this post was submitted on 19 Dec 2023
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[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I think the conversation should be about the impact of federating with an "instance" with a long history of poor or apathetic moderation vs. creating an off-boarding system for Meta users to escape the corporatocracy.

Personally I vote for the latter, and I'm glad most of the larger instances are in the same boat.

In an ideal world people realize they can escape the ads and data collection without losing touch with friends, family and news and Meta goes down in flames but maybe that's the optimist in me.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago

Fully agree. I feel like helping facebook keep their users stuck on their platform or worse Twitter feels counterproductive in making the world more free.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If you think Meta will allow the Threads algorithm to show anything from the fediverse you are unbelievably naive. And that's if content from the fediverse even makes a blip on a platform with 100x the size.

Meta doesn't federate with the goal of giving Threads users an out. They federate because it's the most efficient way to scrape fediverse instances and build profiles on fediverse users.

Meta has reached saturation with their existing services so they are now branching into any possible extra source of data they can. They'll take anything, from fediverse federation to Whatsapp emails. All your data is welcome to them.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

They federate because it’s the most efficient way to scrape fediverse instances and build profiles on fediverse users.

That's not true. Quiet scraping is much easier to implement than integrating AP into your platform.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

They don't need to show you anything in the algorithm.

As for data, that's complete non-sense. What data do you think they're getting access to that they can't already get? If the goal was to trove data they would have done it quietly and not announced it so that everyone could block them before they even had a chance.

They're federating because of the Digital Markets Act.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In an ideal world people realize they can escape the ads and data collection without losing touch

Meta will not allow this to happen, and if/when it does, they will take action. This shit is a zero sum game to these people.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

They may not have a choice

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Honestly I could see this being a way of trapping people by giving them less incentive to leave. If people like us leave and you have to leave the corporate hellscapes to see our posts that gives people a reason to leave too but if they can enjoy it from the "comfort" of Mark Zuckerberg's domain they have no reason to leave. That also makes them captive to met us since they can pull the plug in Federation anytime they like or mess with it in a thousand different ways. Convincing people to sign up for another account may be non-trivial but it's ultimately the best way forward

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Haha no one is leaving a Meta service to join one with 1% as many users.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

No, I don't think the conversation should be about the impact of federating with an instance.

If we want to see it, great. If we don't, also great. But we should have the power to decide for ourselves instead of some biased admins.

The only people who disagree with this are those who want to control what other people get to see.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

we should have the power to decide for ourselves instead of some biased admins.

So admins shouldn't defederate from any instances at all? Even right wing Nazi instances with Nazi flags in every profile?

The only people who disagree with this are those who want to control what other people get to see.

Yes, they want to protect their users from harmful instances. This is something the people who join those instances want.

They also want to "deplatform" those types from society as a whole.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So admins shouldn’t defederate from any instances at all? Even right wing Nazi instances with Nazi flags in every profile?

Users should have the power to defederate in addition to admins.

This is something the people who join those instances want.

Not everyone wants the same thing or has the same idea of what constitutes 'harmful' instances.

They also want to “deplatform” those types from society as a whole.

Yes, this is why it's important to take individual control away from the user; to push an agenda.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Users should have the power to defederate in addition to admins.

They do.

Not everyone wants the same thing or has the same idea of what constitutes 'harmful' instances.

That's why I didn't say "everyone". I said "people who join those instances". If you don't want that, you can choose our migrate to a different one. Or even create your own.

Yes, this is why it's important to take individual control away from the user; to push an agenda.

You're correct, of course, but "agendas" are not inherently negative.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

They do.

How can I defederate from an instance? Last time this discussion was brought up, I didn't think it was possible and everyone else agreed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Depends on which service you're talking about.

On Mastodon you can go to a profile or post from the domain, click the 3 dots and "block domain".

I think Lemmy just implemented this but I don't know how to do it.