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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

#431

Post by dcow »

indigochill wrote: post #425
Nursie wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Licensing != DRM though ... ? You can have a very strict license without actually using any cryptographic 'protection' on the content. See, for example, the way IBM used to in the 00s (still does?) release software. There was no copy protection, no license servers, no keys. But copyright was absolutely retained and you couldn't legally just give it to anyone. If you were found to be running their stuff without the ap…

You could also look at the FOSS world. Licenses are actually important because if you license some software under GPL, you have legal grounds to sue if a corporation then uses that software in violation of the license. Most corporations just treat GPL as anathema because it's rarely worth the legal effort. So far we haven't thought of social media content as licensed but it effectively is: the license is usually the…

It's important to note that Stallman considers the GPL a hack on the copyright system (a clever one, sure, but a hack nonetheless). He'd rather it not have to exist, because we shouldn't need to exist in a world where companies can own the recipe to mix bytes around and achieve a certain software flavor.

I mean you can't copyright a food recipe. It so obviously would be stupid to have designer meals and chefs who are the only person that can cook a certain dish. The argument is that software isn't any different. And you can't copyright the fastest route from point A to B on a map. So why can you e.g. copyright the preferred method of sending bytes down an HDMI cable?

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

#432

Post by dcow »

slikrick wrote: post #410
dcow wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 violati…

I feel like you're being needlessly obtuse when the other person is being objectively correct.

I'm not disagreeing with them. I'm just a little confused why people are bringing up that you don't need to explicitly attach a notice to content you create to retain the copyright (since 1988 in the US). Of course that's objectively correct. I never argued otherwise. And to add, I pointed out that by the letter of the law, quoting my post on HN is a violation because I never granted you a license to do that (you'd have to argue fair use before a court if I sued you). I'm not disagreeing I'm just continuing the discussion.

My argument is that it's not implicitly fair use for a social network to copy user content to which they don't have the copyright and distribute it across a network. And that that's crazy because a (distributed nontheless) social network doesn't work if there isn't a shared understanding that when users post publicly that they're granting the public a license to copy, re-share, remix, etc. their content. Which is de facto releasing it to the public domain.

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

#433

Post by BizarroLand »

justsomeadvice0 wrote: post #259
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 with a right to free speech through censorship". They are effectively public squares that we have all elected and chosen to share. Right and left alike. Shouldn't this also apply to TV channels? Chat apps like iMessage? Popular newspapers, blogs, and email newsletters? And indeed, why stop at 100M DAUs - wh…

To be fair though, freedom of the press should be limited to things that at the time of publishment/boardcast were believed to be true by reasonable actors.

They shouldn't get carte blanche to claim wild conspiracy theories and to turn people into figurative monsters and then claim 1st amendment rights to protect them from the consequences of their public agitating slander.

On the other hand, reviewing and moderating anything other than their current carte blanche status quo would be an inhuman ordeal, so it's not like I have a more perfect idea to replace it with, just an understanding that there are bad actors using the rules of our American Social Contract as a weapon against the fundamental rights of "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" that the self-same social contract they are exploiting has promised us for our abidance.

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

#434

Post by scarface_74 »

dcow wrote: post #430
bruce511 wrote: post #354

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While your view here is perfectly valid, it would have resulted in a -very- different world than the one we have today. There would basically be no software industry. There couldn't be because there would be no way to economically do it. Software would thus only be made by hardware manufacturers- and would need specialised hardware for every task. For evidence of this alternate reality I point to an era when thus was…

If you don't believe in isolated software patents, then a world where you have to actually make a hardware system to patent your invention as hardware with supporting software doesn't seem so bad. At this point the iPhone patent would be just about to expire and we'd all be able to legally clone, sell, remix, improve, etc. the system Apple spent the last 14 years profiting off of, royalty free, nonetheless. I'm not s…

Apple’s patents aren’t the issue. The world can’t just figure out how to manufacturer hardware scale. The market is littered with failed hardware startups and even companies like Sony and Microsoft can’t figure out how to manufacturer the number of consoles in three years to match the number of phones Apple sells in less than a quarter.

Literally dozens of Android manufacturers can’t figure out how to compete with Apple at scale. Android is already open source

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

#435

Post by dcow »

scarface_74 wrote: post #434
dcow wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you don't believe in isolated software patents, then a world where you have to actually make a hardware system to patent your invention as hardware with supporting software doesn't seem so bad. At this point the iPhone patent would be just about to expire and we'd all be able to legally clone, sell, remix, improve, etc. the system Apple spent the last 14 years profiting off of, royalty free, nonetheless. I'm not s…

Apple’s patents aren’t the issue. The world can’t just figure out how to manufacturer hardware scale. The market is littered with failed hardware startups and even companies like Sony and Microsoft can’t figure out how to manufacturer the number of consoles in three years to match the number of phones Apple sells in less than a quarter. Literally dozens of Android manufacturers can’t figure out how to compete with Ap…

If you could run iOS on other hardware, you'd get an iPhone for $300. That would be competitive.

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

#436

Post by echelon »

XorNot wrote: post #397
xigoi wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The quote I was responding to in the top: > 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. This is a complete failure to understand that politics is real and has real consequences for real people. If your think that "actually none of this matters, why can't we a…

My wife is trans. By turning this into a game of sports and one-upsmanship, you're hurting us.

