Skip Navigation
Remote View
Fediverse @lemmy.world
Otter @lemmy.ca

If we're going to have an effective strategy against FB/Meta, we should clear up some misconceptions around defederation

((I'm not an expert, I've been reading up on things as much as I can. If there's an error, I'll happily correct it!))

TLDR:

  • Nearly all of us distrust Meta and have the same broader goals
  • We need to pick the best move to go against powerful companies like Meta
  • Defederation may not be the right move, and it might even help Meta move forward (and more easily perform EEE)
  • There are other options that we can spend our energy on
  • It doesn't matter for Lemmy (yet), this is more a conversation for Mastodon, Firefish and Kbin

We've been getting a LOT of posts on this, but the misconceptions make it harder for us to decide what to do. If we're going to try and protect the Fediverse against large, well funded companies like Meta, figuring out the right action is important. We need to actually look at the options, consider the realistic outcomes, and plan around that.

I'm willing to bet around 95% of users on Lemmy and Mastodon CHOSE to be here because we understand the threat Meta/Facebook poses, and we want to do something about it. That's not in question here.

So in that sense, please be kind to the other user you are replying to. The vast majority of us share the same goal here. When we disagree, we disagree on the best path forward and not the goal. Wanting to stay federated DOES NOT mean the user wants to help Meta or thinks that Meta is here for our benefit.

Misconception: Defederation will hinder Meta's EEE

It might, but not necessarily, and it might even help the EEE. Here's a link to some history of EEE, what it means, and some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish. I'd recommend at least skimming it because it's interesting (and because this isn't the only fight)

Assuming Meta is doing an EEE move, they're in the embrace stage. That’s not about us embracing them, it’s about them embracing the protocol, which they can do whether we stay federated or not.

Defederation can tell newcomers that the defederated instance is an island, and they’re better off joining the place where they can talk to their friends and see the content they want. We saw this early during the Reddit exodus with Beehaw, where many users hopped instances away from Beehaw.

Meta can more easily embrace if more people actively use their platform. They can more easily extend if we're not around to explain why extending is a poisonous action. Being federated can allow us to encourage users to ditch Meta’s platform and join an open one (ex. Mastodon, Firefish, etc.)

Misconception: Defederation is the only move

Defederation is the first option that comes to mind. It sounds simple, it is loud and newsworthy, and it can be done with the click of a mouse. But if it is a bad action, then what are the good actions?

  1. Don't let them have a monopoly over the use of ActivityPub. Grow the other platforms: The extend stage only works when the platform gets a near monopoly over use of the standard. That brings up the first action. If there are enough users, services and resources on things like Mastodon/Lemmy, then Meta (or any other company) can't just extend the spec without causing their users to ditch Threads to stay connected to the content they want to see.
    • Reach out to organizations in your area or line of work. Help them join Mastodon or other relevant Fediverse platforms. I'm sure the for-profit companies put money into this process, so brainstorm and reach out
    • Add your Fediverse accounts to the bio of your other accounts, and share posts from the Fediverse elsewhere

As long as there is a healthy community away from Meta (ex. what we have right now), then they can't extend & extinguish.

  1. Protect the Standards and share why it is important
  • Share posts from experts about strict adherence to standards, support regulatory and legal advocacy (interoperability requirements etc.), and educate other users about the risks.

(I didn't want to say more here because I'm not an expert, I'm happy to edit more points in)

Misconception: We should still defederate because of Privacy Risks

Not necessarily (and likely not at all?)

Meta is notorious for gathering data and then abusing that data, so this is an issue to consider. However, the way that activitypub works, the outgoing data is publicly available. Defederating with Meta doesn't prevent that, and federating doesn't give them any more data than they could get otherwise.

Misconception: Lemmy instances need to decide

This is a big point: It doesn't really matter for Lemmy right now, one way or another.

It's more of an issue when data starts coming IN to Lemmy from Mastodon and Meta's Threads (or out from Lemmy to Threads). See below

Edit to add: For now it might even be good to defederate from Lemmy as a symbolic gesture. My instance is defederated, and I don't plan on trying to change that. Ultimately it doesn't change much

Legitimate risks from Federation with Meta, and more effective ways to counter them

  • Algorithmic Amplification: Meta's history of using algorithms that prioritize engagement can amplify harmful or divisive content. These algorithms are not public like it is with Mastodon and other FOSS platforms.
  • Misinformation and Content Moderation: All Fediverse platforms will have to work on content moderation and misinformation. Platforms like Meta, focussed on profit and advertising, will likely moderate in a way that protects their income. Those moderation decisions will be federated around.
  • Commercialization and User Exploitation: Meta's for-profit nature means it's incentivized to maximize user engagement, at the expense of our well-being.
  • Additional Data on how the free fediverse interacts with their platform (this one is harder to make a counter for)

