I really hope we can get some good people from Threads to move over before Meta starts to do even more untrustworthy things.

Besides the absolutely absurdly move of following and pushing a fake"Fediverse" account that makes people think Fediverse is a single entity or organization, they've already started discussions about expansions to AP to allow platforms to support ads and other shitty ways of monetization.

Fedi needs to make money to survive, I know that. I am behind that, but ads are the shadiest of all the monetization methods because of tracking. Nobody wants to be tracked no matter how "innocent" their activities are.

They've been REALLY quiet since activating AP on their end in a seemingly bad faith move to make the Fediverse seem "useless and pointless to use" by forcing users to educate themselves on the Fediverse if they even know it exists while also making the option to turn it on obscenely hard to locate from normal use.

All in all, I'm VERY skeptical of Meta's intentions and don't really think they'll end up fully federating in the end becuase "why enable a feature that a wide number of our users think is a useless feature?". I feel right now is as far as they're gonna go with it, maybe worldwide, but still one way because that benefits them, not us, and they won't push a feature that people think is useless.

Obviously this is intentional bad faith tactics, but they still have time to prove me wrong and I really hope they do. I really really hope one day we get full federation, but I would be very delusional to have high hopes that such a thing will ever occur given this week's revelations.🤦‍♂️

#Fediverse #Fedi #Meta #Threads #Mastodon

I'm often inspired to share my thoughts, expound upon something I've read that sparks that inspiration, or pose a bit of socratric reasoning in discourse. Sometimes we actually edjumacate ourselves by asking the tough questions rhetorically. Sometimes it's even more effective if we share those quests with others. It can be a phrase, a paragraph, or a sentence that ignites that quest for understanding within me, and whether I'm simply working it through it myself for my own sake or a genuine desire to share some kind of enlightenment or wisdom with others, I usually feel better doing it in the public eye at the end of the day when all is said and done.

There's a bit of a stir in the Fediverse. Darnell offers us some valuable considerations and specifics in the link to his blog post below.

For me, I think the most interesting part when you read between the lines is, ...

> This latest move could be a way for Meta to use Threads to thwart any potential ActivityPub powered rivals in the Fediverse (like Pixelfed, Friendica & WordPress).

Note that nowhere is masto even listed there - it's insignificant. The #ActivityPub powered rivals in the #Fediverse cited are what have been considered for many years the direct corollaries to #InstaSPAM and #Faceplant, respectively, which of course are the exceedingly capable platforms #Pixelfed and #Friendica.

In all of that, considering that #WordPress is the big game changer here of most recent repute, enjoying a 42% market share of all websites worldwide certainly blows away anything Meta has to offer, but even though it is past the 4th of May, Faceplant and InstaSPAM still do comprise the #phantom_menace flavor of this week.

- Pixelfed has a very nice interface for browsing images. Unlike InstaSPAM however, there isn't this overwhelming nausea attending user accounts with duck-ass selfie-kisses blown into bacteria laden bathroom mirrors, or the overwhelming shitposting of memes scraped from other non-verbal teenage neanderthals. So yes, there's less traffic, typically, but actual photos of things that are actually important and relevant to the people posting them, and more so, liked and boosted by people who appreciate such sentimentalism or professional art. On the downside, is Pixelfed's relatively lackluster editor that fails to provide the poster with paragraph breaks in the WebUI with any reliability, it's mastocrap-like paltry 500 character limit per post, and a complete lack of formatting capabilities (i.e., Markdown or BBCode, Etc.). Having said that, the 500 character limit is easily remedied in a single entry of a config file, which is a blessing to many who have resorted to using the #A11Y alt-text fields to provide the descriptions and narratives for images uploaded, but the other sophomoric qualities of the editor leave massively huge run on paragraphs for the reader to endure - like this one, for example :p

Other awesome projects either spawned directly from, or inspired by the success of Pixelfed are the FediDB research database, which although pretty, leaves much to be desired with respect to completeness; Sup, a client/server federated chat app model; Loops, a closed beta service that aims to position itself as a replacement for, and similar to YouTube shorts; and PubKit, a tool service in closed beta at this time that attempts to service the same or similar tests that the production https://funfedi.dev/ resource does.

- Friendica was once a platform that closely mimicked the look and feel of Faceplant. And then it wasn't, as the Faceplant monoverse continued to evolve in look and feel, and Friendica lagged in what I typically refer to as "Prettiness". Those days are long past, Friendica looks better and better with each and every successive release, and there's an obvious effort on improving the UX for users, making it much more intuitive, and the UI, tending to the "Prettiness" that I do indeed place so much emphasis on.

Once the original darling of the Fediverse, Friendica is once again at the top of the heap with a few others. This does not include the increasingly marginalized masto brand, as more and more adoptees continue to turn their backs to that has-been flagship.

