The recent excitement surrounding Thread's arrival on the Fediverse is concerning. To understand why this is not a good idea, consider their economic interest in harvesting data, their poor moderation, and their manipulations. Nothing good can come from their federation. Don't roll out the red carpet for them.
@davidrevoy
Quelles sont les méthodes pour réaliser ces vidéos ?
Des captures d'écran automatiques et régulières tout en travaillant ? Depuis une fenêtre avec la prévisualisation du travail en cours pour éviter la présence du pointeur?
@lautre Bonjour, alors c'est beaucoup plus simple, c'est intégré à Krita https://docs.krita.org/en/reference_manual/dockers/recorder_docker.html , il y a qu'a mettre "record" et a la fin "export" et ça fait tout. Techniquement, ça mets a intervalle sur le disque une projection du canvas en JPG, et a la fin ça utilise FFmpeg en fond pour monter la video avec le petit fondu du début. Le fichier a été pensé pour être direct optimisé pour les médias socciaux. C'est facile 🙂
@davidrevoy very powerful picture - we must not repeat the same mistakes as have been made before! Corporations could not care less about interoperability. All we do is lend them our built community and power, for which they will drop support the moment it suits their interests. Google Hangouts never needed to support XMPP, it was just a convenient tool in order for a decentralized and anticorporate alternative to messaging to be destroyed - when it no longer suited their needs XMPP support was dropped.
Don't let this happen to the Fediverse - corporate, ad-mania, and data harvesting corporations do not share our values and beliefs.
@ErikUden XMPP is brought up a lot as an analogy to Threads implementing ActivityPub, but I don't think it works. Google dropping XMPP support didn't destroy it, XMPP still exists today. It still had all the same users it did before Google joined the network after Google left. People don't still use XMPP today like they used to because it didn't adapt to the features people wanted in a modern chat platform. That's why we have Matrix now instead.
I think ActivityPub does have the features people want though, at least right now, and it seems very flexible to the addition of new ones.
And I would like to add that Google didn't kill XMPP. Neither did MS or AOL.
It was Apple that, accidentally, killed AIM, MSN Messenger, Skype, Yahoo Messenger, XMPP and all the other 90's-2000's era instant messengers in 2007 with the new iPhone when they designed their original SMS app to "feel" like chat. The release of the iPhone corresponded pretty closely to US phone networks dropping their SMS prices to $0. Suddenly all the other IM's were mostly redundant in the US.
@atocci@davidrevoy@ErikUden all the wind was sucked out of XMPP's sails and we're still stuck with corpocrap as a result. we've finally started building momentum with the fediverse and we can't let them EEE us back to square 1 a second time. we know what's up and the wise are heading the call to reject this clearly bad faith move
@atocci@davidrevoy@ErikUden to me the XMPP case is more just a warning that you should never start thinking these companies see building services based on open standards as a real goal no matter how many times zuck or whoever pays lip service to it. What Google has been doing with Chrome might be more applicable in terms of real dangers.
Meta can do what they like and that will have limited actual impact to individual instances who can still run whatever ActivityPub service they want & choose who to federate with.
If we want an open web we can’t start getting picky with who it’s open to. We can, of course, be wary of who we connect and interact with.
@Hawkwinter I think so! Most of what you mentioned sounds like issues with how the different services collect and display content or the ways they implemented ActivityPub, rather than ActivityPub itself. Privacy though, that's an area ActivityPub is lacking in for sure. Since every action you take needs to be pushed out to every instance for it to be reflected, content is public by necessity and I can't imagine that's an easy thing to work around and still maintain compatibility...
I'm on kbin.social now though, and I enjoy the way it presents microblog content. You can view posts categorized into "magazines" based on the hashtags they contain, and it presents all posts (even those not in a magazine) in a non-chronological way by default. Posts can be sorted by level of activity, amount of likes, number of comments, or "hot" which I assume is a combination of the previous 3. You can also set some limits on how far back you want it to pull posts from with the custom sorts. There's also a chronological "newest" option if you ever want that though, and new activity on previously viewed posts is highlighted if you see them again. You can also post directly to a magazine without hashtags, which makes them feel more like communities.
Magazines can't be made private though, sadly that same limit of ActivityPub again. It might be worth taking a look at it though if those sound like some of the features you want!
