I have already done my part on my Mastodon account.
My main concern is the awful moderation of Meta's services. Bullying, celebration of loss of rights and violence committed towards of protected minorities; and outright misinformation are allowed. All while the very same people duped the moderation AI to flag any criticism of said hate speech as the real hate speech because false reportings. Facebook, instagram, etc. are notorious for letting big far-right accounts get away with hate speech and defamation, and I don't really think it'll be different on Threads for very long.
EDIT: In the meanwhile, I remembered screenshots of showing this exact moderation problem already happening on Threads, but to a way lesser degree, than on Facebook so far. Maybe this will make them getting booted from even the instances that didn't originally plan to defederate them.
I would like to make a few counterpoints to yours from the opposite perspective.
To your first point: Nearly everyone here came from Reddit's API fiasco. We all already left the place that housed the vast majority of the content and went somewhere much slower and quieter. If Threads were to abandon ActivityPub in the future, we would still have the same users who are here now, and if returning the fediverse to it's current level of activity is to be considered a death sentence for it, wouldn't that mean we're already doomed? Things are stable right now though and we have enough activity to sustain a social network as is, so the loss of Threads content wouldn't be our downfall unless a majority of our current users decide its too quiet without them. However, I wouldn't expect the group who left all of Reddit's content behind to be the type who would also abandon their accounts here just because the Threads users aren't here again.
As for the second and third points, the beauty of ActivityPub is that it allows users to choose the services they want to use in order to access the same content across the fediverse, and it wouldn't be right for us to try to dictate how others choose to access an open protocol. If someone who is interested in joining the network decides to do so through Threads, that should be their choice to make, even though I personally think its the wrong one. In all likelihood though, someone making an account on Threads wouldn't have consciously joined the wider fediverse of their own volition anyway. Once they're on though and have a chance to maybe learn a little about these "third party services" they see, they'll make their way to these places instead. Exposure to the fediverse is the best way to understand it from my experience. There have also been a whole host of people who already signed up for Mastodon accounts without understanding a thing about what a federated network entails, they just wanted out of Twitter.
I don't think its right to view ActivityPub as competition to mainstream social media networks, it's a tool meant to help build a better unified social media network. If we limit who can use the tool, we'll only be hindering the growth of the fediverse.
Thanks for the alternate perspective! However, it doesn't really alleviate my concerns much:
Firstly, the claim "Nearly everyone here came from Reddit's API fiasco." isn't necessarily true, as the fediverse consists of more than Lemmy and the threads section on Kbin. Threads primarily concerns microblogging, which includes platforms like Mastodon, Misskey, Firefish, Friendica, and Kbin. Even so, you could say that all of these people came from similar situations — they all could've chose Twitter or what have you and instead chose the smaller platforms on the fediverse. But does that really mean that they'll stay here? This whole situation is showing that people are desperate for activity, even if that activity means relying on a corporation with interests that go against ours. People have already left following drops in activity — during Ernest's hiatus, the number of active Kbin users plummeted (yes, it was always going to down after the initial rise from the Reddit migration, but Kbin went down a lot, especially compared to Lemmy) and hasn't recovered. Those people, who have tried it and said, "Yeah, this isn't really working," are really hard to get back.
Now, imagine if everyone here got used to the large amount of microblog content provided by Threads, interacted with it a bunch, followed a bunch of Threads accounts, etc. like people are expressing plans to do. If Threads quits federating, thereby making all of that content and connection inaccessible to the rest of the fediverse, do you think people will stick around after that much of an activity drop? No, tons of people are going to follow the 99% of activity and flock to Threads, leaving the open fediverse in a position worse than right now. If you want to give Meta the chance to kill the fediverse's chance of growing to become a legitimate competitor, this is how you do it.
What you say about people having choice is true. If people want to access the fediverse through Threads, that is absolutely their choice. However, another beauty of ActivityPub is that we have the choice over whether we accept interaction with Threads or not. We don't have to become dependent on Meta to carry the fediverse — we can shut them out immediately and grow slowly but surely. If someone wants to join Threads, we aren't under any obligation to show them our content. Instead, saying, "Hey, if you want interaction with us, head over to something that cares about an open fediverse like a Mastodon or Kbin instance," is going to be much better for us long-term.
