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?
I feel like this question might be missing a bigger picture: What’s going on with the Internet?
Facebook/Meta, Twitter, and Reddit are all owned by people in the US. We’ve seen in tbr past few election cycles that Twitter and Reddit in particular were vitally important to progressive movements in the US, while Facebook largely sat by unperturbed as their platform was used to plaster right-wing disinformation in every corner of the internet they could reach. Now, as another election cycle is gearing up, we see Twitter and Reddit doing things that make NO SENSE for a business, but make PERFECT SENSE if you were a MAGA nut trying to take over or dismantle a successful progressive platform, at the same time as you have Meta moving to infect and corrupt the one significant platform that offers a great alternative to both Twitter and Reddit.
I’m not usually a conspiracy minded person, but the more I think about it, the more I conclude that this is the only explanation that can make any sense of Elon and (fuck)u/Spez deliberately imploding their platforms. When you factor in that both of them seem to also be encouraging right-wing provocateurs to return to their platforms while wholesale silencing any progressive dissent… this is a coordinated assault meant explicitly to tamper with the US political system while also driving right-wing fascism abroad.
Do NOT allow Meta access. At this point, I’m not sure why the license doesn’t explicitly blacklist specific bad actors like Meta from using the ActivityPub software in the first place.
What I do know is that ActivityPub was created by a lot of people in the queer community, who created moderation features like defederating specifically for the purpose of blocking discriminatory instances, so there’s that
I’m learning a lot about that. I find it refreshing to be on a platform built around ensuring both the safety and visibility of queer voices. While parts of Reddit definitely felt that way, recent history has made it very clear that that’s subject to change, and Reddit is swerving aggressively right.
I think that Spez and Musk believe that people who buy Trump NFTs are easier to monetize because they are stupid. At least compared to uppity liberals. This is definitely being sold as a purge to return to a smaller, but more profitable user base which can be built on.
Though with Musk, I do kind of think he’s got Chinese or Saudi backing as well. He’s taking a huge loss on this, and there’s no way he hasn’t shopped around shares of the company to private investors.