We kindly ask everyone to engage in civil discourse and remember that not everyone will share the same opinions, which is perfectly acceptable.

It’s really actually not acceptable to ignore what a bad actor Facebook/Meta has been. Catch up on the news if you need to. Cambridge Analytica scandal, unwitting social experiments, and the insane amount of intrusive permissions required just to use threads etc. They’ve been anti-consumer in an almost dystopian way and failing to call that out is an immoral stance. There’s really no polite way to say, “that’s a hell no, fix your attitude, or I’m out.” That people have characterized folks telling you this is a deal-breaker as “blackmail” is the absurd stance here. We’re asking you to stay true to the anti-corporate “power to the people” spirit that created Lemmy in the first place and call out Meta for being an obviously bad actor in this space, as a bunch of Reddit refugees… You actually arguing against this and acting like “both sides are fine” about it is being completely tone-deaf and is 100% antithetical to the purpose of the fediverse.

“All that is necessary for evil to succeed is that good men do nothing.” You’ve already committed to doing nothing during an important time with a “wait and see” attitude. Meta is still a face-eating leopard, a frog-stinging scorpion, or whatever analogy does it for ya. It’s not a tough choice and there IS a right and wrong answer.

An address to @Ruud and the lemmy.world team:

I would like to start by expressing my sincere gratitude and appreciation for the hard work you’ve done with lemmy.world. But I am strongly opposed to federating with Threads. Please read this comment in full, as I believe it outlines our community’s sentiment and reservations.

I think it might be helpful to use an analogy that I think will help express the feelings of many of those within our community regarding the problem with the “wait and see” approach.

What’s to say Threads won’t follow in their very well-established footprints under Meta as a company?

If I go to a friend’s house and their child spits in my face every time, I don’t want to go to my friend’s house. I tell them this. The friend says, “Well this time just might be different, let’s just wait and see!” Meanwhile, this kid spits in my face without fail, every chance they get. There is a very consistent and pervasive pattern of this.

Why should I believe this kid won’t spit in my face all of a sudden, when they’ve taken every single chance they could repeatedly, knowing that it was wrong and not caring what repercussions would befall them? Do you really think this kid is going to refrain from spitting in my face this time?

The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. -Albert Einstein.

Meta/FB have continually demonstrated their core business practices are unethical and that they will continue carrying them out without regard for laws or their users’ well-being. There’s no reason to wait and see. It’s not logical to believe this time will be different.

Threads would bring such a large influx of hateful, racist, violent, bigoted political extremists to the fediverse. They will also do whatever they can to exploit users on this site for their own gain. Their modus operandi has been to exploit their users.

Instead of just conjecture and analogies, I will now provide factual information regarding Meta’s practices as a company.

This really should be obvious by now… but Meta mines and sells their user’s information. Just look at the permissions you have to grant them for Threads… That alone should tell you there’s no reason to “wait and see.” Just look right now. They haven’t changed…

FB users have to agree to all sorts of unethical things in the TOS, including giving Meta permission to run unethical experiments on their users without informed consent. Their first published research was where they manipulated users’ feeds with positive or negative information, in order to see if it affected their mood. It did, and they successfully induced depression in many of their users!

Meta has played a very key role in spreading misinformation, perpetuating dangerous conspiracy theories, and radicalizing the alt right. This is present across nations, but it certainly contributed heavily to the climate of political extremism that led to a mass of insurrectionists to attempt to overthrow my duly elected government…

I will now turn to an article that surmises well the core practices of Meta as a company:

• Elevates disinformation campaigns and conspiracy theories from the extremist fringes into the mainstream, fostering, among other effects, the resurgent anti-vaccination movement, broad-based questioning of basic public health measures in response to COVID-19, and the proliferation of the Big Lie of 2020—that the presidential election was stolen through voter fraud [16];

• Empowers bullies of every size, from cyber-bullying in schools, to dictators who use the platform to spread disinformation, censor their critics, perpetuate violence, and instigate genocide;

• Defrauds both advertisers and newsrooms, systematically and globally, with falsified video engagement and user activity statistics;

• Reflects an apparent political agenda espoused by a small core of corporate leaders, who actively impede or overrule the adoption of good governance;

• Brandishes its monopolistic power to preserve a social media landscape absent meaningful regulatory oversight, privacy protections, safety measures, or corporate citizenship; and

• Disrupts intellectual and civil discourse, at scale and by design.

I ask you now if you truly believe this is the sort of player you want on the Fediverse? Do you really want to federate lemmy.world with such a blatantly immoral and detrimental corporation?

I have really enjoyed my time here on Lemmy.world and have so greatly appreciated the hard work of you and your team. I have been donating to you to help with the costs of running this instance.

However, federating with Threads contradicts my philosophy and ethical principles, and I will be sadly canceling my donations and finding a new home should we federate with Threads in the future. I firmly believe that most users on lemmy.world share this sentiment. I hope this comment helped express the resistance and fears of our community.

Once again, I appreciate all the work you guys have done. But I respectfully and severely dissent on this issue.

@[email protected]

If Lemmy.world federates with Meta/Threads, I will delete my accounts and ditch Lemmy altogether.

It’s shameful that this is even up for discussion.

What an embarrassment.

I’ll move to a different instance the day Lemmy.World federates with Threads. I came here to avoid corporate influence over my social media, especially from Facebook.

Instance Blocking - Unlike Mastodon, Lemmy does not provide a feature for individual users to block an instance (yet).

This is the real problem.

While I think that we should rightly be very wary of Threads/Meta, I do also think that it is still too early to judge. It’s hard to accurately predict what will happen in the future given the relative youth of Lemmy and the Fediverse. (Admittedly, I’m also relatively new to the Fediverse, so what do I know?) Given Meta’s track record, we should be very aware of the possible red flags and make plans for possible future malicious actions, but for now I’m okay with waiting and watching.

I want to stay federated with threads and oppose defederation. Just putting it out there.