Fediverse

Posted this in a small community, curious to know what everyone here thinks.

Let me preface by saying, I would love to hear counter points and am fully open to the fact that I could be wrong and totally out of touch. I just want to have some dialogue around something that’s been bothering me in the fediverse.

More and more often I keep hearing people refer to “normies”. I think by referring to other people as “normies”, whether you intend to or not, you inadvertently gatekeep and create an exclusive environment rather than an inclusive one in the fediverse.

If I was not that familiar with the fediverse and decided to check it out and the first thing I read was a comment about “normies”, I would quite honestly be very put off. It totally has a negative connotation and doesn’t even encapsulate any one group. I just read a comment about someone grouping a racist uncle and funny friend into the same category of normie because they aren’t up to date on the fediverse or super tech savvy or whatever.

I don’t want to see any Meta bs in the fediverse. I barely want to see half of the stuff from Reddit in the fediverse. I don’t want to see the same echo chamber I do everywhere else.

I do want to see more users and more perspectives and a larger user base though. I want to see kindness and compassion. I want to talk to people about topics they are interested in. I want to have relevant discussions without it dissolving into some commentary on some unrelated hot topic thing.

I think calling people normies creates a more toxic, exclusive place which I personally came here to avoid.

Just my two cents! I know for most people using the term it isn’t meant to be malicious, but I think it comes off that way.

Love to hear all of your thoughts.

@ruebe test

#fediverse

How come more people are searching "mastodon" this week?

https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?q=mastodon&hl=en-US

#fediverse

Everyone seems to be pointing to the Microsoft EEE model without explaining how it has changed since the 90s. Here's what it will look like in today's tech climate. (I forgot to mention in this wall of text that there will probably be a name change or two. Especially if there's a major controversy.)

Meta will play nice for a year or 2. They'll cordon off the Meta instances, respond to complaints from Mastodon users, hell, they might even open source some of their code. It'll seem alright.

All your FB and IG followers will one day appear. Meta flipped a switch and integrated ActivityPub into their apps. You'll be annoyed, but hey, more traffic = support for the technology, etc. Now you don't have to log into your FB account and have a little more control over your FB and IG feeds, so it doesn't seem too bad. That wasn't worth all the debate. Just block or defederate and move on.

Maybe you go to check out Threadscon a fun event with special panels and contests. They even highlight the great Mastodon contributions and influencers. They really value their Mastodon partners!

A few months later...

You get a notification from a relative - they want to Splork over Threads. Wait, WTF is Splork? Oh, it's the hot, new video messenger that also tracks your heart rate, or some shit. But, you can't Splork from Mastodon and it'll never be added because it's closed source and encrypted for 'Security' and 'The Children'.

You figure, "Fine, it's the same content. I'll try to only use Threads for Splorking and use Mastodon for everything else." You feel guilty, but you continue to promote Mastodon when you can. Meta even seems supportive. Oddly, there's more people on Mastodon that are all for Meta's move into the space. At least, I think they're people. I guess some could be bots. Haha! How pathetic, if Meta stooped so low. At least I'm not gullible enough to fall for that. Ding! Oh, a notification about that 4,984 page argument I'm having with that definitely real, flesh and blood, human person over Meta's influence on the Fediverse. They make some good points, but I'm Ride or Die with my Purple Pachyderm.

Several months later...

It's Splorkcon! (They changed the name from Threadscon.) Back is the special section, just for Matodoms! Wait, what's a Matodom? "Oh, oops," the Meta rep chuckles dismissively. "Our bad." Your badges get you into and Mastodon section. There's free watered down Crystal Light and a shallow foam pit. Well, that was a downgrade. But, the Meta rep said it was an oversight. You find out the event coordinator came down with a nasty case of missing lung syndrome. You should try to be understanding. They're people, too. I'm sure there's a good reason none of the 1.4 billion employees couldn't take up the mantle. Besides, you doubt you could lose the support of ALL the jilted con-goers to a ton of swag and giveaways.

A few months later...

