Lemmy.ml has now blocked threads.net / Meta
It should come as no surprise that the lemmy.ml admin team took about 2 minutes to decide to pre-emptively block threats / Meta. Their transparent and opportunistic scheme to commodify the fediverse and it's users will not be allowed to proceed.
We strongly encourage other instance administrators to do the same, given the grave threat they pose to the fediverse.
YOUR MOVE LEMMY.WORLD
Seriously, I don't want to have to pull up the tent stakes already.
You should anyway to spread the load.
I would like to put my 2c here. Fediverse, defederated and self-hostable platforms give you the opportunity to not be closed within a walled garden. I would say that people on the fediverse should be more flexible and be ready to change an instance, or self-host themselves if that is their thing, in case something goes wrong. You must remember that it is you now who decides where to build the tent. I think of it as a summer camping holiday: You go to a camp, stay there for a few days, but when it starts to rain in the area, becomes boring, or a group of noisy campers comes in, you relocate to another camp, if you cannot do anything about the problem in your current camp.
So, I would say you as a fediverse user should be prepared to rebuild your tent repeatedly, even if you stay on a single instance for a long time.
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Every time I see a picture of him I think it has to be edited or something. He’s like a walking Snapchat filter.
"Hello, fellow humans!"
Does any other human out there love smoked meats ?
Believe it or not, but this image is also not edited
That one definitely is edited lol. Reminds me of the android from that Queen album cover
I can't unsee it now lmao
Now I get why Stewie was terrified.
He likely has a skilled pr team that has crafted his image as unique, brilliant, and even all this alien/ lizard stuff. In general, he is simply a billionaire and for sure not have much in common with working people.
the lizard thing is unfortunately just antisemitism, and older than zucc himself. the whole alien lizard people running the world bit comes from David Icke, who is very much a fascist, and was inspired directly by old school Nazi conspiracy theory texts like the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
HELLO, FELLOW HUMANS
It looks like his face was stretched vertically at the middle of his nose, and someone blurred his undereye area and blended the bottoms of his eyeballs in. Disturbing stuff.
When you nut but she still Zucc-in
I would like to also add this argument into the discussion, since I've seen a lot of people who are voting for federating with meta, with the argument that defederating just because we don't like someone goes against the idea of Fediverse, and interconnected network of diverse servers that is should inclusive and allows people to connect.
It's quite the contrary - allowing Meta in goes directly against the idea of Fediverse, and we should fight it as much as possible.
This is a literal quote from the main header on https://www.fediverse.to/
The fediverse is a collection of community-owned, ad-free, decentralised, and privacy-centric social networks.
Each fediverse instance is managed by a human admin. You can find fediverse instances dedicated to art, music, technology, culture, or politics.
Join the growing community and experience the web as it was meant to be.
Judging by this main selling point of the Fediverse, it sounds to me like Meta shouldn't be in the Fediverse do begin with, and every instance should defederate from them by default.
100% I will only be using instances that don't federate with corporations.
Isn’t the Fediverse an idea? If so, that’s just someone’s opinion of the Fediverse. Activity Pub is the technology. Not saying it’s wrong, just adding context.
Centralisation will always set in due to sheer complacency. I mean it has already happened. The main player in the reddit-like fediverse is lemmy.world
No other instance comes close to the size of lemmy.world
I also disagree with Metas method of tracking and monetising every last bit of data (I'm trying to get rid of their platforms myself) but to expect the fediverse to be a balanced mixture of access points is just daydreaming.
I don't expect it to be balanced. I also don't mind that a lot of users are centralized at lemmy.world - because we know the admins, and there isn't a largescale corporation behind them that would be capable of monetizing and manipulating their userbase. The only kind of balance I want is that there isn't an instance with multi-billion funding and teams of engineers dedicated to squeezing their userbase and monetizing every character they type. Sure, it will inevitably happen that someone from an instance would try something like this, but that's an acceptable risk with community-run stuff and may or may not happen - and it probably won't be as succesfull or large-scale. However, if you let in someone you are certain will do something like that, and has unimaginable amount of resources and manpower to do it, then they will just squeeze it dry while not shying away from exploiting every single privacy mistake there is in the protocol or our implementation.
Thank you Lemmy.ml Meta can F off.
They really put the meta in metastasize!
This is brilliant!
All the way off!
Lemmy developers, thank you!
I hope Lemmy.world does the same.
the lemmy.world admins are being irresponsible by purpously not announcing their intentions despite many of their users asking for this. There are half a dozen threads asking about it.
I am beginning to think the lemmy.world admins may not have their users best interests in mind.