Counters: - Promote user control over their feeds, and develop USEFUL but safe and open algorithms for the feeds - Flag content and users from risky platforms, with a little warning icon and explanation (ex. 'Content is from a for-profit platform, and it may ___') - Implement features so that users can opt in or opt out from seeing content from risky platforms. In particular on explore/discover/public feeds, so it doesn't affect content the user is following. - Develop strict community guidelines that can get Meta (and other companies) sent into the 'blocked by default' bins mentioned above. (edit: There's a good point here that if Meta'a Threads is full of hatred or poor moderation, then blocking them is the right move)

Final point: Evaluate things critically. Don't even just take my word for it. I doubt Meta or other groups care enough about Lemmy yet to spread disinformation here, and every post I've seen promoting defederation feels like a good faith attempt for something they believe in. But it's still worth thinking about what we're supporting.

Sometimes what feels like a good move might not help, and could even make things worse.

111 comments

  • This entire argument is bullshit. Meta needs to be an island from our perspective. Let them do their thing over there, we'll do our thing over here. Their goal is to lure (probably former reddit or twitter) users to Threads and then cut off the greater Fediverse as a whole once their user base is established and much larger than ours. And they want to use our numbers to boost their for profit platform to make it appear more successful.

    Separation from these kinds of corporate entities is exactly what the Fediverse is about. We can talk about "open" all we like but there is already a short list of bad actors we don't allow here: Nazis and fascists, pedos and kiddie diddlers, etc. We can add Meta to that list as well.

    We don't want them interacting with us at all. Get out the hammer and ban them. Entirely.

    I'll add an edit to say this: I say that defederation is not extreme enough. They need to be blocked. Instances need to implement ToS and licensing that prohibits them from hoovering up and regurgitating our content. We need to start outright blocking Meta at the network level. Whatever the hell it takes. Line in the sand. No means no.

    No Meta. Ever.

    Think of this: In the past, we have never had any choice other than to roll over and accept whatever bullshit the major social media companies push on us. If you want to communicate, if you want to use any platform, if you want to be in, you had to deal with them and their system. Because they were big and you were little, and what are you going to do about it? You have no choice but to roll over.

    Well, we don't have to roll over anymore. We have this one -- and believe me, only this one -- opportunity to unequivocally tell them NO. We are not your product. You have no value to us. You aren't a monopoly anymore. We do not need your corporate influence, we do not need your corporate bullshit. We are free of you, and we don't need you.

    Another edit: Oh, look. What do I find right at the top of my feed first thing this morning? Why, it's yet another example of Meta being evil. And you still want them to have influence in the Fediverse?

    • As an instance owner I have defederated preemptively from threads. I take the same logic as ‘dont do a deal with the devil’ or ‘dont negotiate with terrorists’. Sure maybe you get lucky and win some but the odds are stacked against you. Instead I am more interested in cultivating slowly what lemmy is as a platform without some companies influence. We are doing ok right now. Ae are slowly growing right now. The only reason they are interested in us is because they see the potential. We dont need them to foster that potential. Lets focus on doing this on our own. For better or worse, at least we can say we did it our way for what we ultimately believed in if we stand on our own and do it.

      And as an aside. I dont need a seconder to agree with me or tell me this is the right decision. I have done enough and seen enough in my life to make this call on my own and stand by that decision. Its not relevant to me if anyone agrees with it.

    • Their goal is to lure (probably former reddit or twitter) users to Threads

      Their goal is to take users from Twitter, and by doing that they are opening the opportunity to get users from Twitter to the Fediverse.

      There has to be at least one major news org who is looking at this and thinking "well, if Threads does bring a few hundred million people to the Fediverse, we'll be able to drop Twitter and integrate our CMS with the Fediverse like Wordpress."

    • The ToS part sounds good, and I was looking into something like that a while back.

      As for the rest, could you share which parts of the argument is unfounded, or why it's "entirely BS"?

      Not to be hostile, but this is the kind of comment I'm talking about above.

