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How can we keep the fediverse federated? (self.programming)

submitted 1 year ago by Phileosopher to c/programming

19 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I only partly live under a rock, so I've now heard that the Facebooks is making Threads, and it'll talk to Mastodon.

Any idea how to keep them from taking over? Apparently, you're a weirdo these days if you use Firefox, Brave/Qwant, and trust FLOSS > proprietary.

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (2 children)

https://fedipact.online/ for one, but it's important to realize Facebook isn't the only company that tries to pull embrace, extend, extinguish. Even lemmy.ml or mastodon.social (being by far the most popular instances in their networks) are vulnerable to compromise. It's up to the users to distribute themselves across enough instances that one individual instance can't call the shots.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 1 year ago

Also it would seem worthwhile not to create all the communities on just the most popular instances. Distribute the communities around too.

[–] jadero 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Edit: this comment changed my mind. In a nutshell, if we can't keep a large instance controlled by "the enemy" from destroying what we've got, then we just have to do better next time.

Threads or whatever Meta might introduce is just a specific example of the problem with a controlling instance.

Bitcoin has to take steps to avoid a 51% attack lest the whole thing come crashing down.

Condo buyers have to make sure they are not buying into something where the developer keeps over half of the units as rentals in order to control the board.

I think the fediverse has to also guard against any one instance hosting too large a fraction of users. I'm not sure that it even takes being as big as half the users. I'm not sure what a critical mass would be, but I'm sure that a large enough instance could "go critical."