This is an incorrect assumption, because

And somewhere in this very discussion some other person has given a very plausible overview of their potential EEE approach. I’ll add a link to that comment later when I have time to find it again.

In a non snarky way I say that if the dozens of actual past actions linked in the two wikipedia links, plus the recent events I linked, still leave you in doubt, I don’t see how a plausible but still speculative EEE summary is going to tip you over, but I’ll clap anyway if it does, so:

https://lemmy.ml/comment/9792668

Quoting @Gestrid@lemmy.ca :

What’s the number of Threads users compared to Lemmy? If the number of Threads users greatly outweigh the number of Lemmy users, then we’d simply be drowned out by all the Threads posts. That’s part one of Embrace, Extend, Extinguish.

Extend adds functionality to Threads that Lemmy either can’t support or won’t support for a while due to development time. People migrate to Threads because Lemmy is “missing” functionality. Plus, though I’m not clear on the exact legal specifications, proprietary code can be added to open-source code, and the proprietary code would be copyrighted. In other words, Lemmy devs would have to figure out a way to interact with and mimic Threads’ proprietary code using open-source code.

Extinguish is when Threads’ support of Lemmy is eventually dropped. The users left on Lemmy have suddenly lost a huge amount of content, and they’re left with fewer users than before Threads enabled federation.

There are definitely limits to my optimism here.

I do feel a little bit bad being the table pounding pessimist in this circumstance, but I don’t see how one can look at this company’s history and come to any other conclusion. It frustrates me like few other areas of disagreement about tech do to imagine folks look at everything Meta has done and think we need to wait and see how they will handle this.

Regardless, I appreciate the conversation. :)

I’m also concerned that defederating from Threads will make more Threads users than Mastodon users.

Already done, and by an order of magnitude at least. (probably many orders, I don’t have the numbers at hand)

I mean, some idea of what they might do would be nice.

You can look at their entire history for that. And somewhere in this very discussion some other person has given a very plausible overview of their potential EEE approach. I’ll add a link to that comment later when I have time to find it again.

But, I’m starting to realize that no amount of evidence is sufficient for folks who want to federate with Meta, and at the end of the day my freedom ends where yours begins, so although I will continue to advocate for defederation and flee any instance that does not make that choice, I very sincerely encourage you to do you.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_controversies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_involving_Meta_Platforms

Here’s a couple recent individual ones:

https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/netflix-ad-spend-led-to-facebook-dm-access-end-of-facebook-streaming-biz-lawsuit/

The prospect of everyone and our parents using social media that is not completely beholden to Meta is exciting to me.

I firmly believe that hoping Meta isn’t going to be the worst possible company they can this time is not the way to achieve that, and is in fact actively working against that future possibility.

I’ve been alive, adult, and working in IT for the entirety of the existence of Facebook, so I’ve had a long time to see everything I needed to see about them.

f people are worried that Threads will affect likes and comments (and therefore like/comment-based sorting algorithms) on other instances, it should always be possible to exclude Threads’s contribution to those metrics, no?

That’s one of the effects of defederating. And you are still ignoring the overall point of the comment 2 layers up from your reply.

Really I think you are losing the forest for the trees. Meta/Facebook/Zuck is a known quantity. They will corrupt and exploit any environment they are a part of via any means they can. We don’t need to be able to predict every last detail of how they will do so to know it is true. They have a track record of being awful, anti-consumer corporate citizens. WHY would we want to try to invite them in and try to contain them? Can we make the fediverse invisible to them? Of course we can’t, but why would we cooperate in any way?

Folks who don’t think this is a problem can use an instance that federates with them, just as I’ve chosen ( and will always choose) an instance that does not.

There is no reasonable argument for trying to be a good neighbor to Meta, because you can always, always be sure that Meta has no concern for being a good neighbor to you.

I don’t really see the point of this comment.

• Is it that we should not hold Threads at arms length because [citation needed] Zuck was once a tech idealist and had lots in common with current fediverse denizens? (setting aside my doubt for the moment)

 

If so, I don’t really care how nice and kind Zuck was when he was a freshman in college. I care about what he has done since then, and leading up to now.

 

• Is it that one day I may not like something large Lemmy instances do, so should not be so anti-Threads?

 

I don’t even get that idea, so I am guessing that can’t be it.

 

Much the same as Reddit, Google, Apple, etc. Do you remember? Those of us who lived through it remember.

I lived through using 8" floppies, so yes, I remember.

Which of those are open source projects that anyone can fork and/or run their own instance of at any time, providing a place for people to seamlessly transition from Reddit, Google, or Apple if they don’t like what those companies do with their platform? The comparison you are trying to make falls apart immediately.

for real. im new to lemmy but places like hexbear seem really good for trans stuff.

I am not trans, and so this may be incorrect, but while of course you can use any instance you choose, IIRC it’s https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/ that is very explicitly trans-supportive at the instance level. (I’m not saying other instances are transphobic, to be clear)

Edit: I see you’ve already taken the convo far past the comment I replied to, sorry for not reading ahead!

deleted by creator

“bug”

In this analogy, they haven’t kicked your nuts.

Sure they have, over and over and over, just not in this neighborhood yet. Folks were either too young to witness or just weren’t paying attention to the decades of anti-consumer bullshit from this company.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook#Criticisms_and_controversies

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawsuits_involving_Meta_Platforms

Here’s a couple recent individual ones:

https://theintercept.com/2024/03/26/meta-gaza-censorship-warren-sanders/

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/03/netflix-ad-spend-led-to-facebook-dm-access-end-of-facebook-streaming-biz-lawsuit/

They have been very nearly the worst example of an awful tech company for their entire existence. They will exploit the fediverse to the maximum extent they can, and we should not be voluntarily accompanying them.

Thank you! I didn’t read your links, but I will.

But then those last two quotes are pretty bad. Killing Putin or even having Putin do a 180 wouldn’t change anything.

Assassination is never something I advocate, but there are a few world leaders who I would not complain about if natural causes could catch up to them sometime soon.

Thanks for the additional info and feedback. 🙂

You too!

Fair. I suspect it would be interesting to discuss these things with you over a beer, but also that it’s too likely to end up feeling like an argument here, so I won’t press further. Thanks for the clarification.

Thanks!

Fair enough. I don’t believe this is what is happening (“denazifying a NATO-backed neighbor”) and haven’t seen a source suggesting it is that doesn’t itself look like propaganda, but I’m also OK agreeing to disagree on that. I asked only because without further context it seemed like not supporting Putin was a big component of your comment.

I understand your position now, even if we disagree on Putin also.

Honest question from a non-communist, based on your reply here. Does one need to support Putin to be a Marxist?

Thanks!

Eventually I left because their list of blocked instances got too long for my taste.

Ah I didn’t know about this - how can I see that list?

I don’t consider myself a Marxist, Leninist, or communist of any stripe and haven’t had a problem so far. I’m far enough left that I refuse to call myself a liberal, but I suspect the folks who consider themselves Marxists probably think I’m too far right to self-identify as a leftist. (Although I do.)

Shitload of downvotes a time or two, but that’s about it. I just wanted to be on a Lemmy instance that was honoring the fedipact, and preferred it to have an instance ethos to the left of mine rather than to the right of it.

I like it here.