((I’m not an expert, I’ve been reading up on things as much as I can. If there’s an error, I’ll happily correct it!))

TLDR:

  • Nearly all of us distrust Meta and have the same broader goals
  • We need to pick the best move to go against powerful companies like Meta
  • Defederation may not be the right move, and it might even help Meta move forward (and more easily perform EEE)
  • There are other options that we can spend our energy on
  • It doesn’t matter for Lemmy (yet), this is more a conversation for Mastodon, Firefish and Kbin

We’ve been getting a LOT of posts on this, but the misconceptions make it harder for us to decide what to do. If we’re going to try and protect the Fediverse against large, well funded companies like Meta, figuring out the right action is important. We need to actually look at the options, consider the realistic outcomes, and plan around that.

I’m willing to bet around 95% of users on Lemmy and Mastodon CHOSE to be here because we understand the threat Meta/Facebook poses, and we want to do something about it. That’s not in question here.

So in that sense, please be kind to the other user you are replying to. The vast majority of us share the same goal here. When we disagree, we disagree on the best path forward and not the goal. Wanting to stay federated DOES NOT mean the user wants to help Meta or thinks that Meta is here for our benefit.

Misconception: Defederation will hinder Meta’s EEE

Not necessarily, and it might even help the EEE. Here’s a link to some history of EEE, what it means, and some examples: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embrace,_extend,_and_extinguish. I’d recommend at least skimming it because it’s interesting (and because this isn’t the only fight)

Assuming Meta is doing an EEE move, they’re in the embrace stage. That’s not about us embracing them, it’s about them embracing the protocol, which they can do whether we stay federated or not.

Defederation can tell newcomers that the defederated instance is an island, and they’re better off joining the place where they can talk to their friends and see the content they want. We saw this early during the Reddit exodus with Beehaw, where many users hopped instances away from Beehaw.

Meta can more easily embrace if more people actively use their platform. They can more easily extend if we’re not around to explain why extending is a poisonous action. Being federated can allow us to encourage users to ditch Meta’s platform and join an open one (ex. Mastodon, Firefish, etc.)

Misconception: Defederation is the only move

Defederation is the first option that comes to mind. It sounds simple, it is loud and newsworthy, and it can be done with the click of a mouse. But if it is a bad action, then what are the good actions?

  1. Don’t let them have a monopoly over the use of ActivityPub. Grow the other platforms: The extend stage only works when the platform gets a near monopoly over use of the standard. That brings up the first action. If there are enough users, services and resources on things like Mastodon/Lemmy, then Meta (or any other company) can’t just extend the spec without causing their users to ditch Threads to stay connected to the content they want to see.
    • Reach out to organizations in your area or line of work. Help them join Mastodon or other relevant Fediverse platforms. I’m sure the for-profit companies put money into this process, so brainstorm and reach out
    • Add your Fediverse accounts to the bio of your other accounts, and share posts from the Fediverse elsewhere

As long as there is a healthy community away from Meta (ex. what we have right now), then they can’t extend & extinguish.

  1. Protect the Standards and share why it is important
  • Share posts from experts about strict adherence to standards, support regulatory and legal advocacy (interoperability requirements etc.), and educate other users about the risks.

(I didn’t want to say more here because I’m not an expert, I’m happy to edit more points in)

Misconception: We should still defederate because of Privacy Risks

Not necessarily (and likely not at all?)

Meta is notorious for gathering data and then abusing that data, so this is an issue to consider. However, the way that activitypub works, the outgoing data is publicly available. Defederating with Meta doesn’t prevent that, and federating doesn’t give them any more data than they could get otherwise.

Lemmy instances need to decide

This is a big point: It doesn’t really matter for Lemmy right now, one way or another.

It’s more of an issue when data start coming IN to Lemmy from Mastodon and Meta’s Threads. See below

Legitimate risks from Federation with Meta, and more effective ways to counter them

  • Algorithmic Amplification: Meta’s history of using algorithms that prioritize engagement can amplify harmful or divisive content. These algorithms are not public like it is with Mastodon and other FOSS platforms.

  • Misinformation and Content Moderation: All Fediverse platforms will have to work on content moderation and misinformation. Platforms like Meta, focussed on profit and advertising, will likely moderate in a way that protects their income. Those moderation decisions will be federated around.

  • Commercialization and User Exploitation: Meta’s for-profit nature means it’s incentivized to maximize user engagement, at the expense of our well-being.

Counters:

  • Promote user control over their feeds, and develop USEFUL but safe and open algorithms for the feeds
  • Flag content and users from risky platforms, with a little warning icon and explanation (ex. ‘Content is from a for-profit platform, and it may ___’)
  • Implement features so that users can opt in or opt out from seeing content from risky platforms. In particular on explore/discover/public feeds, so it doesn’t affect content the user is following.
  • Develop strict community guidelines that can get Meta (and other companies) sent into the ‘blocked by default’ bins mentioned above.

Final point: Evaluate things critically. Don’t even just take my word for it. I doubt Meta or other groups care enough about Lemmy yet to spread disinformation here, and every post I’ve seen promoting defederation feels like a good faith attempt for something they believe in. But it’s still worth thinking about what we’re supporting.

Sometimes what feels like a good move might not help, and could even make things worse.

  • Doctor xNoEnglish
    3·
    1 year ago

    I personally am on the side of keeping the Fediverse separate from the Metaverse, I’d even concider the defederation of any leaking instance just to avoid the possible connection. Hence, I already went ahead blocking the Threads domain and will do my best to keep Meta out…

    That being said, as I was reading one of the longer comments, I did contradictively think of a counter-point too… As was said, the current way of Federation only federates followed items and it has proven to be rather tedious if you want to see posts from an account from before it got Federated (my client now has a 'Load from remote instace" button that kinda solves this seemingly local (in the app), but even there it’s an extra click per profile to a second profile window just to see what I would expect to already be on the first). This is kinda annoying when scouting accounts to follow, as many will have (ex.) 2184 posts, yet after scrolling 7 it says there’s no more. On top it also makes the ability to encounter something or someone interesting to follow (unless somebody locally already follows them) kind of impossible…

    Relays are a crooked band-aid solution to this, but are instance-targetted and you’ll have to add any you encounter one by one if you’d want your instance to work like Twitter and Reddit where content can find you (and with constant access to all (or most) content), while filling instances storages exponentially. So relays are more like ducttape than a real viable long-term solution to this.

    In comes a big company instance that, if our instances would be busses and trains, has a comparable size of a planet, which technically could be exploited to relay stuff while leaving the attached media linked from their copy, and as a global index. Every account could be connected to any instance without having to store the entirety of it; any content creator could be fully seen at any point in time from any instance (if they wanted to); it would make federation a lot less intensive as it’ll just have to query the giant (if adapted for this use),…

    But is that worth giving up my privacy to them again? Is that worth bowing to them as they assume authority over me again (like the power to cut me off from, not only the Metaverse then, but even the whole Fediverse too, should they (wrongly) suspect or misjudge something someone says? (A thing that will be bound to happen eventually, cause social media is probably the easiest place to get misunderstood, misquoted, oversimplified,… and getting a bunch of predispositioned opinions against you…)) And with Meta there isn’t even anyone to explain yourself to or complain to, which makes all that even worse…

    So, my answer still remains No on direct interaction,… I’m not yet sure on my position on defederating ActivityPub instances that federate with Meta yet though… I’ll still need some research and input for that before I’ll decide for sure.