cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7477620
Transitive defederation – defederating from instances that federate with Threads as well as defederating from Threads – isn’t likely to be an all-or-nothing thing in the free fediverses. Tradeoffs are different for different people and instances. This is one of the strengths of the fediverse, so however much transitive defederation there winds up being, I see it as overall as a positive thing – although also messy and complicated.
The recommendation here is for instances to consider #TransitiveDefederation: discuss, and decide what to do. I’ve also got some thoughts on how to have the discussion – and the strategic aspects.
(Part 7 of Strategies for the free fediverses )
We should defederate with any server that has less than 7 degrees of separation with Meta. We can call it the Kevin Bacon rule.
I mean if it is really transitive then we should defederate with any server that can be connected to Meta with a finite length path
That includes your own server. 😮
And complement the FediBlock tag with FediBacon! It’s got success written all over it!
I just went ahead and defederated with my own brain. This way I never have to worry about Meta sludge ruining my life by existing on my screen.
I can understand defederating from Threads, but transitive defederation is bordering on insanity.
This will do nothing but exert peer pressure onto instances that wish to remain impartial. Transitive defederation will play right into Meta’s hands by fragmenting the Fediverse further.
“You’re either with us or you’re against us”
— level-headed, fair-acting groups of people throughout history
Only a sith deals in absolutes.
is transitive defederation for gab bordering on insanity
Is making endless false analogies bordering on insanity? You tell me!
where got false
Wat is wordies? Captizalation? Chunktupation-thingies?
are you here to have discussion or insult people
I’m not so sure that this sort of divisive policy is healthy for the Fediverse. ActivityPub is meant to connect communities, not split them apart. I feel like this is just going to cause even more fragmentation at a time when ActivityPub can really be showing off its capabilities.
I imagine this would dissuade further adoption by other communities.
If its capability is connecting with corporations, I think its best for the long term health to not show that.
Activitypub is deliberately designed to allow disconnection as and when needed. Splitting apart is entirely the point of having defederation.
I do not understand this idea that the fediverse was always meant to be some kumbayah peace & love positive vibes only space and that utilising defederation is going to wound its delicate soul.
No. Federation is a system with teeth; if we defang it for the sake of being nice to everyone then it won’t be able to achieve its promise of freedom from corporate overlords. Independence and self determination is the point, not being chill and cool and like, totally copacetic with all mankind, man.
I have no idea why people are downvoting you but I agree fully.
A lot of folks here dont have much experience with social situations and life in general and it shows.
Studies show that big corporations behave like psychoaths. Lack of remorse, lack of empathy, hostile demeanor and impulsiveness.
Would you invite someone like this to your home and expect everything to be all right afterwards?
In the case of meta its also a psychopath with enough money and lawyers that they could murder you in cold blood and wouldn’t even go to jail so to speak.
Why would we federate with them just to defederate when (not if) they start pushing their agenda through? Ads, one way federation etc.
Well, I might have an idea why it’s downvoted so.
While I agree with the sentiment, and as such, upvoted to boost the message, it’s still very combative and needlessly passive-aggressive with its kumbayah and the stereotypical hippie talk, “man”, which really just annoyed and cringed myself too.
But to each their own. I still like to boost if the sentiment is valuable as a pov at least, here I happen to also agree. But the passive-aggressive tone is really uncalled for.
Edit: I read further ahead, and this person in question continues their combative and provocative tone. I’m tempted to recall my upvote just because of this, but it’s a good perspective to consider, so I’ll stick with boosting this specific comment with an upvote (though not the later ones that ramp up the toxicity). But I really do not like the tone… I can very clearly now see why many would downvote.
I agree that combative tone does not make sense in conveying a message and more hinders than anything. But I have done so myself and probably will fall into the same trap here and there. I would argue that it is a good thing to tell someone “I agree in principle but I think you should reconsider your words to strip them of divisive content” or the like.
Psychology tells us that most people mean good, sometimes making the worst mistakes that produce terrible outcomes.
Alas, thank you for elaborating. :)
Right, but what this will end up doing is effectively creating two distinct Fediverses; one with Meta and all the users, and one that will sequester themselves off to an even smaller corner of the internet than before. That’s not a healthy outcome. And if all the EEE(E?) rants and ravings people have been posting lately are to be believed, that’ll only make these smaller communities even less able to resist Meta’s influence.
