There have been multiple accounts created with the sole purpose of posting advertisement posts or replies containing unsolicited advertising.

Accounts which solely post advertisements, or persistently post them may be terminated.

lemmy.world has bent the knee to corporations. Consolidated comments into body.

I don’t think this is EEE, I think this is a chance for meta to dominate the narrative by drowning us out with algorithmically curated censorship, distractions, hatred, outrage etc. I would join threads if I want threads, I would be on Reddit if I want corporate influence.

The mastodon post for the same server admins admitting to allow Meta thanks @BrikoX and @Melco

This is the post regarding an admin of fosstodon being offered a secret meeting under a non disclosure agreement

Thanks lunar for articulating my central point better than I could.


Most of my primary content was within the comment section scattered so I’ll try to put it up here and edit more as i go. I was worried I’d butcher things so I avoided updating my post. Ignore the mess

EEE - I don’t want to talk specifically about this. Many others are, and you can talk with them about it.

Privacy - My views on privacy is that lemmy is already fully public and facebook merging into it probably wont reduce your lemmy privacy in any meaningful way. Ignoring lemmy, your privacy is already fully breached in ways I’m not going to explain here.

People keep making blind claims that facebook/meta can’t use their algorithms to interact with us, so i will explain. For the record I know most of this effects mastodon directly, and not so much lemmy.

Threads will be able to control what gets minimised and maximised based on whatever secret algorithms they use. These end results are known to people that want to know, it’s how our parents and grandparents, became increasingly detached from reality. If facebook/meta wants to censor their users, they will, if they want to promote hate against LGBTQs then they will. Those users will then interact with our users, slowly shifting our conversations and the overall culture of lemmy into the same cesspool that is facebook.

Secondly, the content of threads will be selected by a relatively massive userbase which will drown out our content if we stay federated. Of course that content will be optimised by their algorithm, thus influencing fediverse content.

Now onto the principle matter. FACEBOOK IS EVIL, like genocidal evil, a propaganda arm of the empire evil. They have a heavily proven track record. “Wait and see”? There is no need to ignore facebook/metas criminal record.

The admins here should have clearly stated their intent but have been deafeningly silent. People are asking for clarification or in my case, acting because of a clear lack of action.

Other posts are talking about this and I will assume you have been reading them.

pjhenry is a troll that ignores what people actually say, he focuses on his intentional misunderstandings and straw-men, just stop feeding the troll guys, he only wants to fight over nothing. He only acts in bad faith.

Patti_OChair ,

I understand both sides’ points. At the end of the day, it’s like going to your doctor. It’s a personal decision whether you stay and wait this out, or feel an “icky” ping in your gut-- a familiar feeling that doesn’t sit right with you. I’ve read these comments and it really all comes down to how and why you “internet.”

Personally, I’m getting the icky, oh-god-here-we-go feeling because I worry about privacy. I’ve tried to learn what all of this means. The conclusion I’ve come to is that I enjoy the 3D (4D?) world much more. I will always seek these communities for reading and info… but the reality seems to be: People want to connect online. I think I just want to use it to pay bills, look up movie times, and eff off. Signing onto anything requires a risk that I must evaluate-- at least until my hand is forced. Like with paying bills, looking up movie times, shopping and so on.

I share the concerns of OP, but I love what someone on this post said. Something close to: If you think corporate America isn’t coming for free space, you haven’t been on Earth very long… (sorry, person who said this. I’m butchering your comment).

If you’re getting the icky feeling, do something about it. I think we all are “internetting” for different reasons. We aren’t all just going to run away in protest. I may or may not stay, but I will continue to my best to find the quiet places. If it becomes too much, I’ll delete.

In a perfect world, it would be really nice to have a place online to be fun, free, and find reliable information in a quick and orderly fashion. So subscribing to the Fediverse means you will have to do some digging to find the communities you trust.

Emanresu OP ,

Yeah, I think the lack of announcement was why i made this post ultimately. I felt betrayed if they kept their views censored. I’m here because everywhere with close to uncensored(in regards to the evils in the world) speech gets compromised and I let me hopes get the better of me. I just wanna hear new ideas and talk with interesting people. I’d rather not have more standard corporate approved memes and repost bots etc. I don’t want to be in a meta tainted area.

Patti_OChair ,

Yeah. I totally get that. There’s the technical aspect of things, and the the ethical which carries a perceivable looming threat: “We’re coming for you.” I think people sense it, but are trying to play fair and ethical with a monster that has proven time-and-time again that it doesn’t give a shit about our wittle-bitty feewings. That’s the icky feeling I have at the moment. I understand your reason for sounding the alarm and appreciate that you’re sort of like ‘Holdup. Y’all seeing this?’ From there, I think the question becomes, how do we activate our inner Public Enemy and fight the power… or do we? Is it okay to just do us with the hopes of staying under the radar?

