The link goes to this users Mastodon post on the subject. I’m going to copy part of the text of his post without having to post the Threads post they were shown. Click through if you want to see for yourself, avoid if such things are upsetting to you.
“This was a post promoted to me from within Instagram to try and get me to use threads. Ill say that again: this is the promotional content shown to non-threads users as an inducement to join threads.”
If you do click through to the Mastodon thread, you’ll see several other people confirming they’ve seen the same or similar posts promoting Threads.
I’ve said the same thing in comments to other Threads related posts in this community but I’m going to say it again; didn’t we create and use fediverse software like Mastodon, Lemmy, PixelFed etc in large part to escape the constant hate-baiting and algorithmic manipulation of companies like Meta? Why are so many in the fediverse prepared to throw their fellow fediverse users under the bus by exposing them to a company and a set of users who not only say these things and not only allow them to be said but actually use them as a promotional tool to encourage more people onto Threads?
If Threads was a fediverse instance, it would’ve been defederated from by just about everyone by now. Why are some people bending over backwards to give Meta a free pass?
‘Wait and see’ I hear people say. I can already see.
Thank you for actually writing out what happened. I still can’t make sense of Mastodon threads. Whoever had the idea to make you click “read more” on each individual post to read it needs to take a basic UX course. Absolutely unusable.
The ‘read more’ is deliberate. I realise it’s annoying but it’s there for posts containing content warnings like this guy’s - not everyone wants to be ambushed by that level of hate, so providing a warning and then hiding the content to give people the option is a bit kinder.
Downvotes for accurately answering the question 🤷 Life is full of mysteries.
More like Lemmy has a toxicity problem.
the little eye in the top right corner can be used to toggle all of them in one go. this is such a massive qol improvement it’s genuinely baffling how mastodon and the 2 misskey forks I implemented it in are the only fedi software that have that button
At least they’re blatant in showing us who their target audience is.
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Facebook can get fucked. I hope mark Zuckerberg goes fucking bankrupt trying to get his fucking ‘metaverse’ shit to take off. What a fucking spoon. The sooner someone invents a reason why it’s not a massive advantage to be a complete psychopath the better.
I’m currently looking for a new Mastodon home that goes a step further than the Fedipact. I’m looking for an instance that not only refuses to federate with Facebook themselves, but also blocks any other fediverse instance that does allow Facebook’s content. Any suggestions?
Honesty that’s a bad idea, we don’t need to fragment instances until federation stops working to defeat threads
What makes you think that a for profit company like Meta has any altruistic or not-profit-driven reason to join the fediverse? There is zero chance that them federating doesn’t hurt the fediverse and benefit them. They wouldn’t be doing it otherwise.
is not worth blocking instances that arent threads
Exactly. That kind of infighting is gonna wreak us. People are too quick to fediblock and it makes it hard to use many instances
Not a clue. I totally sympathise with your feelings on the matter but I’ve not heard of an instance offering that.
socel.net is one i’ve been a part of since I joined. Its mainly art and design focused. Bonus #1: It has Neil Gaiman and Matthew Schofield (former art director for The Simpsons). Bonus #2: I believe the owner’s response when they pledged to block anything with facebook was “Get fucked Zuck.”
Definitely checking them out. Thanks!
I’m not entirely sure if such an instance exists, but just letting you know that in case you can’t find any, a reasonable compromise would be to join an instance that’s enforcing authorized fetch (and is blocking threads)
this will make it harder for facebook to read your data through federation alone (i.e. even if a post of yours get boosted by someone with followers from threads, it won’t “leak” there)
there are ways to bypass this of course but if facebook is found to do something of that sort they would out themselves as actively malicious which would definitely get a reaction even from the “wait and see” crew
Good advice. Thanks!
Can you expound on ‘block’? IIRC, Jerry blocks threads proactively on his microblog instances, and the user can undo that. Is that what you’re looking for, or something further?
I’m looking for a Mastodon instance that both blocks Facebook and blocks any other instance that does federate with Facebook.
People have really been hyping up threads as if it isn’t made by the same company that’s been using its various social media platforms for the past decade to promote and indoctrinate people into alt-right ideology purely for money.
Well, Threads was meant as a Twitter competitor. Seems like the toxicity levels are starting to get on-par.
I (am blessedly fortunate to be able to) run a single user instance for myself. By definition, I don’t see this shit.
But I rage for the folks who do.
It’s real simple: However one perceives oneself is valid, full stop. Who the hell am I to suggest otherwise? I’m not in anyone else’s head.
These motherfuckers, and threads, have more than one suicide upon their heads I’m quite sure.
As for me, it’s no trouble at all to call someone by their preferred (anything) - Countless kids decided in their late teens to use their middle name, or something totally unrelated. You wanna be “Skip,” I’m good with that. Dunno why, wouldn’t be my choice, but… All that’s relevant is that you identify as Skip or Buddy or Lisa or Suzie.
I saw the same post! Was in my feed on Instagram, kind of like an ad to download Threads. It was preceeded by two posts from attractive young women looking for “travel partners”.
What an inept way to promote a website: Two bots and a bigot.
On the other hand, “Two Bimbos and a Bigot” would be a great parody podcast title or SNL segment. :)
I literally just posted an image of this elsewhere, let me get my other account it’s on.
CW, an image example of the content described in this thread. Hateful content. Linking to a comment of mine where I post a screenshot. My spoilers are iffy on mobile so for now please consider this link a spoiler tag for the CW
https://slrpnk.net/comment/4903011
This was shown to me on my personal Instagram, my partner is heavily involved in our queer community. I was shocked when I saw this post on Instagram, then I saw it was from Threads. Way to fucking validate my position about every reason I’ve been giving to defederated from Threads.
