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Why I probably won't defederate from Threads
(plume.helios42.de)
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this post was submitted on 05 Jul 2023
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I understand a lot of the arguments made and in reality you're right, if they want our data, they'll get it.
However, I also think that making it as difficult and therefore expensive as possible for them is a legitimate way to respond and make it clear to them that they are here on sufferance and not welcome. That might be seen as immature and pointless and maybe that's so, but I do think it's important to defederate from Threads to demonstrate our collective unwillingness to become their commodity.
Your argument is fully valid and defederating might be the right thing to do for you.
In the end, I have to weigh their cost to scrape my data against my cost to access content that I need. As someone who has built scrapers for scientific purposes before, I can tell you that building something that scrapes Mastodon and Lemmy instances is not a single cent more expensive than getting my data through federation. It's also probably a lot more reliable because they can get everything, not just what their users subscribe to. On the other hand, my cost for accessing my friends' and family's posts as well as corporate social media accounts if I don't do it through federation is creating an account in their proprietary app. And then they will be able to get a lot more of my data than they could ever scrape from my Mastodon profile.
I take your points entirely and I do understand why you feel the way you do. Maybe what I'm saying is more symbolic - a gesture - than a realistic chance of fending them off but I do feel it's important to send that message, even if it costs them nothing financially.
I only use one Meta product (FB) and only that because its a way to stay in contact with family and friends that are just not technically able to migrate to a healthier platform but I don't use their app. I use the website, with Social Fixer, in a Firefox Container and use Frost on my phone. I have managed to get all my family and some friends to switch to Signal rather than WhatsApp and I have zero interest in Instagram. I think using mitigating methods and technologies like these, in conjunction with defederating from Threads (is it going to be one central instance?) is a viable way forward.
I don't see who this gesture is aimed at. Meta execs won't care. They lose nothing. The result will be the exact same as building a closed platform from the start. And the users won't even notice because the mainstream doesn't even know that the fediverse exists.
I agree that getting people away from Meta should be our priority. But we don't do that by cutting them off from the fediverse and then begrudgingly making a Threads account to talk to the people we haven't won over yet. We do that by showing them that there alternatives that they can use without losing access to the content they already follow.
Sure, Zuck isn't going to give two shits that you and I might defederate from Threads and maybe it is just a gesture but I still think it's one worth making. The crux of it is - do they care enough about getting the data from .world or .helios42.de to go to the trouble of building a scraper? If they don't, then defederating is the right thing to do, in my opinion. If they do then you're right, its pointless.
There's also the case where it is ILLEGAL for them to try to procure our data through non-consensual means. This is why threads is not launching in Europe.