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is testing federation for a few selected profiles. I'm now following @mosseri! It's one-way for now, but it's exciting. It's a step towards the interoperable social web that we've been advocating for 🙂

If you’ve got questions about what interoperability with means, we wrote this up back in July, and you can still refer to it:

blog.joinmastodon.org/2023/07/

Mastodon BlogWhat to know about Threads
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Eugen Rochko

Make no mistake, this is huge for Mastodon. Currently people have to choose between X, Mastodon, and Threads, and network effects play a dominant role in that choice. If we can say, you can access all the folks that went to Threads from a Mastodon account, that makes it a far more attractive option given all of its other perks 😉

@Gargron I, for one, am looking forward to this. It's one more nail in X's coffin. Some of my friends moved to Threads, so now I can follow them again.

Others moved to Bluesky. I can't follow them YET, but it seems they're also trialling federation, so I might be able to soon.

Pretty soon, anyone still on X and nowhere else is really going to start feeling the isolation.

@GrahamDowns @Gargron oh but you can :)

@aoc.bsky.social @jay.bsky.team etc

and if you thought that was cool, how about following X accounts on the Fediverse? @elonmusk

@spiritedpause @Gargron That's incredible!

Is that a two-way thing? Can those bsky people follow me back? And if I reply to their posts, will see my replies and be able to reply back?

And how do I know whether to use bsky.social or bsky.team? Or are they interchangeable?

@spiritedpause And oh yes, I know about bird.makeup. But that's just one-way. I'm looking for full two-way interaction. It looks like that's what Threads wants to offer us. @Gargron

@GrahamDowns @Gargron It's only one way right now until Bluesky turns on their federation. Once they do, they'll be able to see replies from Mastodon accounts, since this bridge will create a Bluesky profile that mirrors your Mastodon account and its posts/replies.

bsky.social and bsky.team are just different "instances" on bluesky. Just so happens that AOC uses the bsky.social instance that most users do, while Bluesky team members use bsky.team

@spiritedpause Ah. OK, cool. I get it now. Shows how little I know about Bluesky. ;-) @Gargron

@spiritedpause @GrahamDowns they are not different instances, bluesky only has one instance for now because it has no federation working in production yet. the domain of a bluesky handle is unrelated to instances.

@spiritedpause @GrahamDowns @Gargron @aoc.bsky.social @jay.bsky.team @elonmusk@bird.makeup

I see no posts on all of those accounts - am I missing something? Something I have to enable?

@nickc @GrahamDowns @Gargron @aoc.bsky.social @jay.bsky.team The posts aren’t coming through yet, it’s either because they haven’t federated yet or it’s something @snarfed.org is still working on for the bridge

@GrahamDowns @Gargron you won't be able to follow people on Bluesky "ever". The federation there is only among bluesky's servers. They use a completely different protocol, by choice 🤷🏻‍♂️

@jsbarretto @GrahamDowns @Gargron correct. Bridges exist already I think. But you need a third party thing to connect the two.

@andreagrandi @GrahamDowns @Gargron But Bluesky could easily build just a bridging layer into their infrastructure if they wanted to.

@Gargron that's also my take. I am curious to see what Threads quote posts would look like on Mastodon though. (Still personally really excited about that roadmap item.)

@antimnguyen @Gargron there is already Fediverse software that supports quotes so probably something similar to Pleroma?

@tkk13909 @Gargron other Fediverse platforms with quote posting indeed exist, but I was hoping to address the claim that this was good for Mastodon, where Mastodon does have many perks compared to Threads, but quote posting is a significant feature difference between both Threads and Mastodon when it comes to interoperability. (But again, I am aware that this is a roadmap item so it will be eventually addressed.)

@antimnguyen @Gargron and I'm saying that you can already see quote posts on Mastodon so it'll probably look like how it does currently until something changes.

@tkk13909 @Gargron ah I see, my mistake! I'm currently using the default Mastodon Android client so I wasn't aware that the platform already supported it.

@antimnguyen @Gargron well quote posts from other platforms don't necessarily show up how you would expect them to in Mastodon similar to how Lemmy threads technically show up properly in the Mastodon app IIRC. Mastodon doesn't have either of the features but since it's using ActivityPub, it can still see the posts.

