4 ms·

What to Know about Threads

36 points by 8organicbits 3y ago

d_theorist 3y ago
>Will Meta embrace-extend-extinguish the ActivityPub protocol? >There are comparisons to be made between Meta adopting ActivityPub for its new social media platform and Meta adopting XMPP for its Messenger service a decade ago. There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers, before each platform was locked down into the silos we know today. What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon. Isn't this a bit naive? The risk I see is that Threads embraces ActivityPub, gets its claws into the Mastodon network, gets loads of people subscribing to Threads accounts (and vice versa), and then starts adding features or "improving" the protocol. Mastodon instances have a choice between either staying interoperable by keeping up with the FB version of ActivityPub, or creating a schism, which users might not like. Ultimately Facebook could end up in the driver's seat of the protocol.
lapcat 3y ago
> When you follow a user on another server for the first time, your server subscribes to that user specifically. That means even if there is a server with millions of people in the network, unless you follow millions of people, you will not be receiving updates for millions of people. This keeps traffic and storage manageable across the network. As such, small servers will not be affected, and may not even notice the presence of Threads, except when they decide to follow specific users. Ok, but what happens when millions of people on threads.net follow people on Mastodon servers, interact with their posts via reply/favorite/boost, send them private messages, etc.? And how are Mastodon instances going to deal with spam coming from Threads? I know a lot of Mastodon instance administrators were already annoyed by spam coming from mastodon.social, but Threads could be orders of magnitude worse, and will Meta even care about that? As a Mastodon user, you can't really report spam directly to Meta.
- rvz 3y ago
  Well its clear that Eugen is one of those who has signed Meta's NDA to federate with Threads and isn't bothered about the users on Mastodon.social going to receive all the spam from Threads, which he won't admit. Meta doesn't care either. So better prepare yourself for the scale or otherwise experience regular downtime, unless Meta is footing the bill for the biggest instances to stay up.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > So better prepare yourself for the scale or otherwise experience regular downtime, unless Meta is footing the bill for the biggest instances to stay up. Some instances are planning to defederate from Threads immediately, so they'll be fine. And other instances may be forced to defederate eventually, whether they like it or not.
- singpolyma3 3y ago
  Spam needs to be handled at the receiving server.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    Yes? That was my point! Spam from Threads can become a burden on Mastodon instances.
andrewstuart 3y ago
Mastodon was given its shot and missed. Whichever company/organisation can provide the thing that Twitter users actually want will get the crown.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > Mastodon was given its shot and missed. Mastodon didn't "miss", because it was never trying to replace Twitter. It's an alternative to Twitter that's non-corporate, which Threads is definitely not. Moreover, Threads said they intend to federate with Mastodon. Although many Mastodon instances said they intend to defederate immediately with Threads. In any case, Mastodon will continue on with its devoted user base, which is very small in comparison to Twitter and Instagram but large enough to be self-sustaining.
  - colesantiago 3y ago
    > Mastodon didn't "miss"... I'm sorry. It missed, big time and now it is letting an adversary (Meta) to invade into Mastodon. Mastodon is tending to centralisation no matter what it does. All the smaller instances better have great CDNs backing them.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > I'm sorry. It missed, big time This is not really an argument...
      - colesantiago 3y ago
        > This is not really an argument... That's not for you to decide. We both know that Mastodon, Mastodon.social and the rest of the fediverse had many chances for adoption during Musk's fuckups. And it still didn't take off the way Threads did. Isn't the whole point of Mastodon supposed to be a privacy advocating and decentralised alternative to Twitter? Threads's launch is just going to centralise Mastodon to the biggest servers, and onto Threads itself which defeats the point of Mastodon.
singpolyma3 3y ago
> There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers This is false. While it's true that Google Talk did adopt XMPP for a time, Facebook never did. They ran a little client bridge so that people could sort-of use third-party clients, but you could never communicate between Google Talk and Facebook users over XMPP.

