this post was submitted on 21 Dec 2023
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Fediverse

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Fediverse is a portmanteau of "federation" and "universe".

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Getting Tangled Up in Threads (wedistribute.org)
submitted 8 months ago by deadsuperhero@lemmy.ml to c/fediverse@lemmy.ml
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The Fediverse is currently divided over whether or not to block Threads. Here are some of the things people are worried about, some opportunities that might come from it, and what we need to do to prepare.

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[–] davel@lemmy.ml 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (3 children)

1. Meta is going to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish the Fediverse
Verdict: Unlikely

Thanks, now I know not to take you seriously.

Edit to add: My uBlock Origin extension is blocking “threads.net” on his site. Perhaps he’s got some skin in the game.

[–] deadsuperhero@lemmy.ml 0 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Thanks, now I know not to take you seriously.

It's all good, I don't even take myself seriously most of the time. Most of what I have to say is dumb shit anyway.

Real talk, though: I legitimately think that Threads is incapable of actually extinguishing a federated network powered by open standards. Yeah, the infighting might fragment us, and the influx of millions of activities and interactions might overwhelm servers that connect with it. To some extent, they can propose protocol extensions and features and even make an ecosystem push with tooling.

But, so long as servers are federating via an open protocol, no entity can truly snuff out the network in its entirety. An actual EEE move would not actually work here: if they ever made such an attempt, we'd just defederate them.

My article is not a point about how we all need to shut up and start worshipping Meta, but that the things we ought to be most concerned about are in fact the things we've always neglected: actual user control over data, the ability for people to decide for themselves on what to connect to, and dealing with the technical requirements of hundreds of millions of people worth of traffic. And that's just to start! If we want to reach the masses, we have to prepare for these things.

[–] h3ndrik@feddit.de 0 points 8 months ago

They can simply stop federating. Or not stay compatible with the protocol and just break things. As they did with XMPP, hence the analogy.

And I don't think they'd mind losing the 36,000 users on Lemmy if they have millions on their platform. That maybe gives them a kickstart or sounds good in the early advertising. But I don't think disconnecting from the Fediverse would make any difference for their platform. It'd just make it easier to stay in control and not be weighed down by some standards they'd need to stick to. Again, exactly like it happened with XMPP.

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