Mastodon.world said they won't pre-emptively defederate (but are prepared to do so as soon as they notice something bad), so I'm guessing lemmy.world has the same stance
I posed this question to the admins a while back. How does the community officially suggest instances to defederate. How do we vote on those choices? Where is the process?
This was during the lemmy.online thing, where that instance (which no longer exists) created a bot to basic just crawl reddit and duplicate posts to their instance. I immediately told the instance admin that they should stop and I asked the admins where the process was to submit a de-federation request.
All I got was a bunch of BS from users about how de-federation should be something we don't take lightly, blah blah blah, but all I was asking was where the process is. How are we even partaking in a system that's so ripe for admin abuse?
The lemmy.world admins aren't malicious... they're just in over their heads. They've struggled with the technical side of running the service and they haven't built out some of the social tools that an instance this side needs. Hopefully they mature quickly.
I hope Leemy.world does the same *soon
I would say we need a vote if lemmy.world should do the same. I would be for blocking meta.
+1
Well, why don't we have a Lemmy feature where the individual user can block content and users from an instance? Rather than defederating completely?
X2
I wonder how qualified the average Lemmy user is to participate in this sort of decision. This call to defederate feels a lot like Brexit. Maybe I'm just projecting my own ignorance, but I doubt 1 in 50 people have a more informed opinion than "meta bad".
Honestly, I wonder if that even matters. I'll be the first to admit that I have no deep insight on that matter and that I would simply want to see Meta blocked because it's a privacy-invading, manipulative entity that sucks up all data it can get in order to force-feed people ads and products. Products that contain algorithms that are extremely unhealthy for mental health, as the only thing they care about is "user engagement", which is driven by drama and conflict. You get nothing but information bubbles and prioritized bullshit content that stirrs you up. There is no value in that, it's mostly just harmful. The fediverse apps are being created to offer an alternative to exactly that stuff, and I am here because I want to get away from big tech. If lemmy.world doesn't take a clear stance to separate itself from the likes of Meta, then there is simply no point in using it over any corporate alternative. I honestly expect lemmy.world to follow lemmy.ml in this clear approach, or I'll switch instances. I'm just giiving it some time to come to the right conclusion. But if Meta is being allowed to freely interact here and scoop up everything for their purposes, I'll be on lemmy.ml in about 2 weeks. That's a reasonable time frame to see a discussion unfold and wait for an outcome. Even if blocking Meta won't completely stop them from grabbing data here, it's the right thing to make it harder for them and to send the message that their approach is not wanted here.
People left reddit because of corporate f*ckery, and some of them are now making excuses for meta?? What kind of mental gymnastics is this?
A lot of people left Reddit because it was a drowning ship. They didn't flock to the fediverse because of what it stands for, and they'll happily bounce over to the next popular corporate run data farm at their earliest convenience.
Good riddance if they want that over this.
Unfortunately, you're not incorrect. They're just sheeple.
It's just a typical day on the internet, honestly.
Typical redditor moment tbh
It's what is known as dipshittery, and many people suffer from it.
So... you're not gonna try Threads then???
This!
the lemmy.ml admin team took about 2 minutes to decide to preemptively block threats / Meta
The only sane approach to this "dilemma". Thank you for keeping the instance free of "threats" (I see what you did there)
It's quite the dilemmy
Excellent. Big corporations go against the very idea of the fediverse.
Good riddance
...the lemmy.ml admin team took about 2 minutes to decide to pre-emptively block threats / Meta.
When the typo is more accurate than what was intended to be written.
Channeling Stallman and referring to the Windows 32 bit Application Programming Interface as lose32 instead of win32.
Thank you so much! Let's make sure the XMPP situation never repeats ever again.
Still using heavily encrypted, self-hosted XMPP to talk to my family without META.
Even if they somehow manage to drag the majority of users over to their platform, we'll still have our little free haven.
Amen! I made a longer post explaining my reasoning for blocking Threads and the decision took only 15 minutes.
Congrats on being based as well! I'm not on your server, but thanks for looking out for your users.
Prophylactic intervention is the best defense against Metastasis.
Well done Lemmy.ml - hopefully the rest of the fediverse follows your example. This is, no exaggeration, an existential threat to the fed.
The fediverse taking off is an existential threat to Meta. I have no doubt that they will take any actions they consider necessary to maintain control over most users.
Good riddance to Meta's bullshit. Stop them before they get to the first E in EEE.