Listen to the left and to the right. Talk with them. Engage them. Humanize them.

Do this the Dr. King way, not the Malcom X way. You won't win hearts and minds if you're bearing your teeth all the time. People in the middle don't want deal with that. People that could be convinced are instead turned away.

Maybe you grew up in a completely liberal city and don't realize that the opposition have lives filled with joy, happiness, pain, trauma, and feelings too. Maybe you didn't go to school with them and don't work with them. Maybe you're not in a diverse, politically purple city where you can see that we're all in this together.

By being so offended and not turning the other cheek, you're letting the bullies know that they hurt you. You're giving them all the more endurance to continue. When social media and the news media obsess over what Trump is doing, they give him power. It's the same thing.

I'm not saying don't campaign, don't vote, and don't be strong. Those things are essential. Policies of tolerance and equity can win this faster than division and hate. But don't turn the other side into monsters so that you can feel good about yourself - you're just giving them fuel to keep fighting this decades-long guerilla war and making us all miserable for longer.

You gain nothing in vilifying.

Friendliness, strength, and pragmatism.

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

#437

Post by XorNot »

echelon wrote: post #436
XorNot wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote I was responding to in the top: > 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. This is a complete failure to understand that politics is real and has real consequences for real people. If your think that "actually none of this matters, why can't we a…

My wife is trans. By turning this into a game of sports and one-upsmanship, you're hurting us. Listen to the left and to the right. Talk with them. Engage them. Humanize them. Do this the Dr. King way, not the Malcom X way. You won't win hearts and minds if you're bearing your teeth all the time. People in the middle don't want deal with that. People that could be convinced are instead turned away. Maybe you grew up…

> Do this the Dr. King way,

Martin Luther King had this to say about "the white moderate" [1]:

"First, I must confess that over the last few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in the stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Council-er or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I can't agree with your methods of direct action;" who paternalistically feels he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by the myth of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait until a "more convenient season."

Shallow understanding from people of goodwill is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection."

[1] http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/060.html

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

#438

Post by scarface_74 »

dcow wrote: post #435
scarface_74 wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple’s patents aren’t the issue. The world can’t just figure out how to manufacturer hardware scale. The market is littered with failed hardware startups and even companies like Sony and Microsoft can’t figure out how to manufacturer the number of consoles in three years to match the number of phones Apple sells in less than a quarter. Literally dozens of Android manufacturers can’t figure out how to compete with Ap…

If you could run iOS on other hardware, you'd get an iPhone for $300. That would be competitive.

Why do you think running iOS on cheap commodity hardware would be any better than Android?

Apple designs it’s hardware and software in concert.

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

#439

Post by krapp »

echelon wrote: post #436
XorNot wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The quote I was responding to in the top: > 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. This is a complete failure to understand that politics is real and has real consequences for real people. If your think that "actually none of this matters, why can't we a…

My wife is trans. By turning this into a game of sports and one-upsmanship, you're hurting us. Listen to the left and to the right. Talk with them. Engage them. Humanize them. Do this the Dr. King way, not the Malcom X way. You won't win hearts and minds if you're bearing your teeth all the time. People in the middle don't want deal with that. People that could be convinced are instead turned away. Maybe you grew up…

>Do this the Dr. King way, not the Malcom X way. You won't win hearts and minds if you're bearing your teeth all the time.

You don't understand MLK if you think he was less radical than Malcom X[0]. He absolutely did not engage with and humanize his oppressors. He didn't patiently and calmly listen to what racists had to say and try to find common ground and a way to tolerate them. Read his "Letter from a Birmingham Jail[1]" His tolerance for white America was limited to those who were willing to do the work of fighting white supremacy. He had no love at all for the centrists of his day who preached what you're preaching here, or the "colorblind" politics that people have twisted out of his "I have a dream" speech.

You come off like the guy who'd be in 1930s Germany telling the Jews they shouldn't be so intolerant, that maybe the Nazis have some fair points to make and everyone should just hear them out, share a beer and a laugh, and surely everything will be fine if only they realized Nazis were people too. And then point out your wife is Jewish, like somehow that gets you a pass.

Your views are dangerously, almost maliciously naive.

[0]https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2021/1/18/martin-luther-k...

[1]https://www.africa.upenn.edu/Articles_Gen/Letter_Birmingham....

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

#440

Post by XorNot »

krapp wrote: post #439
echelon wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My wife is trans. By turning this into a game of sports and one-upsmanship, you're hurting us. Listen to the left and to the right. Talk with them. Engage them. Humanize them. Do this the Dr. King way, not the Malcom X way. You won't win hearts and minds if you're bearing your teeth all the time. People in the middle don't want deal with that. People that could be convinced are instead turned away. Maybe you grew up…

>Do this the Dr. King way, not the Malcom X way. You won't win hearts and minds if you're bearing your teeth all the time. You don't understand MLK if you think he was less radical than Malcom X[0]. He absolutely did not engage with and humanize his oppressors. He didn't patiently and calmly listen to what racists had to say and try to find common ground and a way to tolerate them. Read his "Letter from a Birmingham…

It's also worth noting there also definitely was a group in Nazi Germany who were colloquially called Jews For Hitler[1]. You can guess how it turned out, but they absolutely echoed similar sentiments. They were as wrong as you might expect.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_German_National...

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