@atocci@davidrevoy@ErikUden et puis je crois que c'est un protocole Open Source donc il y en aura peut-être des dérivés qui seront utilisés dans le futur en tout cas on verra comment se protocole évoluera soit il s'améliorera soit il disparaîtra
@atocci@davidrevoy@nico@ErikUden
That thing is way too complicated for it’s own good. Also the defaut conf directs you to matrix.org…
irc is still better and efficient anyways
@atocci@davidrevoy@nico@ErikUden and that xkcd would be right…
All those other things came and died (or will die, irc is still with us alive and kicking since 1988, 35 years ago…
@sour I'm not so sure it is. I can't see that type of dependency on Threads content or features forming. If Threads decides to abandon the ActivityPub protocol one day and defederates, why would the people here leave? It would betray the reasons everyone came here in the first place if they left just to go where the majority of the content is. How could threads meaningfully accomplish the "Extend" part of EEE anyway? As a microblogging platform, what features could Threads add that ActivityPub doesn't already provide the ability to do? It's a very flexible protocol after all. Just look at services like Peertube, Pixelfed, Lemmy, or kbin to see how adaptable it is.
@sour But why would the people who are here now leave to find more content when we already left the sites with all the content to come here? If lemmy.world were to defederate, we would be much worse off than we are now, but if Threads defederates, we'd just be back to the current state of things with all our current users. It'd be much worse for the threadiverse if lemmy.world went away than if Threads were to come and go again.
@sour The way I'm seeing it is that we are all already here and enjoying it just fine with the current amount of content we have. I assume the majority of us have experience with the amount of content we could already be getting if we were to just go back to using Twitter or Reddit or anything else. If that hasn't pulled us away yet, why would losing Threads' content?
As for the Lemmy side of things, the threadiverse specifically is incredibly small compared to the wider fediverse and it's very possible that the loss of the largest Lemmy instance would remove enough users from the equation to make things unsustainable. The rest of the threadiverse has arguably formed around lemmy.world. I don't think the same could be said for Threads though, because even without Thread's users here right now, there is a healthy amount of activity. A better Mastodon/microblog equivalent to losing lemmy.world would be the loss of mastodon.social, but I don't think even losing them would be the end of Mastodon because there are enough users on other instances for things to continue without it.
@davidrevoy
Harvesting data: if someone’s toots are public Meta (& others) can anyway right? & if someone is not on Threads Meta can’t get more than what is posted
Poor moderation: join an instance that full blocks Threads then. That’s a selling point of the Fediverse
Manipulations: not on their service so what can they manipulate?
Nothing good from their federation: except being able to interact with the millions on Threads
Don’t get me wrong, I hate Meta but fearmongering isn’t going to help
@maxmm77 Ok, good points, but I also see this side: harvesting data, on their side they can measure behavior of their audience who interacts with our post (how long a follower scroll/read my post, interact with it). And nudge them with timeline manipulation (sorting the post inside a specific context). Poor moderation is already a thing ( I see a user complaining about too many porn bots on https://www.threads.net/@zuck/post/C0zXcQmxO77/ ).
Interacting with millions on Threads: OK, this is a good thing. 1/2
@maxmm77 2/2 About manipulation, they are also known for the "pay to win" (politics, brands, etc... pay to get more visibility). This will probably have a similar effect on user of the fediverse. Thinking the network is cheated.
@davidrevoy Hey thanks for your response! You're right on harvesting Threads user interactions with Mastodon posts, & I'm sure their timelines will be manipulated. I hope the interaction allows Threads users to realize they don't need Meta messing with their feeds.
Poor moderation is a thing on Mastodon as well. I've seen all kinds of porn bots in random hashtags they don't belong in. The beauty is the option to de-federate is there & I hope that can also be a way to combat Meta "paying to win”
@maxmm77 Thank you and I agree with the defederation beauty.
Now I can also see another positive argument for this federation by the way thanks to your message: showing to their huge audience they can move to a free/libre alternative without loosing their contacts or content. That's indeed a thing to consider.
@davidrevoy@maxmm77 If Threads actually allows migration. I wouldn't be surprised if they tweak it so that leaving Threads means starting all over again instead of keeping your contact/followers.