You said:
ActivityPub is meant to connect communities, not split them apart.
This is just blatantly wrong. I was addressing this and only this.
I don’t know if I agree with transitive defederation, I did not take a position on it, and I don’t know why you’re trying to argue it with me except that you know this kumbayah crap isn’t a position you can argue.
I just know BS when I smell it, and I’m sick of smelling this particular kind.
Okay, but that’s a disingenuous argument to be making. Yes, AP is designed with the options to block instances, but that’s not the core function it’s built around. That’s a failsafe, not the selling feature that would make communities adopt it. Communities can already exist without federating with other platforms: by running their own, non-AP platform in the first place. The developers of AP didn’t say “I want to make a protocol built around blocking connections”.
Nobody buys a car for its brakes, but you still need to have them for safety purposes. Defederation is pumping said brakes. It’s a necessary feature, but not the main point of the car.
A car without brakes is a death trap. You use brakes exactly in proportion to how much you use the accelerator. Your analogy is garbage. It’s like saying “you have a house for the space inside, not for the roof overhead”. It’s nonsensical.
Federation and defederation are two sides of the same coin. The one is the shadow of the other. Interpersonal boundaries are necessary for healthy relationships IRL, and they mainly come into play when telling people no, not when telling them yes. AP was absolutely designed with disconnection in mind. We know that because it’s a core function. If you want to tell me otherwise then you need to give me a quote, and then explain to me why I should care what the designer thinks anyway.
Pretending federation is about connection and not disconnection is disingenuous. It’s meaningless fluff that as far as I can tell is perfectly suited to convincing people to let their guard down, and may well have been designed for that purpose.
explain to me why I should care what the designer thinks anyway
Because they’re the ones who ultimately control the future of the AP protocol. How it behaves today may not be how it behaves tomorrow. If their intent was to create communities that are isolated islands on the internet, they would’ve just made a new phpBB. So understanding their design philosophy is going to be important when it comes to running a community on that protocol.
What matters is what can be done with the protocol. Defederation is baked in at this point, and if it goes off the rails we can just fork it.
And I can see you don’t have anything to back up your claim that federation is somehow an unimportant side feature of federation.
I feel like this was part of the Meta plan from the start. They know what they’re doing.
It was part of Meta’s plan for us to behave badly?
I could see it as being part of Meta’s plan to make the Fediverse fracture itself to make it easier to manipulate.
Definitely. My point is that it’s our own behavior that’s the link the chain, meaning we have an opportunity to not do it.
<shoots myself in the foot> Look what Meta made me do!
I understand the argument for servers blocking Threads/Meta. It doesn’t strike me as the right choice for every server, but it’s clearly a good choice for some servers. Threads doesn’t moderate the way many fediverse servers would like their peers to, and Meta is generally an ill-behaved company. Blocking it is appropriate for servers emphasizing protection for vulnerable users, and inappropriate for servers trying to be big and open. The fediverse is great because people can choose what’s right for them.
I do not, however understand the argument for blocking servers that do not block Threads and I think the article could be improved with a more thorough explanation. Maybe there’s something I’m missing about the mechanics at work here, but isn’t one’s own server blocking Threads enough to keep Threads users from being able to interact?
It’s good feedback, thanks – I thought I had enough of explanation in the article but maybe I should put in more. Blocking Threads keeps Threads userws from being able to directly interact with you, but it doesn’t prevent indirect interactions: people on servers following quoting or replying to Threads posts, causing toxicity on your feeds (often called “second-hand smoke”); hate groups on Threads encouragiingtheir followers in the fediverse to harass people; and for people who have stalkers or are being targeted by hate groups Threads, replies to your posts by people who have followers on Threads going there and revealing information.
Why not judge these instances on their own merit though? If what you say becomes true and is so problematic and rampant that it needs addressing, you can block that instance. But doing so preemptively seems petty and counterproductive at best.
What if there is an instance that selectively reposts from Threads only decent, thoughtful discussions?
Oh and as a side note; if you’re worried about stuff getting more mainstream, toxic and polarized that’s kinda inevitable if you want more people using the fediverse, that’s just how it is when lots of differently thinking people are in one place.
