I have threads silenced on Infosec.exchange, .town, and fedia.social. That means people here won’t see stuff from threads, but you have the option to follow and interact or outright block the threads instance.
There are some, though, that are hyper opposed and not finding that to be sufficient. Hypothetically speaking, if I were to create another instance that did hard block threads (activitypub, DNS, firewall, etc), would what would be the type of instance would you like to see?
@howelloneill its a great question. The objections to threads falls into three main categories:
Meta is a data vacuum and will use any interactions in its data sets, so need to block to ensure our data isn’t hovered up unless I want it to be
Meta is moving in to kill the fediverse through the embrace, extend, extinguish methodology, and so blocking/limiting will hopefully prevent that from happening
Threads is going to be moderated horribly, exposing people on the fediverse to harassment and worse, and so silencing will at least prevent people from having to see that.
There is no response that even most people are happy with. Blocking them outright completely pisses off the people who want to interact with Threads, or at least want the option. Not blocking them completely pisses off the people concerned about their data, the future of the fediverse, and so on.
The best I could come up with was silencing it. I pisses everyone off, but mostly just a little.
@jerry@howelloneill Just so you know - this text was narrated in my head by the
Law & Order" voice guy - and then appended with "And these are their stories"
@jerry The last point is especially irksome. While I trust you, 99% of other mastodon no names I wouldn’t. So it seems laughable to get all huffy about meta, who has a team of people moderating, and some no name** from Jersey on his mastodon instance is somehow going to be better, more reachable, more fair, etc.
@pieselpriemel glitch has a number of features that regular mastodon doesn’t have, like long posts, markdown in posts, collapsing posts in the timeline, among others.
@aeinstein I’ve been running this instance since 2017, and in that time I’ve seen mastodon make major usability/feature improvements. It’s not perfect, but I will tell you that I run a bunch of other services and it’s far and away the most mature. Pixelfed and peertube are close, but have no where near the userbase.
@jerry I don't mind being able to see threads. I think people are kind of blowing this out of proportion. If anyone has used Mastodon for any given period the most they might see is a boosted post from someone they follow or someone else on the instance. Concerns about Meta being a data vacuum are moot as Mastodon posts are public and could probably just be web scrapped anyhow.
@jerry Keep on doing what you did, maybe make a notification for new members about the blocks with a tip on how to follow. I like the lack of noise personally...
@jerry as someone in the "wait and see" camp, the current plan of record seems fine to me (and I'm not even mildly disappointed, like you mentioned in another fork 😆)
@jerry Personally, I think the whole thing is insane. We have a ton of control over our accounts already. If folks are really that opposed, they can go stand up their own systems.
You bend over backwards already keeping this running. I wouldn't want to add more to your load.
@geekgrrl@doboprobodyne indeed. It’s a whole different animal, as compared to Mastodon. There is some ability to interact back and forth, but it’s limited.
@jerry I don’t think large-scale blocking them is beneficial, but I know I’m in a very tiny minority. I vote for whatever gives you the most fun and the least amount of headaches. If it involves yeeting anything into the sun, I require video proof.
@jerry I think open access to information and choice are important principles. If users want to access Threads, they should be able to do that. If users want to block the instance at an account level, then they are currently able to perform that action.
Silencing Threads or setting up a separate instance undermines these principles. While “yeeting Threads into the sun” is personally satisfying, I am not sure it is warranted unless Meta performs actions that undermine or are hostile to the Fediverse.
I’m personally not aware of Threads having much to offer for the InfoSec community. It’s possible that its presence will go completely unnoticed for users of this instance.
@jerry Honestly, any instance that federates with Meta I want no part of, including this one, and that sucks, but at some point we need to have the guts to take a stand for what is right and not tip-toe around doing it.
I'd rather be in a smaller community that shares the same ethics and ideals I do, than one that rationalizes operating with evil.
@jerry Good luck. I hope to hear what you end up doing. I've not done anything here. But that's because I'm pretty firmly in the perspective of allow stuff to be reported before taking action. But it's harder to justify that if you're a bigger instance. You can't keep on top of that.
@jigmedatse every time Threads federation is in the news, I have dozens/hundreds of people demanding to know what I’m going to do. Some threaten to leave if I block them, others threaten to leave if I don’t block them.
@jerry I find your response to this discourse to be the most sane/rational. It gives users some protection while also allowing for the dust to settle before making a formal decision regarding federation with Threads.
I imagine most, if not all of the flak you'll be getting will be from people who are quite firmly on either the "Pro-Threads" or "Anti-Threads" side. The former will say you're a gatekeeping elitist for not openly embracing Meta while the latter will say you sold your users, and by extension, the Fediverse out to Meta/Big Tech.
Wait until the latter hears about how much corporate involvement there is with the Linux kernel and how it's still alive and well despite that.
@WaddlingFungus thanks for that, and you’re right. I am already getting a fair amount of anger for not taking a firm stance one way or the other. I expect that will continue.
@jerry so, I can you my hopes and plan were to be able to be an infosec.exchange user who could interact with threads and its users. If that (meaning the chance) goes away, I’ll probably choose threads and just let this go dormant.
FWIW, I think a lot of people who are taking what they feel is a moral high ground about not federating with Meta are instead are digital equivalents of NIMBYs who are going to doom the Fediverse to obscurity, and in a few years we’ll be making “is this the year of the Fediverse!” jokes like we do with Linux desktops.
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