Mastodon founder touts Threads' federation, saying it makes his X rival 'a far more attractive option'

techcrunch.com Mastodon founder touts Threads' federation, saying it makes his X rival 'a far more attractive option' | TechCrunch

Mastodon founder Eugen Rochko lauds Threads' entry into the decentralized social media space, saying the move will make Mastodon -- the open source

Press coverage of the Fediverse @lemmy.world

J12t @lemmy.world

1y ago

TechCrunch: Mastodon founder touts Threads' federation, saying it makes his X rival 'a far more attractive option' | TechCrunch

techcrunch.com /2023/12/14/mastodon-founder-touts-threads-federation-saying-it-makes-his-x-rival-a-far-more-attractive-option/

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I'm pasting an old comment of mine from the official lemmy.world post discussing potential future federation with threads/meta:
I would like to start by expressing my sincere gratitude and appreciation for the hard work you've done with lemmy.world. But I am strongly opposed to federating with Threads. Please read this comment in full, as I believe it outlines the sentiment and reservations held by many within our community.
I think it might be helpful to use an analogy that I think will help express the feelings of many of those within our community regarding the problem with the "wait and see" approach.
What's to say Threads won't follow in their very well-established footprints under Meta as a company?
If I go to a friend's house and their child spits in my face every time, I don't want to go to my friend's house. I tell them this. The friend again says, "Well this time just might be different, let's just wait and see!" Meanwhile, this kid spits in my face without fail, every chance they get. There is a very consistent and pervasive pattern of this.
Why should I believe this kid won't spit in my face all of a sudden, when they've taken every single chance they could repeatedly, knowing that it was wrong and not caring what repercussions would befall them? Do you really think this kid is going to refrain from spitting in my face this time?
The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. -~~Albert Einstein~~ -someone.
Meta/FB have continually demonstrated their core business practices are unethical and that they will continue carrying them out without regard for laws or their users' well-being. There's no reason to wait and see. It's not logical to believe this time will be different.
Threads would bring such a large influx of hateful, racist, violent, bigoted political extremists to the fediverse. They will also do whatever they can to exploit users on this site for their own gain. Their modus operandi has been to exploit their users.
Instead of just conjecture and analogies, I will now provide factual information regarding Meta's practices as a company.
This really should be obvious by now.. but Meta mines and sells their user's information. Just look at the permissions you have to grant them for Threads... That alone should tell you there's no reason to "wait and see." Just look right now. They haven't changed...
FB users have to agree to all sorts of unethical things in the TOS, including giving Meta permission to run unethical experiments on their users without informed consent. Their first published research was where they manipulated users' feeds with positive or negative information, in order to see if it affected their mood. It did, and they successfully induced depression in many of their users!
Meta has played a very key role in spreading misinformation, perpetuating dangerous conspiracy theories, and radicalizing the alt right. This is present across nations, but it certainly contributed heavily to the climate of political extremism that led to a mass of insurrectionists to attempt to overthrow my duly elected government...
I will now turn to an article that surmises well the core practices of Meta as a company:
Elevates disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories from the extremist fringes into the mainstream, fostering, among other effects, the resurgent anti-vaccination movement, broad-based questioning of basic public health measures in response to COVID-19, and the proliferation of the Big Lie of 2020—that the presidential election was stolen through voter fraud [16];
Empowers bullies of every size, from cyber-bullying in schools, to dictators who use the platform to spread disinformation, censor their critics, perpetuate violence, and instigate genocide;
Defrauds both advertisers and newsrooms, systematically and globally, with falsified video engagement and user activity statistics;
Reflects an apparent political agenda espoused by a small core of corporate leaders, who actively impede or overrule the adoption of good governance;
Brandishes its monopolistic power to preserve a social media landscape absent meaningful regulatory oversight, privacy protections, safety measures, or corporate citizenship; and
Disrupts intellectual and civil discourse, at scale and by design.
I ask you now if you truly believe this is the sort of player you want on the Fediverse? Do you really want to federate lemmy.world with such a blatantly immoral and detrimental corporation?
I have really enjoyed my time here on Lemmy.world and have so greatly appreciated the hard work of you and your team. I have been donating to you to help with the costs of running this instance.
However, federating with Threads contradicts my philosophy and ethical principles, and I will be sadly canceling my donations and finding a new home should we federate with Threads in the future. I firmly believe that most users on lemmy.world share this sentiment. I hope this comment helped express the resistance and fears of our community.
Once again, I appreciate all the work you guys have done. But I respectfully and severely dissent on this issue.
- I made this profile picture to those who want to show their support to this cause:
- You can also read my post I made for the programming.dev instance here. https://programming.dev/post/497263
  
  The 2 articles in the linked post were very informative. Thanks for sharing!
  
  you're welcome
- Einstein never said that:
  https://quoteinvestigator.com/2017/03/23/same/?amp=1
  
  TIL. Edited my comment to be more accurate.
  
  wasnt that a quote from Far Cry 3?
  
