I had completely forgotten Facebook’s Threads even existed. I can’t see this being enough to resurrect any momentum?
"The fediverse feed isn’t algorithmically ranked, or subject to any of Threads’ rules or moderation; it’s just a reverse-chronological feed of stuff you follow."
That's great! Any step we can take away from ultra-algorithimically-optimized feeds, the better, I think. Normalize reverse-chronological feeds again.
When that changes, or it gets plastered in ads, my feelings will be "well that was good while it lasted". Until then, I'm choosing not to doom say about it.
I'm also familiar with positive reinforcement.
If/when they start touching the reverse-chronological feed with algorithms I'll call it out. Until that time, I'm happy that it's a non-algorithmic feed and will say so.
(It's also not clear to me what "extinguish" would look like here. If Threads starts messing with the feed, just go view it anywhere else you view you fediverse feeds)
(Edit) Examples:
- Google and RSS
- Slack and IRC
- Google (chrome) and web standards
- Apple (iMessage) and SMS
I'm happy that there's a non-algorithmic feed in a Meta app. I think that's good for society.
I'm not focused on how this means Meta will be the fediverse overlord in the future, once they release some fediverse-killing feature. When that time comes, I'll be sure to rally against it.
Edit:
To be fair - "extinguish" is not entirely accurate..RSS, IRC, etc still exist - they're just ghost towns.
Until then, I'll be happy that millions of people can get non-algoirthmic feeds.
I don’t really understand why you’re so excited about getting something you already get but now packaged by a monopoly platform?
Extinguish here means they start siphoning users off the fediverse. We’ve seen this many times before.
They are doing what I think is a good thing so I said "good".
>you’re so excited
I'm not "so excited". I'm offering a not negative opinion. Weird, on an HN topic about Meta, I understand.
Having a non-algorithmic feed in a Meta app is good. When Meta overtakes the fediverse or whatever because of it, somehow, let's chat again.
What’s the point if the algorithm buries it
Any open protocol will always be subject to competition, that's the point of it being open. If someone adopts that protocol and supercedes it because they add stuff that people want, that's how it goes. If people don't want that to happen, they need to stay on their toes and extend protocols quickly driven by user demand. That's really why a lot of protocol based ecosystems get absorbed, they stagnate.
If you create something under conditions that by definition must be robust enough to repel adversial use and it doesn't, what's the point in blaming the bad actor
1) Yay! That's great that meta is helping popularize Fediverse!
2) It's a trap.
I'm in camp (2) - just trying to show people the trap before they step in it. It doesn't matter anyway, these kind of warnings have never, ever worked. Just let the old man shake his fist at the clouds FFS :) Where else am I supposed to do it? Threads?
ActivityPub in the form of Mastodon will probably never be as big as Twitter was, or as Threads could become if Facebook pushes it hard enough, but I'm fine with that. That's not really a place I would like to hang out, and I like my Masto instance.
Imagine putting the Meta/Twitter/Reddit world behind you, posting on Bluesky/Mastodon, and then your content is showing up on Threads next to influencer garbage, AI slop, culture wars, crypto spam, pillow ads.
And just as bad or worse, content from those places flooding your parachute community. Those sites function best now as quarantine.
Isn't that the whole point of the fediverse? You're distributing your content to other people and lose control of the context it is displayed in.
It just won't be good when some high quality small or mid sized community absorbs everything posted to Threads or Tiktok, for example. That's when it loses its identity.
Oh, so not real important. I follow some Threads accounts on Mastodon, but very few have clicked the button to enable that. I've even asked professional organizations to do that and they refused. Mark Cuban complains on Bluesky about their dwindling user base, but he refuses to bridge his account.
sneak•7mo ago
Sounds like redistribution and perhaps public performance of copyrighted content without a license.
JCattheATM•7mo ago
Unless they take from a server with a more permissive license that had the right to distribute it...
Kind of hard to stop it since stuff being federated and re-distributed is kind of the point.
I guess you could refuse permission to corporations operating something like threads specifically.
guywithahat•7mo ago
JCattheATM•7mo ago
sneak•7mo ago
I could legitimately DMCA most of the fediverse right now if I wanted to.
_flux•7mo ago
I wonder if one could also DMCA ISPs providing proxy services, IRC or NNTP on the same terms and be successful.
tuckerman•7mo ago
johnklos•7mo ago
emaro•7mo ago
tuckerman•7mo ago
If someone is more concerned about training models on the data and whether that is legal or not, I assume Meta could easily be doing that already if they wanted to via scraping.
sneak•7mo ago
Posting on a server that federates doesn’t grant anyone a copyright license to the content you post, regardless of the fact that you can choose a server that doesn’t federate.
rustc•7mo ago
[1]: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2025/jun/06/uk-government-si...
qualeed•7mo ago
Out of curiosity, why did you self-censor facebook? Does it keep the AI away, or something?
SiempreViernes•7mo ago
sneak•7mo ago
Also, most people don’t make money by running an instance of Mastodon. Meta is absolutely using the UGC displayed on their platform to make money.