I like that you brought this up. Posts like this inspire important conversations that can (at the very least) inspire mods and creators to access the “how” and “why” of participating in the fediverse.

Emanresu OP ,

This was part of my plan all along! To raise awareness about what is happening so that others can do the right thing, or at least start thinking about it in a new way. I didn’t see many others talking about the narrative hijack stuff, so i took a bullet and gave it a go.

I think we all have different skills in this and need to find our easiest ways to personally do something. It’s a part of being in a community after all :). They want to control what we think about and talk about, so we can start by talking about what we aren’t meant to say, and my downvotes paint a clear picture lol. I even had a post mentioning facebook helping enable genocide removed by a mod.

We should make a big deal about the evils of Meta, especially how they control views to help promote genocide and how they are destroying our loved ones minds. @Lunar Said it perfectly. We need to spread that kind of sentiment until we have a better idea of what to do next. We can force them to not federate.

crashex ,

Very nicely put. I’ve used all this for deep reflection about my internetting as well and I don’t think I have come to terms with everywhere being ruined by corporate. It’s not like they don’t fuck us over as well in the real world and I now realize what kind of fight we’re in on- and offline. Don’t want to give up any bit of space to evil corporations. I think it’s easy to create really quiet Lemmy instances (or other social sites, federated or not) where one can rest from all those aggressive algorithms, and if I do it at some point I will make it very connected to real life and good for information gathering. Other than that, I like real life, I’m not interested in much virtual stuff.

Patti_OChair ,

Yes! Agreed. <3 I fundamentally don’t believe that the internet is here to eat humanity alive. Corporations and greed are (sadly) integrated in our daily living in a variety of ways. And while it is wise to keep an eye on what’s going on and vote and engage accordingly, the best we can do is find what is useful without abandoning or compromising our individual quiet spaces. If they took away my ability to delete my account, then we’d have a problem. As long as I have real life to participate in, I’m good. My whole world isn’t inside of my computer screen. :D

jerdle_lemmy ,

It’s all getting a bit Judean People’s Front around here. I know there’s a generally leftist userbase, but do we have to do this?

That’s less about defederating with Meta. Meta are the Romans. It’s about people defederating with anyone who federates with Meta.

skellener ,
@skellener@kbin.social avatar

We want to prevent enshittification. Not encourage it.

Marxine ,
@Marxine@lemmy.ml avatar

As much as I preemptively created an account on another server (as I prefer admins to have a decisive stance in regards to Meta and similar corporations), it’d be good to wait for lemmy.world admins official message on it before telling everyone to leave.

But if they do “officially” bend the knee, yeah, it’s time to leave if you want to avoid Meta.

irkli ,
@irkli@lemmy.world avatar

Oh please, spare us the silly drama.

Consider reading this brief explanation of the issues by one of the ActivityPub authors…

blog.joinmastodon.org/…/what-to-know-about-thread…

pinkdrunkenelephants ,

If personal attacks are the only response you can give, then they’re clearly right and you’re clearly wrong.

STUPIDVIPGUY ,

“drama”? that faq thing doesn’t change the fact that we don’t respect meta and don’t want to share a platform with them

and it’s no surprise the authors of the software are supportive of its mass adoption, that doesn’t mean I have to tolerate a shitty company

milicent_bystandr ,

we don’t respect meta and don’t want to share a platform with them

I guess a big part of the dilemma is, though we mightn’t respect meta, some of us respect some of the people who use their services - even like some of them - and would like to be in the loop with them without using meta’s services ourselves directly

I’m on a Lemmy instance that’s preemptively defederated, and I respect that, but I might think about creating an account on another instance so I can have interoperability … That said, I’ve done pretty well almost entirely ignoring Facebook and Instagram so far, so maybe I just won’t care enough

DrNeurohax , (edited )
@DrNeurohax@kbin.social avatar

I don't WANT to agree, but I kinda do.

We're here because Reddit was shit on top shit, led by gaping anus. We all accept that Meta is the same.
We didn't want Reddit profiting from our work. Meta will do the same, only more competently.

Defederation is useless at scale They can continually spin up new instances that act as spies and bridges to Meta's area.
Once enough Meta bridge nodes are woven into the Fedi, they'll be masked by a backchannel to mask the exchange/activity.

Someone plz tell me I'm wrong, but this is how I think things work in the background...