  The quote is far older than Far Cry 3.
  
  okay, do you know where it's originally from?
  
  Nope, I always heard or it being attributed to Einstein too. But this random site says it's from a 1983 book.
  
  And it's a completely false statement, to boot.
- Well now you can block instances yourself. So no point in bannkng it for all...
- Permanently Deleted
  
  The examples I listed were to demonstrate the fact that meta/FB is a bad actor, not that all are applicable to lemmy.
  Also, the lemmy.world team admitted that lemmy lacks the moderation tools required for federation with threads.
  This doesn't pair well with the extremist content popular and promoted on threads. And I'm tired of hearing about the false solution people keep pretending exists in the form of personally blocking instances.
  That may solve me not seeing the content, but what about my fellow users? What about people browsing without a profile/not signed in?
  I care about more than myself. I care about the health of fellow human beings on this site, and I don't want Threads to increase the amount of radicalization and extremism on this site. I don’t want more people to fall victim to radicalization. I have lost family to qanon/maga cults and I think we need to protect the integrity of the fediverse.
  When players like threads/meta try to join in, I believe it is the responsibility of admins of the large instances to protect their users and refuse to federate with them. Period.
  
  Permanently Deleted
  
  Okay but, we all know that already. This discussion is about federating with Lemmy/Fedi.
  Tell that to the astroturfers simping for FB/Threads...
  And do you understand how you reinforce an argument with supporting evidence? I wanted to establish factual information supporting a clear history of the company's bad practices. That was/is relevant to consideration of federating with a platform.
  In fact, lemmy.world has already defederated with instances due to failure to moderate far-right extremism. So why would they federate with Threads when far-right extremism is already a systemic issue and they have admitted lemmy lacks the necessary moderation tools to manage Threads federation?
  It seems obvious to me that is a bad idea and it would cultivate a more toxic user experience with more recruitment for radicalism/extremism.
  
  Tell that to the astroturfers simping for FB/Threads…
  No one is astroturfing lemmy. People who disagree with you are not paid actors. They just disagree with you.
  
  I wasn't referring to people disagreeing with me. I upvoted users I disagreed with in this post's comments to promote discussion (such as upvoting your downvoted comment here).
  I was referring to people that engage in disingenuous argumentative tactics clearly pushing an agenda, whose presence is also accompanied by what seems like blatant vote manipulation/brigading. This was present when Threads federation was originally a being discussed a little while back. That's what I was referring to.
  I don't think I'm going to go out of my way to track down examples, but you may be able to find some from the link to where my comment is originally from.
  You can also assume I'm wrong, and that's okay by me. But astroturfing is absolutely a tactic Meta employs. Source
  
  TikTok is significantly larger and more worth it then lemmy
  
  Yes you are; you've been a lame-ass anti-disestablisment shill the entire time you've been here. Shut the hell up.
  
  I do in fact disagree with you, yes. I am not, however, paid for it
  
  It doesn't make you any less of a shill.
  
  We're talking about astroturfing, so yes it is quite literally the difference.
  You're not guaranteed a place where your opinions are the only ones expressed, ever in life.
  
  Neither is Meta but they and the rest of the establishment sure has shills like you champing at the bit to cheerlead for them, which is what makes you a shill.
  Shill.
  
  Permanently Deleted
  
  There's no hypocrisy; you're just stating a false equivalence. Not to mention totally ignoring the entire argument about radicalization on threads/inability to moderate it on lemmy.
  And you keep stating that my points establishing character in regard to Meta/Threads are irrelevant, but you aren't making a good argument as to why. You fixate on that as a strawman argument while ignoring my point that lack of moderation on threads will negatively affect fediverse communities with toxic/extremist content.
  You're arguing like a petulant middle schooler with ad hominem and strawman tactics. Get back to me if you can speak like a grown-up. Otherwise I'm not going to engage with you. (Before you "no u" me with another false equivalence, my remarks were not on the same personal attack level.)
  
  it’s not just that i want to stay in my bubble i want to make sure everyone else stays in my bubble too
  
  It does seem like your goal here is to limit what other people can see, rather than curating your own individual experience. Do you believe that I should have similar influence on what content you are allowed to interact with?
  
  I believe the users within instances should play a role in the instances' decisions on the topic. I believe you should have as much say as I do in arguing your perspective.
  I'm simply making a case for why I think it is the wrong decision. I believe Threads should be treated like exploding heads and not be federated with.
  If you want to see such content, you still can. You can subscribe to that source, an instance federating with it, or host your own instance. But refusing to federate with it insulates the community from propoganda, misinformation, and radicalization.

171 comments