You start to notice Mastodon slowing down... Meta doesn't have to worry about their data budget like Captain Spanky of the USS Toke and Joke (your home instance). Meta's transfers have gotten a bit... verbose... with their contributions to the codebase. You could set up your own instance of pure Mastodon for the community. You know, for the health of the network, because you sure as shit aren't going to use a non-Splorking instance. (Also, the plugin you use to cross post between the two instances broke 3 weeks ago and you didn't notice.)

A few months later...

Good news, everyone! Meta's going to donate $1,000,000 to the Mastodon Consortium over the next 2 years! See, I told you that whole Splorkcon thing was an honest mistake. Hey, is it just me, or is Mastodon really, really getting slow?

You get curious. I mean, do you even know what you're protesting anymore? It would be irresponsible for you to NOT to explore Threads more. You know. To see why people use it; for competitive intelligence. Let's see if that Splorkified app is slo.... oh wow. It's very speedy. Maybe I'll use it a little more. After all, it's still supporting my beloved (mostly) open sourced protocol, even if it is Meta's app. I'll make my icon the Mastodon logo and try to minimize my use of the splorking feature. That will matter.

A few months later...

Even more good news! Meta's going to allow any instance to join their high speed interconnect. They'll even pay you $0.0005 for each petabyte you transfer. No obligations, cancel anytime, if you don't like it, you can return it within 30 days for a full refund, no questions asked. In return, they only want us to allow them to add a teensy tiny advertisement to each post. Nothing fancy, no images or animations. Hell, you could probably block it with a single line of CSS. You're suspicious, but ultimately conclude it's a reasonable request. They DO have to make SOME money to justify all the help they're giving us.

A few months later...

Meta flips another switch. They announce, "You can now feel assured that your voice is heard even louder, thanks to Weavle. Weavle leverages the power of the Fediverse to connect you with others discussing your favorite topics! It synergizes across all Meta's apps to bring you a complete experience." Translation: You're now autosubscribed to all the users on every instance within Meta's instance empire because your aunt and 2nd cousin liked getting in political debates about Joe Biden's left sock. In comes the flood of engageme... I mean, conversations. However this happened, it caused a bunch of chaos with no simple solution. Well, except THAT.

The Mastodonians start to chatter about how they'll address the Meta problem. Once they get through the told-ya-sos, finger pointing , and copy-pasting the wall of text you're currently reading, they start to defederate Meta instances. When will then be now? Soon.

Not everyone follows. Admins of high population instances would lose access to the high speed network if they leave (that was considered a solved problem, so no one really concentrated on an open solution). Some users cultivated followings of thousands of definitely real, non-bot, Turing Test passing if grading on a curve, human people. They can't leave their community. How would they find out about RAIDDDD Shadow Leg... um, they have sponsors. Go with the nerds, they get $2. Go with Meta, they get $15. The difference in platforms to them are Splorking and the color of the icon.

All your contacts are scattered, 75% still not fully understanding what a 'browser' is, let alone a federation. They just know they're cut off from some of their friends. Splork isn't working because of something those "evil hackers" did. At least Meta released a new Splork filter that lets you sing a duet of "Hurt" with an AR cartoon stalk of broccoli. You start to explain to your contacts how they can set up their own instance. 30 minutes in, they ask, "So, do I have to turn the computer on, or...?"

A few months later...

Fuck it! You knew Meta couldn't be trusted! Time to refocus on your instance. Be the change you want to see in the world.

You tell your family to join your instance and they do. Excellent! "So, how do we Skrank again?" "You mean Splork?" Yeah, that's it." Ruh roh! That's not a Mastodon feature. You can install the Splorktastic Upgrade Package, but then the Mastodon folks will defederate from you. Oh, and your instance users are piiiiiissed that a whole bunch of shit changed when they abandoned their old accounts. Important things, like the button on the right is now on the left. They are now skeptical of your advice on the topic. You're too techy. They want something simple and return to Threads. You resolve to be that one weird family member/friend that's difficult to get ahold of. This is a win. You were even able to resist the siren's call of the cartoon broccoli. Fight the power!

Maybe you can win one of those 20,000 different promo contests and giveaways for Splork users. You could show your support by donating the winnings to Mastodon! Surely that's effective, and not like trying to stop a bulldozer by throwing a gummy bear at it. In fact, you get 1,000 other Mastodonians to pledge their gummy bears, I mean contest prizes. (None of you end up winning.)

