Part 3 of Strategies for the free fediverses

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/7193618

The “free fediverses” are regions of the fediverse that reject Meta and surveillance capitalism. This post is part of a series looking at strategies to position the free fediverses as an alternative to Threads and “Meta’s fediverses”.

        • The Nexus of Privacy@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
          91·
          9 months ago

          You do realize that instances federating with Threads will share data with Threads, and that Meta’s supplemental privacy policy specifically says that they’ll use all activity that federates to meta for tracking and ad targeting, right?

          So for example, if you’re on an instance that federates with Threads, and somebody on Threads is following you, all of your posts – including your followers-only posts – will get tracked by Meta. Or if somebody who boosts your post and they’ve got followers on Threads, your post will be tracked by Meta. Or if you like, boost, or reply to a post that originated on Threads, it gets tracked my Meta. And these are just the most obvious cases. What about if somebody on an instance that’s not Threads replies to a Threads post, and you reply to the reply? It depends on the how the various software implements replies – ActivityPub allows different possibilities here. And there are plenty of other potential data flows to Meta as well.

          Of course they’re still just at the early stages of federation so it’s hard to know just how it’ll work out. Individually blocking Threads might well provide a lot of protection. But in general, instances which federate with Meta will almost certainly be tracked significantly more than instances that don’t.

            • The Nexus of Privacy@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
              2·
              9 months ago

              𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙: If those instances choose to share data with Threads, you should not join those instances.

              Also 𝕯𝖎𝖕𝖘𝖍𝖎𝖙: Federating with threads shares “data” in the form of content

              I appreciate all the time and energy you’re putting into the comments here, but what it comes down to is that you’re not concerned about the difference between the federation scenario – where this data is given to Threads under an agreement that explicitly consents to giving Meta the right to use the data for virtually whatever they want – and the situation today – where Meta and others can do the work to non-consensually scrape public data on sites that don’t put up barriers.

              We’re not going to convince each other, and we’ve both got enough walls of text up that at this point neither of us are going to convince people reading the thread who aren’t already convinced, so let’s save ourselves the time and energy and leave it here.

                • The Nexus of Privacy@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
                  2·
                  9 months ago

                  Yes, you described what you see as the difference between data and “data” clearly. And I described what I see as the implications clearly. If anybody’s still reading the thread, they can make their own conclusions.

                  It’s less of an agreement and more of a protocol.

                  Threads Supplemental Privacy Policy begs to differ that there’s not an agreement here.

                  My point is that defederating from meta doesn’t stop meta from tracking you online.

                  I never claimed it did. It eliminates one path of consensually sharing data (or “data”, in your terms) with Meta.

                  In terms of your list, my perspective is that a server that federates with Threads is part of Meta’s ecosystem – #1 in your list. You don’t seem to see it that way, and that’s what we’re not going to convince each other about.

        • Valmond@lemmy.mindoki.comEnglish
          2·
          9 months ago

          But where will meta put its ads, and how can it filter what you see if you can’t (as a user of an instance blocking meta/threads/…) subscribe to meta instances?

          I mean it’s just a hot mess, so I’m all for blocking those predatory psycopaths even if it theoretically isn’t needed in some cases.

    • Ada@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      10·
      9 months ago

      There are pay to join instances. Not many, but they exist.

      There’s also at least one add supported Misskey instance

  • Kierunkowy74@kbin.social
    4·
    9 months ago

    Meta’s fediverses probably also won’t be able to compete with Threads on this. Threads plan to make federation opt-in is the right thing to do from a privacy and safety perspective, but also means that people in Meta’s fediverses won’t be able to communiate with most of the people on Threads. And Meta has the option of adding communication between Threads and the billions of people on other networks like Instagram (which already shares the same infrastructure), Facebook, and WhatsApp. Longer-term, it seems to me that this is likely to be a huge challenge for Meta’s fediverses, but fediverse influencers supporting federating with Meta have various arguments why it doesn’t matter.

    Is it really Meta’s fediverses, when communication between them and their alleged owner is fairly little and actively gatekept by their alleged owner?

    • 0x1C3B00DA@kbin.social
      6·
      9 months ago

      no just like federating with mastodon.social doesn’t make your instance a part of the Gargron fediverse. Meta can’t control non-Meta instances that federate with them

    • The Nexus of Privacy@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOPEnglish
      22·
      9 months ago

      Here’s the definition I gave for term in the first article i the series:

      “Meta’s fediverses”, federating with Meta to allow communications, potentially using services from Meta such as automated moderation or ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta’s behalf.

      • qaz@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        …ad targeting, and potentially harvesting data on Meta’s behalf

        That is already possible regardless of federation status.

    • ThatOneKirbyMain2568@kbin.social
      3·
      9 months ago

      If I’m not free to join the Fediverse from the server of my choice, whether that’s mastodon.social or threads.net, is the Fediverse truly free?

      Joining the fediverse is just a matter of using a platform that implements ActivityPub (the protocol that lets servers communicate with each other. If Threads implements ActivityPub, it’s part of the fediverse, and the people on Threads can interact without any instance that chooses to federate.

      However, instances don’t have to federate with Threads. That’s part of the freedom of the fediverse. If an instance admin decides that they don’t want to deal with an influx of hate, don’t want most of the content their uses see to be from Meta, or just don’t want to federate with a for-profit company that has an awful track record, they should be able to defederate. If a user of that instance really wants to see Threads content, they should be able to move to an instance that lets them, but defederation doesn’t make the fediverse or ActivityPub less free.