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Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

privacy.thenexus.today

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Re: Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

#111

Post by JohnFen »

Nextgrid wrote: post #39

If you have personal information you do not wish bad actors to see, do not publish it using an open protocol explicitly designed to allow anyone to read said information. Defederating from Meta as a solution is stupid - Meta can (and will if they actually care enough) just rejoin undercover. Furthermore, when it comes to the fediverse, Meta is actually one of the more trusted actors compared to whatever else is on th…

> Meta is actually one of the more trusted actors compared to whatever else is on there - at least they're a known legal entity instead of some random.

But they're a known entity with a long track record, which is how I know they can't be trusted.

Re: Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

#113

Post by srveale »

cubefox wrote: post #74
zzzeek wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

what an ignorant take. Social media promotion of "hated" groups can be plausibly blamed for mass murder, including a literal genocide for which Facebook is now being sued for £150bn right now: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook_content_management_co... https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/15/technology/myanmar-facebo... https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/dec/06/rohingya-...

That's completely different. Libs of TikTok only reposts very far-left takes to expose their absurdity.

They provide commentary too. They certainly have an agenda. They have targeted specific people and organizations, and also groups of people generally. The article writer needed an example of a well-known social media account that fit this description, and accounts that are worse in terms of explicitly encouraging harassment have already been banned.

Re: Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

#114

Post by [deleted] »

gonehome wrote: post #65
crooked-v wrote: post #3

"Decentralized access for everyone, unless it gets popular enough that somebody actually wants to interop with it" I understand the Meta hate, but joining a very explicitly public and intentionally republishable service and then being unhappy that your data is public and intentionally republishable is bizarre to me.

I think for a lot of mastodon users it's more about being part of a specific ideologically aligned in-group than it is about anything else (this post touches on a lot of stuff that makes overtures to that). The irony to me is that any chance of relevance for a protocol is obviously going to need big players like meta to sign up (and that's a good thing for the protocol). A weird set of circumstances might have aligne…

[deleted]

Re: Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

#115

Post by numpad0 »

cdot2 wrote: post #40

[flagged]

I’m starting to think there are lots of assholes using gender and gender isms as excuse to themselves consistently labeled assholes. Like there are people getting feet dragged by gender dysphoria, and there are people who’s got nothing else to shift their blame to than maybe their biological identities that catches onto it.

Re: Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

#116

Post by Aaronstotle »

kazinator wrote: post #58
Aaronstotle wrote: post #22

Don't have public accounts on a platform if you are concerned about privacy. Don't use threads, don't use Mastadon.

Don't go outside if you're concerned about bullies.

Meta makes their money through advertising, they do everything in their power to profile and track you so they can serve up relevant ads.

The issues in the article are related to how ActivityPub/Mastadon work, if you are concerned by privacy issues, don't use Meta.

Meta is guaranteed to erode your privacy, being outside doesn't come with a guarantee of being bullied.

Re: Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

#117

Post by meepmorp »

yodsanklai wrote: post #102
zzzeek wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the point they're making is that Meta is in a special place, where by using their unusually vast amounts of personal data and photos, they are somehow (?) going to dox anonymous users by publishing their real names, based on matching their profiles in some way. At least that is the implication based on the quoted tweet right at the top of the post (which is lacking any real detail how exactly Meta got this pe…

> they are somehow (?) going to dox anonymous users by publishing their real names, based on matching their profiles in some way. Aren't there laws against that? are there even allow to build internal links between FB/IG accounts without user consent?

In the US, yeah. We're famously unwilling to do anything about that kind of stuff.

Re: Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

#118

Post by Havoc »

zzzeek wrote: post #49
Nextgrid wrote: post #39

If you have personal information you do not wish bad actors to see, do not publish it using an open protocol explicitly designed to allow anyone to read said information. Defederating from Meta as a solution is stupid - Meta can (and will if they actually care enough) just rejoin undercover. Furthermore, when it comes to the fediverse, Meta is actually one of the more trusted actors compared to whatever else is on th…

I think the point they're making is that Meta is in a special place, where by using their unusually vast amounts of personal data and photos, they are somehow (?) going to dox anonymous users by publishing their real names, based on matching their profiles in some way. At least that is the implication based on the quoted tweet right at the top of the post (which is lacking any real detail how exactly Meta got this pe…

>using their unusually vast amounts of personal data

Jikes. Hadn't considered that. Certainly seems plausible, not just via technical means but also content. I've got a reddit profile that I try very hard to keep "clean and anonymous" yet I've had people from halfway around the world message me say "Hey you're Jack from X". Post sufficient volume and it becomes identifiable no matter how hard one tries.

Re: Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

#119

Post by joe_the_user »

Nextgrid wrote: post #39

If you have personal information you do not wish bad actors to see, do not publish it using an open protocol explicitly designed to allow anyone to read said information. Defederating from Meta as a solution is stupid - Meta can (and will if they actually care enough) just rejoin undercover. Furthermore, when it comes to the fediverse, Meta is actually one of the more trusted actors compared to whatever else is on th…

Defederating from Meta as a solution is stupid - Meta can (and will if they actually care enough) just rejoin undercover.

I agree with the rest of your post but I suspect that in this instance Meta, a large public company, that might leery about doing something that potentially embarassing.

But your basic point remains true. A wide variety of companies, many bad actor, are going to be scraping, processing and connecting any data anyone makes puts online and that will happen whether Meta joins the fediverse or not. If Meta wanted fediverse data bad, they'd likely just buy it.

Indeed, all the hand wringing about Meta in particular in the article and here seems deeply confused - of course Meta isn't the only problematic actor out there. Indeed, the anonymity-problem of all the walled-gardens is that they explicitly attempt to stop online anonymity in various overt ways. But everywhere entities are trying to deanonymize covertly and these can be at least as bad.

The main thing is that anyone wanting anonymity needs to take active measures to achieve it. And these measures vary on how visible you are and effectively how much your enemies are capable and interested in you. Those talking anonymity would do best educating people in this.

Re: Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse

#120

Post by briffle »

dabedee wrote: post #50

This reminds me of the "embrace, extend, extinguish" strategies Microsoft used extensively with Linux and open source software in the 90s. From [1]: "a phrase that the U.S. Department of Justice found that was used internally by Microsoft to describe its strategy for entering product categories involving widely used standards, extending those standards with proprietary capabilities, and then using those differences i…

remember the glory days when both google chat and facebook chat used XMPP (jabber?) and you could chat with people with any client you wanted.. (ahh, i miss pidgin). that lasted until they had 'converted' enough users to their systems to then close off all connections and make a walled garden.

I assume they will do the same with the ActivityPub compatibility. I don't see it as a permanent plan.

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