At the same time as all of the above...

The Mastodon developers are having a little trouble. Apparently, 50 core devs working 12 hrs/day solely on Mastodon can't keep up with the 2,000 hand selected specialists working on Meta's fork. Who would have thought Mastodon would need more than the $95,000/yr they currently have. Why that's a whole... 0.0000136% of Meta's value. If you really zoom in, you see that's a whopping 0.0033% of their Q1 2023 revenue. The $1,000,000 donation? No one knows exactly, but it appears on the books as "expenses". Coincidentally, everyone at the Mastodon Consortium is sporting custom, limited edition Heelys. Nobody else has time or the knowledge to deal with the massive codebase.

Finally, it all comes to a head. Meta experiences the most devastating data breach in history and videos of the top brass leak, letting the world catch a glimpse at their weekly "throw puppies into a pit of lemon juice coated spikes" meetings. You know what that means... big new product press release time!

"Regrettably, we are going to have to end our partnership with Mastodon. They've been great, but we see so much potential in the Fediverse that we've carved out our own little corner, based on our vision. We've been innovating too fast for even the passionate and capable open source community to keep up and we wish them the best in this new chapter of their Fediverse. Don't worry - we'll try to keep the confusion to a minimum. We even have a name for our new virtual space. We'd like to show you today... our Metaverse"

Wait, did he just say Metaverse? (Yes.) I thought that was a VR thing? (It was. No one bought it.) Well, clearly this was the plan all along. (It wasn't.) I have renewed confidence in Meta. (You shouldn't.) Give them more money. (You will.)

In the end, only a handful of people knew the game plan. Everyone else worked with the best of intentions. Maybe there were a few false starts, mini controversies, or sacrificial firings. It doesn't really matter.

Mastodon sticks around for a while with 0.000011% of the "Fediverse" users. Good! You got rid of the riff raff. If the codebase was fucked beyond recognition, things will start to break, security issues will increase, and it'll be a fondly remembered footnote within a year. If the codebase can be cleaned up or rolled back, you could Weekend at Bernie's this shit forever. Every feature suggestion will get shot down for fear it resembles Threads too much, or because it leaves the "platform" (25 people and 7 bots.) vulnerable to more Meta instigating. No one wants to be the one to take Old Yeller behind the barn because everyone's egos, memories, and trauma are tied to it.

Years pass. Your Mastodon instance is going strong. You're talking to a colleague and they mention a Threads post. You tell them you didn't see it because you use Mastodon. "Isn't that, like, the super old version of Threads?" You say, "Yes..." but stop before going into the summary you've recited 1000 times. This person doesn't care. A social network is neither with only one user.

I mean, all this MIGHT happen. I could be totally wrong. (I'm not.)

@KingPromethus welcome to the #Fediverse!

I proactively blocked the box of c*nts, aka Facebook's new Threads domain, on the user level. It's not easy, but here is a link showing how to do it. https://medium.com/@geofbard/how-to-block-server-domains-in-mastodon-899b24f8fb6e

We'll see if it works once they add Activity Pub integration.

And I blocked them because they are a box of c*unts. And I'll leave it up to instances to do whatever they want with Threads.

#Threads #FuckUpBook

#fediverse

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/1101309

Everyone is talking about how Meta is trying to Embrace, Extend, and Extinguish the Fediverse. Meta won't be alone for long in this goal, there will be a lot of capitalist actors that would try to do the same in the long run.

Defederation with them will be a shot in the leg, and handicap the Fediverse movement itself. There will be users/instances in the current Fediverse that would want to federate with them, and banning such instances would create silos and echo chambers.

The way out of this is to focus on the 2nd E - "Extend". I think we can all agree that UX of Threads app will always probably be the best out of all the federated instances. But that is something that people can still live without. Before long, Meta will tout shortcomings like lack of E2E encryption in the private messages and some other core features, that will create a bigger divide amongst ourselves. The Fediverse developers and community have to keep abreast of Meta on such core features, so that they can never extend the core of the Fediverse.

Let me know of your thoughts!

