The recent excitement surrounding Thread's arrival on the Fediverse is concerning. To understand why this is not a good idea, consider their economic interest in harvesting data, their poor moderation, and their manipulations. Nothing good can come from their federation. Don't roll out the red carpet for them.
@kirby@davidrevoy I mean, not anyone will get your private posts if threads user will follow you, and dms if they are directed at threads users, from federation. And there is still poor moderation argument
@adiz@davidrevoy@ploum@mrFred489 mastodon and pleroma both have "instance silencing" that make it so a server doesn't show any of another server's users/posts by default, except that mutual followers can still communicate. it is just ignored almost completely by mastodon people for complete blocks instead because they are control freaks.
@ploum@davidrevoy Can you explain which negative consequences you see from this? All the data they will get is public, so they could get it anyways. I don’t think that they can really manipulate the users of the fediverse through activity pub. Moderation may be worse, but there are laws enforcing some moderation, so it can’t be completely bad. If it really is, activity pub could possibly be extended to allow moderation of other instances instead of complete blocks.
@mrFred489@fosstodon.org activity pub could possibly be extended to allow moderation of other instances instead of complete blocksWhat do you mean by this?Can you explain which negative consequences you see from this? All the data they will get is public, so they could get it anyways.Would be more difficult for them to data-mine from the outside in vs. from the inside. Additionally, I believe a big fear is that Meta will use their position and dominance to assert themselves as a chief stakeholder in the AP spec and exploit their power to push unilateral changes similar to what Google does contemporaneously with web standards. @ploum@mamot.fr@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
Many people seem to see this Threads federation test as a positive thing, or something to celebrate and I still have no idea why they do. Words missing here.
@myrmidon I have no idea. I'm just a user. I understand those who are already defederated with them (as my instance), I understand those who are 'waiting and seeing'. But I'm also deeply concerned about those who praise this situation and try to normalise it as something positive. I don't see anything positive in it and I just wanted to say it.
@Leuenberg@davidrevoy@ariane Mastodon creator didn't invent the Fediverse, wasn't here first. The Mastodon creator is very self-interested though. He had secret meetings with them too. Not interested in his opinion.
@davidrevoy@ariane I have a hard time understanding all this angst about Threads, besides a gross misunderstanding of how the Fediverse works. The misunderstanding is quite acceptable for an artist or most of the users, far less so for some mastodon admins who decided to block Threads. I'm therefore inviting anyone thinking Threads is dangerous to at least read Mastodon's creator thoughs about it (and dispel some weird beliefs on the way) : https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-threads/
@Leuenberg@davidrevoy@ariane The way the Fediverse works on a technical level doesn't really matters, except for the fact that posts are sent very widely by default and how you'd end up with a all-or-nothing communication with Meta.
The way Meta makes money via harvesting data and people manipulation on the other hand is important, the fact that Meta is proprietary is also important because it means they can do extensions without others being easily able to follow or solve interoperability issues.
Gargron here is playing a dangerous game and is trying to lessen the harm Meta can do.
@kirby My instance will probably just choke on the attempt of being scraped — it's naturally protected by its weak hardware :marseylaugh: @davidrevoy@untsuki
@davidrevoy Mastodon really ought to have provided much better information to people regarding losing follows when moderation like this takes place. I have absolutely no idea who I'm about to no longer be in contact with as Threads causes this schism. The onus should never have been on me, the individual. It's a total UX own goal.
edit - I know you have your hands full and I apologize for tagging you out of the blue, but this is such a big deal @Gargron
@tehstu ah, yes, I see what you're getting at now. I'd assume that servers that don't wish to risk having their users seen by Threads would enable authorised fetch, but it's not like there haven't been blocking wars before.
@HauntedOwlbear At some point, I suspect people who don't want to see any Threads will defederate anyone who hasn't defederated Threads. That's when we'll all start losing contacts. Probably unknowingly.
@lanodan@davidrevoy@ariane Meta CANNOT harvest data on the Fediverse, this need at least to be understood. It is this myth and some others that Gargron is trying to dispel. Honestly explaining what Meta can and can't do on the Fediverse technically is not lessening the harm Meta could do but letting people make informed choice (as long as their admins allow them to).
@duponin@davidrevoy@lanodan@ariane Gorgron disagrees with you here, guess who's right ? Why would Meta get more power than any other application on the fediverse ? Why would your server suddenly disclose to Meta what it is not disclosing anyway to the other servers ?
And personal data doesn't magically becomes detached from a person when it becomes public (which is actually not so public when it comes to profiles only visible via authenticated-fetches).
@duponin@davidrevoy@lanodan@ariane I think I understand enough to know that Meta is certainly not an issue here. But then please explain how suddenly Meta would be able to harvest your personnal data from your server ? I'm not aware of any way ActivityPub would allow you to get any information about the poster beside the thing he is posting (which is public anyway).
@Leuenberg@davidrevoy@ariane@duponin The thing which is different from Threads vs. other servers is that we can be reasonably sure right from the start that they're going to abuse the data.
And we know ActivityPub sucks about data privacy and it could do better, but we also know that enforcing data privacy via technology alone doesn't really works because otherwise you'd end up a hermit. Never had a friend tell someone else about your secrets? Or did something a bit embarrassing in public? (Or that you'd regret years/decades later) Meta works like a creep who would gather information about people at their expanse.
@lanodan@davidrevoy@ariane@duponin Agreed, but then it's not a concern with Meta, technically they could retrieve all the public data they want with an accounts on big instance and start playing with the APIs. I suspect that many people freaking out about Meta have no idea of the big privacy issues intrinsic to ActivityPub, at least I know that Meta do not care about my activity since they can't monetize it. I'm not so confident about those rogue or badly maintained servers.