36 points by 8organicbits 3y ago

>Will Meta embrace-extend-extinguish the ActivityPub protocol? >There are comparisons to be made between Meta adopting ActivityPub for its new social media platform and Meta adopting XMPP for its Messenger service a decade ago. There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers, before each platform was locked down into the silos we know today. What would stop that from repeating? Well, even if Threads abandoned ActivityPub down the line, where we would end up is exactly where we are now. XMPP did not exist on its own outside of nerd circles, while ActivityPub enjoys the support and brand recognition of Mastodon. Isn't this a bit naive? The risk I see is that Threads embraces ActivityPub, gets its claws into the Mastodon network, gets loads of people subscribing to Threads accounts (and vice versa), and then starts adding features or "improving" the protocol. Mastodon instances have a choice between either staying interoperable by keeping up with the FB version of ActivityPub, or creating a schism, which users might not like. Ultimately Facebook could end up in the driver's seat of the protocol.

lapcat 3y ago

> When you follow a user on another server for the first time, your server subscribes to that user specifically. That means even if there is a server with millions of people in the network, unless you follow millions of people, you will not be receiving updates for millions of people. This keeps traffic and storage manageable across the network. As such, small servers will not be affected, and may not even notice the presence of Threads, except when they decide to follow specific users. Ok, but what happens when millions of people on threads.net follow people on Mastodon servers, interact with their posts via reply/favorite/boost, send them private messages, etc.? And how are Mastodon instances going to deal with spam coming from Threads? I know a lot of Mastodon instance administrators were already annoyed by spam coming from mastodon.social, but Threads could be orders of magnitude worse, and will Meta even care about that? As a Mastodon user, you can't really report spam directly to Meta.

rvz 3y ago
Well its clear that Eugen is one of those who has signed Meta's NDA to federate with Threads and isn't bothered about the users on Mastodon.social going to receive all the spam from Threads, which he won't admit. Meta doesn't care either. So better prepare yourself for the scale or otherwise experience regular downtime, unless Meta is footing the bill for the biggest instances to stay up.
- lapcat 3y ago
  > So better prepare yourself for the scale or otherwise experience regular downtime, unless Meta is footing the bill for the biggest instances to stay up. Some instances are planning to defederate from Threads immediately, so they'll be fine. And other instances may be forced to defederate eventually, whether they like it or not.
singpolyma3 3y ago
Spam needs to be handled at the receiving server.
- lapcat 3y ago
  Yes? That was my point! Spam from Threads can become a burden on Mastodon instances.

andrewstuart 3y ago

Mastodon was given its shot and missed. Whichever company/organisation can provide the thing that Twitter users actually want will get the crown.

lapcat 3y ago
> Mastodon was given its shot and missed. Mastodon didn't "miss", because it was never trying to replace Twitter. It's an alternative to Twitter that's non-corporate, which Threads is definitely not. Moreover, Threads said they intend to federate with Mastodon. Although many Mastodon instances said they intend to defederate immediately with Threads. In any case, Mastodon will continue on with its devoted user base, which is very small in comparison to Twitter and Instagram but large enough to be self-sustaining.
- colesantiago 3y ago
  > Mastodon didn't "miss"... I'm sorry. It missed, big time and now it is letting an adversary (Meta) to invade into Mastodon. Mastodon is tending to centralisation no matter what it does. All the smaller instances better have great CDNs backing them.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > I'm sorry. It missed, big time This is not really an argument...
    - colesantiago 3y ago
      > This is not really an argument... That's not for you to decide. We both know that Mastodon, Mastodon.social and the rest of the fediverse had many chances for adoption during Musk's fuckups. And it still didn't take off the way Threads did. Isn't the whole point of Mastodon supposed to be a privacy advocating and decentralised alternative to Twitter? Threads's launch is just going to centralise Mastodon to the biggest servers, and onto Threads itself which defeats the point of Mastodon.

singpolyma3 3y ago

> There was a time when users of Facebook and users of Google Talk were able to chat with each other and with people from self-hosted XMPP servers This is false. While it's true that Google Talk did adopt XMPP for a time, Facebook never did. They ran a little client bridge so that people could sort-of use third-party clients, but you could never communicate between Google Talk and Facebook users over XMPP.