Technology

59347 readers

5256 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

Follow the lemmy.world rules.
Only tech related content.
Be excellent to each another!
Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
Politics threads may be removed.
No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago

MODERATORS

530

Meta to introduce Ads on Threads in 2025 in move surprising no one. (www.reuters.com)

submitted 1 day ago by higgsboson@dubvee.org to c/technology@lemmy.world

61 comments fedilink hide all child comments

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

The topic is

No, that's not the topic. The topic is ads being placed in the fediverse in a way only defederation could block. Even if Meta silently making posts in the name of my favorite organic orange juice advertising Coca-Cola was legal (it's not), it would be easily solved by simply not following any Threads accounts. Also, Lemmy cannot interact with Threads anyway, so Lemmy servers defederating from Threads is completely pointless.

about them impersonating their own users and using that to push ads through federation.

No, that's not legal. That would violate copyright, consumer protection, competition laws, and whatnot, at least in the USA and the EU. Mastodon users (!!) must be explicitly aware that a post is an ad, not the brands ticking off an EULA on Threads. Therefore Mastodon users could decide to follow a brand account were products are promoted (just as they can right now if that brand has a regular Mastodon page) but Threads cannot legally impersonate one account on Threads to advertise another account. That's not a grey area.

I didn't set a timer but it took me at most a single-digit number of minutes to find documents and announcements about the FTC tightening the rules about deceptive advertising several times throughout the years.

[–] pivot_root@lemmy.world -1 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago) (1 children)

The topic is ads being placed in the fediverse in a way only defederation could block. Even if Meta silently making posts in the name of my favorite organic orange juice advertising Coca-Cola was legal (it's not), it would be easily solved by simply not following any Threads accounts.

Let's go with your idea of what the topic is for a second: have you considered how advertisement posts could appear in search results, hashtags, or the explore section? Or what if they decide to screw with the normal process and artificially inflate the number of boosts and favorites for advertisement posts? Okay, the solution is to simply have your instance users refrain from following any Threads accounts so the posts don't show up anywhere—which is effectively defederation.

Also, Lemmy cannot interact with Threads anyway, so Lemmy servers defederating from Threads is completely pointless.

Irrelevant to what I'm saying.

That would violate copyright, consumer protection, competition laws, and whatnot, at least in the USA and the EU.

That would violate copyright, consumer protection, competition laws, and whatnot, at least in the USA and the EU.

Doot Doot @SomePerson@example — 4h

Looking for gifts in time for the holiday season? Head on down to Best Buy to pick up some amazing deals on Black Friday!

-- This is an advertisement shown to you by Meta. Click here for more info. --

That would violate copyright, vonsumer protection, competition laws, and whatnot, at least in the USA and the EU.

As I previously mentioned, corporate accounts can be excluded to remove running afoul of competition laws.

Mastodon users (!!) must be explicitly aware that a post is an ad, not the brands ticking off an EULA on Threads.

As with my example toot above, that took all of 15 words. They don't need to be deceptive about what is or isn't an advertisement to push that shit through the ActivityPub protocol.

Threads cannot legally impersonate one account on Threads to advertise another account.

Your whole argument is predicated on the idea that a (personal) account on Threads is either owned by its creator, or is associated with a trademark. Furthermore, there are a number of different approaches they could take to argue that the ActivityPub support provides access to a feed of content, and not an individual identity.

In any case, you're repeatedly glossing over the fact that my original point was to say there isn't a way to prevent it AT THE PROTOCOL LEVEL.

[–] woelkchen@lemmy.world 1 points 4 hours ago

Let’s go with your idea of what the topic is for a second

Considering that I've replied to another person with my explanation and got very positive feedback, I certainly know better than you. You're not the person I've replied to. You interjected and then tried to educate to me what my comments are about.

have you considered how advertisement posts could appear in search results, hashtags, or the explore section?

Any brand account on a regular Mastodon instance would be the very same.

Or what if they decide to screw with the normal process and artificially inflate the number of boosts and favorites for advertisement posts?

Mastodon doesn't have an algorithmic timeline, so that would lead to absolutely nothing.

Also, Lemmy cannot interact with Threads anyway, so Lemmy servers defederating from Threads is completely pointless. Irrelevant to what I’m saying.

Relevant to the comment I've initially replied to.

What copyright? Threads users gave it away when they signed up.

Nope.

Your whole argument is predicated on the idea that a (personal) account on Threads is either owned by its creator, or is associated with a trademark.

No, I made several good arguments, you just moved goalposts and declared they don't matter.