Server indexes of places for newcomers to join can be instrumental for Fediverse adoption. However, sudden rule changes can leave some admins feeling pressure to change policies in order to remain listed.

  • Cyrus Draegur@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    the one reason I joined the instance Lemm.ee was because its mission was to avoid defederating and be the widest firehose nozzle of lemmy content available.

    even i would prefer for lemm.ee to defederate threads.

    • Otter@lemmy.ca
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      9 months ago

      imo it doesn’t matter for Lemmy right now one way or another, and maybe not ever. Being federated with Threads doesn’t do anything yet. Defederate or not, the only change (from my understanding) is about making a statement, or standing with other microblog platform instances that made a choice.

      On mastodon however, I’ll likely either use a federated instance or run two accounts. It’s very likely that some person I want to follow will be on Threads, and until people can convince them otherwise ¯\⁠_⁠(⁠ツ⁠)⁠_⁠/⁠¯

      What’s nice though is that if Threads is on activitypub, you won’t need to log in to see the content. It’s only if you want to engage with the content, and that can be done from a second Mastodon account.

      • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
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        9 months ago

        It’s very likely that some person I want to follow will be on Threads, and until people can convince them otherwise

        You realize that it makes it a lot more difficult to convince people to come to the rest of the Fediverse instead of using Threads if people are following them and federating with Threads?

        This is exactly how Zuckerberg wants you to think.

        • Otter@lemmy.ca
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          9 months ago

          This is exactly how Zuckerberg wants you to think.

          These conversations we’re having are all speculative, and we won’t know how things play out till we get there. Trying to predict the behaviour of large groups of people is… difficult

          What I predict is that defederation will play right into their selling point. We’re going up against a behemoth of evil with enough money to bankroll creators into joining and promoting their platform. Defederating (when the majority of people don’t understand what that means) will end up with people joining Threads.

          Threads has a very high (artificially inflated) user count, it’s by a company everyone already knows, and all instagram users already have an account. The strongest selling point we can have is “Join Mastodon, you can see all the same stuff but it’s run by a non-profit instead of Facebook” That doesn’t work if the selling point is “Join Mastodon to see different content”.

          For what it’s worth, I’m actively using Mastodon and trying to inform any friends / family that are jumping ship to shift to Mastodon. Best case scenario, Mastodon takes off properly, Threads becomes a failed project by Meta, and we can nail this shut for good.

          • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
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            9 months ago

            But you’re giving Meta the same selling point, right? Join Threads and see all the same content. There’s no point in going elsewhere then. It kinda goes both ways.

            You’re right that we don’t know what will happen. So it could just as well be that Threads would swallow the whole Fediverse and then if Threads blocks an instance, it’s like a death sentence for that instance. That’s the whole embrace, extend, extinguish.

            • Otter@lemmy.ca
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              9 months ago

              But you’re giving Meta the same selling point, right? Join Threads and see all the same content. There’s no point in going elsewhere then. It kinda goes both ways.

              Somewhat yes

              • I think Threads doesn’t need that selling point because of the other advantages that it has
              • I find that when X defederates with Y, and people want to see all the content, all else being equal they will pick Y. Usually that means that Y = “We are happy to have X, but they chose to leave”

              We saw a bit of that last July for how some people picked Lemmy instances

              • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
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                9 months ago

                when X defederates with Y, and people want to see all the content, all else being equal they will pick Y

                Hmmm maybe? But I think that’s a misunderstanding from a lot of users. You don’t want to see all content, trust me. Defederating is not necessarily bad. In most cases, it’s healthy.

                • Otter@lemmy.ca
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                  9 months ago

                  Yep I agree with you there :) It’s a useful tool, and it’s great that we have the option

    • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Is this really a problem for Lemmy though? Threads content isn’t going to show up here because threads doesn’t have communities, and Lemmy doesn’t allow you to follow people.

      • Ashtear@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Part of the concern is deceptive/astroturfed content developed as advertising showing up in Lemmy communities. While those same actors could theoretically be based on lemm.ee, that’s a lot more work than simply scaling up operations when you’re doing it on Threads anyway.

        • Ghostalmedia@lemmy.world
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          9 months ago

          Yes, my point remains. Even if a Lemmy instance is federated with masto or threads, the content does not appear here on Lemmy right now. It’s physically impossible. Lemmy literally has no code written to support self posts and to follow users.

          For example, here is NPR’s masto account viewed through Lemmy.world. You get their name, avatar, banner, and bio….but zero content.

          https://lemmy.world/u/NPR@mstdn.social

          Until lemmy decides to copy Reddit’s user pages, this isn’t a problem. Federate, defederate - makes now difference for lemmy right now.

        • Melmi
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          9 months ago

          I feel like this would be spotted and stamped out immediately. Everyone’s eyes are on Threads right now; astroturfed content might sneak in on Mastodon, where regular Threads content will be mixed in with the hypothetical astroturfed content, but here on Lemmy there will be little to no Threads presence due to lack of interoperability, so every single Threads account that shows up will be noticed. It’s already super visible when Mastodon users show up due to the weird formatting issues that happen due to the lack of support.

          I just don’t see an astroturf campaign as being viable unless Threads implements community functionality, which seems pretty far out when they’re only now implementing basic federation with Mastodon.

          • Sean Tilley@lemmy.mlOPM
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            9 months ago

            It’s not that crazy, the Threads devs are already looking at specific FEPs for things like quote posting. If they really wanted to, they could implement Lemmy-compatible community groups.

      • SorteKanin@feddit.dk
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        9 months ago

        Threads can still participate via comments on Lemmy. I believe they can also post to communities via hashtags?

        • Blaze@dormi.zone
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          9 months ago

          Mastodon has groups similar to Lemmy communities, Threads could definitely implement them too.