@morganedesiv@maxmm77 Yes, that's a fair point. I know the EU law for interoperability is for somewhere soon within the decade; and I wouldn't be surprise if this move toward the Fediverse is a test to avoid a big bill in the horizon. I also don't know if this future law will constrain them to also propose a system to move followers and profile to another server. For sure, they are expert in Deceptive Designs to make a form feels and looks difficult, a burden and risky for their users.
@davidrevoy@maxmm77 I hate to break it to you but there are porn bots on Mastodon. Scroll through the federated timeline. Admins will moderate those Threads accounts just like we do when they're Mastodon accounts. There's also hate speech, racism, misinformation, etc here and we moderate that too.
If we need to create new tools to make it easier we will. We have some of the smartest people on the Internet on the fediverse. This place adapts.
Your app may not have a block domain option, if so log in with a web browser, find a threads.net account, go to it's profile, click the 3 dots & block the domain
@staringatclouds Thanks, but no problem on my side: Framapiaf , my instance managed by Framasoft blocked Threads on day one, last July, for all users of the Framapiaf instance.
@davidrevoy Let me put it this way: Yes, I care about my privacy, that's why I'm on Mastodon.
No, most other people don't care about this, and cannot be bothered to do so (their choice).
ActivityPub is a protocol like SMTP, which just means that everybody can implement a service with it, which then can interact with other services using the same protocol.
I myself am looking forward to finally be able to chat with those other people again WITHOUT HAVING TO JOIN THAT COMMERCIAL PLATFORM MYSELF.
Don't you think Meta becoming a major player in the Fedi world could push some 'security check', complexify the standard until no little project could follow, this type of things? Don't you see the dependency in case they takes it all as Gmail did?
@davidrevoy Well, as long as there is no "bold font" or anything in Mastodon, the only way to emphasize the important part is - sadly - upper case.
As such, on platforms which don't support bold or italic fonts, I myself don't equal upper case text with yelling, as I do on platforms which have those.
Maybe this is something which should be improved in Mastodon (it would be easy to use some wiki-like syntax to do so, to be honest, clients just would have to support it, no protocol change needed).
@maxmustermann@IgorRock It's insulting to read your use of autistic/autism for a software behavior that you feel is missing a feature. If you had no idea, now you know and feel free to edit. If it was on purpose, then I'll block you.
@davidrevoy@IgorRock Boom, done. Now even the Jargon should be translated correctly. Alongside the Markdown unless I was wrong about the way Mastodon's interpreter works.
A thing that used to not work with Mastodon was sharing activities that contained article-tags.
@ScottStarkey Yes, but this type of data (content) is not super interesting to them. Afaik, it's behavior data; what they'll can harvest with Threads app; how much time you scroll, when you buy stuff, what triggers you to write a comment, etc... The behavior. And they'll get the behavior of how the Fediverse outside of Threads interacts, so they'll get a better detailed profile on us as well this way.
@davidrevoy when big companies show interest in a small thing, that usually means the end times are near for tight knit niche communities as more people flood into the place.
Those who don't see any problem with Threads joining the Fediverse apparently seem to think that functioning-by-goodwill internet Federations grow on trees, and they aren't any sort of considerable loss if sidelined and subverted by the lions who know everything there is to know about taking their "lion's share".
@oneofthepetes It can, it's a per instance decision to do (users can too, they can 'block' all from an instance too but they need to find a post of the instance first afaik to access the menu to block it).
@davidrevoy i agree with the point about moderation, but i find the point about data harvesting misleading, all the data on the fediverse is free for anyone to harvest, federating with meta won't change that.
For moderation, each servers have their policy, we know how to handle that, some server can be cautious about it, others just won't give it a chance — understandably —, and others will be pretty open, we'll see how it goes.
@davidrevoy I don't think that threads needs to federate in order to harvest mastodon data. They can use the public mastodon APIs to do it.
And there are plenty of federated mastodon servers with spotty moderation.
I don't like meta, but defederation will hurt users, not the company
@periodically_pedantic The public Mastodon API is limited: in number of replies under a thread and by numbers of calls. It's probably less easy than what you think to scrap data here. Once federated, you receive a lot more data. You also can analyse the type of data they prefer: behavior.How much you spent time on what, how you interact when you put this post next to this one, or between this one. The hours, what made you pay for something, what trigger you or change your mind about something.