  • Bob creates a Lemmy node - @Zucc1.ughfuckoff. It has 3 users and basically shops around until someone in lemmy.world's sphere allows federation. Zucc1 looks like any random, small instance.
  • Once federated, Zucc1 syncs to its connected Lemmy instances - for now there is no Meta connection.
  • Zucc1 can then federate with a bunch of other instances, including Zucc2.
  • This repeats for a few weeks, infiltrating Fedi. This could be happening now.
  • A new set of Lemmy nodes spin up and federate only with a portion of the spy instances. The spy instances don't respect the federation rules, distributing portions of the Fedi sync back to the Meta connected nodes, masking the source and destination.
  • Once signed posts are received by the spy nodes, user names are swapped with a table synced by spy and bridge instances. @User1 becomes @User7.
    • The Threads user sees their message from @someone (which can also be swapped if they worry Threads users care about any of this stuff).
    • The Lemmy user sees the message from @User.

Probably easy to combat when it's one instance here and there. If it's constant and automated, federating would have to be paused until the spies are weeded out and there's a better detection strategy. If they get a big enough network going, they could all dip out at once, change identity, and refederate back in as the Fedi network flips out because of all the sync mismatches. Just more new nodes joining in. They have the source code, so they can act differently from other instances as long as it doesn't cause problems.

Is this a realistic scenario or am I way off base? I feel like it has to be one of the two.

gelberhut ,
@gelberhut@feddit.de avatar
  1. Metas algorithmically curated feed happens only for threads users
  2. In few hours threads got much more users that lemmy has - meta do us in any ways - we are small group of people which will not consume meta ads/style
  3. What special Lemmy.world did in this context?
Emanresu OP , (edited )
  1. itl be forced onto us by being federated, and if some block, the others that dont will be controlled by those posts and indirectly influence the rest of us.

we are small group of people which will not consume meta ads/style

  1. The quote is what i mean, we wont want them so why do we want them?
  2. lemmy.world has been silent to us inside lemmy, and their mastodon instance said they are federating and will “see” if they should based on how meta behaves. As others have said, its like letting an arsonist into your house unsupervised hoping it wont happen again.

edit: because i get doubles of the same comment from two accounts I’ll answer in here.

The threads algorithm will maximise likes on things they wish maximised and minimise attention on things they want ignored etc. What threads likes most will spread most, through their app and through peoples actions, then that spread will reach federated and then indirectly federated sources. The important part is they dwarf our community size and tend to be very homogenised so for gain that i cant see, we lose our soul as a community. We may as well just delete here and make threads accounts. I’m here because the people are more unique and interesting, not as a generic chat room or social media account. Once we become what most of us don’t want, then why bother?

Kara ,
@Kara@kbin.social avatar

That's not how it works. Threads using an algorithm does not force it onto any other platform.

Caoldence222 ,

It has an impact. If threads algorithm heavily promotes something inflammatory, and that thing gets a bunch of upvotes from threads users, said post will dominate our feeds too.

pjhenry1216 ,

That's not how it really works either. And again, if that becomes a problem due to them somehow breaking the spec, defederating when there is an actual problem is still viable and loses virtually nothing.

Caoldence222 ,

how is that not “how it works” exactly? I don’t care as much about the integrity of the spec, though ofc web standards are important, as I do about the integrity of independent communities.

We don’t know what threads will do, but currently, federated instances do share up and downvotes, no? and that does affect the ranking of a post on all instances, not just the one where the up/downvotes were made.

pjhenry1216 ,

Also something else I just thought of. We need to keep in mind the algorithm is per user on Threads. They'd need to make it global to affect other instances. It defeats the purpose of their algorithm. They'd make it less valuable to themselves if they tried to inflict it elsewhere.

gelberhut ,
@gelberhut@feddit.de avatar

I lost you. algorithmic “feed” is created by Threads for Threads users. As long as you personally do not subscribe to Threads “communitues” (or whatever it will be) you do not see there. Without Threads you can find an unpleasant context in Lemmy as well, if you search for it just or browse “all”. If you want instance admin decide for your what you allowed to see and protect you from everything what they thing is not nice - there are few.

pjhenry1216 ,
  1. you don't understand ActivityPub. You're objectively wrong here.
  2. that there's any arguing shows your supposed objective stance is objectively wrong. Stop speaking for people you clearly don't. It's a sign of narcissistic behavior and entitlement.
  3. it's not like that at all. It betrays a lack of understanding of the platform you're using. Defederating even a day later would clean it up fairly quickly. There's virtually nothing lost if they defederate afterword. Your analogy is just so wrong on so many levels.

