this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2023

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Theory: the only reason Meta cares about the fediverse / ActivityPub is so that threads isn't labeled a "gatekeeper" under the EU's new "Digital Markets Act" (yiffit.net)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by Wander@yiffit.net to c/fediverse@lemmy.world

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Links to source articles below.

Yesterday 30 million users signed up for threads, which is already more than active users in the fediverse.

Furthermore, it seems that Meta hasn't launched threads in the EU due to uncertainty regarding the Digital Markets Act. It is entirely possible that their intent to federate with other Activitypub instances is entirely a cheap way to avoid being labeled a gatekeeper and avoid other regulatory requirements or restrictions.

It's future use of ActivityPub to get better publicity or scrape a bit more data might be an added benefit but not it's true purpose.

We'll see if launch in the EU goes hand in hand with them turning on Federation. I suspect that ActivityPub and the Fediverse are merely an afterthought to them and a convenient way to avoid being impacted by certain regulations.

Edit: Found a brief overview of the DMA. Among other things they say:

"The DMA aims to ensure the interoperability of messaging services allowing users on services like WhatsApp to send messages to users on smaller services like Signal"

https://youtu.be/JXdECc9D16I

Links: https://www.euronews.com/next/2023/07/06/why-has-threads-metas-answer-to-twitter-not-launched-in-the-eu

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_6423

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[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 110 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Yea, might be right. Doesn't really change anything though. We're still basically fighting for an independent Fediverse. Fucking over Zuck is just a side-benefit.

[+] neuromancer@lemmy.world 20 points 1 year ago (5 children)

[deleted]

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 44 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

In theory, however there's a saying: embrace, extend, extinguish.

Just because the standard is open doesn't mean you can't use it to strong-arm everyone else out of the market, and Meta is definitely big enough to do that.

[+] neuromancer@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 40 points 1 year ago (2 children)

ActivityPub is open, but Meta's client is not open IIRC. It can implement proprietary features that only work with other Meta clients and so they become the de facto standard, or subtly and intentionally introduce errors into the implementation of the standard to force practical usage to depend on the proprietary implementation of an open standard (say if they released an SDK), or you miss out on most of the users and content.

Microsoft has been accused of using this strategy, but I'm not an expert at describing it. Bottom line: the GPL protects how code is used for a specific project--it doesn't protect an open standard from having proprietary implementations.

[–] withabeard@lemmy.world 33 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Microsoft did this with browsers.

HTML was a thing, that was implemented by other browsers at the time. Netscape Navigator (the precursor to Firefox) was a thing that already did HTML well. It could access the world wide web, and was the defacto standard.

Microsoft introduced internet explorer, bundled with Windows. At first, internet explorer was not as good/complete/compatible as Netscape Navigator. Over time, it got better almost to parity. But it also added new features, features not in the HTML specification. They were not added to the specification, and how IE would use those features was not made public. So Netscape could not implement them.

Users started to expect those features.

Over time, more webpages would break on Netscape than on IE. Web designers wanted the fancy new features of ie. So users moved away from Netscape.

If only a number of technical users care about something, that the "mainstream" (for want of a better word) doesn't care about. Then things work less and less for the techies.

Meta could do the same with the Fediverse. As they already have market domination in other markets, they can introduce a lot of users to our "safe space". But be real if posts stop working and you as a techie knows it's because Meta have done something funky, Grandbob Jim isn't likely to care. Grandbob Jim will continue to use what "works". And some of the less techie of us will be forced to move to the MetaFediVerse to talk to our Grandbobs.

[–] henfredemars@infosec.pub 11 points 1 year ago

Thank you for explaining a real instance of this happening much better than I could.

[–] Moonguide@lemmy.world 28 points 1 year ago (2 children)

If as much as 10% of Instagram signs up for threads they'd be as big as twitter. Threads could gobble up a lot of the incoming population of the fediverse and once they have enough people, defederate from everyone else, limiting the available content to non-corpo instances. Defederating from threads is of paramount importance for the well being of the fediverse.

[–] admiralteal@kbin.social 19 points 1 year ago (2 children)

They don't need to defederate. Just extend with Theads-only features to force others to funnel into their platform or else miss content. Slowly ramp it up until the competition mostly dies out on its own.

[–] Denali@kbin.social 7 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Exactly, due to metas nearly unlimited funding they can afford extra server strain for exclusive features that you'll miss out unless you're on threads

[–] UnhappyCamper@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

I don't know if I'd feel like I'd be missing out on anything personally, I don’t have any interest in what people from Facebook or Instagram have to say as I feel like it's going to be pretty watered down interactions with little thought behind it.

If they remove themselves from the fediverse equation after amassing a following, I would hope we would be left with what we just have here at the moment, which I'm quite happy with.

[–] cloudgazing@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

that's not what zuck wants to do with threads tho

[–] Michaelmitchell@kbin.social 5 points 1 year ago

And open them up to anti-conpetitive and monopoly law suits? Meta has already been getting calls to be broken up for having the top two social medias, if they get the full trifecta then they're gonna have a tough time selling defederation to the FTC or E.U. Better for them to take 90% of the pie and allow others to fight over the scraps then try for full 100% and risk litigation.

