Lemmy.world Admin Response to Meta/Threads

There has been significant discussion in recent weeks regarding Meta/Threads. We would like to express our disappointment with the negative and threatening tone of some of these discussions. We kindly ask everyone to engage in civil discourse and remember that not everyone will share the same opinions, which is perfectly acceptable.

When considering whether or not to defederate from Threads, we're looking for a decision based on facts that prioritize your safety. We strive to remain neutral to make an informed choice.

First, there seem to be some misconceptions about how the Fediverse operates based on several posts. We’ve compiled some resource links to help explain the details and address any misunderstandings.

Fed Tips , Fediverse , ActivityPub

Initial Thoughts:

It seems unlikely that Meta will federate with Lemmy. When/if Meta adopts ActivityPub, it will likely affect Mastodon only rather than Lemmy, given Meta's focus on being a Twitter alternative at the moment.

Please note that we have a few months before Threads will even federate with Mastodon, so we have some time to make the right decision.

Factors to Consider:
Factors to consider if Meta federates with Lemmy:

Privacy - While it’s true that Meta's privacy settings for the app are excessive, it’s important to note that these settings only apply to users of the official Threads app and do not impact Lemmy users. It’s worth mentioning that Lemmy does not collect any personal data, and Meta has no means of accessing such data from this platform. In addition, when it comes to scraping data from your post/comments, Meta doesn’t need ActivityPub to do that. Anyone can read your profile and public posts as it is today.

Moderation - If a server hosts a substantial amount of harmful content without performing efficient and comprehensive moderation, it will create an excessive workload for our moderators. Currently, Meta is utilizing its existing Instagram moderation tools. Considering there were 95 million posts on the first day, this becomes worrisome, as it could potentially overwhelm us and serve as a sufficient reason for defederation.

Ads - It’s possible if Meta presents them as posts.

Promoting Posts - It’s possible with millions of users upvoting a post for it to trend.

Embrace, extend, and extinguish (EEE) - We don't think they can. If anyone can explain how they technically would, please let us know. Even if Meta forks Lemmy and gets rid of the original software, Lemmy will survive.

Instance Blocking - Unlike Mastodon, Lemmy does not provide a feature for individual users to block an instance (yet). This creates a dilemma where we must either defederate, disappointing those who desire interaction with Threads, or choose not to defederate, which will let down those who prefer no interaction with Threads.

Blocking Outgoing Federation - There is currently no tool available to block outgoing federation from lemmy.world to other instances. We can only block incoming federation. This means that if we choose to defederate with our current capabilities, Threads will still receive copies of lemmy.world posts. However, only users on Threads will be able to interact with them, while we would not be able to see their interactions. This situation is similar to the one with Beehaw at the moment. Consequently, it leads to significant fragmentation of content, which has real and serious implications.

Conclusion:
From the points discussed above, the possible lack of moderation alone justifies considering defederation from Threads. However, it remains to be seen how Meta will handle moderation on such a large scale. Additionally, the inability of individuals to block an instance means we have to do what is best for the community.

If you have any added points or remarks on the above, please send them to @mwadmin@mastodon.world.

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381 comments

The fact that there's even anything to consider is pretty concerning. This is a company that has actively performed research on whether they can intentionally give people eating disorders.
Just from a user safety point of view they have proven themselves to be entirely untrustworthy. And anyone even considering exposing their userbase to people like that is also entirely untrustworthy.
- And anyone even considering exposing their userbase to people like that is also entirely untrustworthy.
  What does "exposing" mean in this context? If you mean Meta will be able to track everyone's data then they can do that already. The Fediverse by its very nature is open and public and me or you could write a scraper to catalogue all of the comments and threads.
  So Federating with Meta will not change this at all. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if they're already working on some way to do this right now.
  If you mean "exposing" in the sense of introducing Instagram users to the general population of the Fediverse, then I think you are too harsh on Instagram users. They are just normal people. My mother and my girlfriend both have Instagram accounts - they don't go around spreading hate or whatever on Facebook.
  Meta absolutely is an evil company (just like every single other large company). But blocking off millions of people from using our open protocol just defeats the purpose of having it in the first place.
  Up until now, nobody has given a concrete mechanism by which federation with Meta will "EEE" the Fediverse. I've been asking for a few weeks now on here/kbin/mastodon and have gotten nothing. Even the admins of this instance in this here post asked the same question.
  Blocking Meta would be like blocking Gmail as an email server. You're just hamstringing your own email server - now it won't be able to communicate with large swathes of the population. It means the protocol will remain niche and eventually die out.
  If we want to spread our global revolution of decentralized and open source social media we need to make it the standard. And blocking Meta will essentially cut us off from ever doing that.
  
