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this post was submitted on 13 Jul 2023
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Privacy
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Question - If Threads become a part of Fediverse, will they be able to collect the telemetry, such as who saw a post on their server, for how long did they look at an image etc, if we are using an instance other that Threads' official server?
Short answer, probably not. Long answer, they may try, but everything needs to be within spec of ActivityPub and that at least means if they do inject something like that, itll be easier to find and developers can filter it out. So I'm hoping Meta realizes it's a draw and not try. They could try to put in recommendations to the spec, but I don't see those getting passed very easily. W3C wouldn't bow to them that easily. They do have centralized power, but their power inside is fairly spread out, so they'd need to appeal to a lot of people, many of whom are very principled.
For example, a very basic concept is the tracking pixel. Embed an image the size of a pixel and host it on a server that tracks requests to it. It's not a very advanced tracking system, but it's common in emails and the like so as to guage how many people read an email or something. Broad metrics, but metrics nonetheless. If Meta automatically injects these into posts, it's easy enough for developers to either filter out images below a certain resolution or simply disallow images from certain hosts. And it's 'easy' because there's limited places where Meta can place it so folks who watch out for this kind of stuff will be able to see any trickery Meta tries to pull.
Edit to add: also, many local methods of preventing tracking may also help. Hardening your hosts file or setting up a DNS black hole like PiHole for example. I highly suggest looking into PiHole if you haven't already and are serious about not being tracked. It may not stop all, but it can stop a lot.
They don't do so for Google either, but Google still does shit like this.
They could absolutely include extensions to ActivityPub to their instances, even sell it in a freemium model for companies. Host your instance on Threads instead of Mastodon and get "analytics".
It wouldn't work with any other instance though. You can extend it all you want, but the other instances need to comply. That's why the extension prong of EEE doesn't really work here. It only applies to themselves. They can extend it all they want but they'll only get metrics from themselves and other Threads-based instances.
Other Threads instances will comply, and Meta can court big instances to use the extended Threads API, and you will see small instances to follow the flock.
Big instances would instantly lose every instance other than Meta's. Why would they ever do that? Especially when the biggest instances are mostly approaching Meta with caution if not already defederating?
The fediverse doesn't handle rogue actors all that well if they change the literal language used to communicate. It breaks it. Even Microsoft, the one who basically invented the strategy decided against it in the end. They broke the internet for a long while, but only because they were in a much stronger position than, say, Netscape, which was originally designed to fail anyway.
Meta would need to change the actual protocol if they wanted to get anywhere. Even then, instances can simply refuse to upgrade.
It is much more difficult than you think. And id much rather users see they can live without Threads than to force them into Meta's corner. I'd rather help people get away rather than ignore their existence. If Threads is too annoying overall, I'll vote defederate. But I want to see what happens first.