What about non-meta toxicity? Does the same argument apply for all sources of toxicity? And to what degree does transitivity apply?
and revealing information
It’s already available publicly without having to log in.
I’ll be honest, if this gets adopted I’m out.
Most of these ideas are ridiculous in how they desperately build up windmills to handle a surplus of lances among some fediverse users, but this genuinely applies the very thing you completely out of nothing assume Meta would do to what you’re doing: EEE.
You’re trying to strong-arm users of AP into your modified version usage guidelines for it entirely to suffocate anyone disagreeing.
That’s despicable, even as just an idea.
The good news is that none of the large instances are going for these insane policies. Small instances and solo instances can defederate themselves into irrelevance all they want, just like beehaw did.
how is strong arm
Are you here to have a discussion? Or just to harass people?
how is harassment
exactly, they don’t even have a definitive roadmap yet. most of the instances would block threads anyway if they ever make a decision that could EEE fediverse. blocking instances that federate with threads is kind of a bad move.
Mmm yes, a broken platform dealing in inane absolutes. Take me back to reddit why don’t you?
I swear to god the conversation around Meta joining the fediverse has been one of the most annoying things I’ve had to read about in a while.
Eh, nah, not as a preemptive thing. If threads users become a problem, then transitive defed is a good option. Otherwise it just makes the whole thing more annoying than it’s worth.
also blocking any instance that federates with an instance hosting harassers and hate groups – provides even stronger protection.
Even safer, unplug your router.
Y’all notice that things always talk about “user safety” and such but never detail just how the NAZIS at Threads will continue to interact with their users when the whole-ass domain is blocked.
This is just another purity test.
Yeah, strong arming instances to do something or another based on a personal preference I thought was meta’s job, not the fediverses.
The entire point is that each instance should decide for themselves. If they want to defederate with me because I haven’t made up my mind yet, then so long I guess, to me that says more about them then it does Meta.
As long as Meta can’t infect the rest of the fediverse, or track or monetize it…fine. I just never, ever want Meta shit on my timeline.
So don’t subscribe to Meta-hosted communities?
Lots of Fediverse instances let you block whole instances, too, so you could personally block them. Problem solved.
I’ve learned that there’s a huge number of people on lemmy who prefer government regulation to self control. I had an argument with a guy the other day who wants $12 lattes banned instead of simply not buying them. Apparently making something available is the same as putting a gun to your head and forcing you to buy it.
does self control prevent triangle shirtwaist fire
No, that is an example of an appropriate problem to solve with regulation. “If something I exists I must buy it and that is the vendor’s fault” is not.
or track or monetize it
Meta doesn’t need federation to track or monetize anything.
I just never, ever want Meta shit on my timeline.
You can personally block them. You don’t have to tell your admin to defederate the entire instance or defederate from other instances who choose not to.
How would Meta “infect” anything? Do you really think Meta is producing self-replicating things that jump from person to person?
What sort of “Meta shit” would you possibly expect to appear on your timeline?
Sort by “all,” and the popular instances show up.
I wouldn’t like to see FB and Threads dominate that with the bleating of the sheep they’ve cultivated.
Okay, but what sort of material would you expect to actually see on your timeline in this scenario?
They can’t answer this. All they do is downvote you. It means you found the end of their philosophy.
For some people, their philosophy ends where a question about specifics begins.
Wow. Really reaching there, huh?
What Meta shit wouldn’t I like to see? A general watering down of the comment quality. Trolling. Nonsense. What has happened to every somewhat technical technology the second the normies cry “gatekeeping” and force their way in with a dumb fucking look on their face and without an original idea in their heads.
That Meta shit is what I’d like to avoid. Just because one doesn’t have opportunity to respond doesn’t mean there isn’t a response.
because refusing to talk to instance is strong arming
Indeed, the entire point is that instances should decide for themselves – I say it multiple times in the article and I say it in the excerpt. If they think that you federating with Meta puts them at risk, then they should defederate. And yes, it says more about the instances making the decisions than it does about Meta – Meta’s hosting hate groups and white supremacists whether or not people defederate or transitively defederate.
Aren’t you from that instance that threw a tantrum recently and threatened to defed the programming instance because of a personal beef between the admins that was quickly resolved and only resulted in creating a bunch of needless drama?
