Post AXRytUmFBJ4T3fRHo8 by hnygd@mastodon.africa
(DIR) More posts by hnygd@mastodon.africa
(DIR) Post #AXRvfGSVJv6EjYjEXo by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T11:24:50Z
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I'm confused, hoping someone can explain:One of the "defederate with Threads" arguments being advanced is that "Threads is about harvesting user's data"Which, ok, sure - Threads is about harvesting Threads user's data, that part I get.What part of this setup, though, allows Threads to harvest *other* people's data (ie, the fediverse in general), in a way that can be genuinely blocked by defederating with them?#mastoadmin #fedipact #threads #p92
(DIR) Post #AXRvmKAvttIQHtsNxw by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T11:26:41Z
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If Meta wanted to scrape the fediverse in general, defederating with threads.net does absolutely nothing to prevent it - all instances are already internet-accessible, regular scraping techniques work just fine.The only way to truly prevent Meta from getting at the user data in your instance is to go dark, run it off a tailnet or something, or lock the instance down entirely such that not even public content feeds show up.So I'm confused how defederating with threads.net protects anyone.
(DIR) Post #AXRwr2zzI1fqPxZYlU by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T11:38:46Z
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If the goal is to prevent Meta from mining the public fediverse for whatever reason, the only fix is to go non-public (put everything behind VPNs), so I'm assuming that's not going to happen. Or, if it is, it's happening already and we won't know about it.The only thing defederation achieves, far as I can see, is that it prevents Threads users from seeing/following non-Threads users, which by proxy, prevents Meta from getting non-Threads users content that way. Meta can still scrape the web.
(DIR) Post #AXRx8HYePdzKUk0K4O by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T11:41:52Z
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Meaning that the only *impact*, positive or not, of blocking threads.net as a domain on your Mastodon instance, is:* Users on your instance won't be able to see/interact with their friends on threads.net - and vice versaAnd I think that's about it?
(DIR) Post #AXRxNk7WV56rQJghQe by TomSwirly@toot.community
2023-07-07T11:44:39Z
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@wogan On Mastodon, there is no record of who sees my posts, or how long they spend looking at them.
(DIR) Post #AXRxOhXnZ2BTitR14i by danie10@mastodon.social
2023-07-07T11:44:50Z
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@wogan the point is ActivityPub is open anyway, so no federation is needed for anyone to just read all the data?
(DIR) Post #AXRxSrBNfdYEm4vkx6 by michael@mstdn.thms.uk
2023-07-07T11:45:34Z
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@wogan agreed. That argument doesn’t hold water at all.
(DIR) Post #AXRxSxCJJ5rNQhPaEa by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T11:45:37Z
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@TomSwirly Irrelevant though - ActivityPub (afaik) does not track engagement stats, has no APIs or anything for recording or sending that information.If a threads.net user follows your toot.community account, they (and Meta in general) will get copies of your content in their feed.How does that tell Meta anything about the engagement on your content on toot.community?
(DIR) Post #AXRxaTOU04UBJOgsu8 by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T11:46:58Z
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@danie10 That's the whole point, yeah. If you want to have properly-private ActivityPub, you do that by building a private network (wireguard, tailscale, openvpn, whatever) so that the server and all users join a private internet to which Meta has no access.Short of that, there is no way to prevent Meta from, somehow or another, getting a copy of your content - ActivityPub is specifically designed to fan out.
(DIR) Post #AXRxkUgi2n3KDkzi1w by danie10@mastodon.social
2023-07-07T11:48:46Z
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@wogan yep, seems the usual thing is for most people to zoom in intensively on a small splinter, and completely lose site of the forest all around them... well the media loves playing on that.
(DIR) Post #AXRxnxtvt0NZh1pnzU by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T11:49:25Z
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@TomSwirly They will, of course, be able to measure engagement on your content, but by Threads users, using the Threads app (since your content is now in their database).So if you don't want that, then toot.community blocking threads.net will prevent first-party access.But if your content also federates to, say, mastodon.social, and a threads.net user follows mastodon.social and a user boosts you, it ends up on threads.net. So mastodon.social also has to defederate, either with them or you.
(DIR) Post #AXRyKgiOnvkXwp2kD2 by TomSwirly@toot.community
2023-07-07T11:55:18Z
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@wogan If someone is viewing a Threads thread, particularly within the app, it's certain that Facebook tracks how long they spend on each item and how they move the mouse around and can know a great deal about their interactions with it."We are at your front door because 30% of the people who spent over 10 seconds on your post then shopped for guillotine parts within the next 30 minutes."