Here's a sign to put up at the border between Lemmy.ml and Threads, which will surely have a 100-meter wall built on it with 50 kV electric fences, barbed wire, watchtowers, snipers, and whatever to keep those Meta corporate fuckers out.
The Lemmy version of the antifascist bulwark.
Thank you for your integrity and ethics. This action sends a strong message to the capitalist leeches where we stand.
Hi guys, I'm new here from Reddit and I'm still learning about Lemmy and the Fediverse. Can someone ELI5 how not blocking Threads can negatively affect this community? Thanks.
This is the gist: https://ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-kill-decentralised-networks.html
Basically, big companies can destroy decentralised network from within once big enough people adopt it.
What they do is
Also known as the EEE tactic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Billy Gates tearing up with pride right now
Doing it the amoeba way.
Exterminate / Extinguish - once they have good amount of users, they can start crippling the other side
That's users' fault. I don't want to disrespect anybody, that's not my intention, but if users are stupid enough to listen to the songs of the Sirens, that's not Sirens' fault, but users' fault.
You say that defederating is the only way to prevent EEE. But defederating doesn't prevent people to move to Threads, doesn't prevent people to listen to the songs of the Sirens. It only prevents people to see the Sirens.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
I think the idea is that by being the largest player they could take over and add features that the rest of the fediverse didn’t have. And then the people here (mastodon) would move there to keep following their favourite celeb.
I don’t think there’s any good argument why you couldn’t keep both for different things. Or why Facebook would even care about the ~200k users on mostodon when they cracked 70M in 24 hours
I think it's because Threads will be able to use content generated from unblocked instances.
Gonna go against the grain here a little bit, but why? If they are federated, it will mean that you can move off of threads more easily to other servers and not get locked into a walled garden. Encouraging companies to embrace federation will avoid the shit shows like we've seen at twitter and reddit, since users will be easily able to jump ship without much loss. Additionally, apps like threads make federated platforms much more approachable to newcomers and those who do not even know what the fediverse is.
I'd love someone to explain it to me, but this feels like a massive footgun.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish
Embrace: they embrace the fediverse, bring millions of new users to it and everyone is happy. The fediverse grows and the new meta instance gets a ton of content. Everyone is happy
Extend: meta begins to add features to their instance which clashes with or is unusable with other instances. These begin to pile up and issues develop.
Extinguish: meta unfederates from other instances. People are now forced to stay where they were and lose a majority of their friends and content from metas instance. Or switch over. Mass migration away from original instances. These instances die
How is that different from defederating now?
In the Embrace, Extend, Extinguish scenario, assuming they get to "Extinguish", the rest of the Fediverse becomes isolated and cannot connect with their friends and content.
If we defederate now, the Fediverse becomes isolated and cannot connect with Threads content, and cannot connect with friends who choose to be on Threads instead of a disconnected alternative.
I mean, lemmy.ml explicitly describes itself as a community of privacy and FOSS enthusiasts (and I'm reasonably certain it's run by actual communists) so I'd have been quite surprised if they'd embraced Meta tbh.
one problem it that it has threads has a very large userbase and it will likely flood the fediverse so instances that dont block them may dont really have other content and from what i understand is that the content there is flooded with influencers. At least the type of influencers i think are annoying and too comercialised.
And with the flood of content server admins that only do it for fun will get a problem with moderation.
There was a dude in this comment section that left a link about some type of essay (the link contains something with 15 minutes).
You realize that accepting meta/threads terms you give them permission to sell your data right? They will sell it to advertisers. They help the fbi and others track your every step. Also on fediverse you info is stored locally if the server goes down you don’t have to worry about your info being accessed remotely. I think I saw something where they said that lemmy and kbin store your data for three days then it gets auto deleted. If I was a large instance I would block meta also. Everything meta touched dies!
I got this step, defederating essentially says to them that I dont consent to them getting my data.
But I'm really missing something here, since any instance that zucc controls that is federated to the large instances just exposes my data to zucc.
Defederating is one step, the instance owners have taken that step now, so far so good, well then zucc will just create a lemmy/kbin instance that they own, they join the fed and not even announce meta's affiliation with it, my data is still zucc'ed.
I agree with you. I think this is a way to introduce people who aren’t tech-savvy into Activity Pub and Fediverse, which is ultimately a good thing.
Yes, Meta has a history of being untrustworthy, but I think a place that allows communication between a large population isn’t a bad thing either.
I would rather wait and see when Threads is full federated and what that means. We just don’t have enough information to make a decision.
I would rather 70 million people have joined Mastodon but that’s just not how things work and we need to be realistic.