  Exposing means exposing in the same sense that you don't put kids in a room with someone that's committed sexual offences against kids before. You don't put users that meta wants to manipulate in a room with meta then claim yourself to be responsible people that care about your users.
  Why the fuck is this hard to understand?
  
  What a strange choice for analogy. Tell me, indulge me and at least respond to one thing in my previous comment. Do you think if I choose to receive email from Gmail on my email server, I am exposing my users to Google?
  why is this so hard to understand
  Because you are making crazy analogies that imply a misunderstanding of what federation actually means.
  
  What a strange choice for analogy. Tell me, indulge me and at least respond to one thing in my previous comment. Do you think if I choose to receive email from Gmail on my email server, I am exposing my users to Google?
  You talk about incorrect analogies but this is nonsense and filled with problems.
  Email is direct. Social media is indirect. If Google sent all their emails to all people that don't block them then yes. Absolutely. But that's not how it works.
  Emails are also private addresses, not public.
  It's illegal for companies like google to simply send their shit out to them without first securing the user's consent. This is the funniest one, because even governments around the world agree that corporations shouldn't be allowed to do that shit, but apparently you think they should.
  
  You are not the end point in the analogy. Your instance is. So for example if I'm an instance I have a list of servers I'm federated with. Every time a user posts a comment, I send out an update to every instance on the list.
  This is the same way Federation works. The instances only accept updates from instances that are federated. I could send out ActivityPub updates all day to an instance, but without a user from that instance triggering the federation nothing will happen.
  Consent has to come in to be federated. Remember you are not the end point - the instance is. The instance then distributes that information to its users.
  
  Mate the fucking USER is what matters here. Stop trying to disconnect outcomes from the topic.
  And stop talking down to me about how federation works ffs I have been active on lemmy for 3 years I know very well how lemmy works. It's super weird that people who just started using it come over from reddit and then start immediately talking down to literally everyone under the assumption they don't know how it works, despite they themselves having spent literally 1 week of time on it. It's a very "do not cite the deep magic to me I was there when it was written" moment.
  Consent has to come in to be federated. Remember you are not the end point - the instance is. The instance then distributes that information to its users.
  Yes which is why the admins are irresponsible and reprehensible human beings for even considering putting the kids in a room with the rapists. Along with all the people who are advocating for that.
  
  Both email and the fediverse (activitypub) are communication protocols. The communication happens between servers, not between users. Each server can have their own protocol for going from user-> server or server -> user. But server -> server must always be the same protocol - ActivityPub. That is what makes this whole thing work.
  I post a comment on Lemmy.world -> I send a post request to lemmy.world with an output destination, let's say kbin.social
  Lemmy.world sends that information to kbin.social -> Lemmy.world sends a post request to the destination server
  Kbin.social puts a notification on the receiving user's front page -> second user gets the message when he sends a get request to view his messages
  If he wants to reply we do it backwards.. but the key thing is that the servers are communicating with each other in a standard protocol. Exactly like email.
  So for the 3rd time - what do you think is the value of an email server that refuses emails from Gmail? Would you personally use that email server? Maybe you would, but I wouldn't. Because a lot of people use Gmail and it would impede my professional work and likely personal life at some point.
  Tldr; The communication in the Fediverse happens between instances, not users. I'm not saying users aren't important.
  It doesn't matter at all how long you've been here. I've read through the ActivityPub docs and have been playing around with the Lemmy dev environment. I've taken an active interest in this for the last month or so - before that I've never heard of it. I'm saying what I believe to be true in the clearest way I can.
  As for your last part - I think the best thing to do is to let the individual user decide. Give the option for the user to hide content from servers they don't want to see.
  Coincidentally, just like how email servers work like you elegantly pointed out in a previous comment.
  
