I just read this point in a comment and wanted to bring it to the spotlight.

Meta has practically unlimited resources. They will make access to the fediverse fast with their top tier servers.

As per my understanding this will make small instances less desirable to the common user. And the effects will be:

  1. Meta can and will unethically defedrate from instances which are a theat to them. Which the majority of the population won’t care about, again making the small instances obsolete.
  2. When majority of the content is on the Meta servers they can and will provide fast access to it and unethically slow down access to the content from outside instances. This will be noticeable but cannot be proved, and in the end the common users just won’t care. They will use Threads because its faster.

This is just what i could think of, there are many more ways to be evil. Meta has the best engineers in the world who will figure out more discrete and impactful ways to harm the small instances.

Privacy: I know they can scrape data from the fediverse right now. That’s not a problem. The problem comes when they launch their own Android / iOS app and collect data about my search and what kind of Camel milk I like.

My thoughts: I think building our own userbase is better than federating with an evil corp. with unlimited resources and talent which they will use to destroy the federation just to get a few users.

I hope this post reaches the instance admins. The Cons outweigh the Pros in this case.

We couldn’t get the people to use Signal. This is our chance to make a change.

  • PalePhantom@lemmy.worldEnglish
    157·
    1 year ago

    This post feels like fearmongering…

    Why would Meta care about small instances? I feel like Meta would only see the big instances as pontential threat.

    Honestly, this could actually be an opportunity for fediverse. I don’t want Meta to harvest my data, so I would never make an account there. However I am interested in content/people from Meta and I can follow that from fediverse. I believe there is large group of people who think the same way and they may join fediverse if they haven’t already done that.

    • Big Duck Energy@partizle.comEnglish
      132·
      1 year ago

      I don’t want Meta to harvest my data, so I would never make an account there

      The nature of federation means that you don’t have to make an account there for them to harvest your data. They probably do it already.

      • drphungky@lemmy.worldEnglish
        62·
        1 year ago

        The nature of federation means that you don’t have to make an account there for them to harvest your data. They probably do it already.

        They can do that without Threads though. Everything you upvote, downvote, and comment on is public record. Plus the way federated content works is the host server isn’t accessed unless you actively try to go there, everything else is reposted in your local instance. So they’re not going to get data from Threads that way.

        If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a million times: they don’t care about the Fediverse one way or another. This is just a way to kill Twitter, and they’re doing it through a loose alliance of sorts.

        • Big Duck Energy@partizle.comEnglish
          11·
          1 year ago

          That’s exactly what I meant, they don’t need Threads, it’s all public (except possibly email addresses?) , but @bighi@lemmy.world commented to me and said it doesn’t work that way, so now I’m secend guessing myself.

          Either way, they can scoop all that post data up anyway, to me the data is almost becoming a red herring. IMHO, Facebook’s history of being a platform of hate-fueled content, violence, trolling, social manipulation, etc. is of greater concern.

          I’m also wary of the day that Facebook is the driving force of the Fediverse due to it’s sheer size. All those users come along with a great deal of inertia, and Facebook could end up being the mega-Corp who decides all the protocol standards forcing others to keep up with their “contributions” or get left behind.

          • bighi@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            1 year ago

            Your posts are only public if you set your profile to public. Otherwise, they’re private. But even if they’re public, I’m pretty sure an instance can make them almost private (as in: you can only see the data if you’re federating with them).

            I agree that most of the instances don’t make things private at the moment (I think), but at least they can protect your information if they want to.

            But anyway, federating or not, Meta and other companies are already tracking everyone one way or another.

      • PalePhantom@lemmy.worldEnglish
        2·
        1 year ago

        Small correction, I don’t want them to harvest data that is connected to me as a person. With Meta I have to give out many personal info that they don’t actually need for their service to function. It’s just a way for making more money.

        Correct me if I’m wrong, but the only personal info on Fediverse I have to give is my email.