this post was submitted on 07 Jul 2023
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Pros and cons of federating with threads? (lemmy.world)
submitted 1 year ago by Jackolantern@lemmy.world to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml
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I saw in the posts recently how Metas thread grew rapidly in a span of just a day. I understand that since threads posts a privacy nightmare (no surprises there) I’m leaning towards de-federating with them.

But I am also cautiously excited about the massive amount of content if we federated instead.

So for purposes of discussion, may I know the pros and cons of federating with threads?

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[–] empireOfLove@lemmy.one 90 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

As I've heard Threads is not yet ActivityPub federation enabled- meta is going walled garden for the foreseeable future.

Benefits of federation would be:

  • Massive available content boost for Lemmy, making user retention and growth easier.
  • Much wider general user awareness of Lemmy and the Fediverse via federated content titles showing off instance names. May drive more natural user growth.

Cons of federation would be:

  • Data security. it's Meta. Any and all user information, including admin data, naturally exposed by federated services instantly gets sucked into the Zuck data vacuum to build a user profile. Right now, we're still reasonably insulated from them.
  • Spam. Threads is already massive by virtue of sucking in all the Instagram users. They would COMPLETELY drown any natural Lemmy content in their sheer volume of posts and votes, meaning lemmy native communities will struggle to gain any widespread traction over their Threads counterpart.
  • Content manipulation. Anything Meta chooses to promote via their "algorithm" will end up on the top of every federated instance, meaning they can now effectively manipulate all Lemmy content by simply bombarding federated instances with whatever they want.
  • Moderation. I'm not gonna sugar coat it, the average Instagram user is really dumb and it brings in all the shitty people with it too. Moderation of small instances will become impossible by sheer volume while federated with Threads.
  • Principle. Meta's practices of extensive monetization and monopolization goes against every principle the fediverse was founded upon (freedom, decentralization, and emphasis on the user rather than the advertiser). By federating with Threads, you are giving Meta a free license to monetize the content you are paying to host on your own independent instance, for free. That just fucking stinks.
[–] Polydextrous@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Long story short, it’s a 1:15 pros/cons

[–] empireOfLove@lemmy.one 10 points 1 year ago

Pretty much lol. Given Lemmy's current community situation there's really very little reason to ever federate with them.

[–] fidodo@lemm.ee 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm wondering if they will even decide to try to federate. They're bootstrapping threads with Instagram that already had 2+billion users. That's insanely big compared to the fediverse. What do they even benefit from enabling it?

[–] TeddE@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago

They crush a potential rival in its infancy. That's literally all. It all reads to me as textbook embrace, extend, extinguish.

If the federated web were a company, they'd just buy them out if they got big enough. But it's not, so they can't, and that worries them. But they see the open part of open source as a vulnerability, so they put on a smile, pretend the game is 'if you can't beat them, join them' and then sabotage the protocol in a million ways from the inside while convincing users that your app is clearly the best way to experience the federated web.

[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Data security. it's Meta. Any and all user information, including admin data, naturally exposed by federated services instantly gets sucked into the Zuck data vacuum to build a user profile. Right now, we're still reasonably insulated from them.

Couldn't they just run another instance and not tell us the domain name and silently steal all our data anyway? I feel like there is no way to have data security when it is decentralized. All my Lemmy data is on hundreds of other servers already.

[–] empireOfLove@lemmy.one 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

This much is true, I concede that. It's highly likely they're farming this very thread as we speak- the vacuum covers all, and Zuck has clearly been thinking about the fediverse for quite some time. However it's of limited use to feed the other points when they can't use the data to develop direct connections with their own internal users via direct interactions.

Also you doubleposted by accident.

[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 1 points 1 year ago

I saw the double post and immediately deleted the second one. The one you replied to was the one I actually deleted, but it looks like the delete didn't federated to you. That's really scary actually if you can't guarantee that you can delete stuff on Lemmy. If I rant about something in the heat of the moment and say something I regret, I can't guarantee that I can remove it.

[–] Jackolantern@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago

This is very thorough. Thank you!

[–] dandroid@dandroid.app 2 points 1 year ago

Data security. it's Meta. Any and all user information, including admin data, naturally exposed by federated services instantly gets sucked into the Zuck data vacuum to build a user profile. Right now, we're still reasonably insulated from them.

Couldn't they just run another instance and not tell us the domain name and silently steal all our data anyway? I feel like there is no way to have data security when it is decentralized. All my Lemmy data is on hundreds of other servers already.

[–] TootSweet@latte.isnot.coffee 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Pros:

Cons: We're federating with Threads.

Edit: I appreciate the upvotes, but please use your votes to boost @FormlessMartian@lemmy.world's post with a link to an excellent post enumerating in great detail all the reasons why we should defederate Threads.

[–] BornVolcano@lemmy.world 27 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

The content is facebook-oriented content. Idk if it would even really be the kind of audience that most of the fediverse would be able to sustain.

As it is, reddit was a concern for many people. Facebook? Not a chance.