I don't think its right to view ActivityPub as competition to mainstream social media networks,
No matter how we view it, Meta views ActivityPub as competition to Threads and rightfully so. The values we currently hold on the fediverse — transparency from moderators & developers, no one instance having control, people having lots of choice, etc. — are values that directly go against Meta's profit whether they join ActivityPub or not. It is in Meta's best interest to pull as many users from here as possible and to nip the fediverse in the bud before it grows. Zuckerberg is not here to play nice, and I can't fathom how anyone would believe so. He does not care about a decentralized, open fediverse. He wants to get as many people on his platform as possible and to make potential competitors less viable, and this is how he can do it.
All I’ll say is that it’s not much of a “fediverse” if you just preemptively defederate from anyone trying to grow it because you’re scared of what might change. More of a “fediclub” at that point.
Really kills the “it’s like email!” metaphor when you defederaters are constantly trying to break that interoperability by stirring up FUD and blocking instances for theoretical stuff they haven’t even done yet.
It’s like email except your server admin might decide one day they don’t want you to talk to anyone who has an @gmail.com address because they don’t like Google. What fun!
On the Lemmy and Kbin Magazine side of things, Threads won’t be a huge threat as most discussion will stay on existing communities/magazines, and most of the same users will be there with some interaction from Threads users.
On the Mastodon and the microblog side of things Threads will be interesting and I think the healthiest option is some server disconnect from Threads and others don’t. What you don’t want is ALL the discussion happening on threads and within threads, Threads should be set up as a gateway to the rest of the Fediverse despite the size difference.
Big takeaways, emphasis preserved from the original:
Threads is entering a space in the fediverse which is dominated by Mastodon, so it's Mastodon and other fediverse microblogging services (including, to some extent, /kbin) which will most heavily feel the impact of Threads.
Defederating another server means your instance will stop requesting content from that server. ... Defederation is about what data comes in, not what goes out. ... Defederation doesn't make you invisible, it doesn't block anybody else from seeing you, it doesn't protect your content, it only means you never have to see their content.
Firstly, the fediverse is a drop in the ocean compared to Threads (104 million registered users). Obviously, Meta wants everybody, but their specific goals in terms of user-poaching are far more likely to center around the ~350 million active Twitter users than the ~12 million fediverse users (~3.5 million active). The threadiverse [Lemmy, Kbin, et al] is smaller again, at something like 100,000 active users.
"Threads will overwhelm the fediverse with their inferior content and culture." Like the EEE fears, this one is legitimate but once again something that will primarily be felt by microblogging providers (/kbin included). Toxic users, advertisers, etc. can push garbage into feeds all day, but they will largely not be targeting the threadiverse because there's some 100 million sets of eyes to put that crap in front of on the microblogging side and it will be difficult-to-impossible for them to push that content into Lemmy/kbin threads from their interface that was never made to interact with the threadiverse.
Is there any chance Meta has good intentions?No. But it might have intentions that are both self-serving and fediverse-neutral. The absolute best intention I can possibly ascribe to Meta is that joining the fediverse is a CYA (cover your ass) mechanism to head off regulations, especially in the EU, [e.g.] the newly-applicable Digital Markets Act ...
Defederation is about what an instance allows in, not what an instance allows out. Defederation stops you seeing the defederated instance's content, but it does not stop them seeing your instance's content.
Threads poses some danger to the fediverse, in particular the portion of it centered around microblogging (mostly Mastodon, but also Pleroma, parts of /kbin, etc.), but very little risk to the threadiverse.
The worst thing about the fediverse is all the fondue, but you don't have to eat it.
Emphasis from the original post.
This is a detailed summary, thank you for linking.
I have also read some other POVs here; my fears are not totally allayed and I still think Meta is only engaing with Activity Pub to prevent new, potential competitors arising from it.