The above OP is right, it really says more about the servers advocating these things than Meta. Stop wallowing in the mud and just be better than them. Lead by example, not whatever this petty squabble is.
Thanks for getting what I was saying.
I’m giving meta a 3 strike rule for my instance. Yes, I will probably eventually defederate with them - but I’m not going to immediately do it now. Yes, they’re a horrible company, horrible ethics, and I hate them. However, I’m not going to be one who just blocks them prematurely, they can prove themselves why they’re terrible to me. I’ll probably get overwhelmed with moderating and just cut it then.
Thank you for fighting the good fight. That’s the proper way to do it.
no thanks. no need to technology a kneejerk reaction to nonexistent problem.
I mean, this would mean that the most rabidly anti-federation instances would wall themselves off from instances that are okay with giving Meta a chance, so it would reduce the drama somewhat. I wouldn’t mind no longer seeing all the endless doomsaying.
That’s a good point, it would get a lot of very rabid users out of a fair few instances.
because not cooperating with genocide enabler is rabid
I don’t know. Calling Meta a nonexistent problem sounds naive to me. Sure, something “hasn’t happened (yet)”. Except, it’s Meta … plenty has happened already. How many times are we going to allow selves to be fooled?
im not going to get into this, again, as im sick of asking the same thing and no one ever having a valid response so ill just state it.
theres no technical reason to think meta can overtake the ap protocol and substantially alter it in any appreciable way. that they have a federating server in threads is not some crazy threat unless your own shit becomes dependent on that federation. if it does, its on the instance owner not threads.
as it is, there is zero reason to not federate with threads other than substantial resource use (flooding) and righteous indignation.
i run a public instance, and as soon as threads interferes with it, i will nip that shit in the bud. until then, i plan on providing an offramp for those trapped in metas walled garden.
I don’t federate with any instance that openly houses hate groups. Threads houses hate groups.
There’s a reason for you.
It may not be enough of a reason for you, but that’s a whole different thing to there being “zero reason not to federate”
you got the righteous indignation part down pat.
its work to block instances. im not going to operate like that. im treating AP like email. i dont block facebooks SMTP, i dont block Nestle email… im not going to block their AP.
i am providing assistance to humans wanting to leave the walled garden. you are not capable of that, apparently.
but you do you. thats what its all about.
edit: btw none of this is technical in nature. its just political. i stand by the fact there is no technical reason to not federate.
The fact that you equate vulnerable communities blocking instances that house hate movements that target them with righteous indignation is genuinely scary…
What can a hate group do when Meta’s federated to an instance with vulnerable people in it, that they can’t do when Meta’s not federated with that instance?
Yeah people never explain that. As if people get stopped by this. It just makes the tech behind the federation actually useless just for some imaginary hypothetical threat that it wouldn’t stop anyways!
I’m not sure I understand your issue with the term here. “Righteous indignation” word for word means “indignation that’s justified”, so I don’t want to jump to conclusions, and I’m thinking I may be having yet another of my English second language speaker moments.
Indignation implies that it’s about being offended or upset.
The specific term you used usually carries an implication of pettiness, and of making a big deal out of nothing. The “righteous” part is normally meant in an ironic or sarcastic way.
righteous indignation
This is minimising a problem you’d rather not think about or address “too much”. For many it’s a real problem, both morally or in the abstract, and practically.
Here’s a good article outlining an “anti-threads” position (https://erinkissane.com/untangling-threads) that may answer both the “righteous indignation” point and some of your “technical” points too.
All of which gets to arguing that, yes, as my initial reply to you stated, there are “existent” problems and preemptively acting can make sense.
You want to be an off-ramp, and have your finger on the defed button … that’s cool (genuinely)! But dismissing urgency as illogical or something is, I think, out of line.
Your arguments strike me as either dismissive (“zero reason … righteous indignation”), straw man (“resource use”, “overtake the ap protocol”) or excuses, frankly (“It’s work to block instances” … threads is like one instance).
- Avoiding whatever unmoderated garbage threads is like to have (meta has a long track record here) or already has makes a lot of sense.
- Avoiding assisting their business model makes sense.
- Avoiding any remote appearance that a giant shitty company, after all of the mega-corp-social shit can still just waltz into a new (and probably fragile) open/free garden without the risk of being shuttered out unless they do everything possible to indicate that they’re trying to “be good” this time … makes sense.
