Blocking Threads won't be enough to protect privacy once they join the Fediverse • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by boyter » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:40 PM UTC

vidarh wrote: post #249

smoldesu wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then there's nothing for them to extend or extinguish. If they're not able to manipulate the client and they can only control the content on their own server, what leverage does Meta have to extinguish the fediverse?

They can potentially try to make changes to the protocol, and try to leverage their users numbers to force people to accept it. I think, though, that they'll find that a lot of us are stubborn and don't like them and will not react well to that.

Which is what mastodon already does. It has extended the ActivityPub protocol in a few places. Everyone copies because you must work against Mastodon to really participate.

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

#282

Post by awwaiid » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:42 PM UTC

notatoad wrote: post #44

>Mastodon (and most other fediverse software) wasn't designed with privacy and user safety in mind this is the real problem. Mastodon and lemmy share way more information than they actually need to (like lemmy shares a list of usernames who upvoted or downvoted a post, not just a count), and if you're using one of those services you should expect that all your data and interactions are public. that's the actual threa…

One idea is to create a privacy-oriented server (client?) that lies; expresses things like upvotes but does so with generated identities.

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

#283

Post by sanderjd » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:43 PM UTC

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If you have personal information you do not wish bad actors to see, do not publish it using an open protocol explicitly designed to allow anyone to read said information.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

Yeah when I saw this headline I was really confused. What is the privacy concern with respect to publicly published data? It really doesn't compute for me...

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

#284

Post by warkdarrior » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:43 PM UTC

pseudalopex wrote: post #81

oldtownroad wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The story is almost certainly untrue or a misunderstanding. Facebook has no reason to scrape individuals personal information and then forcefully update their Facebook profile. There are various processes at Meta that do require identification to be submitted and in some cases that information will be published. For example, to be verified on Instagram you must have your name be published. Likewise, certain Facebook…

> Facebook has no reason to scrape individuals personal information and then forcefully update their Facebook profile. Collecting personal information is central to Facebook's business model. Facebook's policies mandate legal names. > Most likely the person in question submitted their identity documents to Facebook Most likely this person would remember that. > The concern is valid — Facebook has information users mi…

You are free to not use Facebook and Instagram. I have not heard of a case where Meta deanonymized non-Facebook/non-Insta users.

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

#285

Post by Karrot_Kream » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:44 PM UTC

echelon wrote: post #255

dcow wrote: post #203

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah I stopped reading the article once it mentioned people getting annoyed and wanting to control who sees their public content. You don't get to make that call. The community doesn't get to make that call. The protocol makes that call and the protocol allows anybody to view stuff you post publicly. You don't get to say "I publish this but Meta can't view it". Not even legally you don't. That's not privacy and no am…

There's a portion of the far left and the up-and-coming gen-zalpha that takes on a dictatorial "censorship is okay for things we dislike" attitude. They don't realize that in the 90's and 00's free speech was a place of refuge for liberals to escape from evangelical attacks on everything from LGBT rights to Pokemon. They also don't appreciate that the "come one and all" nature of the internet back then led to many pe…

> algorithmic manipulation of emotion have led to hyper polarization.

I don't think algorithmic manipulation is really that big of a problem. Look at HN during the Reddit blackout. Tens of overemotional posts, lots of low quality pithy responses, and not an algorithm in sight. Flame wars are at least as old as Usenet itself. I think the truth is humans online, without the context of body language and the consequences of long term relationships, are just emotionally attracted to rage and strong emotions. Algorithms may exacerbate the forum but plain old upvote behavior is plenty to surface it.

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

#286

Post by sanderjd » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:46 PM UTC

dcow wrote: post #224

Guvante wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your understanding is flawed. Copyright is 100% okay with transitively controlling production of content. After all how else would you describe someone allowing Netflix to stream your content? You can't restream Netflix and Netflix is restricted on how it can stream to you. Both rooted in the original Copyright protection and the licenses to content given out by intermediaries. Most posting platforms give themselves…

It's not that simple. If I sell you a book, I cannot place a restriction on that sale saying you can't resell that book (first sale doctrine). You're allowed to do that because you own the copy of the book. You can't copy the book and sell it, because you don't own the copyright , but you can sell the original copy, show it to whomever you want, etc. It's not that "copyright is okay with transitive licensing" but mor…

I can't believe people who are into decentralization and federation now essentially want to reinvent DRM!

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

#287

Post by dcow » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:46 PM UTC

justcool393 wrote: post #257

dcow wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not that simple. If I sell you a book, I cannot place a restriction on that sale saying you can't resell that book (first sale doctrine). You're allowed to do that because you own the copy of the book. You can't copy the book and sell it, because you don't own the copyright , but you can sell the original copy, show it to whomever you want, etc. It's not that "copyright is okay with transitive licensing" but mor…

> If you want to place downstream restrictions on your content then you have to license it (and get someone to agree to your license) That's not how copyright works like... at all. HN needs a license to display your comment right now (see here: https://www.ycombinator.com/legal/#tou ). Copyright works by default (in the US) of being the most restricted. The first sale doctrine applies but online when you distribute s…

I understand how copyright works. I'm arguing it's silly to try and apply it to a public forum in the way it's implemented. And all the centralized social platforms agree as you've pointed out because they require users to forfeit their copyright to posts made on their platform, or at least force them to licenses the content for redistribution on/within their network.