I hope the OP is right about it being very little risk to the Threadiverse. The good news is that Threads is focused enitrely on microblogging and not the Threadiverse. Perhaps that means Kbin and Lemmy users will be able to sit on the sidelines and see how it plays out for a bit, idk. Mastodon users will be seeing the most change.
The issue is that this does affect Kbin because Kbin is a microblogging platform. It's also a thread aggregator, but it has microblog functionality that some people do actually use. Should we not defederate, stuff from Threads will flood the microblogs of Kbin. If your home page is set to use the All Content feed (like mine is), you'll see microblogs from Threads there. This doesn't have as much of an effect as it does on a purely microblogging-focused platform like Mastodon, but it does still affect a big way that Kbin is used.
Right, and that’s part of why I remain a skeptic. Kbin’s microblog being overtaken by Thread’s content could very well limit kbin’s growth and viability as a microblogging platform - especially if Meta pulls the plug later.
But, I have also seen the opinion that not having Threads content could make kbin unappealing as a microblogging platform. (I’m not sure if I agree with this, but I have seen it mentioned.)
I guess the questions are, Can Kbin grow with Threads content? And, Will the lack of Threads content make it unappealing to new users?
Also, another problem I think is that kbin might not have the userbase and content yet to be self-sustaining when faced with a goliath company like Meta; if we produced as much content as Threads will (or enough to the point that defederating kbin would hurt Threads) then there wouldn’t be much of a concern.
Idk, Threads is ultimately the one forcing the situation (probably intentionally) where federating with them is risky but also refusing to do so could be self-isolating. I still maintain that they’re doing it now while the fediverse is still young for a reason, and that is so they can grab so much of the “fondue” that everyone comes to them anyway.
I would like to see kbin succeed, and I don’t trust Meta. Whatever kbin decides to do I will be here for it, but I’m definitely a Meta skeptic.
To put my own skin in the game, I quite like the microblogging side of kbin. I like that I can swap between the thread and blog sides, I like that I can combine them into one view if I choose, and I like that I don't need a separate account to use either service. Using kbin's microblog was the first time I ever blogged, period. I'd hate to see that stream be overwhelmed by Threads users.
Exactly one of the reasons why I remain a skeptic.
I don’t want sound too much like I’m complaining about “Eternal September” but I quite like how kbin’s microblog is right now. Having millions of threads users suddenly flood it with random… crap… would change it forever.
I haven’t used instagram in more than half a decade. When I hopped on to see what it was like recently, I hardly recognized it and all the content was completely irrelevant. I would hate to see that happen to the microblog.
Threads presents a serious danger to the long-term viability of the fediverse if we become dependent on it for content, and our best bet at avoiding that is defederation.
If Threads federates... it's part of the fediverse.
Even if you don't accept that tautology, sure, maybe the fediverse (not including Threads, which is also fediverse at that point, but ok whatever) doesn't do great, but kbin will definitely suffer if it defederates from Threads, once Threads becomes part of the fediverse federates does whatever you think it'll be doing that's not exactly the same thing as joining the fediverse and therefore becoming part of the thing that you think will become non-viable after the most viable piece of it joins. Kbin will become an also-ran within the fediverse, because most users will want to use tools that allow them to interact with the most people.
I guess what I'm saying is you can't in one breath say that "Threads will join the fediverse" and then in the next breath say "the fediverse will become non-viable" as if Threads isn't part of the fediverse in the second breath. Let's not do "separate but equal" with social media, please. It's silly.
If Kbin defederates from Threads, it'll be Kbin that suffers.
This may be an issue of poor wording on my part. The idea I'm trying to get across is that if Kbin, Mastodon, & other microblog platforms that are currently on the fediverse don't defederate from Threads, the users on those platforms will become dependent on Meta for activity. If Meta then leaves the fediverse, activity will drop down to what we have now, only with people used to the activity brought by Threads and having all of the connections they made with Threads accounts. This will pull tons of people from Kbin, Mastodon, etc. and essentially kill the open fediverse with very little hope of it growing again.