Okay, so right now government agencies, schools, and small business often use Facebook or Twitter for their web presence rather than start their own websites. For a few days there, while Twitter had the login-wall up and was rate-limiting, we had some serious problems wtih Amber Alerts, weather notices, safety notices and other announcements from US government entities. It looked like the government would be forced to start hiring web admins and setting up RSS Feeds and Mastodon servers to get the word out.

But now Threads is here, and they can just as easily as they were on Twitter outsource their web presence for free. They can just make Threads accounts for these public safety and security announcements.

Schools and small businesses can do the same thing, have instantly better reach than on Mastodon, and never have to worry about ActivityPub at all. All of these people remain in the Metagarden, and worst of all, we're forced to federate to them because public safety info is there.

This will significantly slow the growth of the Fediverse.

Now, a lot of stuff has gone to pasture or become rare because of EEE... forums, personal blogs, IRC and stuff. But Linux is still going strong. So maybe there's enough of us counterculture sorts to keep the Fediverse active and independent. But even so, Threads can very easily kill any growth beyond that AND force us to federate or at least have alternate accounts to view these necessary services.

I do not have a solution, but I think this is an aspect of the problem that hasn't been focused on. We talk about mass defederation to save ourselves and list all these frivolous things like celebrities and journalist twitters (while assuming we have the full news feed) without taking the incredibly important government-run accounts into the conversation. Because defederating from the account that posts Amber Alerts is not a simple choice.

And one of the things that got people back in the day with BBSes, IRCs, forums...etc.. was that they were in school and that was the computer culture at school. Now the computer culture at school is Facebook, and will be Threads. All we have to offer is an ad-free experience, and a knowledge/cost curve to any institutions that are choosing between running their own server and just endorsing the use of Meta's products. This will slow down growth. It may well stop it.

Besides of potential EEE tactics, Meta seems to be interested in collecting advertisement profiles off from the Fediverse.

So I came up with a term for it: fedscraping, or webscraping done on the Fediverse.

From what I expect, their whole plan will be:

1. Create an ability of interaction between Threads and the Fediverse.
2. Scrape the interaction data from it to build ad profiles.
3. Try to deanonimize any user on the Fediverse, then check if the user is available in any of Meta's services.
4. Sell this data to advertisers.
5. Potentially sell some scraped data to governments in order to get favors from them (deregulation, tax breaks, etc.).

The last one is the most concerning, and will be used to prosecute political activists, marginalized people, and the likes. Many of them have already left Twitter, Facebook, due to ongoing hostility.

Here's my prediction, but I'd like others to contribute their predictions as well. I think it's important that we make ourselves aware of signs before they start showing, and that we have a record to point to if things play out exactly as we predict.

1. Threads launches, federates with the 'verse, everything works well and actually seems hunky-dory. Even companies/restaurants/officials that use a Facebook page might be accessible via federation!
2. Threads starts allowing their users to embed and interact with content from Facebook, Instagram, & possibly WhatsApp using Threads. Federated communities will be able to embed some of that content as well. Also, InstaWhatsBook users will be able to link to Threads posts as well.
3. Sooner or later, embedded content from the Meta's 'verse will encourage and eventually require you to be signed into Meta. This will be for the "security" and "privacy" of Meta users. But don't worry, you'll simply be able to link your federated instance's account to a Meta account real easy, and even keep your credentials & karma status synced as well!
4. Eventually posts from Threads users will be restricted even further and you'll have to visit their site in order to "securely" view that content. Don't worry though, you synced your account before so it's not really an issue to just hop over.
5. People get tired of having to hop over to Threads for most posts, and since their credentials are synced to both, it doesn't really hurt to just stay on Threads and view federated posts from there.
6. Meta changes the nature of their karma system so not everything syncs anymore. Of course you get the most benefit if you're posting on Threads.
7. Meta finally decides that federating "just isn't in their best interest" and shuts down federation, leaving a husk of the Fediverse behind.

Something I don't understand currently about the whole Meta/Threads debacle is why I'm seeing talk about instances which choose to federate with Threads themselves being defederated. I have an account on mastodon.social, one of the instances which has not signed the fedipact, and I've had people from other instances warn me that their instances are going to defederate mastodon.social when Threads arrives.