- Not waiting to find out what “technical” shit they may end up pulling down the line … makes sense — eg, how sure are you that flow of users between the fedi and Threads will be net positive for the fedi … how do you know Threads won’t actually end up sucking up users from the fedi? How convinced are you that they won’t bend the de facto standard usage of the protocol (where mastodon is already doing this) to their own ends and then reform what the “big mainstream” idea of the fediverse actually means to most people?
- Wanting to send a message that the fedi is done with massive corps and their evil shit … makes sense.
- But, also, IMO … wanting to provide an off-ramp for Threads users also makes sense … I’m glad to hear your intentions on this.
Sure, something “hasn’t happened (yet)”.
Pretty much the definition of a nonexistent problem.
Sorry. But that’s just shallow word games, not to mention cherry picking my words.
The thing that has “happened” is that a mega corp with a track record has stated and acted on intentions to directly interact with the fediverse.
Calling that a nonexistent problem is like saying the sun doesn’t exist at night time.
It’s word games being used to point to something real. A longer way of saying “let’s not solve a non-existent problem” is “There is uncertainty in our understanding and predictions, so we should not treat predicted future problems the same as current observed problems”.
Using the phrase “non-existent problem” just points to this wisdom by reminding the person that the future is not a real thing but rather a mental image, ie it doesn’t exist yet, and may never exist the way we predict it.
It’s similar to “cross that bridge when we come to it” referring to not focusing efforts on future problems when there are plenty of present problems to solve.
Nothing about the nature of Meta and their track record is imagined. Risk management is the concept you’re missing here, where a bit more of that earlier in the story of how big tech monopolised the internet and our lives on it would have gone a long way. Now where trying to pick up the pieces and a whole generation doesn’t even understand the problem.
The current substack situation is similar where a bunch of people got tricked into getting trapped in a monopolised platform by being convinced they could leave anytime all while the value of network effects was being used to build walls around them without anyone remembering that platform lock in is almost always bad. Plenty of people could have done something about it just to keep substack honest. But here we are again.
With ActivityPub, Meta is playing on our turf. They don’t have home field advantage here. ActivityPub isn’t a protocol that they control.
I mean, for now.
Mastodon, through its dominance is already shaping what the protocol is and isn’t. For instance, the Server to Client API that mastodon runs is of its own making and design and just about every microblogging app relies on it such that any other platform tries to mimic it. It’s become a de facto standard. Should mastodon change their API, many other platforms will feel compelled to follow suit. There are now voices calling for it to be standardised. BUT … talk to people working on the actual protocol and they’ll say they hate this because the protocol already has a standard for this and it should be used instead … and app developers will basically say “well, everyone is using the mastodon API already … why would I use this thing no one knows about”.
Threads/Meta can do exactly the same thing over time. And once they have control over how some parts of the fediverse operate, which they will have by having “the standard” and the dominance of users to force people to comply … then they can influence what is and isn’t in the standard to suit their purposes (think surveillance and ads) and even add things that only work on Threads, which of course will presumably attract more users (as Threads is already huge).
More abstractly … “our turf” here isn’t the protocol. The protocol is over-emphasised as some magic element that makes everything here work. It’s just a tool. The stuff that actually makes the fediverse work are all of the software platforms, such as Lemmy and Mastodon, that provide the actual social media we use. And they just use the protocol. It’s the quality and design choices of these platforms that are “our turf”, and these depend very much on the developers and the users and their motivations/desires. Threads is big enough that it can distort the network of motivations. An example … There’s a mastodon mobile app (Mammoth) that is the only one to implement a recommendation/algorithmic feed. One of their key motivations (they’ve stated so publicly) is to be ready for when Threads joins the fediverse so that their app can attract Threads users. They also run their own mastodon instance, which I can only presume they’d be happy to modify with their own features.
Another way they can exert influence is through altering the way moderation affects the fediverse. Moderating what comes through from Threads is likely to be onerous. It alone will be a reason for some instances defederating. But some instances will want to stay connected to the large userbase of Threads, and will tolerate some of the garbage coming through. The net effect will be to splinter the fediverse between those that can’t and those that can tolerate a lower average quality of user/content. Such a hard splintering wouldn’t occur if all of those users were spread out amongst more instances instead of coming from a single source/instance whose size alone attracts disproportionate interest and gravity (to the point that this discussion happens again and again).