And to be clear, Meta has tons of incentive to do this. Meta is a profit-driven company. They want as many people as possible on their platforms, not on Mastodon or on Kbin or on Firefish or on Misskey. The open, widely distributed fediverse that we strive for goes against Meta's motives. Just as they'd have everyone on the Metaverse if he could, Zuckerberg will absolutely pull people from Kbin onto Threads if he gets the chance, and he will get that chance if we decide to put the content pool in the hands of Meta for the sake of trying to get activity as quickly as possible.
Kbin will become an also-ran within the fediverse, because most users will want to use tools that allow them to interact with the most people.
I'm not sure this holds. Surely if it was the primary factor in deciding which social media everyone chose, Kbin would already be dead at the hands of Twitter? Federation doesn't really change that argument if it's only about interacting with the most people.
That said I do agree that we need enough instances to defederate from Threads for this to work. If Threads overwhelms every other instance with volume and kills them, Kbin is alone and not really better off for having defederated. But as a pretty big instance, Kbin doing this is a major part of ensuring that the fediverse does not just become a collection of quirky alternative interfaces for Threads.
as if Threads isn't part of the fediverse in the second breath.
If Threads puts out so much more content as to effectively make other federated entities irrelevant, the character of the Fediverse changes such that it is no longer what it is today. Federation is meaningless if 99.9% of content comes from one place. Kbin would wind up as effectively just a weird third party interface for threads in that situation.
Let's not do "separate but equal" with social media, please. It's silly.
Is it meaningfully different to any other instance of defederation? Many of which I would say are generally beneficial to Kbin.
If Threads puts out so much more content as to effectively make other federated entities irrelevant, the character of the Fediverse changes such that it is no longer what it is today.
This looks rather like a discovery issue and is quite common with newly created instances on the Fediverse. You have to search for everything you want for a couple of times before you make your instance aware of the content or other instances aware of yours.
You can more easily overcome this by connecting your instance to an ActivityPub Relay, but I don't know how this is done on a Kbin instance.
The transient nature of this sort of image is one aspect that I really appreciate. Someone on foot, in a car, on a bike will run over it. Or the Sun will come to melt it. Regardless it will only be there for a short time. Ephemeral beauty has an urgency and immediacy to it.
Update: m/LinuxHardware is now listed on r/LinuxHardware's sidebar as the alternative fediverse destination, we will continue to work closely to strenghten this new partnership.
I doubt you’re going to get many responses here that aren’t basically ” you don’t need Windows at all, proton is magic that will solve all of your problems"
I’m going to give the opposite advice. I can tell you from experience, if you dual boot Windows and Linux, you’re going to find that over time, while in Windows to use the stuff that only works there, you’ll ask yourself “do I really need to shut down Windows and boot into Linux just for that one thing I need to use real quick?”, and you’ll just do it in Windows. You’ll do that more and more, until you realize you have that Linux install sitting on your drive for no reason, because you don’t use it.
My advice is to either test out a gaming-centric Linux distro, and see if EVERYTHING you want to use works fully(and I do mean try it for yourself, doubt just assume it works because other people say it does, Google a setup guide for the thing you want, and actually try it), or if you have anything you want to use that MUST run on Windows, just stick to Windows for the time being. You can always keep an eye on the status of the thing you want to run, and when it works properly on Linux, have another look at switching fully.
One exception would be if you really only spend a very small amount of time gaming, and so would only need to be in Windows occasionally. If you really will spend the vast majority of your time in Linux, then it makes sense to dual boot. But if you plan to spend any real amount of time doing stuff in Windows, you’re going to find it really obnoxious to have to go back and forth.
I appreciate this input, thank you. You make a valid point. I don't game much, so there wouldn't be too much back and forth. This is also just about learning what it's like to use Linux. I have a backup apple device, which is the OS I'm used to, and it would remain my daily driver for all essential tasks. For now, at least. So I have the luxury of trying stuff out on the pc laptop but not being bound by it.
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