this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2023
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Threads Has Begun Federating Via ActivityPub (daringfireball.net)
submitted 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) by fer0n@lemm.ee to c/technology@beehaw.org
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Adam Mosseri:

Second, threads posted by me and a few members of the Threads team will be available on other fediverse platforms like Mastodon starting this week. This test is a small but meaningful step towards making Threads interoperable with other apps using ActivityPub — we’re committed to doing this so that people can find community and engage with the content most relevant to them, no matter what app they use.

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[–] bownage@beehaw.org 15 points 9 months ago (2 children)

Can you explain how it's 100% super obvious? I thought a popular platform with many users entering the fediverse might be good for exposure but it seems like the consensus here is that it's actually bad. Help me understand how it's bad?

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 17 points 9 months ago (2 children)
  1. Most people using a service don't want it to suddenly explode with new users who might not behave in the way that old users like
  2. Facebook don't want to just be another instance and have a lovely time with everyone, at best they want to seek profit, and based on every other way they seek profit it will be by tightly controlling the experience, filling it with ads, and selling off user data (i.e. all things that most of us came here to escape from)

In summary we know everything Facebook does is pretty evil, it's "super obvious" that this will therefore be pretty evil too, right?

[–] floofloof@lemmy.ca 10 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

selling off user data (i.e. all things that most of us came here to escape from)

Since almost everything on the Fediverse is open for all to see, anyone can already be mining the data just by setting up their own instance of Lemmy or Mastodon. This might make it difficult to sell fediverse-generated data for profit.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I'm sure they have a plan (otherwise they wouldn't be doing it!), maybe it relies on using their app which also has your real name and phone number, maybe it's for some legal loophole which means all fediverse users technically agree to their terms just by federating. I don't know what they're up to, but given their previous behaviour I think it's safer not to even let them try!

[–] jarfil@beehaw.org 3 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

Maybe it's to avoid getting hit by antitrust sanctions and some EU legislation:

"Look, we're open, we're using the same ActivityPub protocol as thousands of others, our users can choose to leave whenever they want" - Meta, probably

(...then 99% of their users proceed to DGAF and stay on Threads)

[–] bownage@beehaw.org 5 points 9 months ago (1 children)

Ok yeah make sense! I'm definitely not a fan of Facebook's and Meta's data policies either.

But how is anyone going to control a decentralised platform tho? What you're describing seems like it would only apply to users on instances controlled by Meta, i.e. on threads itself. Or maybe I still don't understand how the fediverse works.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 5 points 9 months ago (2 children)

One way I can think of is by being such a big player that they dominate and can thereby exert their will. For example, lemmy.world is the largest lemmy instance and we've seen a few communities on other instances dry up in favour of the ones on the big server. Now imagine that server is a hundred times bigger than the next largest and the people in charge have an active financial interest in moving people to their platform - if they play it carefully (and I'm sure they'll be employing people to think about how to do this) they can shift the existing content into a place they can control it.

[–] bownage@beehaw.org 2 points 9 months ago

Alright I see, thanks a lot for explaining

[–] atocci@kbin.social 2 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago) (1 children)

That doesn't really apply to Lemmy's content though, since unlike Lemmy.world, Threads users won't be able to create /c/ communities. If a Threads user wants to post to a community in a way that Lemmy recognizes them, they'll have to post it to one under a Lemmy instance's control, or Lemmy users won't see a thing.

[–] smeg@feddit.uk 1 points 9 months ago

That was just an analogy, I believe Threads is targeting federation with Mastodon rather than Lemmy