      • I absolutely despise Meta too, I'm trying to figure out the best way to limit their effects on the Fediverse and keep growing the good thing we have. As much as I want to do the big symbolic action, it feels performative and ineffective at best.
      • It's not really former Reddit users they're after but rather Twitter. Lemmy is still separated and it doesn't matter for us either way (for now)

      • The notion that anyone should interact with Meta at all is enough. You lost me right after that part. Anything after that is just meaningless apologetic noise for the sake of appearing nuanced. That's the bullshit.

        No means no. Never means never. No Meta. The extremism, the "big symbolic action," it's all warranted. Block them. Block them forever.

        P.s. You're allowed to use cuss words on the internet. Tell your friends!

    • and then cut off the greater Fediverse as a whole once their user base is established and much larger than ours.

      I have bad news for you, then. Or good news, or whatever. Threads already has 160 million users. I thought one of the talking points was that Threads was going to overwhelm the Fediverse when it connected?

      We don’t want them interacting with us at all.

      Don't speak for everyone. The whole point of the Fediverse is that everyone can have different opinions and nobody can unilaterally cut someone else out of it.

      If you don't want to interact with Threads, there are plenty of instances that have already defederated and lots of clients allow users to block by instance. You don't have to. But if someone else does want to engage with Threads users, you shouldn't try to stop that.

    • I've said in other reply in other post, but many people believes Meta doesn't harm to fediverse or they can't analyze our posts, comments, upvotes/downvotes when accounts from Threads interact with us. 🤷

      • They can analyze our posts, comments, and upvotes/downvotes without there being any Threads integration at all. This is an open protocol and we're posting in public.

  • just want to clarify something:

    However, the way that activitypub works, the outgoing data is publicly available. Defederating with Meta doesn't prevent that,

    there is a technical solution to this in the form of authorized fetch: https://hub.sunny.garden/2023/06/28/what-does-authorized_fetch-actually-do/

    mastodon implements it, pleroma/akkoma probably implements it, pixelfed implements it, firefish and iceshrimp implement it (sharkey has a PR implementing it opened just today), gotosocial not only implements it but enforces it, with no ability to turn it off

    notably, none of the threadiverse software implement it, and no software other than the aforementioned gotosocial enable it by default.

    • Yeah but the point was probably more that the data is intentionally public. It shouldn't matter whether Meta gets it through federation or opening the web page and reading it. It's public information, just publicized automatically.

      • you can disable the webpage and unauthorized API if you so choose. mastodon and pleroma/akkoma provide these settings. gotosocial hides all posts with an unlisted visibility from public pages.

        authorized fetch only provides protection for activitypub, it's just a single component of a layered stack of protection you can enable depending on your exact threat model.

        the privacy threat model of Lemmy is significantly different from a microblog, which is the current target of threads.

        (also have none of you heard of consent?)

        cc @FaceDeer@kbin.social this reply also applies to your reply

    • Meta could be running a completely ordinary Mastodon or Lemmy server and monitoring data through that. Or they're using the API of some ordinary server. Or they're simply scraping the web directly.

      I can understand using stuff like Authorized Fetch to control bandwidth, but this obsession with hiding data that has been explicitly posted on a public forum is frankly kind of weird.

    • Interesting thank you

      I also saw something about Pixelfed adding stuff to help (just a few hours ago?)

    • Lemmy 0.19 supports authorized fetch when retrieving remote objects. Enforcing it for fetches from Lemmy would also not be hard. It doesn't make much sense though as long as we don't have private communities.

  • I fully agree that it doesn't matter for Lemmy right now. The issue is mostly Mastodon and Kbin, as both compete directly with Threads; and in a smaller scale Friendica, Matrix and PixelFed as they compete with FB/WhatsApp/IG.

    The main reason why I support defederation is to not have users in Mastodon relying on contacts and content from Threads at all. Because, once Threads pulls off the plug (eventually they will want to), Mastodon won't be some small but stable network; it'll be a shrinking one, and that's way worse.

    • Because, once Threads pulls off the plug (eventually they will want to), Mastodon won’t be some small but stable network; it’ll be a shrinking one, and that’s way worse.

      I don't think that's effective.

      Scenerio: federated
      Mastodon users stay on Mastodon, but interact with Threads. Threads eventually pulls the plug on federation. Assuming Threads ever reached critical mass, a vast amount of mastodon users now create threads accounts and move over, because well, their social circle is there.

      Scenario: defederated
      Assuming threads gains critical mass, a vast majority of mastodon users now create threads accounts and move over, because well, their social circle is there.

