can leanr about alternatives and migrate to a better instance on the fediverse

        • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
          6·
          2 months ago

          Just to be clear, threads can federate with an instance that is not defeated with them, and in this case threads users can see all the Lemmy content, but not the other way around.

          So this means that we can just keep posting anti Facebook content all the time and they will serve it to their users or will have to be blocking it.

          The more I think about it, the worse it seems for threats to federate.

          • Gestrid@lemmy.caEnglish
            5·
            2 months ago

            What’s the number of Threads users compared to Lemmy? If the number of Threads users greatly outweigh the number of Lemmy users, then we’d simply be drowned out by all the Threads posts. That’s part one of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

            Extend adds functionality to Threads that Lemmy either can’t support or won’t support for a while due to development time. People migrate to Threads because Lemmy is “missing” functionality. Plus, though I’m not clear on the exact legal specifications, proprietary code can be added to open-source code, and the proprietary code would be copyrighted. In other words, Lemmy devs would have to figure out a way to interact with and mimic Threads’ proprietary code using open-source code.

            Extinguish is when Threads’ support of Lemmy is eventually dropped. The users left on Lemmy have suddenly lost a huge amount of content, and they’re left with fewer users than before Threads enabled federation.

          • delirious_owl@discuss.online
            3·
            2 months ago

            Right, so that means when someone on Threads is complaining about Threads, Lemmy users can’t chime-in and say “uhh, just register on here and thats not an issue, guy”

            • Railcar8095@lemm.ee
              1·
              2 months ago

              Well, meta plans to federate with at least some instances… Right? Else their users won’t be able to speak either.

        • FiskFisk33@startrek.website
          53·
          2 months ago

          “the mass murderer have killed multiple people in Spain and Italy, but we can’t just assume he will do the same thing in France”

                • poVoq@slrpnk.net
                  9·
                  2 months ago

                  Facebook allowed connecting with XMPP clients for a while and then cut off that access. While they were not the main offender compared to Google, they still did nothing but leech off the XMPP ecosystem until they decided it wasn’t in their interest any longer.

                  • FaceDeer@fedia.io
                    3·
                    2 months ago

                    I’m failing to see what’s wrong about this. They used XMPP and then stopped? That seems to be exactly what people angry about Threads federation want Meta to do with ActivityPub.

        • Ogmios@sh.itjust.works
          26·
          2 months ago

          Well sure MS-13 may be a brutal trafficking gang known for extreme violence, but they haven’t done anything to ME yet.

          • Otter@lemmy.caEnglish
            7·
            2 months ago

            I think this comment chain is going in a circle while everyone actually agrees with the underlying point.

            I cannot see anything bad here. Blocking an actively malicious actor should be the norm.

            It might be true that they aren’t ACTIVELY being malicious currently. It’s also true that they have a horrible history, and they will likely be actively malicious in the future.

            (I say ‘might’ because I seem to recall them being malicious towards the fediverse with secret meetings with admins, but I didn’t follow up on that)

    • triplenadir@lemmygrad.ml
      17·
      2 months ago

      if only Facebook had started in 2004 and not 2024 we might have some historical evidence about how the company handles moderation or community safety or protecting user data or…

      if only threads wasn’t launching literally today and we knew if they’d enthusiastically welcome hate accounts like Libs of Tiktok https://www.mediamatters.org/libs-tiktok/timeline-impact-libs-tiktok-told-through-educators-health-care-providers-librarians

      • 𝘋𝘪𝘳𝘬@lemmy.ml
        12·
        2 months ago

        The thing is, Meta does not care about community safety, or moderation, or protecting user data. (Fun fact: they don’t have a data protection agreement, but a data usage agreement.) All they care about is how they can get the most money out of something. Killing off things left and right of their path.

        The question is not IF Meta kills the Fediverse but only WHEN they do it.

    • krashmo@lemmy.world
      5·
      2 months ago

      It’s Facebook dude. To put it in Lemmy friendly terms, they’re not different entities in the way that Linux and Windows are. They’re different entities in the same way that Windows and Xbox are. It’s not technically the same thing but it’s the same people calling the shots. Expecting something different is only going to leave you disappointed.

    • Phegan@lemmy.world
      1·
      2 months ago

      They have done a lot of bad, not with threads, but with any other app. A wait and see approach to Facebook at this point is insanity.