I was searching for hours today for somewhere to post this. I ended up finding just a random community with a somewhat relevant post just to get it off my chest since there’s nothing to really do about it. But thank you for this post, I only hope that this is the push people on the fence need to realize that Meta shouldn’t be embraced.
It’s sickening. I’m so sorry for everyone who is just looking for a place to express themselves as they are, now on the verge of being hoarded by these type of people.
On an aside but regarding Threads federation - are people’s smaller servers even equipped to be able to handle the potential traffic of Threads users? Or would it not work like that? Like, if a link to my comment above for example were posted on threads and it blew up and 25m people were trying to view it… Wouldn’t that effectively DDoS my instance if it’s not able to handle that kind of traffic?
And threads is supposed to be a good thing somehow. Psh.
Just confirming this is me and my post.
There’s replies to this post that I can’t see whilst logged in. No idea why, a foible of federation maybe.
“We” created the Fedi to have interoperable systems and to give users autonomy over their accounts and their feeds. That’s why there’s an option for users to block other users and even entire servers.
Not sure what the scare quotes round ‘we’ are for, but anyway, personal autonomy is a great thing, but when your autonomy negatively affects other people’s desire to remain on a platform, then its not so much autonomy as selfishness. I’m well aware users and instances can be blocked, but when Meta start truly ramping up Threads we’ll be talking hundreds of millions of users and god knows how many domains/instances. Trying to avoid hate is going to become the primary thing some people have to do. Or just leave the fediverse.
No one is doing that.
Yes, they are. There are whole instances out there dedicated to (so called) minority groups who some of the hate groups on Threads, both now and in the future, will come after. They already do this on Twitter, TikTok, etc etc - do you think they’ll just not do that on Threads? Or that Meta will moderate them appropriately?
You see it as the Fediverse promoting Meta but we see the opposite.
Is that a joke? You honestly think that by federating with Threads, your average Threads user is going to see the promised land of the fediverse and switch in significant numbers?
I’ve literally never seen anyone say this except FediPacters as a strawman
Then you’ve not been paying attention.
We all knew this will happen then you can take preventive measures or not. I always think preventing os a better option with lower cost.
Now, people have to act otherwise they are supporting these views. The fediverse is a safe space for many minorities. You may not be part of one of them but the fediverse doesn’t work like other social media. You don’t have one parent company to take in account. You are accountable or at least the instance you’re on. This is due to federation.
People have to change their mind on this too. We have to change this rule. We have to move more like one. This can be called unionizing. People and instance have to unionize to keep the leadership in social media. This will be a non individual response to the issues. We look collectively at them with tolerance as a common contract.
This is the opposite of how these companies like meta work. They want to put the responsibility on the individual as always. They grow their capital from this by exploiting the cognitive free work of the user. It’s completely individual and the algorithms help to push this logic at the extrem. By thinking, the fediverse should not have a common response, people are playing the game of these companies.
This is why we have to change and unionize, to have a peaceful place where we put the common first and reject the individualism. We can show people that a better place with different rules than what we see for now 40 years is possible online.
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Those people are either incredibly naive or outright stupid
is probably why they ignore moral argument
But think of all the shitty retreaded memes we’d be missing out on!
I always find screenshots from apps confusing. Also I don’t use IG. What is the context of these text boxes? Who is “promoting” the posts? It sounds like an ad from the user who posted it, but the accompanying text says it is advertising Threads.
I notice that the image posted here and the one in the comments by @wolfshadowheart have the same content but the usernames are different. Are they mirror accounts?
The screenshot is taken by an Instagram user. It shows an area of the screen Instagram uses to promote Threads to Instagram users by showing them Threads content.
It’s not the users Instagram content that is shown but the post Meta are using to promote Threads to Instagram users, that’s why it’s the same. Lots of users are (or were) seeing it.
Yes, I am both averyminya@beehaw.org and wolfshadowheart@slrpnk.net - I had to post the image from my slrpnk account due to Beehaw not having image uploads supported on my app. I just initially saw this post on Beehaw, so I commented to not lose it.
My screenshot is taken from instagram, it’s just one of the random “promoted Threads” posts that pops up as you scroll randomly. If you like, I can post the uncropped image as well. I initially posted it, but then removed it since it was just a busy screenshot, not necessarily because of any personal info of mine of the accounts I follow.
Threads is like 50% rage baiting. People post inflammatory stuff like this to get angry comment engagement which makes the algorithm think their content is popular. You see this stuff non stop over there, it’s incredibly annoying.
Where’s the “promoted” or “sponsored” tag on that post?Seems fishy to me.I should apparently be more realistic in my approach to the amount of hateful idiots just getting platformed for outrage clicks. I apologize.
It’s not an ad in and of itself, but you can see the little “open Threads” button that tells you that this is a threads post being shown on Instagram to try to get Instagram users to sign up for Threads.
That happens whenever you’re viewing a post for threads while not using the app though.They could have literally just navigated to that post and then made this post for the outrage food.I was wrong, I misunderstood how content is promoted within the app they are using, this is indeed disgusting and unacceptable.
The fucked up nature of the algorithm aside, Threads suspended that account. So they are at least trying to keep the place cleaner than most.
I’m glad that account seems to have gone, but I’m sure that’ll have been the result of it being reported.
The concerning thing for me is that before it got nuked, it was used as promotional material to try and get Insta users to use Threads. Meta is engagement driven - the more engagement something gets, the more money Meta make (eventually) and clearly their algorithm thinks the best way to drive engagement is propagate and suggest hate.
I know this phrase is used so much it’s almost a cliché, but it feel so accurate for Meta: When someone shows you who they are, believe them.