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago

No, people seldom get overly forced into these situations. There are far more subtle, intelligent ways to handle a business rival.

[–] zakatak@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Not necessarily, it's possible that you could only use a Threads account from a Threads app. But hypothetically anyone on a federated instance could interact with a Threads user from a non-threads instance/app.

[–] grapes@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Meta will probably make it impossible to create a third-party client

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

How is Zuck being fucked over?

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 17 points 1 year ago (1 children)

In a perfect world, he doesn't get enough federation to pass the sniff test and release his product in the EU. In a fantasy world, we eventually become big enough to actually start pulling his customers away, in a way that reduces his revenues. Which we have to be separate in order to do, because otherwise he doesn't lose them when they leave.

[–] danc4498@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

I would imagine being open to federation is all that's required for the EU.

Also, defederation doesn't mean they can't access federated data. They can even interact with it. It just doesn't get synced back to the original instances.

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Also, defederation doesn’t mean they can’t access federated data

Unless Fediverse servers block Meta's servers IPs. That would be hilarious, considering how Meta and other shitty corpos blocks access from Tor and limits everything without login.

"Open internet? What open internet?"

[–] Candelestine@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

We'll see.

Correct, which would dramatically reduce its value for marketing purposes, as federated instance owners get a constant stream of far more than can be viewed publicly.

[–] jerdle_lemmy@lemmy.world 50 points 1 year ago

I don't trust them one bit, but this makes more sense than EEE. The fediverse just isn't that big. We don't have anything they want. But what they do want is to be allowed to launch Threads in the EU without DMA issues.

[–] WhoRoger@lemmy.world 34 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

That definitely makes sense.

Also, Zuck can point to us feddies not wanting to federate with him, and say "see? Interoperability is pointless, even the geeks don't want it". Which is oddly accurate...

[–] sailsperson@kbin.social 9 points 1 year ago

Also, Zuck can point to us feddies not wanting to federate with him, and say “see? Interoperability is pointless, even the geeks don’t want it”. Which is oddly accurate…

I think the easiest counter-argument here is healthy disagreement.

Being exposed to multiple opinions is undoubtedly important and is far, far better for us all in the long run than only limiting ourselves to only those opinions and views we already share or at least like, but having an option to wall somebody off on an Internet platform has its benefits, too, like not actually wasting your time in endless and fruitless arguments. As great as it would for everyone to be able to have a healthy and productive conversation about the differences in their views, it simply isn't wise to honestly expect that from everyone.

Besides, having two opposing ideas communicate on the same platform is not what the fediverse is for - not exclusively for sure. It's the freedom to self-host and self-regulate places dedicated to specific things to various degrees: lemmy.world, for instance, is wide and large and encompasses many things at once, and has an option to federate and communicate with smaller, more niche communities and vise versa, while letting the users open a single account with either.

Otherwise it's just the old Facebook formula of encouraging opposing views to constantly clash for the sake of engagement. That's just not real, not healthy, and only exists for the purpose of being some sort of KPI in a corporation perpetually hungry for money and influence. So yeah, we don't want that.

[–] faltuuser@lemmy.world 15 points 1 year ago

I think you are right.

[–] klieg2323@lemmy.piperservers.net 11 points 1 year ago

Doesn't this mean the law is working as intended?

[–] phil299@lemmy.world 10 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I guess IF the fediverse decided universally not to fed and moved the code away from threads adding features say meta did not want, then they would be seen as de-facto gatekeeper again.

[–] baked_tea@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago (1 children)

If fediverse universally decides, its democracy vs single company no?

[–] klieg2323@lemmy.piperservers.net 2 points 1 year ago

Not really. Each instance gets to decide for themselves wether or not to defederate. It is an active choice that has to be made for those which federation is on by default.

[–] admin@leddit.minnal.icu 8 points 1 year ago

My be they see the idea of a federated internet a threat to their whole business plan, where they have no control. So I believe their plan is to undermine it somehow 👽

[–] blazera@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Scumbag company avoids regulation with underhanded tactics, by just following the regulations as intended...

[–] Very_Bad_Janet@kbin.social 4 points 1 year ago

Or... to prevent being accused of duplicating Twitter. Being a Fediverse instance gives Meta some cover:

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/06/twitter-meta-lawsuit-threads-app-musk-zuckerberg

[–] pjhenry1216@kbin.social 2 points 1 year ago

Isn't Meta specifically not releasing Threads in EU due to privacy reasons? I don't think ActivityPub changes that.

[–] ImTiagoSousa@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can someone confirm this is even right? I have friends in the EU with accounts and following me. Not to mention there’s EU companies in there, like the ESA and Ryanair.

[–] Wander@yiffit.net 1 points 1 year ago

Apparently you can use it if you just download the apk file from a third party mirror site, but it's not available via app stores.

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