So importantly, what’s the reason they would do any of this? Curb competition? Don’t make me laugh. User-wise the entire fediverse is so tiny compared to meta none of their metrics would even be able to show us due to rounding.
Is it really so difficult to assert that their only valid motivation could be to preempt EU legislation by talking about how they’re embracing open tech? And how completely blocking them would actually play into their narrative by allowing them to argue how useless trying to force big tech to be open is, clearly no one wants that’s they tried?
It’s a symbolic piece for them. If we can use that to lure users away from Meta all the better, but even there be real, the total amount lured might be relevant for AP but unnoticeable to Meta.
Meta disgusts me but i cant lie and say the opportunity that my family may without me pushing much may join the fediverse on threads sounds much nicer then the status quo.
I am all for protecting the fediverse from metas ideas so i do support defediration.
With this transistive tool what happens if i am on my own instance, defederated from meta but i dont the transition and federate with a community that is federated with meta.
Could i see threads from my instance trough the federated one?
Is my own instance safe from meta?
Will transistive defederation mean others will automatically defederate with my instance because i federate with an instance that is federated with threads?
Man just gotta respond to one thing here. I’m not for protecting anyone from any ideas. Better to have an immune system than a sterile environment that requires isolation to maintain.
does ideas include fascism
Yes, there’s fascist ideas somewhere on Lemmy. And on Mastodon. Ideas can be fascist. Unless you want to get into a very complex philosophical debate I think that’s pretty established.
are you for protecting people from fascism
Not from the idea of it, no.
._.
You do realise protecting people from the idea of fascism means people not knowing about the holocaust or how Mussolini gained power right?
With “ideas” i am actually referencing any less then respect plans collecting data and monopolizing the fediverse meta may have.
I wouldn’t be supposed if meta wasn’t paying some in house developers to help work on the open source federation improvements only to in same breath ease in compatibility with their own systems.
If we’re not careful we might get properly invaded, meta will set the rules for the fediverse to follow. Independent communities that cant follow the same new protocols gets pushed out and will go extinct.
At least thats what i understood is the reason threads gets defederated, better to break up now that its small then to get consumed as it grows.
But i still hoped there could Be some safe doors and gateways in the middle.
Nonsense
We really need better visualization tools for who is federated with what. Meta is just one large / recognizable company to pop into the fediverse. Others will move in over time, and if instances choose to do something like this (defed from any instance that didn’t also defed), then it’s going to be a complete mess trying to figure out who is federated with what. Those smaller defederated instances will need to be extra clear about who they are federated with and why, otherwise people will avoid them.
I personally think this is a bad choice to make, but instances are free to do as they please.
I envision brands creating their own instances that federate with Meta. Then you can get an exclusive Gucci account for some absurd amount of money and use it to flex on the plebs.
It’ll potentially just end up like emails (which are also federated, after all), where Gucci employees get an @gucci.com email address and an @gucci.com ActivityPub handle.
It might also help with the whole verification mess.
officialgucci@example.comlooks fakemain@gucci.comis clearly legitimate, as is anything else a company might want to do (ex.ronald@mcdonalds.com)
Splitting the fediverse in half just to get back at Meta is an awful idea.
it’s not about getting back at meta. it’s about protecting communities.
For instances which choose to intentionally mirror or otherwise make available threads content on instances which defederated threats, instances which know about and are deliberately circumventing the fediblock on those other instances it does indeed make sense though. Keep in mind when I talk about it I’m specifically talking about instances who are intentionally trying to circumvent the fediblocks by a coordinated effort, not just that they federate with threads.
Plus it wouldn’t “get back at” Meta anyways. If their goal is to prevent or defend against some sort of EEE approach (nevermind how little indication their is that that is Meta’s motivation for federating), then splitting the target into two smaller groups is perfect. They can easily do something about the one half, then claim that in addition to them, one of the two big camps of the fediverse already supports their new Meta-led protocol, in turn claiming the other half is silly for refusing to adhere to standards.
As in: Don’t split the standard into two that are then easier to de-standardize if you are interested in standards.
