With the Zuckerberg takeover impending, there's a lot of confusion circulating about the use of user-level and instance-level blocks, and how our online expressions can be secured against Meta. Everyone who objects to their accounts being mined by the Zuckerberg entity for data collection, AI ingestion, monetization, and possible ghost-profile building needs to understand this problem. Here's information to clarify.
Neither a user-level block, or an instance-level block, will protect our posts from Meta data-mining by default on a Mastodon instance. Posts won't be delivered directly, but can be ingested by other means; if, for example, users on Meta-federated instances boost them.
However, both user and instance blocks will totally prevent post delivery in all cases IF your host instance has enabled the functionality called Authorized Fetch.
By default, Authorized Fetch is off on Mastodon instances and most haven't turned it on. If this concern is important to you, you might want to respectfully reach out to your admins and let them know. Remember that they are working hard to provide and sustain online community at no charge. It's likely they won't be very familiar with it and will need time to look into it.
reading the #activitypub "standard" has changed my mind on whether for example #threads implementing it would be a good thing. i think it might break the #fediverse.
the standard is so open and undefined that it relies on de-facto implementation details springing from the larger implementations. a big actor with endless resources could easily dominate it.
Threads: I'm in a wrong party and don't know what to say. I feel awkward, everyone is so happy with their gym selfies. Everyone asking endless questions and asking things from the algorithm. Lots of people use it like Instagram, every post is a selfie with a meaningless caption. Some are copy-pasting the same sentence over and over again for each line. Endless quote-post memes... What the fuck is this shit I don't even...
Bluesky: A Twitter clone, but still very barebones. Notifications are still not working, there are no hashtags and I don't find any relevant content to me in any of the feeds. It's mostly Facebook-like what's up in life, furry scene and AI photos. No news, no tech/web scene, no nothing. Not to mention it's still invite-only and won't support ActivityPub (yeah I know the reasoning behind that but for me it's mostly bullshit, I look forward to trying bridgy fed).
Mastodon and the Fediverse: Here I'm at home on my own server. Most content, most features. A community is friendly but has also lots of nitpicking, some angry dudes. Still the most safest, most healthy and most customized, but somehow the most hated network elsewhere. "Too techie", they say. "Too difficult", they say. "No algorithm", they say.
Nostr: Kinda promising, but way too obscure, strange and even techier than Mastodon. Too much crypto shit.
Well, that's that. Sometimes I feel like Internet is ruined. But I believe in the open social web movement and I want to see this grow.
In no other place I can write a status update as freely as this, as long as this or with a low bar as this. I LIKE this 100%. The same can't be said in those other places I'm experimenting with out of curiosity. There I'm the weird kid. Here I feel like myself.
Okay #Fediverse, let’s get something straight. We are all grown ups here (hopefully) and can make choices for ourselves. We alive in a society that allows us the freedom to choose for ourselves what to do.
Why would you allow or want to be part of an instance where they choose for you who or what to block? I understand that there are BAD people on #Meta, just as there are on EVERY platform on the internet.
Give the regular people on each platform a chance to been seen.
One of the "defederate with Threads" arguments being advanced is that "Threads is about harvesting user's data"
Which, ok, sure - Threads is about harvesting Threads users data, that part I get.
What part of this setup, though, allows Threads to harvest other people's data (ie, the fediverse in general), in a way that can be genuinely blocked by defederating with them?
Tech journalists doom #Mastodon and the #Fediverse every chance they can even when it shows it is growing, both in new accounts and daily users yet bust their backsides to defend and prop up both #Zuck and #Musk.
Five reasons #Threads could still go the distance - The Verge
Isn't it crazy how AOC seems concerned about the possibility of one billionaire-backed #Twitter clone (#Threads) potentially outshining another billionaire-backed Twitter clone (#Bluesky)?
I really wish she understood the reasons behind Threads having an advantage over Bluesky: rather than embracing #ActivityPub, Bluesky decided to develop their own protocol entirely.
It all comes down to a certain billionaire, Jack Dorsey, who wasn't keen on collaborating with the established #Fediverse. That's why Bluesky is most likely headed for failure.
It's great to see that #Threads is getting serious about offering #ActivityPub integration so that communication can happen with #Mastodon and the broader #Fediverse.
We NEED open, interoperable protocols that for this kind of communication and interaction. It's a key way to unlock the walled gardens that control so much of messaging.
And it's great to see a company the size of Meta getting behind ActivityPub. Kudos to the teams involved.
“I deactivated my threads account already but it turns out you can’t delete your threads account without also deleting your Instagram account so maybe just don’t sign up!”
Correct me, if I'm wrong, but doesn't that change the whole debate here? Only a small part of #Threads user base will do that. The majority doesn't know about the #Fediverse, and won't care.
