I used to think that there would be 1, main ‘Fediverse’ with all of the ‘big instances’ connected to each other. The recent Threads debacle has shown me otherwise.
The point of the Fediverse is that there is no one single entity, or group of entities, dominating it all.
Right now it feels like whatever the big instances do, we kind of have to go along with to be a part of anything. As the Fediverse grows, there will be more options to suit different types of users.
I think it’s fine if big instances federate with Threads and it’s fine if they don’t. People can just join instances that align with what they want. It’s not like defederating means being cut out of the Fediverse, that’s not possible.
Great design. I’m eager to see how it plays out.
I’m out of the loop
Last thing I vaguely remember about a defederation incident was honeybear or something like that upsetting everyone
Essentially, Facebook’s Twitter competitor Threads is gearing up to join the fediverse by integrating ActivityPub into their platform. Don’t take my word too much on this but I believe this is due to the European Commission’s Digital Markets Act which requires interoperability (similar to how iOS now requires sideloading in the EU). This is essentially their cheap way of complying.
The fediverse has a strong hatred of Facebook, for various reasons (from petty things like “embrace, extend, extinguish” to much more serious things like Facebook’s compliance in the Myanmar genocide) and a “pact” was enacted of fediverse instances that are simply outright blocking Threads. Part of it is the fear that Facebook will federate its moderation problem and cause a headache (which, in my opinion, would be better dealt with by limiting Threads to followers only - Mastodon and Pleroma allow this).
Opponents of the Fedipact are optimistic this will help a more mainstream audience warm up to the fediverse. The fediverse has a reputation of being unwieldy and complicated to newcomers, and having a major platform like Threads integrating ActivityPub might help bring them in and see what it’s like. Toxicity is cited as a reason for defederating Threads, but IMO I see more toxicity towards newcomers and outsiders coming from the people already on the fediverse, so I’ve been quite apathetic to the Threads thing.
Yeah I’m in a wait and see with my instance. People act like it’s one and done. When they start they’ll be just another server to me. If they start becoming hostile and everything coming from them it’s terrible then I’ll defederate. Same as any other server.
People are worried about data being misused but, I’m sorry, that’s what happens when we publish to an open protocol. Anyone can use it however they want, and yeah, they’re are scum usage for it
Agreed. I think Lemmy is more public than Mastodon and co. which do have some privacy settings for posts and account follows, but ActivityPub is inherently a public protocol. Appreciate everything you’ve done for Poptalk btw!
In some ways, I trust my data more with a highly scrutinized company such as Meta than a random weirdo spinning up his instance with a home server in his cabinet.
That’s what I don’t understand about the pushback. Yes we all want privacy, but Lemmy here and the fediverse is not built around the idea of privacy. It’s literally a protocol that shoots out whatever you type to anyone who wants to listen. You can type on any server and it’s going to end up on any other server. Can’t be mad because someone like Meta is seeing that and going “Hm, we have servers, we could listen to that data.”
neither of you are looking at all the data harvesting that occurs on platforms like Meta and Reddit. Telemetry, keystrokes (not just submitted, but any key typed iincluding backspaced ones), and more, and NONE of that is harvested on this platform.
That’s why I’m not switching or anything, my user will be on my instance, but if they federate and users true the surveillance instance that’s on them
The controversy you are referring to is regarding specifically .world defederating Hexbear “preemptively” before the latter could federate with anyone, out of fear that the “annoying tankies” may overrun everyone else. Since Hexbear is a relatively small platform run by volunteers like .world is, and the basis on which the defederation was justified was shaky at best, a lot of users raised an eyebrow. There was a similar move by .world later on where they defederated from Lemmygrad, another “tankie” instance, due to alleged hate speech of which the admins failed to provide a single example, and it was clear as day that .world admins just wanted some excuse to defederate away “the evil communists”.
In this case, the situation is different, because it involves a lot more than just .world. A large, for-profit instance Threads, run by Meta, is opening up to ActivityPub, and people are afraid of the reasonable possibility that Meta is attempting to either destroy or absorb the Fediverse as a whole. Besides the shitty corporate attempts in the past, Threads is also overrun by a lot of algorithm induced hate speech and far-right extremism, and there is a legitimate concern that this will spread to instances that federate with Threads.
Hexbear (and others like Lemmygrad) are different in that they are still part of the Fediverse, they are run by volunteers like most instances, and remain federated with other large instances such as lemm.ee. But the fact that hate speech is rampant in Threads yet .world admins want to “wait and see” make the Lemmygrad defederation even clearer and funnier in retrospect, lol. I complained back in the day when Hexbear was defederated that I’d rather let users choose for themselves whether they wanted that or not, and I got told to go to another instance. Now that we are federating with Threads anyway, might as well do that.
Edit: Typos
You don’t have to look far on hexbear or lemmygrad to find people cheering on the murder of Israelis on October 7th or denying genocides like the Holodomor so I’m not sure what you’re talking about when you say neither instance is hateful. Meanwhileongrad is full of screenshots of ridiculous hateful bullshit.
Edit: I might add that they’re extremely ban happy and yet would cry when their rants were deleted or when they received bans for spamming on other instances. Blatant double standard. Shit, I’ve had comments deleted for “hate speech” from Lemmy.ml for saying that Hamas and Iran are a big part of the problem in the Middle East.
Just to clarify- I didn’t claim that they aren’t hateful instances, deliberately so to avoid starting an argument. I mean, I will say that they aren’t if you want, but the point I was making was that .world admins did not provide any example in the thread where they announced this. You could be the worst criminal on Earth, and the judge sentencing you must still be expected to provide proof before taking further action. Likewise, no matter how “obvious” it seems that Hexbear etc are “hateful” instances, responsible admins are still expected to provide concrete reasons for defederation.
This isn’t just semantics. This is important because when you get into the specifics, when you force people to provide examples of Lemmygraders or Hexbears supposedly cheering on the murder of Israelis or denying genocides like Holodomor, no one is able to quote anything that can be remotely interpreted as that without engaging in really bad faith, other than maybe using sources such as circlejerk communities making fun of them (such as Meanwhileongrad).
Anyway, it’s honestly not that easy to find, because Hexbear and Lemmygrad themselves are circlejerks most of the time, so I’m not bothered by regular users not having proof or anything when stating that they dislike these instances. But when it’s the whole admin of a large instance, I expect more seriousness.
Pretty sure you’re confusing Threads for Twitter. Threads doesn’t contain any more of that than lemmy or mastodon already does, and it’s probably less, so such handwringing is overstated. They’ve already implemented a “Restrict” setting in addition to blocks and mutes, and frankly their handling of blocking and how people can interact with your account after being restricted or blocked is already more effective than what’s here or on mastodon.
Hexbear.
I feel like honeybear suits them better. They seem sweet like honey in how they support minorities and protected classes, but then they support viciously genocidal dictatorships like Russia and China
Most instance admins are federating with Threads/Meta. Even if you block the instance yourself, it doesn’t prevent you from seeing Threads users’ comments and the hate, harassment, and extremism on that platform from spreading throughout federated instances.
deleted by creator
Not on Lemmy. Sort this Fedipact list by software and choose Lemmy to see this.