There’s been a lot of speculation around what Threads will be and what it means for Mastodon. We’ve put together some of the most common questions and our responses based on what was launched today.
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I made a mistake, it was Fosstodon. They told Meta to fuck off. https://hub.fosstodon.org/assets/images/meeting-with-meta-email.webpMastodon is 100% a competitor to #Meta, and if I were #Mastodon, I would watch my back since everything Meta does is only for the benefit (or the endgame is) for themselves and their market share. Best case scenario would for Meta to extinguish Mastodon and have everyone go to #threads.
I do not understand why Mastedon is downplaying the very likely scenario of Meta EEE’ing the shit out of ActivityPub once they get people to migrate to Threads
Whelp, time to pack up I guess. Mastodon is the biggest player in the fediverse right now, so if Meta EEE’s us then the fediverse as a concept is doomed.
We have the foreknowledge of seeing EEE happen with XMPP/Google Chat, now. We can fight back against EEE against ActivityPub as it actually happens, with instances defederating with Meta and so on, when they start actually taking those negative actions. It’s gonna be fine.
Can we actually fight back, though? most of the people using the Fedi are on Mastodon, primarily coming from places like Twitter and Reddit because of the recent drama. The biggest complaint new people have is about how complicated Masto and other fediverse services are to get into for people who aren’t tech savvy, between choosing different instances and figuring out how to use them. Meanwhile, Meta provides a familiar, convenient experience from a brand they already know, even with its horrible reputation. Then when 90% of “fediverse” users are on Threads instead of the rest of the fedi, they’ll announce that they are dropping support for ActivityPub and there will only be a few thousand people left elsewhere to mourn it.
I think it’s worth noting that many more of us are aware of EEE than in the past, and while meta is very well known, it’s also kind of infamous. While some services have brand loyalty, meta kind of has a mix of brand apathy or brand repulsiveness to a lot of people. I think the most loyalty you might find would be in people who purchase into the quest ecosystem, or are avid users of Instagram.
I think enough of us are aware of the circumstances that when Meta eventually does start taking steps towards the “extension” phase, they’re going to get called out immediately, and communities are going to better able to resist than in the past.
I would agree if they didn’t already shovel in 10 million people from instagram in the past few hours, and you cant leave without deleting your facebook and instagram accounts and everything you have invested in them. They gained in the past few hours more people than the entire Fediverse has gained over the course of several years.
I think most people are here because we don’t really like groups like Meta. We existed before, and I believe we can persist without. Meta is going to have Facebook/instagram/whatsapp integration in threads that will require us to visit their site and/or link accounts to view. I think we might as well just defederate at that point.
We just have to EEE them back. It will be a like a classic anime beam war.
Umm, what is EEE? TY!! I found this: https://acronyms.thefreedictionary.com/EEE, so I’m totally confused.
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if you believe meta is going to act in the best interest of the fediverse, and not try to fuck it over, then please kindly remove your head from your ass.
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I see no way they aren’t a competitor. Meta is a company. Companies exists to make money. Meta makes money by driving engagement and then monitizing via ads or user data sale for others to target ads.
Like are we all supposed to pretend a company, Meta of all companies, is an altruistic entity? Because that’s not how it works… At all.
Remove corporations from social networks.
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It’s poisoning the well though, even if I don’t see the ads. Also they will prioritize inflammatory content to drive engagement, which would affect other instances as well (you know, like they do for all their other apps/platforms).
And corporations are not good or bad, but the for profit ones… are for profit. And I’m sorry but there is no justification for a profit motive in social media.
This is true with Kbin and Lemmy, and Mastodon instances but Meta doesn’t have that mindset. They are going to have ads and are going to see users not on their instance as eyes that rightfully belong to them that are not set on those ads.
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I’m not aware that Eugen ever said that he wouldn’t deal with Meta. Maybe he did, but I’m not aware of it.
The pushback on Mastodon hasn’t been by Mastodon gGmbH. It’s been by smaller instance admins.
I made a mistake, it was Fosstodon.
https://hub.fosstodon.org/assets/images/meeting-with-meta-email.webp
Which means that they probably proposed the same offer to Mastodon and they likely accepted.
I understand all the fear around meta. However on federated platforms, is all competition not a good thing?
Also I have to imagine the overlap between the type of people currently on federated platforms, and those willing to use any platform made by meta is rather slim.
Also what do you think about the comparisons with XMPP?
Just curious to hear your thoughts
when a large monopolistic company is trying to join the fediverse, its not because they want to play fair. They literally can not try and play fair, if their profits are not continually growing, then they are legally not representing the best interest of the shareholders. if you actually believe that meta joining the fediverse has an altruistic motive, or they they will not act in a way that benefits their shareholders(to kill any competition that takes any of their profit in any way), then you are probably not looking at the full story and need to consider if you are capable of thinking.
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Will Meta embrace-extend-extinguish the ActivityPub protocol?
There are comparisons to be made between Meta adopting ActivityPub for its new social media platform and Meta adopting XMPP for its Messenger service a decade ago. There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers, before each platform was locked down into the silos we know today. What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now.
Yes, 5 years from now when Threads abandons ActivityPub, you will be 5 years behind Threads. That is not a good outcome.
XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.
Mastodon is not exactly a household name.
I really hope for the best. And it’s not like anyone can stop Meta from making Threads and enabling ActivityPub. But this reasoning is not very convincing.
large instances like Mastedon and Lemmy.world can defederate…Mastedon already sold out so this could already be a lost cause. If they had any fucking decency they would have refused to work with them in any capacity
XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.
That’s either a really tasty self-irony or just delusional. I really hope no one thinks Mastodon is anything but a nerd circle.