Besides, large scale defederation discourages Meta from trying to weasel their way into everything like that. Don't encourage them. They want you excited, but overlooking the massive issues.

[–] Jackolantern@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

That’s true.

[–] BornVolcano@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

They like having no competition, by being friendly at first, then crushing us when we let them access our userbase. Defederate, with no second thoughts. If the Meta users want to experience the fediverse, nothing is stopping them from making a Lemmy account on any instance.

[–] webghost0101@lemmy.fmhy.ml 25 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Pros: millions of users can interact with your instance

Cons: This is a super blatant attempt to consume all data. They have been doing this for years. β€œLog in with facebook” They see the value of the fediverse and aim to become the mainstream place for new accounts. Those users can then interact with any kind off community they want. Meta is not responsible for content on other instances. But they are harvesting all of it trough millions of clueless spies.

[–] InEnduringGrowStrong@lemm.ee 10 points 1 year ago

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.
But also sell your data.

-Meta

[–] jocanib@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Mastodon does not have any of my data.

[–] webghost0101@lemmy.fmhy.ml 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

As a lemmy user i can click your name and scroll trough a list of all posts and comments you have made. Thats your data and its currently free for the taking to any corporation.

Eventually instances may develop ways to protect their users from this for example make posts only visible to verified human members that are members of a community. Now imagine a user joining such community from the meta threads apps. It wouldn’t be beneath them to fulltime record the app screen and ocr all the text the user sees.

[–] jocanib@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They can, and do, scrape any public data I post regardless. As long as they cannot link it to my name, email address, phone number, bank account, social security number or health records, I don't care.

[–] webghost0101@lemmy.fmhy.ml 3 points 1 year ago

At some point meta tried purchasing anonymized patient data from hospitals.

We are also discovering there are many subtle way to identify a person, like grammar, spelling speech patterns (tor specifically warns against this).

Chances are high they already have some data on you, all they need is enough subtle unique things in your data to rule out anyone else. Based on the times your most active and references you might make.

Now i am not a zuck owned superai but to give you my human attempt for an initial culling:

A social security number is the name of the American name of such number. Purposely sounding American is a strategy on itself for non Americans but the act of trying to hide your identity by pretending to be from the us can be an identifier as-well. You also seem to be more on the political left so your your likely part one of 160 mil people (for convenience i am assuming a 50% split in left/right ideology in the us)

In most countries your isp have some of your personal details your isp is also able to see all the internet domains you visit. They cant see what you do on them but because every instance has its own domain they have a timestamped list of all federated instances you visit.

It only takes that info to be leaked/hacked or sold for the big corps to obtain it. Of course if you use a vpn your isp cant see the domain but if you do have a vpn congratulations cause its yet another identifier and they too can be hacked or be selling this data.

The best way and only (still not guaranteed) way to remain anonymous is by using tor browser in windowed mode. Refraining from interacting and if you post to run your speech trough an ai algorithm to generalize/neutralize any personality from it.

[–] Venomnik0@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

At this point, the pro is kinda pointless now because these users are slowly being uninterested and leaving since the algorithm is shit.

[–] webghost0101@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

I cannot disagree. At first i was worried about how good lemmy could possibly be with just a fraction of the reddit user base. Nowadays i feel like we got to many people already. Centralized under only a few instances no less.

[–] FormlessMartian@lemmy.world 22 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

opposing points thread

[–] dohpaz42@lemmy.world 14 points 1 year ago

Quality over quantity. Can you say for certain that the massive amount of content will be worth having?

[–] WheelcharArtist@lemmy.world 11 points 1 year ago

only cons

[–] ram@lemmy.ramram.ink 6 points 1 year ago

Meta's fine with transphobia. I am not. It can hardly be called a decision at that point, I don't need Libs of Titkok and their ilk filling my federated feed.

[–] jocanib@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago

I want Meta's data without having to give Meta my data. Defederation is a perfectly reasonable action for any single instance but please, don't try to get all of them to do it.

[–] Mada0@lemmy.fmhy.ml 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Is there a place where lemmy users get to vote on whether we eventually fed or defed? Or is that decision decentralised to instances as well.

My point is it will suck if we just have to tag along with whatever decision is made without having a say. Personally I don't want my experience in Lemmy to have a damn thing to do with Meta or FB...

Also apologies if I'm derailing this thread, let me know and I will make a separate one.

[–] idle@158436977.xyz 3 points 1 year ago

The instance owners are the ones who get the final say. Federation is controlled at the instance level. As a Lemmy user, you are free to leave and go to another instance that doesnt federate, or you can even make your own.

[–] linearchaos@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Anyone that's upset that there's not enough people here wouldn't be able to complain about that anymore,

They will however have all the new people to complain about.

Early adopters that are willing to overcome a small challenge and will work too fill out the empty communities are great friends.

The onslot from Instagram is going to look a lot more like zombies.

[–] Jackolantern@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Hmn. You have a good point.

[–] liontigerwings@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Maybe I'm missing something, why would threads show up on Lemmy when it's more like Twitter or mastadon?

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