The really fun part about a one-way feed from Meta Threads to #Mastodon is that when you see total disinformation from there, you can't reply or comment in any other way back to the post. It's just a one-way vomitus feed.
Will they ever permit replies back? I assume eventually, but they will want to very tightly moderate and control those, because they won't want to be inundated with CSAM and other garbage that flows forth from various Mastodon sites.
@lauren
Google is apparently disconnecting from usenet soon. Just seen as a posting from someone else:
"Effective February 15, 2024, Google Groups will no longer support new Usenet content. Posting and subscribing will be disallowed, and new content from Usenet peers will not appear. Viewing and searching of historical data will still be supported as it is done today."
#usenet still lives but on various occasions has been a source of spam (apparently currently happening). Whether losing Google will be ultimately good or bad is yet to be seen.
That’s not quite right. With the way Fediverse is designed you CAN reply back, and others can see those replies calling out disinformation, even if the replies never get back to the ones posting it, who presumably might not care anyway.
This is the same as people complaining today about blocked users being able to reply.
Well, that, which so many consider a bug, would be a feature in this context.
@volkris If you can't reply to the original post, it's whistling in the wind. For that matter, the Mastodon topology is so weak that you can't even see many of the replies to your own posts here. Still pretty much a toy.
@lauren I am also guessing (hoping?) that they reference one of the many Mastodon block lists for their own instances. That should help them keep a large portion of gross content off of Threads (not all, to be sure).
@kkeller Those block lists tend to be somewhat problematic. My policy is not to use them on a proactive basis, but when I receive a particular reply that falls into that sphere, I will check the lists to see if the source instance is already listed. Usually if so I will block the entire instance at that point rather than the individual user.
@lauren my understanding is that, right now, it's a one-way feed from a small subset of Threads users (just Meta employees, IIRC). That's not a huge problem.
Their next step will give a better indication of Meta's intent. If they implement two-way feeds from a small subset of users, that's a positive sign (we should still be wary!). But if they go to one-way feed of most or all users, we'll know for sure they are disingenuous, and should block their instances.
@lauren They already confirmed full federation including account migration. Moderation would probably happen the same way it does here - instances that don’t comply with Threads’ TOS would be defederated and won’t be able to interact. Much like in the real world this does mean that Threads will effectively set a minimum standard for TOS across the Fediverse.
Threads will only be setting an minimum standard for TOS across the Fediverse if people on the Fediverse tend to care what Meta thinks. Which I’m not sure they do.
We’ve already seen significant calls for minimal TOS on Fediverse and they haven’t really worked.
@volkris@violetathena Keep in mind that eventually regulators will start paying attention to Mastodon, probably starting with the largest sites. Of particular note right now in the UK, of course.
@lauren idk about the UK, but EU regulations only kick in after a social network reaches a certain number of users which no Mastodon instance is even close to. In fact Threads would be the only ActivityPub enabled service that will have to comply with regulations atm.
Add comment