      The impetus is the social engagement. Social media without the social is not really useful, so if all their friends are on platform xyz, they'll use platform xyz. It does not matter in the slightest (at least, at scale!) what that platform is. WhatsApp, iMessage, vBulletin, Reddit, whatever. Sure, splintergroups exist but their of ignorable size either way, meaning the people who are currently sticking to Mastodon would not move fully over to threads in either scenario - that's why they're here right now, basically.

      I'm more worried about the load if it truly gets big and mastodon and threads interact a lot, tbh.

      • The difference is the same as between boiling a frog by throwing it in hot water, versus throwing it in cold water and heating it slowly.

        In the defederated scenario, people resist to ditch Mastodon and go to Threads, for ideological reasons. The only ones who'd do it are the ones who are pissed at Twitter alone, and short-sighted enough to not realise that the issue with Twitter applies to traditional social media as a whole.

        In the federated scenario, however, that resistance has been slowly degraded. Because Mastodon users are already interacting with Threads users, forging social bonds with them, and they'll try to avoid to lose those bonds.

        I’m more worried about the load if it truly gets big and mastodon and threads interact a lot, tbh.

        I'm a bit worried about this, too. You toot something, it gets insanely popular, and now Threads users hug your instance to death, the old Slashdot effect.

        inb4 boiled frogs are bad science, but a good analogy.

    • This is another good point, and I'm not sure how best to fix that. It's so hard to get people to swap platforms, and I suspect Meta will put money into getting key people on their platform.

      The flagging thing might help? HCI and social networks are so nebulous that it's hard to predict what might happen. I'm not totally confident on my stance either, just that there's nuance here

  • Im pretty sure meta give zero fucks about joining the fediverse beyond trying to destroy it. I imagine they only started threads to nullify it by either proving it doesnt work (threads looks pretty garbage) or they want to control the content where mainstream fediverse will never take off.

    Im here because i liked reddit but hated being a product. Meta/facebook was zero percent of that initial switch calculation as i havent been on their stuff for nearly a decade. The api shutdown ay the alien site was the last straw. I dont want to interact or give data to facebook/meta. Just my two cents.

  • I want to throw this into the mix, but something that kept getting ignored early on during the reddit departure was the implications of defederation on how that effects networked systems.

    It's part of the math of social graphs, but bad faith instances and teolling, severely impacted Lemmy's initial ability to catch on. By defederaring you massively reduced the total size of the network interactions that take place ( even if it's very important to do so ).

    This has the potential to allow meta controlled instances to rapidly out populate non meta controlled instances. From there it's only a matter of time before they end up with a seat on the activity hub team. Then we're back where we started.

    • Won't the amount of users using meta effectively be a ddos attack on the smaller instances though?

      Also, why is meta freaking out so hard about instances defederating if it isn't an issue for them? I haven't seen this much gaslighting since 2015 & 2019 days.

      • Won’t the amount of users using meta effectively be a ddos attack on the smaller instances though?

        Nope, because Threads users will be visiting Threads, not sh.tijust.works (or mastodon.social or whatever). So even if 10,000,000 Threads accounts decide to follow a single mastodon.social account, that account's instance only syncs it with Threads, not every single user.

        why is meta freaking out so hard

        Unless I missed something, they're not. I'm pretty sure they haven't commented on the topic whatsoever.

      • Won’t the amount of users using meta effectively be a ddos attack on the smaller instances though?

        I hadn't really considered that. My primary concern was more around 'outvoicing' the non-threads based instances.

        Basically, even a tiny fraction of their users being engaged would almost instantaneously be an extinction level event for what would become the "old" fediverse. De-federation early with problematic instances pretty much killed the growth the lemmy could have seen, even though I do agree it was important and necessary. Right now if I go to Top of 1 Hour on Lemmy.world, I only need to go 3-4 pages deep to have seen all the posts from all the federated instances that have been submitted in the past hour. Maybe 100-300 tops. Within that, the total number of comments in this corner of the fediverse is equally low, and I think we're likely in some of the most active regions of the fediverse (although we're kind-of flying blind).

        If we assume even 1/10th or 1/100th the rate of engagement comparing a current lemmy user (which I think is not very charitable) to a future threads user, and if we assume we currently have around 70,000 active users (which again, not very charitable), they'll only need 700,000 - 7,000,000 subscriptions to become "most" of the content on the fediverse. This is where the network interactions aspects becomes critical, because they instantly become superconnectedness in graph theory explains much of the emergent phenomena we see around things like post popularity and virality.

        Basically, Meta can come in and swamp us with content through pure numbers, and if federated, there is nothing we can do to stop them. Likewise, if not federated, we're relegated to a backwater position in the fediverse; it will become almost impossible for any non-threads based content to find its way to the top. This is fundamental to the math behind how these kinds of networks function. There is nothing you can do to stop it.