Exactly what I'm thinking. Also why are server admins choosing what I can do on other instances? Am I missing something here? Why can't users be in control of who they interact with?
They are "blocking" threads only from their instance. Other instances can do what their admin prefer. If you are unhappy, you have to migrate to another instance closer to your tastes or host your instance (this is how fediverse is designed)
Yeah this is the point that irks me, each individual should get to decide for themselves, I totally get and respect the arguments for not engaging with Threads, but I don't want that decision made for me. And unfortunately it seems like most fediverse admins feel the same way, so "just switch instances" isn't necessarily practical
I agree, threads connecting to the fediverse seems like it would be a positive step for everyone. I'm not sure how meta could kill the fediverse as long as independent servers exist. If meta is flooding the fediverse with spam or other influencer bs, then we can all just defederate.
I have an alternate theory that threads is never planning to support the fediverse. They are trying to attract users who are looking for a Twitter alternative, and right now the most compelling option is mastodon. But if threads announces activitypub support, then some would-be mastodon users might join threads instead, thinking it will all be connected. But if threads ends up winning all those users anyways, then they'll just say fuck it, we don't need activitypub.
threads is never planning to support the fediverse
Same thing I'm thinking. If they were going to support it, they would've done it already. And it wouldn't be an after thought.
I agree, threads connecting to the fediverse seems like it would be a positive step for everyone.
How did you even end up here?
I'll never make a threads account, but that doesn't mean I wouldn't want to interact with anyone from threads. That's the beauty of the fediversve: I can still talk to metas users without sacrificing my first born to the zucc.
NO....the beauty of the Fediverse is that corporate interests aren't welcome here. It's a new frontier and you're advocating that we extend an invite to the ones that fucked up the last frontier. Make a threads account if that's important, you have ZERO argument for the rest of us to need the ability to connect with them from a platform specifically designed for decentralized control.
So far I've only got a lot of unsatisfying answers (from a factual perspective). It seems to boil down to how much individuals on the fediverse fear Meta is in their capability of doing a full take-over. Personally, I feel like we're pretty protected form that. I've posted my questions, and still looking for some good answers here:
It's pretty damn simple actually. Let's say we fully federate with Threads, what will happen?
Fuck Meta.
Damn, i can't believe how many people immediately jump to the astroturfing accusation instead of discussing the points you raised. I think we can all agree that meta is evil and we shouldn't trust them. The solution should be to build a network that's resilient to bad actors rather than thinking we can just block all the bad actors. As long as there are independent fediverse servers supported by their communities, it's hard to see how meta could totally take over the entire fediverse.
My bigger concern is that meta could gain influence over the activitypub standard, but that's not a battle we can win by simply blocking meta servers.
I feel like Threads and Bluesky could lift the entire fediverse ocean, give it content and legitimacy and server capacity. And if the fediverse chooses to Balkanize and fracture in response, before we’ve even seen what effects they have on the community, then yeah we’re shooting ourselves in the foot.
Haha... I wasn't wrong when choosing lemmy.ml as my lemmy server 😉
Joined today. Feeling good about this decision. 🤘🏿
Same here, we gotta put our activity where our beliefs exist.
The great part of federation is that users who want to use Threads still can, and instances who don't want to federate with Meta don't have to. People who want to double-dip can sign up for their favorite instance(s) of choice, as well as with Threads. Neither one has to have any app shut down and everyone still gets to make a choice as an end-user rather than be decided upon by an unmovable authority. Win win!
Great news, now let's hope every instance follows.
Kudos...... It's very much appreciated and a refreshing change to not be let down by something you enjoy online.
Joined a few Lemmy instances, but the admin team taking actions like these might make lemmy.ml my main place to go. Anything corporate is irredeemable.
I think a preemptive block on threads and meta is a wise move! I did it for both my Mastodon and Lemmy instances.
Thank you!
Meta will only go full on E/E/E on the fediverse, even by "accident" (like adding new features and breaking the standard). Better choke them off right from the start and build small organic communities instead.
Ok so they make new features on their threads platform. All of a sudden cross posting from lemmy to threads gets more difficult because they aren't respecting the standard.
Now what? Are all Lemmy users gonna flood over to Threads now? The vast majority don't even want to federated to Threads, let alone migrate their accounts.
I think this whole thing is overblown. EEE is a real thing but nobody has yet to provide a concrete mechanism that can come about from just federation with Threads.
EEE is a real thing but nobody has yet to provide a concrete mechanism that can come about from just federation with Threads.
Excellent news. I would have moved to another instance that did block if .ml didn't block them. Thank you for this lemmy.ml
Could you tell me where you got this view?
