Meta/Instagram launched a new product called Threads today (working title project92). It adds a new interface for creating text posts and replying to them, using your Instagram account. Of note, Meta has stated that Threads plans to support ActivityPub in the future, and allow federation with ActivityPub services. If you actually look at your Threads profile page in the app your username has a threads.net tag next to it - presumably to support future federation.
Per the link, a number of fediverse communities are pledging to block any Meta-directed instances that should exist in the future. Thus instance content would not be federated to Meta instances, and Meta users would not be able to interact with instance content.
I’m curious what the opinions on this here are. I personally feel like Meta has shown time and time again that they are not very good citizens of the Internet; beyond concerns of an Eternal September triggered by federated Instagram, I worry that bringing their massive userbase to the fediverse would allow them to influence it to negative effect.
I also understand how that could be seen to go against the point of federated social media in the first place, and I’m eager to hear more opinions. What do you think?
My understanding is that the main problem is allowing them to get any foot in the door in the first place. They are not in it to be nice, they are in it to beat out and absorb the competition for their gain. The fediverse is about giving users a place to go that’s not full of ads and algorithms. They only see us as untapped revenue streams.
While that’s true, other instances will eventually also need to find a way to make money. And unless you’re on the Facebook instance you shouldn’t see their ads (unless they inject those ads as posts).
The Facebook crowd can only assimilate us when we switch to their instance. I see a point where new users would prefer a bigger, i.e. Facebookey instance over smaller ones when they don’t know anything about the fediverse.
No. I disagree. They already used to keep tracking metadata on non-users (admittedly, I’m beyond sketchy on the details here), they’re not at all welcome here.
They already know too much about me
That’s fair but there’s a difference between getting donation money to keep the server running (Wikipedia) and trying to get every cent you can from user data and targeted ads.
If they get large enough, they will be able to force protocol changes.