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Threads spotted exploring ads, but says 'no immediate timeline' toward monetization
(techcrunch.com)
this post was submitted on 23 Aug 2024
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That's why they have stealth enshittification techniques to disguise them.
Promotional posts don't magically show up on Mastodon for users who don't follow the brand account that posted them. That's not how Mastodon works.
If I were to follow Marvel Comics via Mastodon, boosted a post, then my followers would see the post, just as they would see the post if I made a screenshot from a Marvel tweet and posted that to Mastodon but Marvel posts would not just show up for random Mastodon users just because Marvel paid Meta to promote a post on Threads. Only Threads website and app users would see such posts.
It's amazing how uninformed Fediverse users are of the basics of how the Fediverse works.
Yeah, I don't really understand how you are getting downvoted for saying this in various comments.
Are people actually worried they would would see straight up ads coming into their mastodon feeds if their server federates with Threads? That's a pretty wild assumption to make.
If you follow the Coke brand account, then you'll see Coke brand posts (even then I wouldn't consider those "ads" in a traditional sense), but if you follow MBKHD or, hell, the Barack Obama account you won't have a sudden influx of ads for Pepsi or whatever in your feed.
Not only are they worried, they think that this is a foregone conclusion. They think it's more important to block Threads preemptively than to actually make an informed decision ... looking if Meta would actually somehow misuse federation and then block them, should that happen. I've seen Lemmy instances block Threads before they block any neo-nazi and pedo instances. Seriously, WTF. The hysteria is insane. Threads content can't currently even show up on Lemmy.