@Gargron yes, I'd like to keep my home base here, but have access to the other platforms through the bridges. Hopefully, everyone behaves.

@Gargron except for the trigger happy admins already blocking threads for whatever reason lol

@Arataka Zuckerberg is a known bad actor who associates with openly fascist people.

@Arataka @Gargron there are many who suspect Meta from doing to Mastodon what eg Google did to XMPP and will do what they can to prevent it: ploum.net/2023-06-23-how-to-ki

ploum.netHow to Kill a Decentralised Network (such as the Fediverse)
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@Arataka @Gargron According to some evidence, META has already shown their true colors by flagging links to instances that block Threads as potentially in support of terrorism.

There was never even an attempt at good faith from Meta's side.

@Arataka @Gargron Seriously. There’s a lot of people (admins and users both) on Mastodon that seem very certain they know the “right” way to use the Fediverse

@Gargron Also puts pressure on Bluesky (which has some traction in some German bubbles) to federate fast, too.

@dailybug Bluesky uses a completely different protocol and won't be ever compatible with ActivityPub that Masto and fedi co are using.

@Gargron

@brawaru Thanks for making me aware of this! I was under the impression that the AT Protocol behind Bluesky was supposed to connect to ActivityPub eventually, but reading up on it, you are right: that's not their plan.

@Gargron

@dailybug @Gargron Bluesky is going to support federation, but using AT Protocol instead of ActivityPub.

@Gargron I’m really excited for this. I’ve mainly been using Threads because people I wanted to follow were more active there, but I’m way more inclined to spend time on Mastodon if I can see everything there at the same time.

@connor @Gargron I'm hoping that's what happens and it's not just an EEE plot.

@Gargron Very exciting! Will Threads folks be able to see it if we @ them?

@jamonbull ideally they should. Right now the implementation is super janky, is my best guess. @Gargron

@Gargron do we really believe that they are doing this because they believe in supporting the fediverse?

@jaryl @Gargron No, they’re doing it for their own benefit obvi. Why would we need them to be immaculate to benefit?

@dogzilla @Gargron because they have a game plan on how to win, and here we are celebrating their kick off announcement.

@jaryl @Gargron Counterpoint: all those folks on corporate social media will now be exposed to the Fediverse and some percentage will decide Masto is a better option since they can still communicate with their existing connections. Just because corporations have a plan doesn’t mean they will succeed.

@jaryl @Gargron I mean - you can always just block them, or ask your admin to, or spin up your own instance (I suggest Masto.host). There’s so many ways to have exactly the Fediverse you want. What more plan do we need?

Or is this about some kind of revenge?

@jaryl @Gargron The world is full of gullible people and plenty of people ready to exploit them for their own gain, unfortunately :cat_frown:

@Gargron i totally agree. I think this could be a great boost for Mastodon.

@Gargron@mastodon.social
Welcome your corporate overlord! All hail lord Zuckerturd!

@Sonnenbrand @Gargron indeed as their data handling doesn’t comply with EU rules.

This would at least be something of a workaround for EU folk to follow Threads users (setting aside the concerns over Threads data handling for a moment)

@Gargron This is awesome! I was able to follow @mosseri from my #Mastodon, #Misskey & #Pixelfed accounts!

This is huge, especially when you consider many people, politicians & brands on #Threads will consider setting up their own instances under their own domain & connect with the rest of the #Fediverse!

Also with prominent sites using #WordPress, we could see everyone from #NASA to the #WhiteHouse join the Fediverse (pending activation of the #ActivityPub plugin).

@darnell isn't the wordpress plugin already active?

@trekman10 For some sites that installed the plugin yes. Many have yet to install it though.

@darnell speaking of which, recommend any?

@darnell @Gargron How does it work? Is Threads only federating with certain servers. I’m unable to follow or view any profiles or posts on Threads from my Mastodon account.

@ramsey @darnell @Gargron
Maybe your instance admin is one of those who DNS blocked everything related to threads and therefor actively de-federated them?

@ramsey @Gargron #Threads is only activating #ActivityPub for select accounts like @mosseri for testing purposes. The rest are not active yet.

#Flipboard is doing something similar (see @mike & @espn).

@darnell @Gargron That makes sense. Still doesn’t make sense why I can’t load those accounts through Mastodon or follow them, even though, clearly, others on my server were able to follow them.