After increasingly pervasive betrayals of both the #FOSS and #DeSoc philosophies and advocates for the past couple of years, eventually revealing it's own EEE aspirations by actively conflating it's masto brand and registered trademarks with that of Fediverse. Even worse, overtly engaging in an onboarding scheme that actively funnels new #Fedizens to one masto machine in particular, in grand, deprecated silo fashion, the masto corporation has populated one of the largest monolithic vertical gardens in the Fediverse itself. The sad part is that, being just another twitter clone, it still has no sense of community and offers nearly a million users a single point of failure. Ouch!

This masto mega-silo problem becomes even less relevant when you visit the Friendica page above, and gloss over the phenomenal feature set and attention given to interoperability with a shopping list of other platforms, protocols, and clients, including:

RSS/Atom, StatusNet, GNU social, Diaspora, SMTP/IMAP, Bluesky, Tumblr, GNU Social, pump.io, Libertree, Blogger, WordPress, Twidere, AndStatus, Bitlbee, Choqok, Frentcl, Gwibber, Hotot, IdentiCurse, Pidgin/Purple, Mustard, Pino, TTYtter.

Now, you might note that Twitter/X has walled off its deprecated monolithic garden, but that doesn't mean that the client and other toolsets that work with those APIs don't still work just fine with Friendica. And we're not even stating the obvious here - ActivityPub clients like Husky, Fedilab, and Sengi work just fine with Friendica, including Friendiqa and Relatica - two fine examples among the numerous choices you have for native Friendica apps for Android and desktop.

For more of an in-depth read on Relatica, here's an article I published a while back

The second most interesting thing that Darnell mentions, I think, has to do with the verbiage in which he characterizes Existing and traditional Fediverse powered platforms. Rivals. He calls them, "...ActivityPub powered rivals". Hmmmm....

I do believe that's the first time I've actually heard it put quite like that. But it's true. to be certain, it wasn't, not by a longshot, just a little while ago, but now? Well, it's nothing that we've done here in the Fediverse, except for continue to just ignore what's going on with the #subjugated_chattel that have all but succumbed to the #Sunnyvale_Syndrome, and get on with the good work of building and #dogfooding FOSS. But, ...

It's got a lot to do with what you might call interlopers, carpetbaggers, snakeoil salesmen, infestation, or maybe just plain old encroachment of aged and abusive #dreadnoughts into the Fediverse that stubbornly adhere to their deprecated, monolithic silo model of privacy farming technologies.

Hitherto all of these ActivityPub refits and forays into a Privacy mindful and respecting network of social communications systems, people kept using terms like Alternatives, for ActivityPub powered platforms such as the three main platforms mentioned in Darnell's blog article.

Now, they're being elevated to the rank of Rivals? But we, we, didn't do anything!

Neither did the GPL'd Linux Kernel - it just continued to do what FOSS does. It doesn't care what thinks it may be in competition with, or what considers it a threat, or rival or yes, REPLACEMENT for things like Faceplant and InstaSPAM.

Yes, FOSS just lumbers and chugs right along, relatively oblivious to whatever the proprietary, closed source contemporaries think of it - with respect to Linux, It actually entered the jurisdiction of a market dominated by Microsoft, IBM, and a couple of others, was lampooned and ridiculed, until it was considered a Cancer, by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, but this wasn't Microsoft or others encroaching into a space where only Linux and the BSDs resided...

This time it is different, because it's the other way around, but the end result will be the same. In the meantime, the perceived hostile invader, at the moment, is Zuckerberg's Meta. This isn't an EEE in the works, it's a desperate attempt to reach and hold onto the the coping that lines the deep end of a swimming pool which InstaSPAM and Faceplant must learn to swim in, and yet cannot - in the meantime, until it is able to tread those waters, it is feebly dog-paddling toward the edge where a handhold can be made while it is fitted with water-wings.

Even though both Tom (everyone's friend) and Eugen are happily traveling around the world snapping photographs and flirting with photography as a hobby, #Mark_Zuckerberg really doesn't wanna be #Myspaced.

If you don't move, you atrophy.

But Friendica, WordPress, and Pixelfed? Well, they're just FOSS, and they're just doing what FOSS does - exist, improve, and evolve. independently and irrespective of commercial threats by would be competitors.

Existing Fediverse platforms continue to onboard new Fedizens hourly, that's not slowing down, and it isn't going to either. Some of these n00bs are straddling the fence until they get their sea legs, existing in both worlds, while others are just cutting ties with the deprecated monolithic silos and jumping into the pool head first.

This phenomena of adoption and the logarithmic increase in onboarding and the deployment of new Fediverse instances is only going to pick up pace as the masses of users on platforms like #Threads and #Bluesky continue to become aware of the Fediverse, and the freedoms they can enjoy in social communication through leveraging WordPress, Pixelfed, and Friendica (and it goes without saying, all the rest of the wonderful platforms too).

With a community facade that pretended to hold the reigns of masto having been dropped, leaving a new 501(c)(3) masto corporation in the US steered by the likes of Twitter founders themselves, the steam is running out on that brand, and although Meta, via Threads, is certainly welcome to participate in the #FEP process (they actually are), there's really no foothold with which they can insert a toe and dictate very much at all that the community itself isn't inclined to adopt already, independently and without concern of capture by well funded special interest groups - like the new US masto corp.