And to address your supposed algorithm issue: ActivityPub doesn't work that way. It can't change a feed in realtime. It just publishes. And again. It won't affect you. Even if they hacked and broke the spec, all it would do is change what you see from Threads. Whoopity doo. Join a Kbin instance and just block it from your feed.

jerdle_lemmy ,

Lemmy.world isn’t preemptively defederating with Threads.

pjhenry1216 ,

The developers already said they plan on Threads being multi-instance. Preemptively doing anything is just stupid. It might not even do anything.

rowdyrockets ,

deleted_by_author

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  • GONADS125 ,

    Is there any way to move a community? I created !vans but I will not be hosting this community on this instance if it federates with Threads. Also going to stop donating to Lemmy.world if this is the route they will take.

    mintiefresh ,

    Man… I just got here.

    WhoRoger ,
    @WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

    I’m not surprised, but disappointed. And I’m even tired to talk about it. It’s just so fucking dumb.

    Emanresu OP ,

    fosstodon has the same stance as lemmy.world. I don’t know if they have a lemmy.

    WhoRoger , (edited )
    @WhoRoger@lemmy.world avatar

    Wait, did I read something wrong… I thought they were like “we don’t want to talk to Meta at all”.

    Edit: oh yes I see.

    kukkurovaca ,
    @kukkurovaca@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    I’m not on lemmy.world, but I’ve joined some communities that are. I think an important question is, for any community mods who take this stance, do you plan to shutter your lemmy.world community and move to another?

    This situation is one reason why it’s important to get tools for community migration into Lemmy. (Another is: what if an admin simply has to shut down their instance for personal reasons?)

    (Also FWIW there’s already reason to defederate based on the garbage moderation even if you’re not concerned about EEE, so I don’t get admins who are in “wait and see” mode.)

    Emanresu OP ,

    I didn’t think about this from a community owner pov. It would be pretty rough on them.

    Meta is known to promote bad things. There is already enough evidence and a top level corporation should be seen as representative of all their holdings. Meta facilitates genocide… i should get some articles but I’m done for a while.

    starlinguk ,
    @starlinguk@kbin.social avatar

    Meta literally posted pro Brexit propaganda courtesy of Cambridge Analytica on the night before the referendum. They're evil as hell.

    Emanresu OP ,

    Their bots are posting anti-threaxit content as we speak.

    I keep forgetting that most people don’t get the censored info about how evil facebook/meta is. Its a huge list of items. I’m considering compiling it.

    pjhenry1216 ,

    You do realize algorithms won't apply to your instance, right? ActivityPub doesn't support the type of tech you're worried about.

    I think many of the wait and see is due to not even knowing how well Threads will turn out. Threads may come out with some valuable creators. And if they implement the same capabilities as Mastodon, they can just limit Threads. People can see posts from those they specifically choose to follow on Threads, but nothing else.

    You're cutting off your nose to spite your face.

    SJ_Zero ,
    @SJ_Zero@lemmy.fbxl.net avatar

    Rather than make thread after thread after thread about it, just start an instance with blackjack and hookers and threads.net on your blocklist

    JasSmith ,

    This is so histrionic. The whole point of the fediverse is instances connecting. If you want a safe space go join a forum or something.

    Pseu ,
    @Pseu@kbin.social avatar

    Then why is there the option of defederating at all?

    Ignacio ,

    Defederating must be based on facts and evidences, not on imagination.

    Detry , (edited )
    @Detry@kbin.social avatar

    .

    Sentinian ,

    I’d argue defederating can be based on whatever the hell the admins of the instance wants. That’s the freedom of the fediverse, instances are free to choose what they do and do not want. And you the user are free to choose the instance that aligns with your wants.

    Ignacio ,

    Obviously, we're only guests in the admin's house, as long as the admin wants us to be there. But during the time I was on Mastodon, I saw some (de)federation discussions, and the admins said that most of the time: facts, not assumptions.

    Sentinian ,

    My statement was more referring to the idea that defederating based on facts are not a definite rule. Ideally facts are used, but sometimes it won’t. Speculation is pretty fair considering prior facts in this scenario.

    pjhenry1216 ,

    No one is using any facts that actually makes sense. They just keep using scary corporate spooky words. Ignoring that the toot says they will defederate if there is reason to do so addresses the "speculation". It's simply a matter of whether the defederate now and risk being overzealous or defederate the next day after they see evidence. There's no real harm in making sure one isn't overreacting.