But that also means that there won't be a flood of content/accounts/stuff from Threads here in the Fediverse. For the most part, both will stay separated.
At this rate, they eclipse Twitter in mere weeks, and then the network effect turns negative against Twitter. So I expect everybody on Twitter to move to Threads in the next couple of months.
I’m sure it will also suck out some #mastodon users — after all, there is a promise of #activitypub.
So the #fediverse terrain has just shifted very considerably. How do we adjust and turn this to our advantage?
So, I tried installing #Threads to check it out, but I ended up uninstalling it pretty quickly. Here's the deal: it's just another Twitter clone that's all about algorithms.
I get it, that's what most people are into. I understand that influencers, media, and celebrities attract a lot of attention. But that's just not my thing.
I might sound a bit "weird," but I actually prefer my reverse chronological feed where I have complete control over what and who I see. If I want to discover more stuff, I'll just use #Calckey's search feature, which may not be the best but works well enough for me.
Oh, and I deleted my Meta accounts for a good reason. Whenever I'm there, I feel this weird sense of discomfort, like I need a good shower afterwards.
I know I'm not your typical user. I've been part of the Fediverse since 2018 and have genuinely enjoyed it, even when it was just a small community of a few thousand people. We have a nice little community going on over here, and I don't need all the fancy stuff that Threads is offering right now.
I'm not trying to bash Threads or judge anyone who uses it. It's just not the right fit for me, plain and simple.
Da er jeg på threads! Som jeg tror er det beste forhåpentlige desentraliserte hjemplassen for folk flest, selv mozilla.social er hva jeg tror jeg kommer til å like best selv å bruke privat.
IMHO: If (and that’s a very big if) Facebook decides to start federating with #ActivityPub for #threads, they will claim that in order to “protect” their 100M users, they will only federate with a limited, small set of instances. And they will say that they might “invite” more instances to federate with them, if these instances are deemed worthy. Under whatever unknown criteria that will not be transparent. Divide and conquer. Don’t fall for it. #kthxbai
”Virallinen virta vie pois X:stä. Jo aiemmin yksittäisiä käyttäjiä oli alkanut siirtyä palvelusta pienempiin kilpailijoihin, lähinnä Bluesky-palveluun.”
”Tekstimuotoinen sosiaalinen media on jäänyt Tiktokin, Instagramin ja muiden visuaalisten alustojen jalkoihin.”
”Pienten palvelujen menestyksen todennäköisyydet ovat pienet.”
Fuck that shit! Miksi kaiken pitää olla jokin vitun kaupallinen kilpajuoksu? Vapaa ja avoin tekstipohjainen pelikenttä on unohdettu yhtälöstä täysin. Fediversumi, RSS, avoimet protokollat? Onko tämän artikkelin näkymä oikeasti se miten haluamme maailmaa tarkastella? Että rikkaan mulkun paskapalvelu on se joka tätä palloa pyörittää? Rohkenen olla eri mieltä.
I did the requisite responsible reading about Threads federating, and I decided to domain block them after thinking about it.
Anybody who wants to view my public posts can still view them.
This is mostly an infosec account, and there's AFAIK zero infosec community presence on Threads.
I'm not really interested in helping Threads grow an infosec community presence.
I don't think there's any Mastodon admin ready for the network effects of several million users suddenly joining the network. There is shockingly little discussion about problems like coordinated inauthentic activity, which are going to come at that scale. I'm REALLY not interested in seeing or interacting in any way with chinese state disinformation campaigns lol
Mastodon servers and clients are held together by duct tape and prayers by people in their spare time. Threads is held together by people paid full time salaries at a large multinational corporation. Threads can make a better fediverse app and a better fediverse server than anything that currently exists. I think any future where people start downloading the Threads app as their default client to interact with the fediverse, and where people start using threads.net as their default server, is one that is very dangerous for the existence of the fediverse as a set of interoperable clients and servers built on open standards. I'm doing my part to make this as unappealing and as high friction as possible 🫡
fuck libs of tiktok, and fuck threads which is currently platforming them. The impact of accounts like Libs of TikTok on rolling back LGBTQ rights in the real world is a very good example of why network effects, discoverability, and social media amplification are dangerous.
Thanks to @jerry for letting people on this instance make this choice themselves. Having this kind of choice is a welcome change from other social networks.
It's almost as if #Meta declared that they'd federate #Threads as a way to get the "fediverse" crowd not to bitch about Meta/Facebook/Zuck's horrific past abuses of privacy and other data abuses, and the fact that the Threads app has quite possibly the most invasive set of anti-privacy demands of any app in history. Almost like Meta thinks the fediverse gang are all suckers.