        I'm not trying to be a pessimist. Like you I'm trying to be a realist about the implications of federating with meta and the considerations and consequences that come along with it. I'm more concerned around the implications when I look at it through a theoretical lens.

        I don't know what the answer is, but de-federation seems preferable to extinction.

    • before they end up with a seat on the activity hub team. Then we’re back where we started.

      There is no activity pub team. There is an informal group discussing enhancements at https://socialhub.activitypub.rocks but anybody can join that and submit proposals. Any nobody is required to accept or implement those proposals. I have joined the forum and submitted a proposal myself, but nobody has implemented it or even seems likely to.

      Also, not blocking threads doesn't make your instance a "meta controlled instance". Meta has no power over any instance other than Threads. Even instances that don't proactively block Threads can't be forced to use any hypothetical Meta extensions to AP. And its really unlikely that people who started servers on a minuscule network (most likely for fun or philosophical reasons) are going to follow Meta's lead just to have access to more people. Everyone who is here and everyone who started a server here knowingly did that on a network that is a tiny fraction of a percent of the size of other social networks; an increased userbase isn't some big reward for fediverse server admins.

  • Evaluate things critically, okay let’s do that.

    Pros: Meta doesn’t exist here.

    Cons:

  • I like your take. Unfortunately, I don’t see a way forward where Meta isn’t at least partially successful in extinguishing the fediverse. We’ll probably be fine, because we’re here now and our shit works, but the most likely scenario I see is in the future the common perception of fediverse microblogging apps will be, “oh, that place where users can never see when I’m using ___ feature.” Then it will be harder to attract new users, just like it was so hard for Firefox to attract users when sites were broken because of IE’s EEE tactics.

    • It's not extinguishing, people just need to check their expectations.

      It's like when people blame Google for "extinguishing" XMPP. As if XMPP needed any help towards irrelevancy. It was perfectly fine of seeing itself out. If you're small enough, you cannot prevent "socialisation" from congregation to someone else who is inherently bigger. The whole idea of social is to be, well, social.

      Small setups can work fine for specialized environments (example: The current one right here) but they will only feel as if they are big due to a lack of alternatives. As soon as one rolls around (like when the criticial flood from digg to reddit happened) the smaller place becomes hyper-specialized and quite niche.

      And that's hardly special, or even requires an open-vs-commercial or federated-vs-not debate. That's a very general thing in how we socialized. There's a reason everyone konga-lines to the largest mastodon/lemmy instances.

  • I’m mostly afraid of spam. I don’t mind if a company wants to advertise to their own user base, but I definitely don’t want to deal with spam from elsewhere. I hope the protocol addresses this in a way.

    I’d like to see the fediverse embrace and extend, rather than meta.

    Money is going to be involved at some point, better make the rules now before meta does.

    • Money is going to be involved at some point, better make the rules now before meta does.

      That's a really good point. Defederation might delay things, but should the fediverse as a concept take off, we will see big commercial players move in. One way or another. Need to be ahead of the game and regulate it.

    • Money is going to be involved at some point, better make the rules now before meta does.

      Totally agreed

      It's harder to change things up once there are well known rules for how things should work.

      I’m mostly afraid of spam. I don’t mind if a company wants to advertise to their own user base, but I definitely don’t want to deal with spam from elsewhere. I hope the protocol addresses this in a way.

      Yea same. I'm not sure how, but it'll only get worse once bigger ones move in. Maybe user curated filters like with uBlock? It might be hard to pick out the useful from the spam if there was a system that could be gamed

  • I'm not staying on any server connected to Meta. Simple as that.

    Everything else stated here just sounds like scattering focus while meta takes over through federation.

    • Thank you for being the example of how not to effectively work against Meta.

      • Oh fuck off.

        “Oh you don’t want to engage with the shitty evil company, you’re the real problem!”

        Fucking utter wankstains, everyone one of you pillocks defending federating with Meta are. I’m sick of it and your bad faith arguments.

      • Did meta pay you to say this?

        The whole post is basically "join meta and use hopes and prayers that they don't dominate the whole thing."

  • I'm not sure it's as big of a deal with Lemmy. Threads data doesn't map very well into Lemmy and vice versa. Like with Mastodon, I can read this post and comment on it, but it's not really a great way to interact. I think it's a bigger deal on the Mastodon/Calckey/etc side. If IG/FB federate then it becomes a different story, IMO.

111 comments