#indieweb 2023-07-06

2023-07-06 UTC
Logan1, geoffo, lockywolf and JohnBeales joined the channel
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[tantek] lol the IG prompt to download Threads, I took a screenshot but here's the text
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[tantek] "Say more with Threads — Instagram’s new text app"
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[tantek] "tantek, claim your username and connect with the 69 people waiting to follow you."
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[tantek] wow totally bootstrapping from IG. username (can't change), profile bio, link, photo (opt-in), followings (opt-in, default all the same)
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[tantek] A final prompt screen before "Join Threads" with a few "Learn more" links:
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[tantek] https://help.instagram.com/788669719351544
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[tantek] The Fediverse: https://help.instagram.com/169559812696339
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[tantek] Your data: https://help.instagram.com/581066165581870, https://help.instagram.com/769983657850450, https://privacycenter.instagram.com/policy, https://help.instagram.com/515230437301944
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[tantek] well well well, their read UX doesn't suck
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[tantek] reader *UX. except for one minor detail. the home reader feed is only showing posts from accounts I don't follow
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[tantek] ok a random selection of recent text posts from random IG accounts is not really interesting.
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[tantek] well that's enough exploring for now. without a reader view of only those you are following, what's the point of following? going to see if this bug gets fixed tomorrow
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[tantek] ok now I'm seeing *a few* posts from accounts that I follow among the stream of seemingly random posts
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aaronpk interesting solution to the bootstrapping problem
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[tantek] well yeah, if it's only the people I follow on IG, that I expect to not suck and be a reasonable Twitter-of-a-few-years-ago replacement
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[tantek] once Threads allows following @-@ addresses directly it turns into the new Google Reader
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[aciccarello] Personally I'm hoping I'll finally have a way to interact with more family once they enable external sites.
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[0x3b0b] thought were big enough to be worth it potentially getting financial support if they agreed to some things. But now on top of being a questionable and unverified rumor to begin with, it's also only a vague recollection of a reference I can't find again.
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[0x3b0b] There was a post that crossed my radar a while back where there was either an alleged leak, or an alleged report from someone who'd taken them up on their request to talk with instance admins, and I really wish I had thought to bookmark it, because now I can't remember why it gave me the impression that Meta might be planning to do white-list federation on their own side of things. I think there was something about instances that they
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aaronpk seems legit 😅
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[tantek] The problem is that if they "federate" with "smaller" instances, i.e. instances that haven't had to learn how to scale to 100k+ users/profiles and all the AP-inbox noise that comes with that, I’m willing to bet that Threads would crash them and just get blocked
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[tantek] That's the sensible / simplest answer. They have no reason to want to crash smaller instances with a deluge of AP follow etc messages and burden those instances with delivering to who knows how many inboxes in Threads
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[tantek] Though this is bordering on #indieweb-dev talk so I might take AP details (shared inbox delivery etc) there
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shreyanjain[m] i mean, for meta, this threads thing seems pretty reasonable
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[snarfed] minor nit, interesting that https://www.threads.net/ doesn't load at all in firefox for me
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shreyanjain[m] i have heard of issues with adblockers - do you have one
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shreyanjain[m] * have one?
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[snarfed] hmm! same thing happens with it off, but I wonder if the built in FB/IG container tabs thing is the problem
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[tantek] Could be the default FB container
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[tantek] added my @-@ to my Threads bio to see if that picks up any follows
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[tantek] No edit button for posts which is a shame.
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[KevinMarks] No ability to post or login from the web site feels weirdly retro. Like they still believe in the app bullshit.
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c​apjamesg https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2023/jul/06/meta-launches-twitter-rival-threads-in-100-countries
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[KevinMarks] I just scrolled instagram for a couple of minutes for the first time in ages, and got bored of the unblockable ads very quickly. I suppose I should install threads for research purposes but I am not in the mood for it.
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[tantek] [KevinMarks] I've had decent luck blocking ad accounts and hiding ads
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[KevinMarks] It demands a reason to hide tha ad and links you to pro ad propaganda (website version on mobile, I don't have the app)
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[tantek] was able to get rid of all crypumpto/forex nonsense, then candycrush-clones, now anime
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[tantek] I give "it's irrelevant" as the reason, unless it's a crypumpto or gambling (cards, bingo etc.) and then "it's a scam" as reason
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[tantek] what is Threads
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Loqi It looks like we don't have a page for "Threads" yet. Would you like to create it? (Or just say "Threads is ____", a sentence describing the term)
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Saphire I always get turned off by seeing something exclusively using Instagram as social media
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[tantek] Threads is a [[Twitter]]-like [[social media]] service launched by [[Meta]]/[[Facebook]] on 2023-07-06 UTC that has plans to add [[ActivityPub]] support.
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Loqi ok
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Saphire It always demands login from me
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[tantek] Threads << Requires sign-in with [[Instagram]] identity, and re-use of Instagram username/handle.
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Loqi ok, I added "Requires sign-in with [[Instagram]] identity, and re-use of Instagram username/handle." to a brand new "See Also" section of /Threads https://indieweb.org/wiki/index.php?diff=88553&oldid=88552
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Saphire Actually am I just on a "bad" ip or does Instagram always require a login?
[schmarty], [Jo], [timothy_chambe], [snarfed], [aciccarello], [jeremycherfas], [pfefferle] and bterry1 joined the channel
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[tantek] I use a FF add-on to remove the login wall
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Saphire I'm sorry what? It's client side?
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Saphire I get a completely server side (looking) plug/redirect to login wall
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[tantek] yes, an add-on called "insta-guest"
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Loqi 20 years since the NYT article about too much data being bad was published: https://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/business/the-lure-of-data-is-it-addictive.html?pagewanted=all
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Loqi Countdown set by [tantek] on 2023-06-21 at 1:18pm PDT
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