I’m drunk. The following might be nonsensical, offensive, or both. The short version is that social media is nothing but shit. Federated social media is nothing but unnecessarily complicated shit. Caveat lector!
I had been content to ignore rumors that Facebook1 was creating a new text-based parasocial platform to compete with Twitter until now because I figure that everything is vaporware until it isn’t. Likewise, I’ll believe that this new platform will implement ActivityPub once I find myself getting follow requests from @username@threads.net
accounts unless the admins of my current Fediverse server participate in the boycott pact against Facebook’s Threads.
Unfortunately, Threads is real. I have no experience of the app because I’m not going to install the iOS app and this service doesn’t let you use it on a desktop or over the open Web. If I wasn’t aware of what an irredeemable asshole Mark Zuckerberg is, Facebook’s utter contempt for the web and desktop computer operators would make Threads a non-starter for me. As far as I’m concerned, Zuck’s new threads are fucking lame.
Then again, this is the guy whose first web app was all about aggregating photos of young women without their informed consent so that he and his college buddies could rate them a la “Hot Or Not”. This is the guy who dismissed people who trusted him with their data as “dumb fucks”.
However, I’ve got an opinion that some Fediverse fans might find offensive. I think it’s a good thing that Threads exists. I think Threads will soak up people who might otherwise try federated platforms like Mastodon and Friendica and either not stick around, or gentrify the Fediverse instead of adapting to the culture established by people who have been here for years. Such people aren’t worth bringing into the Fediverse, assuming you care about the Fediverse.
Most of the people who use Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Tiktok, etc. aren’t interested in computers or the internet or the world wide web. They don’t give a single little fucking shit about federation or decentralization. They just want appliances that they can use while remaining ignorant of how they work. They want to be Eloi and that’s fine. Honestly, it is. But let them be Eloi somewhere else, dammit, where Morlocks like me don’t have to deal with them.
This isn’t to say that I’m rooting for the existing Fediverse against Threads. I’ve long been of the opinion that Mastodon is a bad platform. While I’ve found Friendica a more congenial Fediverse platform than Mastodon, I am slowly coming to the conclusion that ActivityPub and the OStatus protocol it replaced are fundamentally bad protocols.
I’m not going to explain or justify this opinion. You can take it or leave it, knowing that my preference is for older technologies like email, IRC, static websites, and XML feeds (whether RSS or Atom). ActivityPub has more moving parts; it’s basically a messaging protocol, and it isn’t something you can implement on a static website without creating some kind of web application.
Whereas with a website, a feed, and email people can subscribe and get updates. If they want to interact with you, they can email you and retain copies of every message they send you and every message they receive. This is proven technology, ordinary peoople have been using it for years.
However, it’s tech that one must learn to use, and most people can’t be bothered. They’d rather have something “easy”, even if it’s run by people who can only be distinguished from honest crooks by virtue of having not been indicted, tried, or convicted on criminal charges yet.
So they’ll use Threads instead. Perhaps. I suspect that most of the millions of new signups that the tech press are so breathless about are bots and spammers. All I know is that I will not be there. And if Facebook ends up embracing, extending, and extinguishing ActivityPub the way they and Google did the XMPP instant messaging protocol — the way Google did their damnedest to kill RSS and Atom when they shut down Google Reader — I will be fine. I have my website. It has RSS feeds. You can email me if you want to interact.
I use ActivityPub-based social media as a compromise. It’s a way to find people with personal websites in addition to small directories, webrings, and search engines. Nevertheless, if remaining on the Fediverse becomes intolerable because of corporate encroachment I will walk away again. I’ve done it before with less cause. This is why I’ve been making a point of finding people’s websites and RSS feeds when they follow me on social.
You are welcome to do the same with me. You would be wise to do so.
If you’re a young person reading this, delete your social media accounts immediately, even if it ends up costing you friendships. Build yourself a website instead. You’ll be happier in the long run.
Corporations are not people. It is right and proper to deadname corporations; doing so preserves the memory of their malfeasance. In Facebook’s case, being accepted as “Meta” makes it easier for them to pretend Cambridge Analytica and the genocide of the Rohingya in Myanmar didn’t happen. What has Mark Zuckerberg done for you that you should forgive or forget the corruption that made him richer and more powerful than any mere man deserves?↩︎