Like, by quoting me on HN you're actually violating the content license and terms of use agreement (you're only allowed to use your "user content" not mine). You'd argue fair use, and you'd probably win. But nevertheless you'd have to argue it.

I think we're in the weeds with copyright. What's the problem we're trying to solve? A federated public communication protocol/system. What do centralized platforms do in the face of copyright? Require users essentially forfeit their copyright over the content they post (if they're nice limited to the scope of the content traversing their network). Why? Because it doesn't work any other way. What is the expectation I have when reading a public post? I expect I am allowed to read it, quote it, remix it, etc. because it's been posted publicly. Nobody asks permission to quote each other even though they technically should in accordance with US copyright law. How would a discussion transpire without a shared understanding of how the content is allowed to be used on any network?

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And I mean if you really want to get into the weeds, copyright prevents you from e.g. playing a digital music file on your computer since the bytes need to be copied over the network, into memory, onto output devices, etc. This was the original observation: copyright basically prevents you from doing anything digital with any digital media. That's why everyone needs a license and we're in license hell. In digital it's copying all the way down so hit it with the copyright hammer.

Imagine if we applied our digital understanding of copyright to traditional artwork. I have a painting. You visit. By shining light on the painting I'm reproducing the image on your retinas. You say copyright violation? I say preposterous! What if I take a picture of the painting that I own and show you? Uh oh.

Copyright just doesn't make sense when applied to a public social network. At all. And it doesn't make any sense because a social network isn't about artists trying to make money off their works, it's about anons trying to win internet points for the day.

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

#288

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:47 PM UTC

jazzyjackson wrote: post #239

sureglymop wrote: post #141

I want it to be blocked for a different reason. The fediverse has always been small enough that the content is "underground" and interesting. Some of the people on there are weird or completely different than me and that's what makes them so interesting. That's not the case on something like Twitter and Instagram. Good and actually interesting content is drowned out between your average tweets and posts about nothing…

You know what, you've convinced me. I've been rooting for some kind of society-at-large network to succeed at federation (I was so optimistic I tried bitclout, and more recently bluesky. Both want to be a single global database to send money or to index hashtags and blocklists globally) I really believed that discoverability is king, and I should just be able to search a global graph of user profiles and read everyth…

Spend a few days in some large Facebook groups or on any active Twitter thread and one comes to this conclusion very quickly: online semi-anonymous interaction does not scale. Cannot scale. Putting aside the concerns about the dark patterns brought by the companies seeking revenue from it, I just don't think human beings are capable of working in these kinds of mediums in a way that doesn't degrade to a lowest common denominator of shitty behaviour.

There's just no way to get enough moderation in place and get people to behave respectfully, and then it just gets ugly.

I remember BBSes back in the 80s degrading to uncomfortable useless places simply because of a few bad trolls or assholes getting in the mix. Now it's just ridiculous.

Small, comfortable social networks and a feed that I can fully control, that's what I want. Facebook and Twitter began their misdeeds the moment they rolled out algorithmic suggested content that I did not explicitly subscribe to.

I've mostly just retreated into a few discord channels for family and friends at this point, with forays into Mastodon here and there. Oh, and way too much time on this orange site.

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

#289

Post by dcow » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:48 PM UTC

Tijdreiziger wrote: post #276

dcow wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that generally you retain the copyright to your works implicitly and that you don't have to actively file for copyright in order to gain the protection of copyright law. I'm arguing that it's pretty preposterous for a global decentralized federated social platform to assume some authority (enforced by whom, that'd require a central group of enforcers) over the licensing of posts on the network by invokin…

Mastodon-the-software doesn't have to do anything. Mastodon instances have to choose whether to block Threads or not. Of course there is no 'central enforcement', that would be at odds with the very principle of federated social media (namely, that instance admins are free to choose how they run their own instance).

Blocking Threads doesn't prevent your content from getting to Meta. Some other instance that you federate with might not block it. See: TFA.

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

#290

Post by sanderjd » Wed, Jul 12, 2023, 11:49 PM UTC

kazinator wrote: post #56

Dma54rhs wrote: post #14

What's the point of joining a decentralized federated platform if you don't want other instances or people to see what you post? Meta scraping your name and doing other shenanigans is a different subject and obviously bad, but the rest is like complaining joining a public torrent tracker and being mad about leaking your ip address to its peers.

What's the point of joining a decentralized, open-source federated platform if you don't want Facebook to collect information about you and track you online, even though you aren't a Facebook user?

Yes, your exact question but unironically. If you want to join a platform that will keep your information secret, you can't also want to join a platform that is federated. Those two desires are fundamentally at odds. Federation implies copying information from one node to another...