Statements dreamt up by the utterly deramged: “Hi, we are a new federated server. COMPLY WITH OUR RULES OR WE WILL NOT FEDERATE WITH YOU”

Rational people: “Okay, that was always allowed. Bye.”

I was thinking about that the other day. Most fediverse servers won't even qualify to be federated with Threads. Especially single user instances, since they are unlikely to have a privacy policy for themselves and a public stream.

So, fill it with porn? Or is simple nudity enough to be banned/defederated from threads?

Serious question, why does no one want threads on the fediverse? Folding more people in to fill up the empty space doesn’t seem bad to me.

There are concerns that your publicly posted information would scooped up by bots that scrap up public information on the web. Or more specifically, be used by Meta to build a profile on you, which it already does even if you don't federate with Threads.

People who are concerned about this usually choose not to federate with Threads, but they also would need to block bots and Meta specifically to fully be protected.

Others don't share their concerns as much, or are more selective about what they post publicly. Some platforms allow you to post privately, for example, and unless you are communicating with someone on Threads, Threads would never see it even if you were federated with Threads.

I don’t have a FB or Insta account… for a good reason. I don’t want one. Apart from Meta existing solely to maximise shareholder profit (which sits weirdly with the fediverse) there is its user base to consider. Whilst undoubtedly there are a lot of them, how many would bring actual quality as opposed to quantity of posts? Also, the Zuckdroid. Need I say more?

Also, having the biggest instance\service is a power because whatever you do you need to make sure it is compatible, so you end up servicing them first and foremost, and they can pull some strings from their side to change things for everyone.

EEE

How many pictures of my arse does the instance need to keep the zuckerbots away?

Isn’t that the whole point of the fediverse though, to curate your own platform?

I get there are plenty of tools on meta but you don’t have to look very hard to find them on Lemmy either.

To me it just sounds like a good idea to have more people, and then just filter the crap you don’t want to see

These are really good points you bring up and things I haven’t considered before. Thanks for the info!

Got it. Makes sense looking at through lenses like that

The content you post on the fediverse is already public. You’re not giving Meta any less information by defederating.

I suppose there’s only one way to find out…

I think one of the issues might be if you’re subscribed to an active community of a few hundred people the fear is that community would mutate if suddenly a few thousand new accounts joined it and you could lose what you’d made.

Having said that, would I like a world where a ‘gram influencer stumbles in to a hexbear or .ml community and posts some vapid “sponsored content”? Yes. Yes I would. Would I like to see an evangelical turn up at Blahaj (sp?)? Yes. Very much so. Not for the drama - but to discover the contrast to their own personal truth. But, like you say, the tool-o-meter is already throwing out readings as it is, so everything would probably descend into name calling and bad faith arguments.

Don’t have a publicly-viewable federated timeline. Bam, blocked.

BTW: Public instances of Hubzilla and (streams) never have such a thing. They could, they do have the technology, but the admins always decide against activating it in order not to be held liable for content that comes in from the rest of the Fediverse.

If you decide to make it public. Or if you’re on something that doesn’t leave you any choice like Lemmy.

If you’re on Hubzilla or (streams), and you’ve grokked it enough to use it accordingly, then you can actually post content in private to only selected users.

There are two common fallacies. One, the Fediverse is inherently private because it isn’t corporate. Two, the Fediverse is inherently public because everything on Mastodon or Lemmy or whatever is the only Fediverse project you’re familiar with is public.

And they can only connect to Threads because Meta doesn’t want to go after thousands of private single-user instances, clutter their blocklist with them and check every once in a while if they still exist to keep it from being clutterted too much.

Also, at least on Hubzilla and (streams), it’s the single-user instances that are likely to have an actually public pubstream. But not necessarily the federated one that Threads wants.

On Hubzilla, there is a way to make the public stream available and only show posts from that server. But most Hubzilla admins never turn it on and probably don't know it exists.

As an administrator, the only time you would want to turn on the public stream is if you are a public hub and accept new signups. It makes it easier for administrators and moderators to moderate the public content on their own server since they can see all public posts in one place. If someone is posting illegal content or spam, a moderator can see it, and remove it (and perhaps the user too).

But private instances don't need this since everyone on the server is trusted.

If you’re on Hubzilla or (streams), and you’ve grokked it enough to use it accordingly, then you can actually post content in private to only selected users.

Okay, but then Meta won’t be able to see it even if you federate with Threads (unless you share the content with Threads users), so I still don’t see your point.

I think most bigger Lemmy servers are like that too. It sucks

As an administrator, the only time you would want to turn on the public stream is if you are a public hub and accept new signups. It makes it easier for administrators and moderators to moderate the public content on their own server since they can see all public posts in one place. If someone is posting illegal content or spam, a moderator can see it, and remove it (and perhaps the user too).

Even then, it wouldn’t be a federated public stream that’s in plain sight for any visitor. At most, it’d be a local pubstream in plain sight for anyone. Or a federated public stream only visible to local users.

At least by German law, hubmins can be held liable for what’s happening on the pubstream because it’s happening on their “website”, and so they’re responsible for it. And remember that most public Hubzilla hubs and the two biggest ones are German.

@Jupiter Rowland

At least by German law, hubmins can be held liable for what’s happening on the pubstream because it’s happening on their “website”, and so they’re responsible for it. And remember that most public Hubzilla hubs and the two biggest ones are German.

That's true. We are protected by Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act and the Digit Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) and the common law legal concept that you cannot be held liable for someone else's actions.

Other countries may not provide the same protections.

My point is that not everything in the Fediverse is public. Unlike what Mastodon and Lemmy users keep claiming because that’s all they know.