My wife is looking forward to deleting her Instagram account once she can connect with the same folks from her Mastodon account. Being able to remain in touch with over 100M people who still use Meta products out of the comfort of an ad-free, privacy-friendly platform like Mastodon is a game changer.
I hope that an organization as massive as Meta adopting #ActivityPub will send a signal that pushes Tumblr and other platforms that have been considering it over the edge in doing the same. Perhaps even Bluesky would consider replacing or at least supplementing their custom protocol with the @w3c standard for interoperability.
@Gargron@w3c Is there any good reason why they can’t do both? Are their personal feed algos able to operated efficiently enough via AP if they want to enough?
@johncarlosbaez@Gargron tl;dr. You interop as long as it take to create enough connections between your walled garden and the fediverse. Then you shut the interop down, breaking all these connections, causing fedi users to migrate into your walled garden.
That's what Meta (and Google) did to XMPP.
Why? Because they are here to generate profit for their shareholders, and for nothing else.
@tennoseremel@johncarlosbaez@Gargron what you said is not what I don't like, what you said was meant to say I was telling lies. This is typical trolling.
@dimpase I only said what I said. The rest you did on your own.
In case it needs to be explained, I'm not saying that Facebook is suddenly going to be a good boy, but the people lost were not “here” in the first place. They already come and go, right now.
And XMPP never died. Masses didn't care, but it certainly exists and many people use it daily.
You forget that Mastodon is first of all, user-counts wise, is the place where came to escape Twitter.
Once Meta does the user heist, Mastodon will be left without e.g. news media, services (hey, how about e.g. a national police force of Finland?) will become unavailable for Mastodon users, etc., as these out of necessity, by nature of why they are here in the first place, will be out of here by now.
Why are you advocating for a Meta-run version of Twitter?
@dimpase You are mistaken. People were here before it was popular to leave Twitter.
As for news media and services, they are just a noise on a social media platform. For news there is RSS, for “national police force,” I'm not even sure I need their presence TBH.
@tennoseremel - "You forget that Mastodon is first of all, user-counts wise, is the place where came to escape Twitter" means that most people on Mastodon came to escape Twitter, not that the first people here came to escape Twitter. I don't know if it's true, but that's what @dimpase is claiming. "People were here before it was popular to leave Twitter" is certainly true, but it does not contradict that claim.
@aeinstein@johncarlosbaez@Gargron I recall very well how I lost all my XMPP contacts to Google Talk and FB. XMPP might be there, still, just one of many protocols used by a very small audience. : 😢
@Gargron@w3c I'm concerned about the opt-in reports regarding #threads & #activitypub. That will severely decrease the interoperability of this move. @Mastodon federates by default. Why can't #Threads do the same?
@fishcharlie that isn't about reports, that's about users being opt-in to federate or not, which seems fair for a large instance where people may not understand what federating means and will need to be taught about it.
Also, ActivityPub doesn't mandate that all users must federate, nor all content must federate.
@thisismissem You're right. I didn't communicate very well in my original post. Just edited to make it more clear. (I hadn't actually viewed @mosseri's post myself before I took that screenshot to reply, which is why I said "reports”).
@fishcharlie@mosseri ah, okay! Because, yeah, "reports" made it sound like you thought they could opt out of moderation applying to them, which would be pretty inconceivable.
Also, this opens the door to Meta being able to defederate specific accounts which cause trouble on the fediverse, which arguably seems like it could be a wise move on their part.
I do believe that we will probably see more government institutions, private organizations, political leaders & famous celebrities who are running #WordPress enter the Fediverse (via the plugin).
I know #Flipboard will enter the Fediverse soon, but I am not sure when (or if‽) #PostNews & #Flickr will join.
@Gargron@w3c There are a handful of people I really enjoyed reading/interacting with from twitler who are now exclusive with Threads. After Federation, will I be able to simply follow them from my Mastodon account? If so, this seems pretty cool indeed.
@fixatedpersonsunit@Gargron That's literally the same information every #Mastodon instance collects when you interact with its users. If another site can't collect/store account-identifying info, it can't manage interactions like follows and blocks!
You're overreacting to the fact that #Threads has a more accurate Terms of Service than any other federated site.
@jens@fixatedpersonsunit@Gargron They're collecting the IP address of "the third-party service on which you are registered." If I interact with #Threads through #Mastodon, they're not collecting my IP address, they're collecting the Mastodon server's IP address.
@jens@bauser@fixatedpersonsunit@Gargron they have to, don’t they? That’s how Mastodon servers work. Not sure how you could interact with profiles without any information. Maybe I’m misunderstanding your concern.
But again, there's a difference between getting and collecting data. You get a remote user's identifier with e.g. a reply they make to a threads account. There is no need to retrieve more. There certainly is no need to store this outside of the received reply.
@jens@john@fixatedpersonsunit@Gargron There absolutely is, otherwise #Threads and #Mastodon users can't follow or block others accounts. Storing that info is a technical requirement of distributed (federated) socal network.
And you definitely want Threads (and other instances) caching profile info, otherwise a toot going viral could slashdot a typical Mastodon server with profile image requests.
