By Eugen Rochko (CEO/Founder @ Mastodon)
Today, Meta is launching its new microblogging platform called Threads. What is noteworthy about this launch is that Threads intends to become part of the decentralized social web by using the same standard protocol as Mastodon, ActivityPub. There’s been a lot of speculation around what Threads will be and what it means for Mastodon. We’ve put together some of the most common questions and our responses based on what was launched today…
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I’m not convinced meta is even intending to join the fediverse I think it’s far more likely they use activitypub to link Instagram Facebook and threads together and they never join the fediverse
They could be trying to pull a double: not wasting a good crisis (Twitter) to syphon users, and Embrace/Extend/Extinguish the fediverse.
These tech CEOs don’t deserve the benefit of Hanlon’s razor anymore. Too much evidence of Te contrary.
They don’t gain much adding fediverse users to the content mill. I have a hard time believing anyone at meta wants to give us access to “their” content without the reciprocal user data and ad attention in return. Hell, Reddit just imploded to rid itself of “freeloaders”.
They saw an opportunity to take twitter’s users, they probably used activitypub because it was fast. If they start federating, we can decide how to handle it. They will win the war for users, but we can have a nice space that they aren’t allowed to touch if we want it.
I hope and wish you are right
I feel like I read somewhere that threads wasn’t intending to federate fully, just allow for an import from mastodon, but I can’t find where now!
I have no illusions that if Facebook and Google had started with proprietary and non-interoperable chat systems that XMPP would be flourishing today. I think that, by and large, we’d be in the same place with it.
People chatting from XMPP to Facebook to chat with folks probably by and large would’ve gotten Facebook accounts for the non-chat functionality that was never interoperable and not part of real time chat communication. Think groups and events.
If you only interacted with Facebook people over XMPP, you were locked out of a huge portion of functionality unless you signed up for Facebook even while XMPP worked.
A lot of people are focused on “extend” in the vein of Facebook and Google playing fast and loose with the XMPP spec and implementation until the whole ecosystem got fucked and then walking away. Which is a real danger. I mean, in a lot of ways Mastodon itself has already proven that. How much fedi drama over the years has been caused by Masoton unilaterally deciding something that other AP microblogging platforms just needed to deal with? Lots of people have beef with Eugen for a reason.
But even more insidious than that will be luring people onto Threads for ancillary benefits and then cutting off that large swath of the fediverse after the drain is complete. Then we would definitely not “end up exactly where we are now.”
Imagine in 3 years. “Ohh threads supports a live chat thread feature but those threads don’t federate. My friends are gonna do one while they all watch the season finale of Marvel Bullshit Infinity. Guess I could sign up for Threads to take part. Hmm I can still follow all my friends in the broader fediverse from here, I can just make this my primary account. Scratch that I’ll make this my only account. Oh, what Threads is turning off federation? Oops sorry everyone else I have no way to reach you anymore, maybe you can switch to threads?”
Yep. Nothing will change without actual government regulations. People just don’t care, and sadly that’s the reality. People will continue to not care as long as it doesn’t affect them in any way. It’s the same reason people with a lot of money vote for parties that enable them to have more money whilst not caring about how it affects people of lower “class”.
I’m not going to even consider Threads though, because I quite like Lemmy and even if Lemmy and Mastodon, etc gets “extinguished” by Threads, I will stay here. I assume a bunch will do the same.
I would prefer to use instances that are defederated from the start, and that comes with the added bonus that there’s no risk of anyone losing threads content because they never had it to begin with.
A dizzying number of notable people and people in my personal life have hopped onto Threads, day 1. The “fuck Elon / Twitter” sentiment and generally good vibes to this point mirror the experience I had here when I hopped onto Beehaw and we also had similar optimism and a “fuck u/spez” sentiment. But the major difference I see is this — for the sake of sticking it to Elon these folks are getting themselves even further entangled in Zuck’s world, and we’ve already seen the monsters that emerge from that muck.
Any social network that builds up a massive, general userbase inevitably enshittifies as the marketers / advertisers / influencers and otherwise self-promoters get their content boosted. With its extremely close ties to Instagram, those sorts of users will be ramped up on Threads in no time, and this period of positivity with fade in turn as that content starts getting vomited out and funneled to everyone.
The independent Fediverse is not without its faults, but I’m much more comfortable building community within this coalition of a space than in any of Meta’s creations.
“Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon”
Didn’t all those pundits say only tech nerds can figure Mastodon out?
Threads got 2 mil signups in 2 hours…
When I went to join mastadon, I had to type a URL to join. I had to google what URL to put in. So that tracks.
Oh yea I remember looking at some sort of spreadsheet of instances that had stats like users and uptime and stuff to pick one.
Do I want to be on a German server with people who have similar interests but 70% German language posts or the instance for people in Glasgow (which is a different continent from me but most of them were…) or perhaps the server that has 4 members?
I think I chose about 4 different servers at random in part because my password manager/browser combo wouldn’t let me log in despite appearing to fill everything in correctly. Joining Mastodon was a nightmare, but at least it prepared me for Lemmy. I joined 2 servers and I haven’t ever needed my backup server. Community Discovery and subscription is still a little wonky though.
I took a quiz describing my dream instance
Mechanic here. Came here trying to contribute to the discussion …
Well? Don’t hold back!
Interesting read and take. Not where I’d land, but I’m not starting from his position.
The lack of federation to start gives Meta lots of wiggle room on the implementation timeframe to greenwash a walled garden that just happens to use an open protocol. If federation does happen, I would expect … incentives … to be part of that story. If not, nothing like a little corporate gaslighting to revise history.
I would expect … incentives … to be part of that story
Being new to the federated model my gut reaction is they found a way they can maintain their “freebooting” model but without the usual criticisms because the original source is baked in to the platform. It would be an interesting conversation if they start monetizing within their own platform, with no increased server costs.
The only thing I need to know: https://social.heise.de/@vowe/110655159261864491
I have to disagree with the Mastodon BDFL here:
Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon.
Mastodon is infinitesimal. Tiny. About 3.5 million active users this past month. Facebook estimates are around 3 billion. Your brand recognition only matters in nerd circles.
I can’t stand the huge monopoly this is
Meta is not our friend and i’m concerned about how easily some people let in the ad-pushing, hate speech-enabling, data-harvesting supervillian
Twitter was harder to leave for me than Reddit because you’re following specific users rather than community topics (I follow a bot on mastodon that recreates tweets, but even that is having some minor issues with the recent changes). I honestly hope that Threads gets a lot of those users and that it decides to federate down the road, it would be nice to follow some more mainstream users while keeping my home in Mastodon
I think I may be confused. I thought threads did federate. Was I mistaken?
I believe they’ve stated that they intend to implement ActivityPub at some point but have not yet, so I federation yet.
Tha for the info. Someone provided me a link showing that Beehaw has already agreed to block them so I’m no longer concerned about that leaking in when I’m browsing here.