Meta/Instagram launched a new product called Threads today (working title project92). It adds a new interface for creating text posts and replying to them, using your Instagram account. Of note, Meta has stated that Threads plans to support ActivityPub in the future, and allow federation with ActivityPub services. If you actually look at your Threads profile page in the app your username has a threads.net tag next to it - presumably to support future federation.
Per the link, a number of fediverse communities are pledging to block any Meta-directed instances that should exist in the future. Thus instance content would not be federated to Meta instances, and Meta users would not be able to interact with instance content.
I’m curious what the opinions on this here are. I personally feel like Meta has shown time and time again that they are not very good citizens of the Internet; beyond concerns of an Eternal September triggered by federated Instagram, I worry that bringing their massive userbase to the fediverse would allow them to influence it to negative effect.
I also understand how that could be seen to go against the point of federated social media in the first place, and I’m eager to hear more opinions. What do you think?
I think it’s dumb to defederate just because there’s a big company behind it. With something like Threads We’ve got a gateway for people to get into decentralisation and the fediverse.
I brought up threads to my significant other the other day and it’s the first time she was like “oh that’s neat” when trying to get her involved with such things. I really want this activitypub backed stuff to become the next internet and I think it’s really dumb to gatekeep it by defederating.
I love Lemmy, but I’m more likely to get friends and family onto threads than I am this or mastadon so if we defederate I guess I’ll have to find some place else or bite the bullet and host my own private server.
I logged back into Twitter for the first time in a couple days, and I just saw a TON of people I follow posting their Threads account. It kinda sucks that if the instance I’m on defederates from Threads, I just won’t be able to follow all those people I know and WANT to follow.
I could try and find an instance that doesn’t defederate from Threads, but that’s probably not gonna be easy. And I definitely don’t want to use the platform myself.
Why not just make a separate Threads account to follow them there then?
You could very easily deploy a single user Lemmy instance and decide what you want to federate with.
I’m sure we’d squabble over the definition of “very easy”, but yeah, I could run my own. I just take issue with the whole defederating Threads thing on principle.
You could just have an account on each service. Keep them separate.
That removes the entire point of federation.
What? No it doesn’t. According to a thread yesterday, most of the people there already have two separate accounts on two different instances.
Sometimes it’s a second account for NSFW, and sometimes it’s because your friends are on a different instance that isn’t federated with the instance you signed up on.
I REALLY don’t wanna be in Meta’s ecosystems if I can help it.
And the fediverse grants me the ability to be exposed to all the content over there, but not be subject to all the awful privacy violations they’re committing on THEIR users.
Well, sounds like this isn’t the instance for you then.