@bauser@john@fixatedpersonsunit@Gargron You're getting hung up on technical reasons for storing data. These reasons are not mentioned here; you're adding them, based on your understanding if federation.
But GDPR requires that it's made clear for which specific purpose data is collected. Additionally, businesses must minimize the amount of data collected. Neither seems to be the case here.
Meta has lawyers that understand this, which means they purposely left...
@bauser@john@fixatedpersonsunit@Gargron ... this information out; a deceptive pattern for acquiring consent that goes against the legal requirement for being "informed". Such patterns will soon also be made illegal.
All of which means that the data collection they're describing here is not for the purposes of federation. They're just letting you believe that, and you ran right into it.
@bauser@john@fixatedpersonsunit@Gargron They also mix PII (which fall under the GDPR) with service data (which does not) as well as user created content (which does not, but may fall under copyright).
It's a very deceptive paragraph. Don't feel bad for falling into this trap. It's set by an untrustworthy corporation, after all.
@jens@john@fixatedpersonsunit@Gargron Or maybe they're not listing the "other reasons" because there are no other reasons? Your Occam's Razor is rusty.
Please, do tell us: What nefarious deeds do you think #Threads is going to do with old toots?
If you're going to accuse someone of committing crimes against you, you're eventually going to have to describe the crime.
@fixatedpersonsunit@Gargron That's neither here nor there, in regards to your complaint about those Terms of Service. There's nothing ominous in those TOS.
I think if you had real confidence in your moral arguments against federating with #Threads, you would lead with those arguments instead of misrepresenting a legal document.
@Gargron The likelihood of such an arrangement lasting more than ~24 months is close to zero. They don't care about harvesting data from Mastodon. They care about capturing the marketplace by eliminating Mastodon as a competitor by "offering" the ability to reach/ingest content from users here from a threads account because their focus is on being the preferred hub over Bluesky and Mastodon.
Once they have captured a critical mass of the ex-Xitter audience, they will lop off ActivityPub and do what Xitter did (and Instagram before it, and pretty much any critical mass audience capture entity) -- you want to see things on threads, then you have to join threads.
@Gargron I understand where your wife is coming from, but given the history of embrace, extend, and extinguish in the past 30 years this unfortunately strikes me as naive. I've got a bad feeling about this, but time will tell.
@gersande@Gargron This might be incredible naivete and ignorance on my part, but it's difficult for me to imagine a worst case scenario that would really harm Mastodon? I suppose it would be possible for Threads to eventually abandon AP and try to promote a new protocol, but even if that were to happen, I feel like the majority of Mastodon would just continue on like it always has? Is there another downside I'm not seeing here? I mean that sincerely, sorry if it sounds otherwise
@andynoelker@gersande@Gargron Here's the worst case scenario I foresee: the existing Mastodon instance admins burn out and quit - badly damaging the Federation - because it's just too hard to maintain the smooth federating, on top of all the other duties of runing an instance.
There's no magic forcefield that ensures a smooth course for the instance admins, should Meta introduce stress on the instance admins - intentionally or unintentionally caused on Meta's side.
It's foolhardy to take the instance admins' labour for granted; effectively abusing it when it could have been smoother sailing without a huge giant "rolling over in bed", as it were.
@sbb@andynoelker@gersande@Gargron I'm an admin of an instance, and I'm not too worried about it. If it becomes an unmanageable burden I can Limit or Block the domain.
by utilising disproportionate capital to fund full time development, they entrench themselves as a key part of the project's development and operation. over time, critical knowledge and development infrastructure becomes siloed. the culture shifts, more features and bugs get blocked by upstream interop issues, volunteers get burned out. eventually they pull out and the project crashes with it.
@Jackthelad@gersande@Gargron throughout the whole affair the people actually doing the work operate in complete good faith - they aren't informed of the long term plan and are assured that it's all part of their plan to cultivate healthy growth. they get blindsided at the rug pull.
what makes it so effective as a strategy is that it's indistinguishable from good faith support right until it's too late, inflicting a triple whammy of loss - resources, knowledge, and personal relationships.
@Jackthelad@gersande@Gargron it's deeply pernicious because it works even in the face of caution. "we'll give it a go, but dump them at the first sign of malintent" is, after all, an extremely reasonable position to take on the face of it, and there's no discernible malintent because the people doing the work really are operating in good faith. by the time the rug pull hits, it's too late and you're already left without reasonable recourse.
@Jackthelad@gersande@Gargron even if you disagree with the assessment that Meta/FB are very likely engaging in EEE, and also with the argument that they have a fiduciary responsibility to disproportionately prioritise shareholder value at our expense, surely it still pays to run a threat model and come up with strong compensating controls & response plans should the worst happen? cos right now the strategy is hope, and, to quote Mike Williams in Deepwater Horizon: "hope ain't a tactic".
@nileane@Gargron a lot of Mastodon servers are doing the same thing right back to Threads. If people on threads want to be able to communicate with Mastodon they will opt in. I would imagine most news sites & reporters will keep their audience as big as possible
@theLUCASTDS@Gargron In reality most big accounts on Threads just won't care enough to opt in, imo. If they're even aware that the option exists, that is.