    Sentinian ,

    Embrace, extend, and extinguish is a real tatic used by big tech companies for years though. It is fair to assume this strategy will be in play, as times the FOSS community hasn’t things died as a result.

    pjhenry1216 ,

    You can't just keep saying it's a tactic without remotely arguing how it's even possible. Facts will help you. Spreading FUD with no understanding of how ActivityPub works doesn't help you.

    Sentinian ,

    You’re right, I don’t know how ActivityPub works. Perhaps explain to me how this tactic is impossible?

    I can only base things off of my knowledge and from what I understand you can remove activitypub support just as (relatively) easily as you add it.

    artifice ,

    You’ve been very active in this post attacking users personally, but are unable to actually articulate anything of your own. Care to elaborate on how this is all a non issue, or your understanding of ActivityPub?

    pjhenry1216 ,

    ActivityPub works closer to an RSS feed, so it wouldn't be real-time like an algorithmic feed that updates constantly. When you post something via ActivityPub, it simply posts. Other servers will rank it based on the actual stats. So the best that can be done to try and force the algorithm on you without breaking spec too much (ie: doesn't change the spec, but uses it improperly) would be to post it with false statistics. It's pointless to do that though. So ultimately, the algorithm will have very little effect. In regards to EEE, I can't think of how it actually could do that, and I'm at a loss why I need to prove a negative. Anyone who is positing to will happen needs to back up their point of view with how.

    And literally everything I've posted were my own thoughts. And yeah, I was abusive to the person who told me I was illiterate because I asked them to clarify an extremely vague FUD stance.

    I just want people to articulate what the difference is between defederating now and defederating after seeing how it actually plays out. Literally no one has done that yet. Not one single person has been able to back up their point with an articulated answer beyond "but but meta is evil." Yeah, I agree. I don't have Instagram. I don't have Facebook. I don't have Threads. I don't even care if my instance defederates before or after either. I will care if they choose not too and federating causes the experience to degrade. But I don't need to worry about that right now. It costs a lot mental stress to be worrying about such a non-issue now when it's just as easy to take action when it comes time to cross that bridge.

    Personally, I just really dislike how poorly so many people are using logic and that is what I'm more interested in. Unfortunately no one has shed any light that actually has evolved the topic beyond the same vague principle of "meta is bad." Hell, some are arguing entirely different points but the OP seems to be entirely in agreement even though the logical conclusion isn't remotely the same between the two.

    I just want to know why there are users so actively trying to dismantle other instances. Like, is OP secretly a fan of Threads and is spouting this nonsense everywhere trying to get people to leave instances everywhere?

    It's entirely not doing anything positive for the fediverse to be acting like many of the other folks in this thread.

    The only group that benefits from posts like this is Threads.

    artifice ,

    Appreciate you taking the time to write that out. You make some good points. I’ve been no lifing this subject for the past couple of hours, and while I was definitely on the bandwagon that OP is, I’ve pretty much arrived at the same consensus. I feel it’s a wiser choice to wait and see, before going full scorched earth. Cheers.

    samokosik ,
    @samokosik@lemmy.world avatar

    Is there any way how to move account into another instance? Basically so I don’t lose posts.

    I myself am interested what lemmy.world’s admins will do. Now they get a lot of criticism for not doing anything but so far I wouldn’t blame them that much.

    PS: I would probably still defederate if it was my decision

    Emanresu OP ,

    You would have to make a new account. Not sure how i feel about not having account migration. It’s got its good and bad points. Sad to make a second account though.

    Galaxyboy_3598 ,

    I was going to switch from lemmy.world to lemmy.ml but disappointed that I’d be losing all my comment & post history. Not to mention you have to re-subscribe to all your communities again.

    pjhenry1216 ,

    In response to your update about the algorithm, I highly suggest reading how ActivityPub publishes posts. This won't be as much of a concern as you think. It'd require breaking the spec entirely. It would literally not be compatible with other instances if they had a real-time algorithm like that. The only thing it can truly effect is if you browse Threads directly. Even then, there are certain standards it has to follow if it wants to be compatible. More than likely, you will get a "diminished" Threads experience (ie: you will not see any "benefit" of any Threads specific functionality). They already stated if you apply Thread specific privacy controls, it simply won't be posted to the federated feed. It's important to realize their actual feed will not be the same as the federated feed. I do not think Meta wants to capitalize on the fediverse. I think they're doing it as an inexpensive option to be available in the EU without having to interoperate with direct for-profit competitors.

    Again, some folks won't be sold on the mess federating with Threads will look like. Let it play out and if you are correct, they will defederate very quickly and there won't be any lasting harm. Meta will gain nothing. You will have stressed and lost years off your life for worrying so much.

    Just drink some tea and watch the sunset or something.

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