Activitypub is the standard all the fediverse application use, and that’s what makes the various apps cross compatible (you can reply to a Lemmy thread from another Lemmy instance, or from a kbin one or even from Mastodon).
This standard is used by various WebApps to provide social networks experiences akin to the big centralized networks.
Lemmy and kbin work like reddit.
Mastodon and pleroma do microblogging (default message length is 500 char, can be modified on each server though).
PeerTube is a distributed YouTube alternative, again using activitypub to federate.
Now thread is a new microblogging app by Instagram and it happens to use activitypub, which means it could be interconnected with fediverse apps. You could in theory follow and interact with its users from any of the fediverse apps. But this feature is not on from their side at the moment. And many fediverse server admins plan to block federation with threads.net because they don’t trust Instagram / meta.
What could happen is what did happen to XMPP / jabber.
Google embraced it for its instant messaging app, then after it had become the provider with the largest user base of said standard, it simply changed the underlying tech it used and stopped using the standard. To google users, their weird contacts that were not on the google ecosystem simply vanished, but they were a small number of people. To the users of xmpp servers, many of their contacts on the google side of things became unreachable again.
Now that’s a thing that can happen if threads.net becomes the largest fediverse instance over time and loosing access to these users is a big detriment to users of other instances.
However, I couldn’t care less if I lose access to the posts of threads.net users. I don’t intend to interact with them at all. I don’t use any mainstream social media at the moment, and I don’t miss the ads, the drama, and the “normie” users, for lack of a better term.
It’s a system for publishing your posts and comments. That is literally what it is for: making them public. When you post, you thereby willingly surrender control over whose computer your message might be copied to.
The Lemmy server software, in particular, defaults to open federation. This means that the “normal” mode of operation is literally to permit absolutely anyone anywhere in the world to read (or otherwise process) whatever you’re posting.
So you can’t reasonably expect to prevent or deter someone from using the material that you have caused to be delivered onto their own hard drive.
It would be interesting to require as a condition of federation that all posted content be placed under a share-alike license like CC BY-SA: you may do whatever you like with it, but you must cite your sources, and the work you create thereby must also be reshareable under the same terms.
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !outoftheloop@lemmy.world
A community that helps people stay up to date with things going on.
Activitypub is the standard all the fediverse application use, and that’s what makes the various apps cross compatible (you can reply to a Lemmy thread from another Lemmy instance, or from a kbin one or even from Mastodon).
This standard is used by various WebApps to provide social networks experiences akin to the big centralized networks.
Lemmy and kbin work like reddit.
Mastodon and pleroma do microblogging (default message length is 500 char, can be modified on each server though).
PeerTube is a distributed YouTube alternative, again using activitypub to federate.
Now thread is a new microblogging app by Instagram and it happens to use activitypub, which means it could be interconnected with fediverse apps. You could in theory follow and interact with its users from any of the fediverse apps. But this feature is not on from their side at the moment. And many fediverse server admins plan to block federation with threads.net because they don’t trust Instagram / meta.
Some people are claiming that it’s going to ruin the fediverse. Could that actually happen?
What could happen is what did happen to XMPP / jabber.
Google embraced it for its instant messaging app, then after it had become the provider with the largest user base of said standard, it simply changed the underlying tech it used and stopped using the standard. To google users, their weird contacts that were not on the google ecosystem simply vanished, but they were a small number of people. To the users of xmpp servers, many of their contacts on the google side of things became unreachable again.
Now that’s a thing that can happen if threads.net becomes the largest fediverse instance over time and loosing access to these users is a big detriment to users of other instances.
However, I couldn’t care less if I lose access to the posts of threads.net users. I don’t intend to interact with them at all. I don’t use any mainstream social media at the moment, and I don’t miss the ads, the drama, and the “normie” users, for lack of a better term.
If activitypub is open source, now is the time to lock it under a license that forbids unethical data gathering.
It’s a system for publishing your posts and comments. That is literally what it is for: making them public. When you post, you thereby willingly surrender control over whose computer your message might be copied to.
The Lemmy server software, in particular, defaults to open federation. This means that the “normal” mode of operation is literally to permit absolutely anyone anywhere in the world to read (or otherwise process) whatever you’re posting.
So you can’t reasonably expect to prevent or deter someone from using the material that you have caused to be delivered onto their own hard drive.
It would be interesting to require as a condition of federation that all posted content be placed under a share-alike license like CC BY-SA: you may do whatever you like with it, but you must cite your sources, and the work you create thereby must also be reshareable under the same terms.