I very much doubt that, legally speaking, #OptOut would be permissible in the #EuropeanUnion.
There have been several decisions by #CJEU. #DoubleOptIn is the standard for e-mail newsletters. Given the fact that #Threats is nothing but a giant, data-grabbing #SpamEngine, I would highly doubt that #CJEU would see it much differently.
Also, even though the #Fediverse is free of charge, people register on a server due to the instance rules...
...at that moment. Huge communities (e. g. #LGBTQIA+) came here not to be harassed by MAGATs et al.
Changing the fine print might not work either, as this constitutes a major change and could be considered an invalid surprise clause in many countries.
Erring on the wrong side of #GDPDR (#DSGVO) might prove costly when decided upon by the #CJEU some years in the future.
I'd say opting for #OptOut as an instance might be a considerable business risk.
//
@Gargron@nileane@theLUCASTDS in general, I completely agree but in cases like #gab it has been a rough time afaik and #meta#threads is 20x the number of users at least. Its a tech challenge as well as a moral challenge and discussion is what keeps the #fediverse strong.
If we federate before laying ground rules and defederate like gab, we will have insane content vacuum. This will drive a lot of users to switch to threads. A lot more than if we lay out rules.
@haui This needs however to apply to every instance. If we dont federate by default, we should also not federate mastodon<->mastodon, for example. And this will essentailly kill every small, growing hub.
@haui but why not? I mean I get the legal reasons for a fediblock. But personal dislikes on another person/organization, for on an open instance shouldn't be a thing. This just feels like elon all over again.
Maybe it's good news that Threads federation will be opt-in for their users. It will stem a flood of millions of accounts. Users burnt by Twitter may want to establish a wider audience and one that fits with the Mastodon demographic. Plus personal accounts requested by Fediverse users.
That gives a sane way of accessing good Threads users without algorithms, ads or signing away our data rights. Bit like the Nitter/Twitter. I'll take a raincheck on the dangers of interaction
@stuart The ones who will enable it will be mostly, and I can assure you that, sex and crypto bots. Simply because, why should the generic threads user enable it? To access 5 more users? There are 100,000,000 on the own platform. There is no reason to search for a settings and enable a cryptic nerdytech option.
Opt-in to federation wont help the fediverse at all.
That's the difference between us. You are thinking Fediverse/Threads. I'm thinking individual users. If I know a good friend who has a Threads but not a Fediverse then if I ask nicely they will enable federation. They will likely add only one user - but that should benefit the friendship/club circle.
We have had to learn how to deal with crypto bots here. That doesn't mean most of us block mastodon.social. Though your point may suggest we won't be too attractive to Threads bots.
I'm not sure about a lot of the different things I have been hearing lately when it comes to #Threads opening up to #TheFediverse . But I do understand a lot of the trepidation and concerns.
One of the things I love best here is that there are no ads, no algorithm pushing trolls & ads into my feed, no one tracking my data, etc. And now it sounds like those are going away?? (At least partially.)
I would appreciate your authoritative and informed opinion on this RT of a toot from @mastodonmigration .
We are not, it seems, allowed the option of "reject all" when the Threads cookie popup appears. Who deems which cookies are "essential cookies"? Essential to whom and for whose benefit?
@AnneTheWriter1 there is lots of doom and gloom from people who can only really speculate at this time.
But what I speculate is that if #Threads starts pushing ads onto the #fediverse, they'll probably be instantly defederated, or some alternative way would be found to filter that crap out.
On big social networks, reporting content does nothing. On here you know your report was read and acted upon
@Gargron It is puzzling that you refuse to see reality: the only goal of meta is to destroy mastodon. Their business is ads and they don’t care about privacy. Meta is a monster, it will eat you alive. You will loose everything you have created. Reconsider. Or is it to late? They are already in your room, head and heart?
@Gargron un-fucking-believable. This is exactly the same delusional wishful thinking with which people enthusiastically welcomed Google Chat and Facebook Messenger to the XMPP federation. Do you need a refresher on how that ended?
@Gargron Sounds great, but @mosseri has recently said Threads is working towards its users having to opt in to Fediverse visibility. To me this is a total non-starter. 99% of users are not going to do that, especially if it’s a switch hidden somewhere in the settings menu.
@Gargron it does and the arguments against it sound NIMBYish. isn’t the point of all this to have other things from outside connect? and if it doesn’t work out, isn’t there a way to disconnect? i’m all for social media going next level. maybe it’s naive, i don’t know all the tech behind this but i dream of not having a bunch of social media sites and still being able to reach all the content i do through google / reddit. this used to be IRC, why can’t it be something else next?
@fraying Similar mix of cringe, pity, and disbelief as seeing someone express absolute conviction that they've met the love of their life in their spam folder.
@Gargron many people would like to get more in depth information about this, e.g. what happens to privacies of a post's content or posted media, which are shown on a Threads feed, bc a person from "there" follows a person from "here" or it got reposted? E.g.: Since the launch of "Imagine", Meta announced, that they use every image for their AI, unless you switched your account in time to "private". Why would they stop with just collecting image data?
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