I am actually looking forward to threads taking off. I, as a mastodon user, will be able to follow my friends, celebrities, artists and interact with them when federation is activated. It is hard to get friends on to mastodon. The software is great and is better than Twitter, but the people are not on Mastodon but on Twitter, Instagram, etc.

Now, I know platforms by Meta (Facebook) are terrible and spy and leech out pretty much all the data from users. I am also aware that Meta has some hidden agenda behind the launch of threads. Yes, I also read about EEE(Embrace, Extend and Extinguish). Even if Threads decides to drop federation/activitypub, I don’t think the fediverse will be harmed. I quote the founder of Mastodon

There are comparisons to be made between Meta adopting ActivityPub for its new social media platform and Meta adopting XMPP for its Messenger service a decade ago. There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers, before each platform was locked down into the silos we know today. What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.

I think many instance admins are all ready to defederate with threads. It just doesn’t feel right. Imo, we should welcome users from threads and see how it goes.

What are your thoughts?

  • @[email protected]English
    2•1 year ago

    If I wanted FB content, I’d join FB. Same goes for Twitter, IG, Tiktok, etc. Do people really think Meta is out to kill Twitter? I think it’s more to use ActivityPub to get data from people who do not use (or rarely use) their services.

    And no, they don’t need you to install their app. That’s just a bonus. Why do you think they haven’t included the EU yet?

    • @[email protected]English
      1•1 year ago

      but… the whole point of the protocol is to allow interoperability? someone went out and worked so hard on an open protocol and your response is that you’d rather just have a different account on every service? way to trash their work.

      I believe they aren’t releasing in EU because EU has stronger privacy legislation and their application spys on you.

      and yes, there is a huge difference between what they get through the protocol (literally only what you choose to make public) and the data they seek to harvest from having you log into their servers and install their app - actually that’s another big one. browser tracking.

      I don’t want to log into their sites because of browser fingerprinting. they want to track everything we do online.

      remember when the person who started WhatsApp said that even with e2e encryption on the messages, no one should ever use WhatsApp since meta bought it?

      but if you log into a Lemmy server they don’t get browser fingerprinting through activity pub. they can’t see personal messages or track social networks outside of the users directly on their service.

      and the opportunity is, people will be exposed to the possibility of using open source and private instances. we just have to make it good and they’ll switch. more and more people are hearing about it with all the other social media fuckups.