@davidrevoy I guess I need to dig into the activitypub spec, but don't they just need to implement an activitypub server to listen for mastodon activity?
That'd give them everything they'd get if they federated. The only time they'd get more is if you directly interact with Threads content.
@periodically_pedantic I think you are right: making a secret activity pub server could work to try to scrap the fediverse at the condition of being federated with the targets.
But maybe a server + a bot like that would be quickly visible on the log of small instances and be quickly flagged as a scrapper bot (just because it takes ressources for nothing).
I'll probably search Fediblock discussions to see if such a bot/server already was seen and blocked for this specific reason.
@davidrevoy here my ignorance of activitypub specifics is showing. I always imagine it kinda like pubsub.
The other server doesn't need to be a mastodon server, so does it even need a bot/user?
How do servers filter the content they subscribe to?
@periodically_pedantic That's true, Pleroma, Peertube, Misskey etc... can still access a lot. So the access is not Mastodon specific.
I'm not sure if they can list all the replies under a post; or they have to "Open Original" to see that. With an API key, I can list all the comments dynamically on my blog : https://www.davidrevoy.com/article1009/dont-roll-out-the-red-carpet-for-them/show#comments ( cached for 1h to be friendly with the API of my instance).
@sahat Hi, usually, each server have an "About" page, with a list at the end of moderated servers (eg. your is https://c.im/about ). About blocking them, I think blocking threads.net adress is enough but I'm not technician enough to confirm if it is an efficient method. I'm sure you'll find more advanced info on Fediblock keyword discussions.
Being mad and upset about Meta's Threads joining the Fediverse only further promotes Threads.
The best defense is not to engage and ignore.
Meta wants you to see Thread users and posts. They want you to be frustrated that the two cannot interact with one another, so that out of your frustration, you will join Threads.
Meta knows how people think and feel. What better way than to have you frustrated with the status quo and engage?
@Linux_Is_Best I largely disagree. Best defense is always to start communication about something. Not engaging and ignoring something is never effective.
Not thank you for teaching me how I should behave by the way.
@davidrevoy I thought the whole point of the fediverse was that instances were free to federate or defederate however they wished. When did we reverse that philosophy?
@therionofthebeast Yes, nothing good can come from their federation. It doesn't mean that I criticize the concept or philosophy of federate/defederate. Instances are free to defederate with them.
@davidrevoy@ariane I have a hard time understanding all this angst about Threads, besides a gross misunderstanding of how the Fediverse works. The misunderstanding is quite acceptable for an artist or most of the users, far less so for some mastodon admins who decided to block Threads.
I'm therefore inviting anyone thinking Threads is dangerous to at least read Mastodon's creator thoughs about it (and dispel some weird beliefs on the way) : https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/what-to-know-about-threads/
@Leuenberg I have a hard time understanding all that welcoming of Threads, besides a gross misunderstanding of how surveillance capitalism or Meta work. The misunderstanding is quite acceptable for technical people, but I'm quite relieved that a number of fediverse admins decided to block Threads. I'm therefore inviting anyone thinking Thread's arrival on the fediverse is ok to think again. @davidrevoy@ariane
@RLetot@davidrevoy@ariane You should really read Eugene Rochko's paper I linked, he precisely address the argument of the embrace, extend, extinguish threat using also XMPP.
TL;DR The worse that could happen to the feddiverse is stay like it is already.
Admins blocking Threads are not protecting the Fediverse, they're weakening it by refusing to their users the choice to follow or not someone on Threads.
@Leuenberg what makes you think that I have not read it ??? And that I don't just disagree with it ? Eugene is the very definition of the « technical people » to which I refer in my post, no wonder he doesn't see a problem. Thread is not connecting to the fediverse, it is allowing the fediverse to connect to and interact with it. And if you think that they're doing it out of kindness or without agenda, I don't know what to say... @davidrevoy@ariane
@Leuenberg@davidrevoy@ariane Mastodon creator didn't invent the Fediverse, wasn't here first. The Mastodon creator is very self-interested though. He had secret meetings with them too. Not interested in his opinion.
@Leuenberg@davidrevoy@ariane The way the Fediverse works on a technical level doesn't really matters, except for the fact that posts are sent very widely by default and how you'd end up with a all-or-nothing communication with Meta.