(DIR) Post #AXRyN6hBBHtx6Tct8K by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T11:55:47Z
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@TomSwirly 100% agreed, but I don't see how Threads can track how, for eg, a mastodon.africa user engages with a toot.community user (like we're doing right now).
(DIR) Post #AXRytUmFBJ4T3fRHo8 by hnygd@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T12:01:35Z
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@wogan There is an assessment by #Mastodon gGmbH which as far as I understand it confirms your opinion:https://mastodon.social/@Mastodon/110664109379249958
(DIR) Post #AXRz5oznpns9Exeu0m by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T12:03:51Z
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@hnygd Thank you! So far it seems like the only really substantive arguments are moral ones, and there is one vector by which Meta can exploit non-Threads data:* threads.net users follow non-Threads users* A non-Threads post goes viral and is boosted throughout Threads* Meta can measure engagement on UGC created by a user not on their networkBut that's about it, and "UGC by non-Meta users" also describes "the entire public internet" and this has been the SOP for decades now.
(DIR) Post #AXRzFGoNmkvc7Ep3ZI by TomSwirly@toot.community
2023-07-07T12:05:32Z
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@wogan Absolutely, but we are a rounding error. 😃 There are already three times as many Thread users as Mastodon users.If 90% of the Fedi users are Facebook, then given two users there's only a 1% chance that neither of them are from Facebook.
(DIR) Post #AXRzHKdUXOGuYWiAMa by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T12:05:57Z
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@hnygd The larger context, for me: Threads is already north of 40 million users (4x the size of the known fediverse, all software types) and they're aiming for 1,000,000,000 users. I don't know that they'd bother with nefarious data scraping schemes aimed at a network that, at best, might be 0.02% the relative size of Threads.The mental image I'm getting is a bunch of rubber dinghies bunched up at a marina, terrified of an approaching steamliner that's halfway around the world.
(DIR) Post #AXRzNej2l3dGbGK8RM by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T12:07:04Z
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@hnygd If anything, Threads is going to be a net-benefit to the fediverse: Popular content generated outside of Threads will help non-Threads users build an audience that includes Threads users, but while disclosing the minimum information about yourself (literally, just your public profile and content, not even your IP), which if anything, is *advantageous*.
(DIR) Post #AXRzPSMvfeUWr6q3WK by hnygd@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T12:07:24Z
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@wogan Yes regarding going viral there seems to be some concern about server loads: https://glitterkitten.co.uk/@doot/110671832540765865
(DIR) Post #AXRzX7kQDuWJDWU1aK by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T12:08:46Z
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@hnygd And that, far as I'm concerned, is fair game: If you (the royal "you") decided to host a Mastodon instance, dealing with traffic spikes should always have been in your plan: The fediverse is 10m people, things are already capable of going viral and slashdotting any one instances, I don't see how Threads changes that.
(DIR) Post #AXRzp9eNt7zEKYFzOK by hnygd@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T12:12:01Z
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@wogan I am not sure if anything #Meta does is really net-benefit: They have been steamrolling over everything with all technologies so far to fit their illiberal business case, using every trick possible to make sure users are as addicted as possible to their service. There is a reason why they can not even start #Threads in #Europe due to #GDPR (and this is seldomly stopping big corporate). But at the same time I doubt that defederating just out of fear is the right thing to do.
(DIR) Post #AXRzpnBMuQXmw8zNia by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T12:12:10Z
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@hnygd I'm lying, I do see how Threads changes that: It's a "centralized" instance.Going viral in the fediverse means dozens/hundreds of instances hammering you over and over again.Going viral in Threads means: 1 copy of your content lives in Threads, and if four hundred and sixty three billion people try viewing it, there's nothing to hammer your server for (on views) - only on likes and responses, which are proportionally much less.
(DIR) Post #AXRzzTH7mJeq5kIRzU by wogan@mastodon.africa
2023-07-07T12:13:54Z
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@hnygd Agreed on both counts, and I'd actually add a third: Meta is a platform company, the decision to defederate with them probably won't hurt them at all ("you can't have the public posts of my 300 users! nyah!"), but it will 100% hurt fediverse users ("I want my friend on instagram to follow me on mastodon.africa"), and I'm not keen on taking actions that solely hurt users.
(DIR) Post #AXS11yLJLC8sym0lDU by ThaMunsta@mastodon.nervesocket.com
2023-07-07T12:25:32Z
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@wogan Yeah I've been confused on this too. I can see people banning meta IPs on their server firewall to keep them out but not fediblock.
(DIR) Post #AXSNLShmsMifdmDswa by davey_cakes@mastodon.ie
2023-07-07T16:35:33Z
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@wogan maybe people think the behaviour is unacceptable and therefore they want to withdraw all forms of support, even if it doesn't affect their server?