I have no reason to doubt that, so, assuming that they are, why? I don't believe instances behave as any kind of relay system: anybody who wishes to defederate from Threads can do so and their instances will not pull in Threads content, even if they remain federated to another instance which does.

I'm unsure how boosts work in this scenario, perhaps those instances are concerned that they'll see Threads content when mastodon.social or other Threads-federated instances users boost it, or that their content will be boosted to Threads users? The two degrees of separation would presumably prevent that, so I can see that being a reason to double-defederate, assuming that is how boosts work (is it?).

Other than that, perhaps the goal is simply to split the fediverse into essentially two sides, the Threads side and the non-Threads side, in order to insulate the non-Threads side from any embrace, extend, extinguish behavior on Meta's part?

Ultimately, my long term goal is just to use kbin to interact with the blogging side of the fediverse, but there are obviously teething issues currently, like some Mastodon instances simply aren't compatible with kbin. I'm too lazy to move somewhere else only to move to kbin "again" after that, so in the short term I guess I'll just shrug in the general direction of Mastodon.

To be clear, I have a pretty solid understanding of why people want to defederate Threads (and I personally agree that it's a good idea), it's the double-defederation I'm not sure I follow. Is my understanding at all close? Are there other reasons? Thanks for any insight.

Szmer.info leży? #fediverse

Just wondering

My mastodon server is down

#fediverse

There’s been a lot of speculation around what Threads will be and what it means for Mastodon. We’ve put together some of the most common questions and our responses based on what was launched today.

Hi all - I blogged about trying to figure out if there is a space and place for getting public funding for Fediverse instances. I welcome any tactful feedback.

Twitter’s dying, Reddit’s changing, everything else is entertainment – and there’s nowhere left to hang out.

Is there a fediverse tool to replace something like discogs? I know there is BookWyrm for books, but is there anything kind of like that for music collections? I've tried googling and haven't found anything. Thanks!

#fediverse

In the latter case, I think it might be feasible to prevent upvotes from being counted multiple times if the username is identical on different instances, since upvotes are public. Is there already a mechanism to do this?

Also, isn't it much more common in the Fediverse than on central platforms for the same user to have multiple accounts with different usernames? This seems likely to me, if only because popular usernames may already be taken on a given instance. In this case it seems to me hardly possible to prevent double counting. I suppose this would only be possible if the different instances would log IP addresses and share this information with other instances. That doesn't seem desirable to me at all, and probably wouldn't be legal, at least in Europe, because of the GDPR. Are there other possibilities? Cookies?

Please excuse the maybe stupid questions - I'm new here and not very good at finding info on my own yet...

ActivityPub, the protocol that powers the fediverse (including Mastodon – same caveats as the first two times, will be used interchangeably, deal with it) is not private. It is not even semi-private. It is a completely public medium and absolutely nothing posted on it, including direct messages, can be seen as even remotely secure. Worse, anything you post on Mastodon is, once sent, for all intents and purposes completely irrevocable. To function, the network relies upon the good faith participation of thousands of independently owned and operated servers, but a bad actor simply has to behave not in good faith and there is absolutely no mechanism to stop them or to get around this. Worse, whatever legal protections are in place around personal data are either non-applicable or would be stunningly hard to enforce.

So techies out there, what does this mean? “Unlike Twitter's restriction on sharing links from rival platforms like Mastodon and Instagram, #Threads is expected to be interoperable with Mastodon, utilizing the ActivityPub protocol. This move enables more connectivity between different platforms.” Does it mean we can follow people and see their posts here?

#fediverse

Title ^ I'd like to explore Peertube but I don't know where to start.

Meta will not launch its new Twitter rival, Threads, in Ireland or the EU for the foreseeable future.

Finally got around to installing Friendica to see if could be my go-to platform as it can federate with ActivityPub as well as Diaspora and others, but in reality I am not liking the interface, and even when using it from the Fedilab app it is missing some features that I like from Mastodon and Kbin.

I won't be keeping it too long.

Next step: Deploy my own Kbin instance. I really like the kbin interface, the only thing keeping me back is how daunting the docker install looks.