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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

#291

Post by sanderjd »

oddevan wrote: post #272
lkjdsklf wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you're at all concerned about privacy, the fediverse is not for you. It is anti-privacy by design. Once you've posted something to it, you have absolutely no control over who has that data and what they do with it. That's the fundamental design of the system. Complaining about meta potentially ingesting all data from the fediverse comes off as a bit naive. Meta is the least of the privacy concerns on the fediverse…

I think this is the disconnection with most of these conversations, or at least what's keeping me from understanding them. I think we might need to be better about communicating this to new users: once something leaves the server, it is out of control.

Which goes back to my fundamental bearishness about the mainstream viability of federation. Mainstream users don't care about how your thing is implemented. If you're finding yourself explaining this level of implementation detail to people, you have not made a mainstream product.

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

#292

Post by dcow »

sanderjd wrote: post #286
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…

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

Thanks for putting it succinctly.

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

#294

Post by sanderjd »

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…

I think this privacy thing is incomprehensible, but this makes total sense to me.

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

#295

Post by cmrdporcupine »

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…

The threat here is not about Meta harvesting already-public information. The risk here is about them doing to people off their network what they do extensively within their own network already: harvest information on your interactions with their content and users. Meta doesn't just build a profile of you based on your posts, its secret sauce is building a profile of you based on what you like, repost, comment-on, hover-over, etc.

Yes they can go out and spider ActivityPub content already, though they probably don't currently bother. But what they will gain by being part of the fediverse is the ability to associate your interest in their content back to your identity and learn out a graph about you. Boost/like/share something off Threads, and you've helped them build a model about you in a way that they can't currently do with all the free content out there already.

I'm not sure why other people aren't making this connection. Again, the threat is that Meta could extend its abilities to build a model on how users from outside its own user database interact with its content and users. They're known to already do this in the form of tracking pixels on 3rd party sites already, but this is a richer source of information.

That said, I also think the Fediverse is so tiny that this particular market isn't of much interest to Meta in reality. I suspect this feature will never launch.

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

#296

Post by foobarbecue »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #275
foobarbecue wrote: post #269

So I was going to try threads but can't figure out how. I'm not interested in using a phone. I'm on a computer. Is there no web version?

There is no web version. Threads can be viewed at a URL, but you can't join, post, or browse via web. Amazing, eh?

Wow. And this is supposed to liberate us from twitter. Oh, my poor internet, what have they done to you?

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

#297

Post by cmrdporcupine »

foobarbecue wrote: post #296
cmrdporcupine wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is no web version. Threads can be viewed at a URL, but you can't join, post, or browse via web. Amazing, eh?

Wow. And this is supposed to liberate us from twitter. Oh, my poor internet, what have they done to you?

"Website? e-mail? What's that? If you want to get in touch with me, or find out what school events are coming up or whether your kids bus is late, or whether there's a tornado that touched down near by, or whether your local ski hill is open ... use [Facebook|Twitter|Threads]"

Sigh.

https://qz.com/333313/milliions-of-facebook-users-have-no-id...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet.org

https://www.wired.com/2016/01/facebook-zuckerberg-internet-o...

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

#298

Post by Vecr »

zzzeek wrote: post #106
yodsanklai wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

I'm sure the US justice system will be glad to let you sue after you've been murdered by an online mob that found out where you live

If you get doxed buy {a gun, multiple guns}, preferably a rifle with a red dot or EOTECH and a suppressor, if you can. Guns stop riots.

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

#299

Post by thrashh »

JohnFen wrote: post #160
nomel wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Trust is more nuanced more than that though.

I trust my grandma to make a good cake, but I do not trust my dad to do the same. But I trust my dad to be there when I call him, whereas I wouldn't of my grandma.

And that level of trust nuance comes from a long track record. To me, there is no other source of trust.

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

#300

Post by turnsout »

nobody9999 wrote: post #273
turnsout wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are 100% right that Threads users are today's AOL users, and that's a good thing. If Threads actually federates, it will be another Eternal September [0], and we need that for ActivityPub to truly thrive. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September

> If Threads actually federates, it will be another Eternal September [0], and we need that for ActivityPub to truly thrive. Please define "thrive" in this context. Do you mean DAU/MAUs? I know , perhaps, a couple hundred people and respect the opinions/ideas of perhaps a few dozen others I don't know. Those are the only people I care about interacting with and I can interact with them just fine without Meta's "offer…

ActivityPub is doing fine, but the more people who are using it, the better. We saw this with the most recent migration from Twitter to Mastodon about 6 months ago. We got more users, and that brought more developers, bug fixes, enhancements, and new ActivityPub projects.
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