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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

#381

Post by erlend_sh »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #121
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…

Not justifying the design decision (which is bad IMO), but the reason upvotes and downvotes are shared is the nature of sending discrete events. I've been working on a Reddit like thing on top of Matrix and likewise I have to send upvote and downvote events, which means other clients that fetch events will fetch each upvote and downvote event and a malicious client can then track what individuals upvote and downvote.…

We’re two people making a Reddit-thing on top of Matrix as well. Going open source in a few days. My email is in my GitHub profile if you wanna talk!

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

#382

Post by FireInsight »

zzo38computer wrote: post #378

If a message is public then I shouldn't care if Meta has access to it or not; they can access it if they want to do. However, if I wish to send a private message to someone, even on a different server, it should not have to go through Meta to do so (unless the recipient is on Meta, although then the sender should be made aware of that before sending the message). I don't use Fediverse nor Meta/Threads, but I write st…

IME the problem with Meta in the fediverse aside from the privacy issues is that fedi is largely built by and run by people who want a community separate from the mainstream of social media, with their own rules and goals, without corporations, for them specifically and not for profits.

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

#383

Post by FireInsight »

notatoad wrote: post #271
chc wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be clear, Twitter also shares the list of users who like a post, and people generally seem to view this as a good feature rather than an invasive one, so it makes sense that Mastodon implemented it as well.

twitter shares that while making it immediately clear that the information is public. when you like a post you know your name is going to show up on the list of people who liked it, because the "like" button and the list are right beside each other. that's consent. lemmy does not make it in any way clear that upvotes and downvotes are public information.

that's an UX problem more than a protocol problem. anonymous voting would be more easily gameable.

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

#384

Post by mcv »

joe_the_user wrote: post #315
mcv wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controlling who can see your content is actually a very reasonable feature; some things are not meant for everybody, but just for the people who actually know you. But it's not a use case that ActivityPub was designed for. Google+ had a really nice feature where you could easily control who can see your post. Diapora has something similar, but considering it's federated, I'm not sure if you can really guarantee it. I…

The funniest thing about people wanting this kind of transitive control is that the only technical way to achieve this is through a wall-garden model like ... Facebook. Indeed, Meta/FB is eager to train people to want this model 'cause they know you at least one referee controlling everything if you have this transitive model. Diapora has something similar, but considering it's federated, I'm not sure if you can real…

Not necessarily. You can do it through encryption. But that creates overhead.

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

#385

Post by mcv »

XorNot wrote: post #303
mcv wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Controlling who can see your content is actually a very reasonable feature; some things are not meant for everybody, but just for the people who actually know you. But it's not a use case that ActivityPub was designed for. Google+ had a really nice feature where you could easily control who can see your post. Diapora has something similar, but considering it's federated, I'm not sure if you can really guarantee it. I…

This still doesn't make sense though: the reality is that your content will be private right up till someone reposts it publicly. Or saves the image, recompresses, posts it to reddit, reddit posts it to ActivityPub etc. etc.

Of course. On Google+, you got a warning if you reshared something that wasn't shared publicly, but it was possible. It's also a matter of trusting the people you share it with.

In the end, every private, highly encrypted message can always be made public by the recipient. That doesn't mean encryption is worthless for privacy.

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

#386

Post by zzo38computer »

FireInsight wrote: post #382
zzo38computer wrote: post #378

If a message is public then I shouldn't care if Meta has access to it or not; they can access it if they want to do. However, if I wish to send a private message to someone, even on a different server, it should not have to go through Meta to do so (unless the recipient is on Meta, although then the sender should be made aware of that before sending the message). I don't use Fediverse nor Meta/Threads, but I write st…

IME the problem with Meta in the fediverse aside from the privacy issues is that fedi is largely built by and run by people who want a community separate from the mainstream of social media, with their own rules and goals, without corporations, for them specifically and not for profits.

Well, it will be a problem if people are forced to use Meta even those who do not wish to do so.

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

#387

Post by supriyo-biswas »

charcircuit wrote: post #240
dahwolf wrote: post #201

The sex worker real name reveal has to be bullshit. I'm quite convinced that Meta actually does have the real name of most of us as well as the ability to link it to other accounts. But the idea that Meta would willingly reveal this without the user's consent means a planet-scale doxxing event. It could lead to actual deaths in the real world, and they would be legally crushed. What is far more likely to have happene…

My guess is that she was breaking Facebook's real name policy by using a fake name on her main profile. It seems plausible that Facebook would update someone's main profile to their real name.

They usually just suspend the account silently instead of updating your profile in the claimed way.

Meta is not known for being a good citizen, but unlike sending fake notifications or tracking which helps them achieve a business goal, updating user profiles without consent achieves nothing of that sort.

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

#388

Post by xigoi »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #304
echelon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Social media networks with over 100,000,000 daily active users should not be considered as "private companies Your solution to private companies not broadcasting what you want is for the government to take the companies over and then dictate what they broadcast? Then what? Anything goes? There are plenty of sites that show you what happens when there is no form of moderation at all and they turn into complete cesspoo…

> There are plenty of sites that show you what happens when there is no form of moderation at all and they turn into complete cesspools.

Well, that's precisely because there's only a few of them. If the only site with free speech is some obscure forum, then all people with extremist opinions are going to concentrate there. If all popular social networks have free speech, extremist content is going to be diluted in normal content.

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

#389

Post by xigoi »

kmeisthax wrote: post #330
echelon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Liberals never actually left the free speech refuge - they just wanted to keep the far right out of it. There's a logic to this; you don't want people advocating for mass censorship to be able to use free speech as a weapon to cut your head off. In other words, it's OK to censor Hitler[0]. Not everyone will agree, I suspect you don't. I put that disagreement in the same category as, say, the BSD vs. GPL arguments bac…

> Liberals never actually left the free speech refuge - they just wanted to keep the far right out of it. There's a logic to this; you don't want people advocating for mass censorship to be able to use free speech as a weapon to cut your head off.

The political censorship on current social media goes far beyond “we don't want people advocating for mass censorship here”. Ironically, they do like advocating for mass censorship, as long as it's censorship of the “correct” side.

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

#390

Post by xigoi »

XorNot wrote: post #306
echelon wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Many amongst the left obsesses over what the right is doing (and vice versa), which tells me people enjoy rubbernecking rather than tuning out. It's a game of "neener-neener" high school football rivalry. You mean like rolling back Roe v. Wade?[1] You mean like trying to overthrow an election?[2] Denying access to gender-affirming care for adults?[3] What exactly do you think people are being unfairly obsessed over…

While I oppose these things, I think people who agree with them should be allowed to express their opinion. Maybe if we allow them to explain why they support these things, we can better understand how to come to a mutual agreement.
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