But in closing, let's get back to why all of this doesn't even really matter where existing traditional Fediverse platforms are concerned - or the millions of users actively engaged on those thousands of hubs and instances:

Because it's FOSS, it evolves organically, and just doesn't care about that kind of stuff, lolz.

#tallship

⛵

.

RE: https://one.darnell.one/users/darnell/statuses/112405069391666443

@darnell

In order for the open social web to happen at scale, lots of companies and apps, big and small, need to adopt #ActivityPub. Threads is the largest player so far to do this and the implications are huge.

Why is #Threads doing this? Is federation just another feature or is it foundational to their entire experience? How is the Threads team thinking about moderation, monetization and privacy in these early days and going forward?

I asked @rklambo and @pcottle, two thoughtful and genuine leaders on the Threads team who joined me on the latest episode of #DotSocial. Check it out on our #PeerTube instance or wherever you get your podcasts.

https://flipboard.video/w/2q29uCjnHjot1CHu1CZBim

Flipboard Video

2024-04-22 15:47:35

Threads Has Entered the Fediverse, with Meta’s Rachel Lambert and Peter Cottle

On March 21, Meta’s Threads entered the fediverse. This means that people on other ActivityPub-powered platforms, like Mastodon, can follow federated Threads profiles and see, like, reply to, and repost posts from the fediverse. (Eventually, you’ll be able to follow other fediverse accounts from Threads, too.) It’s still early days, but Threads’ entry shows the ecosystem coming together at a larger scale, starting with the promise of interoperability.

Threads’ presence in the fediverse has been the elephant in the room since it was announced in July 2023. Now that it’s actually happening, there is as much skepticism as excitement. Why is Meta doing this? How are they working with the community to get it right? And what do they have to say about concerns about their involvement?

In this episode of Dot Social, Flipboard CEO Mike McCue talks to two key leaders tasked with building the Threads experience: Rachel Lambert, Director of Product Management, and Peter Cottle, Software Engineer. Both are long-time Meta employees with a genuine care for open-source software and communities, as well as trust and safety. In fact, Rachel launched the Oversight Board, which helps Meta be accountable for trust and safety decisions across its social apps.

Highlights of this conversation include:

1:21 Reasons why is Meta entering the fediverse with Threads
3:30 How foundational is the fediverse for Threads (vs being more like a feature)?
5:25 Were AT protocol or other protocols ever in consideration, or was ActivityPub always the protocol you knew you’d use?
6:35 Benefits of larger companies adopting new technologies
8:07 More choice and voting with your feet, plus product development upside
9:06 Reactions from users, creators, the fediverse
12:15 Who’s federated that they’re excited about
13:27 The next steps in Threads’ federation
15:55 Addressing concerns about Meta in the fediverse
19:45 Could the concept of federation apply to other areas of Meta?
20:34 Privacy settings: Threads veers public
21:09 Addressing concerns around moderation and inviting in toxicity
25:57 Empowering instance admins; leveraging Meta toolkit for moderation?
27:49 Moderation at the protocol level, refined tools, expectation setting
30:00 Concerns over surveillance economy emerging in the fediverse; concerns over privacy and data
33:24 Evangelizing federation: Patreon, paid access models for creators?
35:55 Spirit of collaboration and community-building

🔎 You can follow Rachel at @[url=https://threads.net/ap/users/17841400104589170/]Rachel Lambert[/url] and Peter at @pcottle@threads.net

✚ You can follow Mike on Mastodon at @[url=https://flipboard.social/users/mike]Mike McCue[/url] and @[url=https://flipboard.com/users/mike]Mike McCue[/url], and on Threads at @mmccue@threads.net

💡 To learn more about what Flipboard's doing in the Fediverse, sign up here: http://about.flipboard.com/a-new-wave

appdownload.flipboard.com/a-new-wave/

^{about.flipboard.com}

So.... apparently Threads is asking users after 30 days if they want to keep Fediverse on.

I hope this is simply an analytics thing that they're tracking to see how many users keep it on and not some sort of "hey...nudge nudge....you might wanna turn that off...." kinda thing....

I still have my doubts about Threads federation even though I am more positive about it than others. I really hope they don't make me defederate. That will make me sad.

Update here: https://social.beaware.live/@BeAware/112312313160804986 🤦‍♂️🤬

#ActivityPub #Fedi #Fediverse #Threads #Meta #Mastodon

BeAware :veriweed:

2024-04-22 01:38:15

And here it is, the dark pattern at work....this threads integration is starting to go badly already....🤦‍♂️🙄

edit: and here's a threads engineer purposefully misconstruing the definition of dark patterns in a reply to me. https://social.beaware.live/@beaware.live@threads.net/112312317899201996 🤬

#Fedi #Fediverse #Threads #EEE #Meta #ActivityPub

BeAware (@beaware.live) on Threads

There it is...the dark pattern at work already....yep. this Fediverse integration is losing me🤦‍♂️this is how you lose trust guys....this is how you get blocked by 80% of Fedi, even if you have good intentions because this is shady as hell...

^Threads