Threads deepens its ties to the open social web, aka the ‘fediverse’
Threads deepens its ties to the open social web, aka the ‘fediverse’
Meta announced Wednesday that users on Threads will be able to see fediverse replies on other posts besides their own.
"Threads is deepening its ties to the fediverse, also known as the open social web, which powers services like X alternative Mastodon, Pixelfed, PeerTube, Flipboard and other apps. On Wednesday, Meta announced that users on Threads will be able to see fediverse replies on other posts besides their own. In addition, posts that originated through the Threads API, like those created via third-party apps and scheduling services, will now be syndicated to the fediverse. The latter had previously been announced via an in-app message informing users that API posts would be shared to the fediverse starting on August 28."
But why?
Simply put, there aren’t a lot of us, we don’t like them, and we aren’t particularly nice people, even to people we don’t dislike a priori.
It seems like a poor business decision.
The largest social media operator in the world had to adopt open source concepts and ActivityPub in order to compete. I see this as a huge win.
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
That's not how ActivityPub works.
On a technical level, no. You're right. It would not be possible to capture the protocol entirely. But meta has serious cash to spend on marketing Threads. If they can capture enough of the ActivityPub market and were to collab with Bluesky and use their protocol (I forget the name), or make their own, it's only a matter of time before the drop activitypub and force users either to join threads or lose access to their users.
Threads and Bluesky are kind of an existential threat to ActivityPub given Meta and Twitter's track record with Open Graph, bootstrap, and public api's.
Unpopular opinion: Threads deepening ties to the fediverse is actually a really good thing for the fediverse as a whole.
I feel like realistically the fediverse will never gain mainstream adoption on its own. People like to believe in this beautiful future where the fediverse "wins out" and beats all the major social media networks, but I just don't see this happening. This is why I think Threads is actually really important for the growth of the fediverse and realistically one of the only paths to broad adoption.
Beyond this, I also separately really like the idea of being able to use a platform like Threads with my irl friends while still having access to open source clients etc. (ie. preventing situations like the Twitter API debacle which fucked over 3rd party clients)
"on its own" is an empty qualifier. Nothing is on its own.
Sure, to be pedantic, I could clarify: "I think the fediverse will realistically never gain mainstream adoption without a large organization with either a massive existing userbase or the ability to invest in large organized marketing efforts."
This could be technically through some Fediverse collective that receives a large amount of donations, but I don't see this as very likely to happen and even with organized marketing efforts there's no guarantee of effectively converting this into adoption.
Fuck off Zuck, you're not welcome here.
Daily reminder to defederate from and block
threads.net(and optionally all instances that do not do the same).Exactly. Proudly presented by https://fedipact.veganism.social/ and https://fedipact.online/why among others.
You can read the human rights abuses that meta is facilitating above.
So... Instances like lemmy.world, that this is posted to?
yes, I'm federated with them as well, but shit like this is why I dislike them being so big. In the end all the smaller instances can either have strong morals and integrity, or have access to the largest amount of content in the fediverse, but not both.
Ehh mastodon and lemmy don't see a ton of cross talk. Threads is mainly going to affect mastodon instances.
It's going to take some effort to have the necessary restrictions while also denying the "help" from major orgs in developing the software
Defedding from threads always seems strange to me. Everyone says it's to protect your data from meta. But they can already get your data. Everything on the fediverse is public. They already have your data.
It’s not about the data, but the community. Just like how Google killed IRC, big techs are always trying to embrace, extend and extinguish the services.
@Dirk @MrScottyTay Also I think that one should ask the question, what Meta could do with the data and what it is doing with the data of their users. For their users they use the usage data to present them a feed that the users appreciate. Also they use it to place ads inside of their apps. Also they use the data to serve you ads outside of their system on ad networks that use data from Meta.
All of this is technically not possible for Fediverse users.
That same Meta that performs emotional manipulation experiments on its users without informing them or receiving their consent? No, thank you!
To be fair, this is describing all advertising.
Is anyone even using threads?
THE ENSHITIFICATION OF EVERYTHING MUST NOT INCLUDE THE FEDIVERSE PLEASE
thank you for coming to my Ted talk
It's awesome that Threads federate with Mastodon. I follow several accounts on Threads I otherwise wouldn't be able to, just as I bridge with Bluesky.
Me federating with Threads makes absolutely no difference whatsoever to what they could or could not do with my data.
No. Threads federation should be treated the same way as a wolf joining a "sheep's right to not be eaten" meeting. Deeply unsettling, highly suspicious, and troubling. Facebook does NOT want the fediverse to succeed, and any claim to the contrary is fucking sus.
Other than general assumptions and track-record and being a business that sells user data, is there any actual evidence or clear and present ways that Meta could do harm to the Fediverse / its users?
All I've read is that it seems suspicious and we shouldn't trust them. I totally agree with that but I'd like someone to give some examples of what they could do as a member of the network. I've read how they could post advertising – how would that work?
I ask because, like the previous comment, the idea of following people from other, more popular, federated platforms from the comfort and security of "open source" (?) platforms is appealing. At the same time, if this is leaving me and my platform vulnerable to something specific, I'd like to either proceed with caution or not proceed at all.
The biggest loss for me when leaving Twitter was losing access to so much happening in my community and local news and government organizations. They're all still posting on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram and not moving to the open social web. More and more are moving to Threads though so it would be nice to maintain / regain exposure.
XMPP didn't die, so why would the Fediverse?