Hmm… sounds a bit too idealistic to be true, especially given how Facebook has acted in the past. I appreciate his hope for the future, but I think he severely underestimates the lengths to which FB will go to monetize and control users on their platforms.
Here’s the scenario I don’t like. Threads scrapes my OC on a federated server, then reposts it to their users with advertisements. Now, not only has FB taken my OC without getting my permission or even informing me, they’re now garnering profit from it. If this were a print publication, this would plainly be copyright theft. And if I want to remove my content that’s now hosted on Threads without my permission, there’s no possible way for me to do so - I can delete the post and hope their federated server does the same, but given how hard they make it to delete a FB account, I’m not terribly optimistic.
It’s no wonder #threads isn’t launching in Europe - there’s no way in hell this kind of thing is even remotely GDPR compliant.
Anyone willing to give Meta even the slightest bit of the benefit of the doubt is at best incredibly naive and at worst an outright idiot.
That’s an interesting point. Can anyone take your original content and repost it to make money? As I understand it, anything you create is theoretically copyrighted at the moment you created. You’re not required to file a copyright, at least not in the United States.
Sure they can. Stack overflow is one example. Any business operating on user driven content will be culpable. When you agree to the EULA and it tells you “what you post here belongs to us and we grant you a license to publish it yourself”, you’re signing over ownership of your content in exchange for a license to replicate it. That’s how social media all works, all the EULAs work that way. FOSS is no different.
Dude a federated SO would be a dream. Imagine actually be able to post something without it being flagged as a duplicate of a 10 year old outdated question.
I’m a technical sense, that is a feature not a bug of federated platforms
Look I don’t want to be combative here, and my sincere apologies if this response comes off that way but here goes
IMHO this is already the way activitypub works. Platforms that choose to federate, are able to pool their posts and the like. And yes instances can make money off of content posted on other instances. That’s not a bug it’s a feature.
On the other hand, meta sucks and I’m not sure if I’d really want to federate with them either. So like, idk lol, just spitballing
100%. The open and public nature of the fediverse is something everyone should be considering every single time they post on a federated platform. I don’t want to federate with meta because ew , but it would be absurd to think that a public platform like this isn’t gonna get scraped to hell anyways.
TLDR: Mastodon trying their damndest to rationalize taking the money.
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That’s not actually the tl;dr in my opinion, but others should decide for themselves.
Whats your source on “taking the money”, by the way?
Did they take any money? Genuinely asking, hadn’t heard they did…
If they did the contract would be under an NDA. No way for us to find that shit out - you just have to watch the enshittification happen as the early birds get paid.
Meta is public. A transaction like that could not be done in secret.
Meta is a publicly traded company - that doesn’t mean they have business arrangements the outside world doesn’t know about. They’re held to public reporting obligations and have a Board of Directors hand-picked by Zuck (since he still has the majority control of voting shares).
A transaction like that is done in secret all the time, each and every day.
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Judging by this thread alone, I’d say people aren’t convinced.
ChatGPT summary of the blog post:
Here is a summary of the blog:
- Threads are a way to organize conversations on Mastodon, a decentralized social network.
- Threads allow users to reply to specific posts and create branching discussions that are easy to follow and participate in.
- Threads can be public or private, depending on the visibility settings of the original post and the replies.
- Users can view threads by clicking on the reply icon of any post, or by using the “Show thread” option in the menu.
- Users can also join or leave threads by using the “Follow thread” or “Unfollow thread” options in the menu.
- Threads are a powerful feature that enhance the user experience and foster community engagement on Mastodon.
- Mastodon and Threads will likely be able to communicate with each other once Threads supports federation, but it will depend on the server operators’ choices. Mastodon users can always switch servers or self-host if they want more control.
- Threads will not be able to impose their moderation policies on other servers, and that each server will have its own rules and tools. Mastodon servers can block specific content from Threads if they want to.
- Mastodon welcomes the adoption of ActivityPub by large platforms, as it validates the decentralized social web and enables users to switch platforms more easily. This creates more competition and pressure for better services.
Any way you could consider not littering threads with shitty tldrs?
Ok, my bad. Blame ChatGPT for the shittyness though.
This isn’t reddit though dude.
People are here to learn and engage. You’re not contributing towards that goal and it sorta comes across as a cheap karma grab. Which I know I am not here for. Seems like many aren’t either.
I think we would all just prefer to hear your thoughts, opinions, and contributions to the discussion rather than doing what you’re doing.
Just my two cents.
If you’re going to “summarize” something, at least take the time to do it yourself, not run it through ChatGPT.
I’m still pretty much “wait and see” on this. A lot of folks are predicting gloom and doom, but also have a lot of good points. Meta shouldn’t be trusted in general, but they also haven’t done anything yet - they haven’t even implemented ActivityPub yet.
I think it’s more they’re trying to make a Twitter-killer then kill Mastodon from the inside. They want people on their site so they can show them ads, and they want to get those people from Twitter. ActivityPub integration is another feature they can use to get attention.
A company exists to make money - period. I struggle to see why Meta making money off ActivityPub is a good thing.
There’s just no good reason to have a profit motive in social media when it simply doesn’t need to be there.
There’s just no good reason to have a profit motive in social media when it simply doesn’t need to be there.
Exactly! In that regard, it’s like health care. The profit motive can only harm the public.
ActivityPub integration is another feature they can use to get attention.
See, that’s what I don’t understand. ActivityPub means nothing to the vast majority of potential Threads users. There’s no way that Meta is going to use ActivityPub to gain users; all they have to do is what they HAVE done, leverage Instagram. The only thing that makes sense to me is that they may be hoping that federation will allow them to get around the EU’s limitations.
But even that doesn’t really make sense. Zuck doesn’t really care that much about regulations. He breaks them all the time. Which leaves me with the question, why ActivityPub? What aren’t we seeing?
