this post was submitted on 11 Jun 2023
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Technology

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Here's everything we know about it so far:

  • It will use ActivityPub.
  • It will be a side app of Instagram.
  • It will most likely be called Threads.
  • Your Instagram verification status will transfer over.
  • There will be easy discovery tools in place: Your Instagram followers will be able to follow you on Threads as well (they won't transfer over automatically).

What do you think?

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[–] antony@lemmy.ca 45 points 1 year ago (3 children)

No, I don't want corporate social networks who farm data.

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[–] OneRedFox@beehaw.org 41 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It's probably a good idea to limit/defederate with this when it shows up, as it's a vector for EEE and Meta will be doing the usual data collection shit they do with their users, but now with Fediverse users as well. They just got hit with a big fine for violating the GDPR.

[–] psudo@beehaw.org 17 points 1 year ago

Yeah, I hope they're pretty much de-federated. I wish them and the users of their platform the best, but I don't want to contribute to feeding that beast.

[–] leecalvin@lemmy.ca 36 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Why would you join when you can just follow the accounts that interest you on it from Lemmy or Mastodon/Pleroma/Akkoma/etc ???

[–] cih@beehaw.org 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm a photographer and I have a relatively large following on Instagram; all my professional and social contacts are on there. So, that's why it's personally appealing to me. The Fediverse has (so far) been a bit of a lonely experience for me (but I still like it a lot).

[–] jennifilm@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Oh snap, i didn't think about it from that perspective! Instagram is still the place where sharing my work gets the most reach, I hadn't thought about what this app might mean for that.

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[–] isosphere@beehaw.org 34 points 1 year ago

This is from the company that weights anger five times higher than likes for its algorithm. The one that is trying to force feed me "shorts" with no ability to opt out. So much of the Facebook experience is non-consensual. I wouldn't touch another platform from them.

[–] Andreas@feddit.dk 33 points 1 year ago (4 children)

Meta's main income stream is data mining and they will take advantage of federation to collect data (not metadata, but human-generated content is still very valuable for AI model training) of users on federated instances. Any content that federates over to this instance will be cached on Meta servers where they can do whatever they like with it. There is no legal data protection framework for content retrieved from federated networks and Meta's lawyers will try to argue that federating with this platform counts as giving consent to the platform's TOS. Meta platforms introduce lots of advertising and bots to the network. Don't just ignore this platform, give them the Gab treatment.

[–] vhstape@beehaw.org 20 points 1 year ago

This is a somewhat terrifying concept to grapple with. I think letting Meta federate would be letting vomit soak into the carpet

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[–] LemmyAtem@beehaw.org 30 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] JohnDClay@sh.itjust.works 10 points 1 year ago

I was never on Twitter, why join that cesspit now?

[–] lowleveldata@programming.dev 23 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It depends. How much porn are we talking?

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[–] mobyduck648@beehaw.org 22 points 1 year ago

It’s Meta, you might as well ask ‘should the henhouse accept the fox’s invitation to a hearty banquet this evening?’

[–] emstuff@lemmy.blahaj.zone 21 points 1 year ago

so just twitter but owned by meta, nah fam im good

[–] Sintamo@beehaw.org 21 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (8 children)

I genuinely believe this could be successful.

Mastodon STILL has UX issues, and the rest of ActivityHub and the Fediverse are impenetrable to the average person. That will change over time, but in the meantime, I can't even get people to use Signal for god's sake, let alone explain which Lemmy instance is best for them.

I still have an Instagram because my friends do. Without Instagram DMs and iMessage, I lose real life connections. If they fold in a Twitter-esque client to Instagram, that I can interact with from Mastodon if I want? That sounds like a really strong value proposition to me, and is the only way your non-techy friends are joining this parade any time soon.

But also, we've got to make sure these massive companies don't snuff out what Lemmy and Mastodon are building. There's a group of suits somewhere right now thinking of how to monetise this platform, and we need to be prepared for that.

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[–] JoeKrogan@lemmy.world 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It will use activity pub....... until it gets adoption and then it will close the doors like they did with XMPP. Also its Facebook so anything they touch should be avoided like the plague. They have proven time and time again they are not to be trusted, they were in the Snowden docs & they have had numerous lawsuits against them.

https://www.vox.com/recode/2019/10/31/20940532/edward-snowden-facebook-nsa-whistleblower

"and if you don't know , now you know"

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[–] 0xtero@kbin.social 18 points 1 year ago (2 children)

It will use ActivityPub.

When the Twitter exodus to Mastodon happened at the end of last year, everyone was speculating what would happen if Google would enable Activity Pub for Gmail and suddenly every Gmail user would be able to post (and what would happen after they start monetizing it with ads).

That never happened but this is the first time one of the billion dollar tech giants has actively published their intention of creating something in the fedi-space. And of course it has to be Meta. One of the shadiest of the "big tech".

I'm extremely skeptical of their good intentions and I'm a bit worried about what will happen to fediverse after all those 1.2 billion MAU's start flooding the protocol.

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[–] zaktmt@beehaw.org 18 points 1 year ago

I have little hope if any that this will actually be a meaningful replacement for Twitter or even a competitor in the micro-blogging world. But it being Meta ESPECIALLY makes me reluctant to even try it.

[–] alyaza@beehaw.org 17 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

i'm sure this has to have appeal for someone, but i can't think a person this less appeals to than me. i literally only use twitter because it's incredibly useful for following happenings pretty much anywhere, and i cannot imagine anybody i care about is going to full-time switch to this platform. people are struggling to even switch to Jack's exact clone!!

