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?

  • fenEnglish
    2•1 year ago

    My concern here is that culture will not likely remain unchanged post-Meta, and while change is inevitable, the change imposed by Meta is one that I don’t welcome.

    I am on Akkoma for my microblogging and Lemmy for link aggregation. I’ve made some incredible friends over the past year, and participate in communities that I very much value. Even through the waves of joiners off Twitter’s and Reddit’s exoduses, there was still enough cultural intertia to where new people could see “this is the standard of conduct”. Of course, there are no monoliths, so people go off to wherever they’re comfortable and the instance rules align with their values.

    The concern is that Threads, as of now, is isolated from the rest of the Fediverse, but is building and transferring it’s culture from already existing social media. Specifically the thing I came to the fediverse to escape, as did many others.

    At some point, it’s expected that Meta will enable federation for Threads. For the rest of the Fediverse, it’ll be drinking from the metaphorical firehose. There will have been this culture that was built and backed by Meta, and for those people there will be no change other than the gates being open. They won’t have learned to use content warnings/headings, they won’t have learned how to interact with other servers, the etiquette just likely won’t be there, and why should they adapt to what the rest of the Fediverse is doing? They don’t value it in the same way we do.

    This is ultimately why I don’t want Meta here. The protocol and involvement because of what will be their massive weight will be at risk absolutely - this is the thing everyone is talking about with EEE. But even if the protocol survives, the culture likely won’t. Even if I defederate with Threads, which I have proactively, it will have a ripple effect in how new joiners interact with the existing system. It’ll be overwhelming, and everyone will feel that presence, even indirectly.

    Fediverse was built to be a break from algorithmic social media and the corporate owned negative-engagement-drives-views doom scrolling culture. Some people might want to follow celebrities and have viral content pushed to them. But that’s not why I’m here, and I worry that even with the choices that I can make as an owner of my own instances that Meta’s involvement will send me looking again for a new safe space.

    I came here to escape Twitter, Facebook, et al. I’m not about to welcome them to the table.

    • s4ifEnglish
      2•1 year ago

      At some point, it’s expected that Meta will enable federation for Threads. For the rest of the Fediverse, it’ll be drinking from the metaphorical firehose. There will have been this culture that was built and backed by Meta, and for those people there will be no change other than the gates being open. They won’t have learned to use content warnings/headings, they won’t have learned how to interact with other servers, the etiquette just likely won’t be there, and why should they adapt to what the rest of the Fediverse is doing? They don’t value it in the same way we do.

      A valid concern that I missed, thanks for bringing this up.
      Hmm… I am very conflicted on this matter, I want fediverse to prosper and replace mainstream social media. But on the other hand I also want fediverse to keep its chill and relaxed community that I can hang around. I also don’t want for fediverse to become toxic because disagreement on how to treat meta. I saw some admins gets harrased just because they plan to federate with meta. It saddens me and I worried that many instance will dissapear because admins can’t stand with that kind of harrasment then proceed to shutdown their instance like mastodon.online ones.