this post was submitted on 30 Mar 2024
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You realize that it makes it a lot more difficult to convince people to come to the rest of the Fediverse instead of using Threads if people are following them and federating with Threads?
This is exactly how Zuckerberg wants you to think.
These conversations we're having are all speculative, and we won't know how things play out till we get there. Trying to predict the behaviour of large groups of people is... difficult
What I predict is that defederation will play right into their selling point. We're going up against a behemoth of evil with enough money to bankroll creators into joining and promoting their platform. Defederating (when the majority of people don't understand what that means) will end up with people joining Threads.
Threads has a very high (artificially inflated) user count, it's by a company everyone already knows, and all instagram users already have an account. The strongest selling point we can have is "Join Mastodon, you can see all the same stuff but it's run by a non-profit instead of Facebook" That doesn't work if the selling point is "Join Mastodon to see different content".
For what it's worth, I'm actively using Mastodon and trying to inform any friends / family that are jumping ship to shift to Mastodon. Best case scenario, Mastodon takes off properly, Threads becomes a failed project by Meta, and we can nail this shut for good.
But you're giving Meta the same selling point, right? Join Threads and see all the same content. There's no point in going elsewhere then. It kinda goes both ways.
You're right that we don't know what will happen. So it could just as well be that Threads would swallow the whole Fediverse and then if Threads blocks an instance, it's like a death sentence for that instance. That's the whole embrace, extend, extinguish.
Somewhat yes
We saw a bit of that last July for how some people picked Lemmy instances
Hmmm maybe? But I think that's a misunderstanding from a lot of users. You don't want to see all content, trust me. Defederating is not necessarily bad. In most cases, it's healthy.
Yep I agree with you there :) It's a useful tool, and it's great that we have the option
The best place to go is Z, which federates with both.
I think that even if EEE is what Facebook is going after here, after a certain point some users will just get fed up with the demands/changes they're making and move to an instance that is incompatible/defederated with Threads and then we're pretty much back at where we're right now.
Like when reddit gave the ultimatum to switch to their app or stop using reddit we didn't really have a 3rd option. However if reddit was in the fediverse we could have just told them to have fun with their new platform while the rest of us stay with the old one among ourselves. Sure, you'll still lose majority of the content there but when it comes to threads we're not really interested in their content in the first place so it doesn't matter. If a Lemmy user is willing to play by Facebook's rules just so that they can stay connected to a bigger userbase then I'm not sure if we're actually losing anything of a value if and when our ways apart. Facebook can poison the majority of the fediverse but there's not much they can do with the instances that don't care if they get defederated or not. The niche instances will continue existing.
I'm not personally against my instance blocking them but I'm strongly against people pushing their values onto others. I would much rather have individual users block that instance if they so wish instead of someone deciding for them. Sure you can always switch instances but what Fedi Garden seems to be doing here is going against the essence of fediverse and bullying instances to do as they want just like we're worried of Facebook doing.
But many users might now and then we've given Threads leverage - stay federated with Threads and give in to their demands and changes, or lose a big chunk of your users. That's not leverage I want Meta to have. So I say defederate ahead of time.
I've seen this sentiment before and I understand how it can seem appealing. Why should anyone decide what any user sees? Just let every user decide for themselves.
However, there's multiple problems with that idea. Firstly, it doesn't scale. It's not sustainable to have every user block all the bad stuff for themselves before they get a sane feed. Secondly, it's not a whole solution. A single user can block an instance, but that instance will still have an influence with votes (and blocking an instance right now in Lemmy is only blocking community posts so you'll also see comments from an instance you "blocked" and this is by design). So user blocking simply doesn't do the same thing as defederation does.
Also nobody is pushing values onto others really - each user decides for themselves what instance to join. They can join one endorsed by the Fedigarden og fedipact or whatever else they want. Or they can join another one. Up to them.