I hope beehaw does it too despite their status a pro-liberal instance.
Liberal/free market ideals are very well aligned with Fediverse/Lemmy: freedom to chose social media providers without being locked-in, free market of instances, free market of both front-end/backend software, freedom to run or fork the software myself...
Sure, I didn't get to chose this instance's policy, but a) I could find another or start my own if I disagreed (Not so different than electing representatives in a liberal democracy), and b) so far I don't disagree with this policy as Facebook is a threat to some basic software freedoms...
Personally I dislike all the -ism labels. Issues are complex with often contradictory stances. It's almost as though labels are used to divide people on otherwise common issues and common ground by oversimplifying policies into tribalism.
Free market is exactly the cause of things such as meta. It's not about consumers having a choice, it's about enabling any scheme to get rich, so the choice is actually to companies to take the ability to choose from the consumers (the market is free, not the people). Thank god the whole point of the fediverse is to not be a market and not treat it's users as consumers Edit : actually fb and ig users aren't the real consumers, they are the product, and other companies who buy their personal data are the actual consumers, but anyway, this is irrelevant to the question, I just wanted to point out another reason to fight them. It's really difficult to escape the grasp of the GAFAM since they basically control the world nowadays (can't not use youtube), but thankfully the fediverse is here as a tool to help us escape meta and the likes, let's not let it be corrupted by capitalism
Couldn't agree more with your last paragraph. That's why I've always hated all political parties. 90 percent of issues are as simple are supporting or being against something
Yes excellent! No corporations!!!
Based
will lemmy.world do the same or will I have to delete me account there?
The smaller instances have no choice. The sheer amount of posts and comments there will overwhelm anything short of a server farm.
I spent a month getting an instance set up on .world, wearing my account in, putting up with the lag and other constant problems... then I read about this threads™ nonsense and how .world were playing a "wait and see" game with an evil empire. Read this thread (heh!), moved to .ml. Much smoother and more glitch-free experience. Just have to start over again. So far so good!
Awesome. This is great news. I just joined this instance and happy to see this position.
Good.
Reasonable and wise.
Good Anakin, goood!
This is the kind of thing that made me choose this instance in the first place. Thanks for making my online social place of choice feel safe.
I'm still grasping the concept of the fediverse, but what is the perk to this? The Facebook mafia can't comment and join communities on lemmy.ml? But they could on say lemmy.world?
That's correct. And you as a user of lemmy.ml, when you set your feed to 'ALL' it won't show posts or communities from those instances. But if your account is on lemmy.world, you would see them. You can also personally block any community you want. I don't think you can block certain instances on a personal level, could be wrong though.
I’m out of the loop what is going on?
Meta is launching a Twitter clone that's supposedly going to be fediverse-compatible eventually. Everyone's panicking now and blocking the domain before it can connect to any instances because zuck sucks
My support to this decision.
I agree with this, cut off the sick limp before the infection spreads.
The fact that limb got changed to limp was a nice touch. I probably shouldn't laugh at the idea of people having legs amputated...
Just like threads became threats in the title.
Good riddance.
Is it possible for meta/threads not to read lemmy.ml posts as well?
Meta could fetch posts, but only read them. Meta won't be able to follow our communities or interact with us.
Good stuff! I definitely chose the right place to make an account.
Meta could fetch posts
I'm sure a firewall rule or two could sort that out right quick
That's fantastic news. So they will have their own bubble, and view our nice gardens.
Thanks for the reply.
Burning threads? The Dragon Riders of Pern approve.
Dragon riders will fly when threads are in the sky
🥳
How does it even work though? I haven't seen any Mastodon or other fediverse posts on Lemmy. What sub would the Threads posts appear in?
Threads themselves have not federated yet, but the threat is that they could at some point in the future. So, you will not see posts from Threads on any instance right now
Threads still hasn't implemented the ActivityPub protcol yet but I think it could happen any week or month now. The best course of action is a preemptive block.
It's interesting because I have not seen anything federate from my Mastodon instance to my Lemmy one. I have seen things federate from my Lemmy one to my Mastodon one. Maybe some of the implementation of ActivityPub is still being worked out?
Good thing, i don't want anything to do with Meta's crap either. If someone is complaining he can always do an account somewhere else.
Is it me or he looks like Queen Elizabeth
They both look like lizards
Can u spare a little bit of whatever tf ur smoking
your right...
Dead? Sure, why not ;-)
Great move from lemmy.ml, now I hope other instances follows
God I can’t wait to stop seeing his face, so much of it lately