Are we going to block Meta’s Threads.net? I get it if people want to keep things open. However, Meta is a proven bad actor. They claim they didn’t put in ActivityPub because it was too complicated to get it done at launch, and they can’t get EU approval of their service because of the rampant and invasive data they gather. IMHO, they are going to attempt to muscle the fediverse out of the equation.
This is a good analysis, but I think you’re missing one important factor, in assuming that Facebook-quality content is purely the result of the users on Facebook. Sure, there are a lot of jerks on Facebook, but more than that, Facebook knows that enragement drives engagement, and uses an array of psychological tricks to push that. They also have a proven track record of poor moderation. So in Facebook land, the most toxic voices are amplified, and regular folks are constantly pushed to be more aggressive. Wouldn’t we want to block any instance that acted like that?
This is my biggest concern as well. Especially with the ties to Instagram, I have a feeling that Threads is going to have a similar majority-right wing userbase like Instagram does and have problems with things like, as with Instagram, rampant transphobia and racism.
This is a good point. They would be able to manipulate the feeds of users on their servers. And if the algorithmically inspire bad content above some threshold, that would be a concrete reason for instances to defederate. But I still wouldn’t defederate preemptively.