The way Meta makes money via harvesting data and people manipulation on the other hand is important, the fact that Meta is proprietary is also important because it means they can do extensions without others being easily able to follow or solve interoperability issues.
Gargron here is playing a dangerous game and is trying to lessen the harm Meta can do.
@lanodan@davidrevoy@ariane Meta CANNOT harvest data on the Fediverse, this need at least to be understood. It is this myth and some others that Gargron is trying to dispel. Honestly explaining what Meta can and can't do on the Fediverse technically is not lessening the harm Meta could do but letting people make informed choice (as long as their admins allow them to).
@Leuenberg@lanodan@ariane Do you think they'll not harvest data about what a Threads user is watching on remote instances? What content they visit, how much time they spend on it? If it triggered a compulsive buy, or writing a post? Do you think Meta will not deboost your post sent from the Fediverse on Threads, and boost artificially the brands, celebreties and politics they want, or just local users? To you think they'll do not nudge any of their users to accomplish things?
@duponin@davidrevoy@lanodan@ariane Gorgron disagrees with you here, guess who's right ? Why would Meta get more power than any other application on the fediverse ? Why would your server suddenly disclose to Meta what it is not disclosing anyway to the other servers ?
@duponin@davidrevoy@lanodan@ariane I think I understand enough to know that Meta is certainly not an issue here. But then please explain how suddenly Meta would be able to harvest your personnal data from your server ? I'm not aware of any way ActivityPub would allow you to get any information about the poster beside the thing he is posting (which is public anyway).
@Leuenberg@duponin@davidrevoy@ariane You get everything from users except email/IP/password, which is nearly useless data for the purposes of AdTech when you can get better information such as your social graph, which they get.
And personal data doesn't magically becomes detached from a person when it becomes public (which is actually not so public when it comes to profiles only visible via authenticated-fetches).
@lanodan@davidrevoy@ariane@duponin Agreed, but then it's not a concern with Meta, technically they could retrieve all the public data they want with an accounts on big instance and start playing with the APIs.
I suspect that many people freaking out about Meta have no idea of the big privacy issues intrinsic to ActivityPub, at least I know that Meta do not care about my activity since they can't monetize it. I'm not so confident about those rogue or badly maintained servers.
@Leuenberg@davidrevoy@ariane@duponin The thing which is different from Threads vs. other servers is that we can be reasonably sure right from the start that they're going to abuse the data.
And we know ActivityPub sucks about data privacy and it could do better, but we also know that enforcing data privacy via technology alone doesn't really works because otherwise you'd end up a hermit.
Never had a friend tell someone else about your secrets? Or did something a bit embarrassing in public? (Or that you'd regret years/decades later)
Meta works like a creep who would gather information about people at their expanse.
Many people seem to see this Threads federation test as a positive thing, or something to celebrate and I still have no idea why they do.
Words missing here.
@ploum@davidrevoy Can you explain which negative consequences you see from this? All the data they will get is public, so they could get it anyways. I don’t think that they can really manipulate the users of the fediverse through activity pub. Moderation may be worse, but there are laws enforcing some moderation, so it can’t be completely bad. If it really is, activity pub could possibly be extended to allow moderation of other instances instead of complete blocks.
activity pub could possibly be extended to allow moderation of other instances instead of complete blocks
What do you mean by this?> Can you explain which negative consequences you see from this? All the data they will get is public, so they could get it anyways.
Would be more difficult for them to data-mine from the outside in vs. from the inside. Additionally, I believe a big fear is that Meta will use their position and dominance to assert themselves as a chief stakeholder in the AP spec and exploit their power to push unilateral changes similar to what Google does contemporaneously with web standards. @ploum@davidrevoy
@adiz@davidrevoy@ploum@mrFred489 mastodon and pleroma both have "instance silencing" that make it so a server doesn't show any of another server's users/posts by default, except that mutual followers can still communicate. it is just ignored almost completely by mastodon people for complete blocks instead because they are control freaks.
@myrmidon I have no idea. I'm just a user. I understand those who are already defederated with them (as my instance), I understand those who are 'waiting and seeing'. But I'm also deeply concerned about those who praise this situation and try to normalise it as something positive. I don't see anything positive in it and I just wanted to say it.
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