Mate, I was simply extending an analogy you introduced. I neither know (nor care) what the presence of a McDonalds does or doesn’t do so don’t Sagan me. Nor am I claiming mainstream social media is all arseholes. What I’m saying is that mainstream social media most certainly has the ability and propensity to make people into arseholes due to constant enshittification - part of which is the influencer phenomenon in my opinion and the need for growth at all costs.

I most definitely have reached out to lots of good people on the fediverse and had lots of great exchanges that follow both professional and ‘hobby’ based interests I have.

But here’s the thing - you want growth? OK. I also have no issue with growth. But the best sort of growth in my experience comes organically. It happens at its own pace. The minute you start prodding it along with managed algorithms and all the other stuff mainstream social media now has you end up with an extended hate room. I don’t miss Reddit or Xitter at all. I genuinely mean that. No more ‘suggestions’ of people to follow, no more manufactured outrage getting pushed to my feed, no more clickbait. Instead what I have now is a curated feed across multiple different types of experiences that I spent some time getting how I want them and dipping in and out of when I want to.

You’re using words like ‘ambition’ and ‘irrelevant’ like the Fediverse is some sort of corporate entity. It’s not - that’s a point very much in its favour in the opinion of quite a lot of people on it. Contrary to your opinion that no one cares, lots do. What some of us don’t care about is catering to a set of people who are paid to express opinions and who, it seems to me, over a period of time end up becoming Andrew Tate or Russel Brand.

There’s no McDonalds in the town I currently live in, which is 20 minutes away from one of the largest cities in the country. It might come as a massive shock to you but I - and I think the majority of people - can survive just fine without a Mickey D’s. Not having one doesn’t make a place desolate, it makes it healthier. And if someone really wants a Big Mac, they can go and get one from elsewhere.

Do you see what I’m saying? This isn’t the same place as that - it’s quite nice to have a place online that still isn’t. And for those that do want that, they can still spend time there if they chose to.

Strangely comforting for something I’m sure you thought was a snappy comeback,

I genuinely don’t care about influencers. Like, at all.

Maybe they should stop caring about visibility and engagement and concentrate on participating in, building and y’know enjoying a community?

True, but let’s not forget that Lemmy instances are hosted by ordinary people without the finances to employ high price legal teams. If they receive a threatening letter from (for example) Sony or Disney they still have to either acquiesce or find a lot of money very quickly to simply argue their case.

There’s a difference between ‘governance’ and ‘control’. And I really doubt Erin Kissane of all people is involved in efforts to control the fediverse.

There’s replies to this post that I can’t see whilst logged in. No idea why, a foible of federation maybe.

“We” created the Fedi to have interoperable systems and to give users autonomy over their accounts and their feeds. That’s why there’s an option for users to block other users and even entire servers.

Not sure what the scare quotes round ‘we’ are for, but anyway, personal autonomy is a great thing, but when your autonomy negatively affects other people’s desire to remain on a platform, then its not so much autonomy as selfishness. I’m well aware users and instances can be blocked, but when Meta start truly ramping up Threads we’ll be talking hundreds of millions of users and god knows how many domains/instances. Trying to avoid hate is going to become the primary thing some people have to do. Or just leave the fediverse.

No one is doing that.

Yes, they are. There are whole instances out there dedicated to (so called) minority groups who some of the hate groups on Threads, both now and in the future, will come after. They already do this on Twitter, TikTok, etc etc - do you think they’ll just not do that on Threads? Or that Meta will moderate them appropriately?

You see it as the Fediverse promoting Meta but we see the opposite.

Is that a joke? You honestly think that by federating with Threads, your average Threads user is going to see the promised land of the fediverse and switch in significant numbers?

I’ve literally never seen anyone say this except FediPacters as a strawman

Then you’ve not been paying attention.

The screenshot is taken by an Instagram user. It shows an area of the screen Instagram uses to promote Threads to Instagram users by showing them Threads content.

It’s not the users Instagram content that is shown but the post Meta are using to promote Threads to Instagram users, that’s why it’s the same. Lots of users are (or were) seeing it.

Not a clue. I totally sympathise with your feelings on the matter but I’ve not heard of an instance offering that.

The ‘read more’ is deliberate. I realise it’s annoying but it’s there for posts containing content warnings like this guy’s - not everyone wants to be ambushed by that level of hate, so providing a warning and then hiding the content to give people the option is a bit kinder.

So, a web forum then.

At the moment, Threads runs from one domain. Do you seriously think it’s going to stay that way? They also have 100 million users, compared to less than 2 million across the entire fediverse. Once Threads gets serious about federation - maybe a year or two from now - what you’re suggesting is going to be like constant whack-a-mole. That’s in no way a fun prospect.

