(Opinion:) You're So Vain, You Probably Think This App Is About You: On Meta and Mastodon
(Opinion:) 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:
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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.
Running a fediverse server is notoriously taxing. I don't see people deciding to start up a node just so they can spend their time enforcing policies they don't believe in that were handed down from Meta. The large majority of people who decide to start their own instance are probably doing it to gain some level of freedom over their social interactions online and falling in line with a large corporate overlord is antithetical to that
We seem to be arguing slightly different points. I agree with you. I was more focused to bigger instances. Lemmy.world will not always be the biggest.
EDIT: I've just realised I'm on a kbin thread. I guess your perspective is also slightly different due to that.
I don't think we're arguing different points. Even the largest instances were started by individuals not large companies. These are hobbyists doing something they think is fun or a useful/beneficial service. Their reasons for starting an instance (kbin, pleroma, lemmy, friendica, etc) are likely directly opposed to falling in line with policies from Meta.
I'm kinda baffled at how little trust people have on the Fediverse. People talk like every single instance is one soft breeze from collapsing and giving into the first Big Tech company to glance their way, and they best that we can hope is to fence it off to ward off the inevitable temptation. If that's how it is, it doesn't bode well for the future, regardless of Meta's presence.
The Fediverse is fragile. Especially Lemmy. Any more of yesterday's XSS shenanigans (welcome back to 2010!) and Lemmy will get the reputation of impossible to trust. Similar to how Google+ was a "ghosttown" with a few hundred million users, a few million of which were actually active.
The fediverse is not fragile. It's been around for a decade and a half during which time large corporate networks have taken over the world and then faded away. It's always been small and likely always will be, but that isn't a failure when your objective is to have a nice, communal network instead of a corporate, ad network that makes you $$$.