1y ago

(Opinion:) You're So Vain, You Probably Think This App Is About You: On Meta and Mastodon

micro.coyotetracks.org Coyote Cartography - You're So Vain, You Probably Think This App Is About You: On Meta and Mastodon

Those of you not plugged into the Mastodon community may not be aware of the predominant reaction to Instagram Threads. This started when it was merely rumored, reaching a crescendo with reports that Meta had been talking to a few of the larger Mastodon instances under NDA, presumably to encourage them not to “defederate” with Threads when it came online.1 Let me describe that reaction for you, with only mild exaggeration:

TechNews @radiation.party

You're So Vain, You Probably Think This App Is About You: On Meta and Mastodon

micro.coyotetracks.org /2023/07/10/youre-so-vain.html

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Not sure if corporate ball-washer or incredibly naïve. Facebook (not using their attempt at rebranding) have more than enough resources to research new and innovative ways to screw over federated instances for their gain. Their goal isn't to win, it's to completely dominate. But I'm sure a plucky bunch of volunteers stand a chance against a demonstrably malevolent corporation with infinite money.
I've had nothing to do with Facebook or its offshoots since 2015. They've used their algorithms to pump all sorts of disinformation and manufactured outrage at the expense of society. That alone should be enough for people to defederate. The abusive information gathering is just the shit icing on a turd cake.
I will likely be shifting to an instance that defederates from Facebook. If that makes me "toxic", that's a cross I'm willing to bear.
- So, is kbin.social not defederating from Threads then? I'll be really disappointed if that's the case.

The truly toxic idea, though, is that Mastodon instances should not only refuse to federate with Threads, but they should refuse to federate with other servers that do federate with Threads
It's really, sincerely not. Facebook is a virus and it's impossible to interact with it without being infected.
- They are not altruists, there is no possible upside to anyone except Facebook.
- As much as Meta is an awful company, it's not a biohazard. The crowds of people in it and who interact with its platforms don't carry it in their bodies like a plague. And this is what it really is about, the people.
  I believe defederation is a mistake because this is an opportunity to show people over there, who are possibly freshly out of Twitter and looking for a place to settle in, that there are better platforms to be in.
  
  it's not a biohazard
  No, it's far more malevolent.
  The crowds of people in it and who interact with its platforms don't carry it in their bodies like a plague.
  Have you explored any of the research on the neurochemistry of social media? It's too early to have a strong foundation, but what's there isn't good. Facebook is absolutely designing their algorithm to change your brain chemistry to suit their purposes, which means lots of toxicity so they can feed your "engagement" to advertisers. It absolutely physically changes your brain, and it's not for the better.
  And this is what it really is about, the people.
  It's not about the people. It's about whether you can trust their servers talking to yours. It's about how much of the community they can split out into terrible "Facebook compatible" servers that they can bully their way into controlling.
  There's no path to federating with anything Facebook owns not being a catastrophe.
  
  And the fact is Threads has what, 10M users already? And Mastodon has like 2M? They're already a success and leeching the 2M off of Mastodon isn't a big success for them.
  My fear was that Threads was going to steal users into their ecosystem but if there's going to be federation, right now it looks to me like Mastodon actually stands to benefit more than Threads from it (not taking into account EU regulatory systems).

The article fails to go over the scenario of fediverse instances falling in line with whatever moderation rules facebook enforces in fear of getting defederated. That is a natural reaction that is really difficult to overcome.
- Why would that happen? The majority of instance admins have already said they'll defederate with Threads. I doubt there are large number of instance who actively want to not only federate with Threads, but want to federate so bad that they'll change their own moderation practices against their users' wishes.
  
  Because people suck.
  And I'm not talking about defederated instances. Those have made a stance. It's great we seem to be at the majority here, but new instances will pop up overtime, user counts will shift, policies will change.

Emotional take and zero technicalitie.

While I think that the article is correct in stating that mastodon isn't currently a serious competitor to facebook, it's possible that it (or something else based of activitypub) might become that one day. I think that there's a decent chance that facebook might want to prevent fediverse spaces from potentially becoming serious competitors, and even if that's not the main reason why their implementing activitypub, if e.g. mastodon ever does get to a point where it can challange meta (which I think most of us are hoping!) then facebook will use the position of power they will have over activitypub to try to prevent that. I think it's a misstake to give facebook any power of our spaces because that means essentially giving up on the idea of an internet not controlled by large corporations like facebook.
- Definitely. And I don't think this article is "right" or does predict future (because it can change in a drop of a hat) but with all these doom and gloom comments about Meta/Facebook ruining ActivityPub I enjoy hearing about opposing (and valid imo) views.
  But like I commented somewhere else, there is something here that Mastodon and ActivityPub can gain here. Threads is already big (10M users or something) compared to Mastodon (2M users or something). My biggest fear was that Threads was going leech users off of ActivityPub but looking how things are, there's a chance it would go the other way with Mastodon gaining users. And you're absolutely correct that Meta won't play nice but I don't really see how they'd be able to stop the growth Mastodon would've potentially already gotten. But what do I know.

This opinion piece is incredible well written in my opinion and touches on defederation more broadly. Relevant stuff.
- You have low standards then
  "Meta is coming! If Threads is allowed to become part of the Fediverse, it will destroy it! It will steal your data! It will inject ads onto your timeline! It will corrupt Mastodon into being everything you hate about Facebook and Twitter combined!"
  
  Please breakdown your comment because I don't get what you're getting at.

Maybe this is out of left field for this thread, but I just installed threads and it’s nothing like kbin. Is it like mastodon or something?

30 comments