Meta can introduce their signature rage farming to the Fediverse. They don’t need to control Mastodon. All they have to do is introduce it in their app. Show every Threads user algorithmically filtered content from the Fediverse precisely tailored for maximum rage. When the rage inducing content came from Mastodon, the enraged Thread users will flood that Mastodon threads with the familiar rage-filled Facebook comment section vomit. This in turn will enrage Mastodon users, driving them to engage, at least in the short to mid term. All the while Meta sells ads in-between posts. And that’s how they rage farm the Fediverse without EEE-ing the technology. Meta can effectively EEE the userbase. The last E is something Meta may not intend but would likely happen. It consists of a subset of the Fediverse users leaving the network or segregating themselves in a small vomit-free bubble.
Some people asked what EEE is:
The first thing that will happen if Thread user trying to brigade Mastodon is Mastodon will defederate Thread, and that’s the end of the story.
Rochko didn’t sound that trigger-happy in his blog post from yesterday and he’s (the Mastodon team) running some of the biggest instances. And so I think it’s still an open question which instances would defederate and when. Maybe mastodon.social won’t defederate ever. That’ll cause a massive split.
I have to agree, that blog post was concerning in its openness to Meta joining ActivityPub. Any fediverse user who knows a little internet history should be very worried right now