What Meta’s Fediverse Plans Mean for Threads Users
What Meta’s Fediverse Plans Mean for Threads Users
We spoke with a product manager at Meta to learn how the company plans to bring interoperability to Threads in the coming months. It faces both technical and cultural challenges.
Meta is treading carefully, doing a phased implementation while continuing conversations with Fediverse leaders. This will give the company more time to iron out some of the integration kinks. “Do we adapt the protocol to be able to support this?” Lambert asks. “Or do we try to do some kind of interesting, unique implementation?” For example, Threads supports audio posts, a feature not currently supported within ActivityPub, so Meta is experimenting with “federating” a text transcription of the original post instead of the audio version.
It was never a good idea federating with Threads
For as long as this article is, it is remarkably free of journalism. It is basically a press release from Meta saying that they're planning to implement Threads in a few months, and don't feel like saying more about it than that.
“Do we adapt the protocol to be able to support this?” Lambert asks. “Or do we try to do some kind of interesting, unique implementation?”
This is a fascinating question, both in its lack of an answer, and in the inherent framing of the question that of course they're going to introduce incompatibilities, and the discussion is simply about how to do it.
Mastodon allows some artistic nudity
...
Additionally, specifics are still murky regarding exactly how user data will be handled after the connections between networks are established. For example, if you federate a post from Threads and decide to delete it afterwards, what happens to the cached post on the servers of the other networks?
That... is not the central question that's on people minds about how user data will be handled. Presumably you were in a position to ask Rachel Lambert, the product manager at Meta who started the company's journey towards interoperability, a more obvious and salient question, and include in your article her response.
Meta is treading carefully, doing a phased implementation while continuing conversations with Fediverse leaders.
Who are these leaders and what are they saying about this? This, also, seems like it would have been pertinent information to include. If Meta's answer was "You're not allowed to know that at present," then including that response seems like it would have made the article quite a bit more informative than simply pretending it didn't occur to you to ask for any details about this.
Mastodon allows some artistic nudity
This is akin to saying "the Internet allows some artistic nudity". Like, what do they think Mastodon is? Who is allowing it? "Mastodon" also allows hardcore porn. Or it doesn't. Or moderation is spotty. Or it's collapsed behind a warning.
Journalists, do like the barest minimum of research before simply relaying statements from company spokespeople.
Yeah, the whole article is like that. Not only is the writer apparently clueless enough to get basic facts about Mastodon wrong, but each one is wrong with a flavor of a Facebook-favoring way (like implying in several different subtle ways that Mastodon includes some sort of harmful behavior or some limitation, and we need to carefully monitor to make sure it doesn't negatively impact any Facebook users, and that's the issue). And, there's absolutely no curiosity or follow-up question even after statements that are clearly inviting them.
Absolutely spot on teardown of this joke article.
Are these audio only posts? That sounds like a terrible direction for the fediverse to go. We already have enough videos of people staring at their phone while talking.
Did everyone forget how to read?
Yes, I read the bit about transcription.
the cool part is we dont have to care about the audio piece. its not being federated: i dont give a shit.
Oh no, I totally agree.
My comment is more on the trend of where general social media seems to be heading.
That said, as long as we can continue to ignore… great!
For example, Threads supports audio posts, a feature not currently supported within ActivityPub, so Meta is experimenting with “federating” a text transcription of the original post instead of the audio version.
Here we go
You can attach an audio file to a post on mastodon and it gets an embedded player. Just federate a compatible audio file?
i dont get the fear here. if they are putting text into a field designed for text, thats somehow an extension of AP?
Fediverse leaders? Like John Mastodon?
The article's paywalled, but presumably they're talking to active developers and people who run large instances.
I think it's doubtful that they actually are. If they were actually reaching out to any Mastodon "leaders," I think the leaders would be saying something about it and posting the communications.
Lots of furries in their future I’d suppose
I keep seeing people hating on the EEE crowd. Finally meta makes a move that proves we were right.
EEE?
Edit: When did people start referring to embrace, extend, extinguish as EEE? I've heard of the term plenty for the past ~24 years but never seen this acronym before? Ah well...
Embrace, extend, extinguish
im gonna be a facebool conspiracy theorist here : reddit mabye got meta to EEE the fediverse
Yeah, right. And they come in on flying saucers.
i guess ill say it again. meta hasnt modified the protocol, and the bells and whistles they feed their own users on their own instance means nothing to the rest of the 'verse. calm the fuck down
calm the fuck down
What, and miss out on the delicious dopamine that comes from being part of a mob gripped by righteous anger? This is a chance to be mad at the same thing that everyone else is mad at, risk-free.
How is audio different from other media types (e.g. images, videos, etc) that it isn’t / couldn’t be supported by activity pub?
I don't know. Mastodon already supports audio posts, how does that federate? Why can't Threads do the same thing?
it's EEE. want to see all of your friend's posts? sign up for Threads by Meta today!
Pretty sure it's not. Wired is just talking about the wrong thing. Currently threads voice posts federate fine.
Another big, lingering question is why Meta wants to do this in the first place. Lambert says Meta wants to give users more control over their posts and followers, with easier avenues to engage across platforms.
So will they be implementing a method to export this data in ways that could be imported to other platforms? Otherwise I don't see where federation fits in here all that much.
Extending reach isn't really the same as control imo.
"Meta will play nice" the shills said.
"They won't EEE you're being paranoid", they said.
"They'll follow the standard", they said.
Besides the obvious repulsion for anything Meta, that's a novel thing to see, I'm kinda curious to see what happens with the user reception of these audio posts
It sounds annoying as fuck. I hate when my friends send audio messages in messaging apps.
Yep, think the same, too many voice messages are a pain, though adding a transcription sounds like a good deal, which also makes discoverability possible
Sorry for the n00b question, but how does a more “redditesque” Lemmy work with a more “twitteresque” service, and vice versa?
Both use activity pub protocol. Mastodon and lemmy already work somewhat well together.
It doesn't, this is pretty much just for them linking with Mastodon.
Actually pretty well. I've seen mastodon users around a few times.