  I'm kind of bored with this argument but w/e. The lemmy instances that are defederating with meta are also defederating with anyone else that does not defederate with meta, so this instance will end up in a corpo bubble with the other corpo instances I guess.
  Let's turn this around. What do you think is the value of a Lemmy instance that is only federated with other Lemmy instances that have a pro-corporate attitude? Given that the platform itself has been built for anti-corporate means and that the userbases that will continue to join it for the forseeable future will be doing so from waves of disgruntled people in other social media.
  The entire point is to disconnect from them and disempower them. Not to just reconnect with them on a different protocol. As people become unhappy with corporate media, they will transition to the non-corporate media, but not if it doesn't exist because bazinga-brained stonks-minded line-must-go-up morons were obsessed with just recreating the exact same ecosystem of power that already existed but with a slightly different skin.
  As for your last part - I think the best thing to do is to let the individual user decide. Give the option for the user to hide content from servers they don’t want to see.
  Ok Ayn Rand / Maggie Thatcher
- Your own article defeats your point.
  They didn't do any research to find out if they could do so intentionally, but realised from research that it was happening unintentionally, but that they could use some tools to affect how severe it would be, and then used those tools to make it less bad
  Like there's a link to the testimony transcript right there. Stop reading the fluff opinion and actually read the testimony.
  Meta has done a lot of shady stuff, you don't need to make up bullshit.
  
  Your own article defeats your point.
  No it does not.
  They didn’t do any research to find out if they could do so intentionally
  Meta has done a lot of shady stuff, you don’t need to make up bullshit.
  Alright Nick Clegg maybe eat my ass and stop pretending it doesn't say it right fucking there:
  "Facebook knows that they are leading young users to anorexia content ... It's just like cigarettes. Teenagers don't have any self-regulation. We need to protect the kids,"
  "What's super tragic is Facebook's own research says as these young women begin to consume this eating disorder content, they get more and more depressed. It actually makes them use the app more.
  "They end up in this feedback cycle where they hate their bodies more and more."
  Jog the fuck on.
  EDIT: Why is every fucking comment in your history defending Meta? Literally 100% of your comment history is PR. Come the fuck on.
  
  To your edit, most people aren't "defending meta" they're defending just not going scorched Earth before we have the facts, defederation can happen any day, why do it before we even see how it will be? I see no reason to exclude ourselves from millions of other users yet, yes meta is very concerning and should not be trusted, but what are we even trusting them with yet?? If they federate, nothing really changes to them, if we defederate, nothing changes for them.
  My point is people are allowed to have different opinions than you, and one could say to you "why is every one of your comment history bashing expanding the fediverse". Just give it some time and see how it goes and we react from there, ruud and his team are just as much users of the fediverse as you, and will do their best when the time comes.
  
  For the same reason you don't even consider putting kids in a room with a convicted child rapist.
  There isn't anything to consider here. They are not good people, they have nothing good in mind, they are not trustworthy, they have 100% knowingly killed people with their policies and taken absolutely zero action to change those policies to prevent further death.
  Any admin making this a "wait and see" situation is demonstrating that they are irresponsible people who do not actually care about the safety of their users. All the people trying to wait are interested in is seeing what they can get out of it first, and they do not give a flying fuck about what meta have done in the past. They're all demonstrating that they are completely willing to put people in danger if they think they can get enough out of it in exchange.
  Anyone arguing for this is an absolutely reprehensible person.

381 comments