Technology

Defederate. Meta would do nothing but rot the fediverse from the inside

Question if a server defederate from threads but is still federated with a server that federate with threads can meta get your data

It's all fun and games until Facebook starts adding features, then eventually starts defining what the fediverse should do to maintain federation with Facebook.

Can someone ELI5 what this means for Lemmy, Mastadon, and other platforms that are federated?

I thought the point of federations was to allow server instances the ability to prevent other instances from interacting with one another?

Couldnt servers just block or prevent Threads from interacting with them?

Just reading this? I don't understand how this truly changes anything at all. Why is everyone concerned? The API isn't owned by Zuck but open for usage.

I had heard, of course, that Rochko was in confidential talks with Facebook abiut something. This is disheartening. Facebook is toxic and must be kept out of the Fediverse.

Remember what Google Groups did to Usenet? We should be wary.

LMAO, i didnt knew that its not in the eu already..... Oh wait the data privacy law is something here.

Threads will just straight up kill the fideverse. Ping me in a year or so!

Meta needs to be split up at this point, as do many other tech companies.

XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.

I love Mastodon and the Fediverse, but to pretend that we are not a nerd circle is a bit disingenuous.

Interesting times, we have Elon destroying the user base in twitter, sending users to the fediverse (add in reddit), whilst his mate Mark launches Threads and starts courting the fediverse. They're two billionaires. They both have the same vision. Monopolised control. One destroys whilst the other builds. They're in this together. Don't be so blind. De-federate!

This is why we can't have nice things. It was nice to be on platforms with no corporate stink for a brief moment.

This reads as incredibly condescending, naive and duplicitous, filled with hubris.

For starters, the whole “yeah sure XMPP got EEE’d but who cares, only nerds cared about that, lol” is not only false (e.g. Jabber), but also does nothing to quell concerns.

Here’s an account by someone who was in the XMPP trenches when Google started adopting it.

Notice something? The “omg so cool!”, this is exactly the same as Rochko.

It’s the hubris when you’re a FOSS maintainer who toiled away for years without recognition and now a $700B+ corporation is flattering him by wanting to use/interact with his work.

The blog is a far cry from the anti-corporate tone in the informational video from 2018.

Then there’s the fact that Rochko is extremely tight lipped about the off the record meeting with Meta and consistently refuses to deny having received funds from Meta and refuses to pledge not to accept any funds from Meta.

There’s also the unsatisfactory answer he gave to people who started questioning some dubious sponsors and the fact that he rushed to lock the thread, killing any further discussion.

I genuinely think the dude is just so hyped for the perceived recognition, that he lost the thread.

So much so that he thinks Mastodon is untouchable.

And it’s extremely naive to think that Meta has benevolent motives here or that Mastodon will survive any schemes Meta might have.
What’s more realistic is that Mastodon will die because people will flock to Threads if their social graph has moved over.

Similarly these lofty and naive ideas that people on Threads will make the switch to Mastodon once they get a taste of what it has to offer.

So now all of a sudden the “difficulty” to get started in Mastodon, that is keeping people who want a polished corporate experience away isn’t going to be an issue?

Especially when in the “extinguish” phase Meta will have siloed off from Mastodon and its portability function, having to leave their social graph behind?

It’s all so increasingly naive, one can’t help but wonder if it’s intentional sabotage at this point.

Mark my words, this’ll be the end of Mastodon especially when Meta can outspend Mastodon all day every day to add proprietary functionality.

Sure perhaps years from now a few hundred to a few thousand people might still use it, but it will be as irrelevant as XMPP is to most people, and Rochko with it.

@remindme@mstdn.social in 2 years.

FOSS is the ultimate form of software. It's like life, it will just get copied and forked and modified, and it will continue to evolve because it's been set free in the world.

Yeah, Facebook might embrace-extend-extinguish the Fediverse. But on the other hand, it's not the end of the world if they do. Right now, we have a decentralized platform to post, talk and interact on. If that changes, we will create another one

To me, the most interesting part about this is that the Fediverse is even on ~~Facebook's~~ Meta's radar. It's tiny. Do they see it as a possible competitor?