[–] cih@beehaw.org 15 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Jack Dorsey's clone/competitor is dead on arrival for me. Dorsey endorsed an anti-vaccination conspiracy theorist for the American presidential election. So... Yeah, not going to touch that one.

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[–] negi@kbin.social 16 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If it is federated, I don't need to join.
If it is NOT federated, I don't want to join.

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[–] EnigmaNL@feddit.nl 13 points 1 year ago

I hate Meta even more than Twitter, so no.

[–] loki@lemmy.ml 13 points 1 year ago

Staying away from facebook and its companies always has been a good bet for privacy. It's not going to change anytime soon.

[–] wildeaboutoskar@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

Not if Meta is managing it. I don't particularly trust them with my data so I'm not going out of my way to give it to them

[–] Limeade@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

“We’ve been hearing from creators and public figures who are interested in having a platform that is sanely run, that they believe that they can trust and rely upon for distribution,”

I think someone hasn't been paying attention to the reputation of Facebook. Between Cambridge Analytica, being used to stir civil unrest, spreading Q-anon conspiracy theories to all the boomers, and fostering an entire genocide in Myanmar, Facebook has lost a lot of trust.

I do think it's fascinating that they are hopping on the ActivityPub bandwagon though.

[–] Stormyfemme@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago

Meta == no deal Zucky boy.

[–] Noonecanknowitsme@beehaw.org 13 points 1 year ago
[–] binwiederhier@discuss.ntfy.sh 12 points 1 year ago

I know this is not the right audience for this, but that is an exceptional move on Meta's side, and the timing is perfect. Meta has produced so much garbage with the metaverse and all that stuff, so this seems like the first good idea they had in a while.

[–] kutti@lemmy.ml 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)
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[–] Test_User@lemmy.rogers-net.com 12 points 1 year ago
[–] biff@lemmy.ca 12 points 1 year ago
[–] sascamooch@lemmy.sascamooch.com 12 points 1 year ago
[–] anhedonia@bae.st 12 points 1 year ago

@cih I hope it gets defederated from most of the network. Meta is internet cancer and should be contained.

[–] daan@lemmy.vanoverloop.xyz 11 points 1 year ago

I'll blacklist them on my instance.

[–] eSquared@beehaw.org 11 points 1 year ago

Meta? Absolutely fucking not.

[–] DarkErmac@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I avoid all things Facebook like the plague.

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[–] Krafty@kbin.social 11 points 1 year ago

I hate Facebook and Instagram so thanks but no thanks. I'll stay on Mastodon.

[–] DiamondOptics@partizle.com 11 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Meta has the capacity to make really evil products, let's not start the EEE treadmill.

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[–] sky@beehaw.org 10 points 1 year ago

It will use ActivityPub

Embrace, extend, extinguish.

Trusting this thing would always be a bad idea.

[–] Protegee9850@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Nah. I'm on Mastodon. If they use AcitivtyPub and are accessible, all well and good. But I'm done with the corporate ad-supported web if at all possible, and there is literally no way Meta/Facebook won't try to leverage people's posts/information for advertising.

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[–] jadedctrl@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I hope it very much doesn’t get defederated. Meta’s service would have less of a lock-in effect if it could communicate with other servers. The primary reason people stick to platforms like Facebook & co. is that their friends and family are on it; but if they can keep talking to them on a different platform, they’re suddenly much more susceptible to ditching Meta and ditching apathy in regards to privacy.

Be seemingly friendly to Meta and any other social media company that starts using ActivityPub — so that we can get normies to ditch them and join the libre side. :)

(ofc, this position is on a case-by-case basis and hinges on how exactly federation is handled by the service at hand. We'll see!)

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[–] sushrit_lawliet@lemmy.one 9 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Anything from Facebook or whatever they wanna call themselves is a no-go for me. It’ll surely have a lot of sheeple flocking to it and some people who need the public exposure (brands, influencers etc) but I’m happy away from that kind of a platform. If they do make it interoperable with something mastodon or kibn that would be interesting.

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[–] DaEagle@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago

Yeah, that's a No from me, dog

[–] Poot@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

The idea of getting involved with any kind of corporate media at this point turn to my stomach, especially after all this happened in the last couple years.

Why in God's name would anybody invest any time and energy into yet another corporate platform that will just be yanked, or turned into a nightmare when some corporate man baby decides he hasn't had enough profits to keep himself in new yachts.

I'm sick of it, have absolutely no intention whatsoever of participating in that crap anymore.

[–] Mogster@beehaw.org 9 points 1 year ago

While Meta are obviously bad news, it is cool to see ActivityPub getting traction from the big players.

But no, definitely not for me. Mastodon is just fine.

[–] Pistachio@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 year ago

I deleted all of my Meta-owned accounts a long, long time ago. I will never seriously use any of their social media platforms again.

[–] leraje@lemmy.ml 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The Meta Plan:

  1. We're going to use ActivityPub because we love the Fediverse!!!
  2. Now we're live, here's some improvements to AP, now they're not standard but we're working closely with the AP guys. It would help if you all pleaded with them to accept these changes- they're just to make things better!
  3. Yay! All the changes were implemented and we've formed the AP Council, we might invite some of the old AP guys to it.
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[–] BorgDrone@kbin.social 8 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Hell no. I can't think of any company I trust less than Meta/Facebook.

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