And even if they stick with one domain (which they won’t) - the hate groups on Threads will still be producing content that other fediverse users will be talking about/linking to/quoting etc. The fediverse is very quickly going to become a miserable place to be for those who thought they had found a place where they could be free of all that harassment.

There might be no benefit to you but the people who would be the direct targets of every hate group like LibsOfTikTok currently active on Threads probably feel a bit differently.

This is in no way a knee-jerk reaction to a hypothetical alarm. Meta have directly contributed to a genocide and allow hate groups to grow unchecked on Threads. It blows my mind that the fediverse - itself built as a series of alternatives to shitty companies doing shitty things - thinks the harm Meta will do is hypothetical and unproven.

The benefits to not federating are many, but the best one, in my opinion, is not exposing current fediverse users who will be targeted to those who will target them.

This should be compulsory reading for all instance admins.

This, to me, is the most immediate issue.

All the technical issues OP talks about are part of the future. I believe that because it’s Meta, it’ll be a bad future for the Fediverse, nonetheless, it is for the future.

Right now, Threads is the worst moderated instance on the fediverse (or will be). Groups that, if they were on a Mastodon or PixeldFed or Lemmy instance, would cause all responsible instance Admin’s to defederate instantly. Exploding Heads type groups.

We have a collective responsibility to the people who may be part of a so-called minority group, who are on the fediverse because it’s safe( r ) for them in a way it isn’t anywhere else, to maintain that. Federating with Meta literally wrecks their experience. They will be targeted and brigaded. Surely no one is so naive to think that some right-wing lgbtqi+ hater(s) is going to think ‘Oh, I can’t be awful to those people because they’re on a Lemmy instance, not Threads’? And by the way OP, if Mastodon users can post to Lemmy communities, I’m sure Threads users will be able to as well.

Instance Admin’s who elect to federate with Threads are going to be swamped with moderation reports. There are 100 million people on Threads. I’m not suggesting all of them are hateful people but even if it’s just 0.5% (and it’s not) that’s 1/2 million people. What will give first? Instance admins tolerance of Threads or instance Admins enforcement on their rules?

We can see what they’re like now, just by going to Threads. I can’t think of a more effective way to say to current Fediverse users who are non-white or trans or gay or feminists or disabled that their concerns matter less than being open to Meta.

And some of us understand that what’s happening here is not just about the technical workings and impact, it’s also about how cultures and societies form and operate.

Following full federation, how long do you think it’s going to be before the ultra-right groups that already post regularly and freely on Threads start targeting and brigading fedi instances where black people or gay people or trans people or disabled people or women currently feel safe?

Now, you might answer ‘well, if they do that then we can just defederate’ to which my response would be; they’re already doing that, but at the moment only on Threads. We already know how they operate, we already know who they hate - why expose people in the groups they will target to that when it can be avoided?

Some years from now, this whole subject will be the most upvoted Post on r/LeopardsAteMyFace/

Saddens me to see instance admins reducing their users legitimate concerns as ‘reactionary’ as if we/they are dumb ignorant fucks with no concrete concerns.

This is the very start of Meta gaining a foot hold in the fediverse. Of course they’re not going to do anything overtly shitty at the very start. That’ll come later when they get a firm foothold, start suggesting ‘helpful’ tweaks to ActivityPub, get a seat at various tables etc. The privacy issue is not so much (to me) about what they can do now , because he’s right, anyone can set up scrapers and use the API, it’s about what they’ll introduce on Threads instances a few years from now, then offer to make part of the ActivityPub standard because its just so cool.

Of course there’ll be ads at some point on Threads instances and Meta are the absolute masters at online ads. They’re so good at it, not even UBO catches them all. If anyone honestly believes they’re not going to be capable of injecting ads at some point in the future, they’re living in a rose tinted fantasy land.

But those things are the future. Right now, Threads is already a place that is awash with hate groups like LibsOfTikTok etc. One of things I love about the fediverse is that I don’t have to wade through that type of shit. It’s mostly not here via defederation and if we know (as we do) that threads already has that type of content on it, why the fuck are people so keen to ‘wait and see’? We can already see.

And yes, I know - I can user block and instance block, but the times I have to do that right now with an active userbase of less than 2 million across the fediverse are few and far between. Ramp that active userbase up to 100 million and it’s going to feel like most of my time is spent playing whack-a-mole. That’s not an enjoyable user experience in any way. And even after I’ve done all that, the open warfare that’s going to break out with well-meaning non-Threads users reposting, quoting ‘look at this evil fuck’ type posts is going to mean I still end up seeing some christian fascists dumb take on COVID or whatever.

We, as a group of people, developed and use fediverse software precisely to escape this sort of shit. When are we going to learn that growth for the sake of growth is absolutely meaningless? Focus on quality and organic growth will occur. Let’s have enough faith in the software and users that corporate users want to come to us.

Nostr just looks like ground zero for cryptobros.