More like it is taking a shot at Mastodon, Lemmy and Kbin. They are trying to make a product that nets them financial gain out of the fediverse. So if we are federated with them then they will be able to see everything from other instances except all users of "Threads" will get their data stolen and sold by Facebook for profit.
Federating or not federating with Threads in the context of them “slurping data” is a ridiculous discussion. They can just stand up a Lemmy instance at billjoejimbob.com and slurp it indirectly out of there.
Threads has been live approximately three hours, now. I see at least two people who have amassed over 100K followers. Several in the 50 to 90K range and 10K+ followers for miles.
The idea that defederating them is going to deprive them of content isn’t a threat they’re likely to be concerned with.