A case for preemptively defederating with Threads ( kbin.social )

arquebus_x , 6 months ago (edited 6 months ago)

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.

ThatOneKirbyMain2568 OP , 6 months ago

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.

Skua , 6 months ago

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.

HarkMahlberg , 6 months ago

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.

A fun time to bring up the concept of Eternal September.