The fediverse is discussing if we should defederate from Meta’s new Threads app. Here’s why I probably won’t (for now).
(Federation between plume and my lemmy instance doesn’t work correctly at the moment, otherwise I would have made this a proper crosspost)
Could you please be a bit less aggressive? The post is titled “Why I probably won’t defederate from Threads” and I’ve given my personal arguments. I’ve also addressed the points you’re making, both in my post and in other comments over here.
It isn’t titled “Why you shouldn’t defederate from Threads” or “Why we shouldn’t defederate from Threads”. It’s not even titled “I will never defederate from Threads”. There are many valid and well-written arguments for defederating. I posted my counter-arguments for a bit of balance yet I have no intention to force or even convince anyone to do as I do.
So let’s please be civil around here and not go around brigading people who have different opinions with arguments they have already heard multiple times. If you want to set a good example, then do that for a respectful discussion just as much as you try to do it for the ethical aspects of federation.
Its interesting how aggressive some people can get if you respectfully state your opinion
Have a look at the upvote to downvote ratio on the top level post. Currently 22 up / 9 down. I can fully respect people not agreeing with me, it is a controversial opinion after all. Fine, ignore it or respectfully post an on-topic reply and move on. But actively marking it as “this is bad” or leaving replies that just repeat arguments that I’ve explicitly addressed… I don’t get it. Especially when my last two paragraphs are literally:
I hope this gives you a bit of a different perspective on the whole discussion. I’ll still respect anyone who sees things differently and will actively follow the discussion. I’m just annoyed by all the identical knee jerk reactions that have been floating around.
If I see new arguments or the discussion quality on Threads is bad enough that I have to block half their users I might still defederate for them but for now I’ll keep calm and wait for the situation to develop.
If a person thinks your idea is a bad one, downvoting and walking away is just about the least aggressive they can be, though. Especially if they see other people have already left comments that reflect their opinion so they couldn’t add anything.
I read it. Your points, especially about how they’ll have to play by the rules, seem a bit naive. Theoretically, those points should have applied to Google and XMPP, but in reality, Google just threw their weight around and killed it anyways. It’s very likely that Facebook will do the same.
Sorry if I seem a bit aggressive, I just don’t want to see this thing we have die because of the influence of a megacorporation.
I don’t see how Google killed XMPP. They removed it from their own application which is the exact same effect as not speaking an open protocol in the first place. Nobody forced other XMPP-based applications to change. You know what made me stop using XMPP and not keep my Jabber instance when I moved to a new server? Clunky applications and the fact that everyone I had in my contact list was also on another more comfortable platform (at first ICQ and MSN, later Discord) and prefered to contact me there.
If we federate with Threads, they may use their power to push changes to ActivityPub but nobody forces any of us to implement them, making them effectively irrelevant. If they do something that’s incompatible with the rest of the fediverse, they effectively defederate from everyone else. So either way the end result is two separate sub-fediverses and the more popular one will win out. Hint: it’s gonna be the one with billions of dollars of funding. If we let them in as long as they play by the rules, we have a chance to educate people on what’s beyond Threads, it gives Meta something to lose if they defederate (their users’ ability to talk to people in their friend lists). At least we don’t lose anything that we wouldn’t also lose by not talking to them in the first place.
When they removed XMPP, they disconnected the Google users from the rest of XMPP. And since it was the largest instance, XMPP as a whole basically died. People couldn’t use XMPP to stay in touch anymore with people using Google’s thing, and vice-versa, which XMPP as a whole kind of came to rely on. I don’t know much more about XMPP, but anyways, most of my points are general and not XMPP-specific.
Also, cutting them off from the fediverse won’t have the effect you’re trying to say it will have. It’ll just be it’s own thing, just like Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc are now. And the fediverse thrives in spite of them.
And please, stop assuming Facebook will play by the rules. They won’t.
