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

privacy.thenexus.today

151–160 of 458 posts

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

#151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Great, so we agree that Libs of TikTok "just reposting stuff" is done to achieve political goals, with success, that would not have happened without the huge spotlight they control. So when they post hateful content targeted at trans people, they have reason to be afraid.

[flagged]

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

#152
I’m surprised that a followers-only post’s author’s information would be available to followers of original author’s followers. I would think that a non-public discussion started by one account should be nonexistent to anyone without access to follow that account.

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

#153
post #49

If you have personal information you do not wish bad actors to see, do not publish it using an open protocol explicitly designed to allow anyone to read said information.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…

I am assuming they used the same email address they use on Facebook.

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

#154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Great, so we agree that Libs of TikTok "just reposting stuff" is done to achieve political goals, with success, that would not have happened without the huge spotlight they control. So when they post hateful content targeted at trans people, they have reason to be afraid.

[flagged]

I don't know why you're responding to me then. The post I'm replying to is pretending that "just reposting stuff" is totally harmless and has no real world consequences.

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

#155
post #66

'I had a FB account as Mistress Matisse, but FB scraped my legal name from somewhere else and then changed my displayed NAME on my account without notice/consent.' Who gave FB permission to conflate two different identities?

The legal right for a private entity to do most things to its private property.

The law says they don't need permission to do something like that, regardless of any morality or decency issues that causes. The law is often not aligned with morality.

Most people seem to not really get this, even when they objectively know it, or are otherwise unable to imagine what could go wrong, because doing so basically requires you to be the unhealthy kind of imaginative and paranoid. "What if facebook doxxes me and changes my display name" SEEMS like it should be an insane paranoia, because the human brain isn't equipped to handle extremes of scale and bureaucracy like this.

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

#156

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 One question I've had for fediverse people is how you prevent a federated system from centralizing. I am legitimately curious. Email is often given as an example, but imo that a perfect example of a decentralized system BECOMING centralized. Sure, other players exist but the vast majority of people are on gmail, apple, or outlook (which is much smaller than the other t…

You can force decentralization in certain ways like only allowing one user per domain but nobody has the courage to try it.

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

#158

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…

You're overlooking the fact that Meta is collecting a whole lot more information than just what people post publicly, and they're not transparent about that.

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

#159

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 One question I've had for fediverse people is how you prevent a federated system from centralizing. I am legitimately curious. Email is often given as an example, but imo that a perfect example of a decentralized system BECOMING centralized. Sure, other players exist but the vast majority of people are on gmail, apple, or outlook (which is much smaller than the other t…

I think you don’t, which is why I think federated systems built on the existing stack are doomed to fail (by recentralizing). You’re right to point out email as an example of this failure.

You need urbit or something like it to fix it, the problems are deeper.

https://martiancomputing.substack.com/p/tlon-urbit-computing...

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

#160
post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But, you know the space they operate. That space is limited by profits, what their immense legal team allows, and their immense security team controls. The alternative is, literally, a complete stranger, with no track record, unknown motives, and (as the recent hacks showed) doesn't have the skillset to keep your information secure anyways.

This is true, but it's also a "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't" argument. Which is not to say it's invalid, of course, but it's not a strong argument.

Personally, while I certainly don't trust a random stranger, I trust Facebook even less.

Not that any of this matters, really. My opinion affects nothing.

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