- cross-posted to:
- main@lemmy.ca
- meta@lemm.ee
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- technews@radiation.party
Relevant HN Discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36673040
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The Tl;dr is that ‘stuff you write using Fediverse protocols is effectively public, so don’t post stuff you want to keep private’
The problem arises when facebook links stuff you posted anonymously, with your named account.
How are you suggesting Meta is going to do that?
The same way they do on Facebook and Instagram. By using the vast amount of data they have already collected.
So really, the headline, according to you should be “only not writing anything on the public web will be enough to protect your privacy”. You argument has nothing specifically to do with the Fediverse or Threads federating.
Facebook goes out of its way to ruin everything, big surprise there… I got rid of Facebook years ago and I’m amazed that anyone still uses it. They’ve gone out of their way to spread hate, steal data, publish misinformation etc why are so many people still supporting it?
The answer is that people today would gladly give their souls away for free if it saves them the minor inconvenience of having to put in the minimal effort required to find something better
What kind of privacy expectations do people even have around an open microblogging platform???
I have generally taken to the principle that I wouldnt say anything here I wouldnt say in mixed company or in public.
Its less stressful that way.
BUT - privacy is still important. When I was on reddit I had people witchunt me for relatively mundane hot takes. Luckily (for me) they didn’t string together the details correctly to identify me specifically but they tried, and probably harassed some innocent bystander in the process. So even while my main principle applies, I also tend to try and keep things vague and non-specific. Of course though, that gets more difficult as topics change, your account becomes more “seasoned” etc. I dont really care if my co-workers know my handle. Just dont want some random crazy person trying to get me fired because i go fishing or something.
Every action on the Fediverse is inherently public. Every server operator can see every post, comment, like, dislike, favorite, etc.
Even commercial ‘social’ media need anonymity.
You control how anonymous you are. If you post non personal stuff under a pseudonym you are anonymous. Even to meta.
Not accurate. Due to how widespread facebook trackers are, it can identify you from the behaviour of others. People in your social circle linking to your content. People in your subnet using facebook services. People who hgave your phone numbers linking to your content on whatsapp etc. It’s scary how easy it is for a massive corpo to remove anonymity from anyone if they want to.
Thank God I don’t have a social circle
Not really, the way you write, leaves a fingerprint itself, so with a little bit of AI it’s possible to link personal/identifiable profiles with pseudonymous/anonymous ones.
I doubt it. But even if your only way of circumventing it is not to use social media. Because social media is not private. That is the point.
I doubt it
It has been demonstrated time and time again that social graph fingerprinting is not only widespread but extremely effective.
your only way of circumventing it is not to use social media
This article literally demonstrates a way of circumventing it. Blocking all instances that federate with threads.
Additional tracking options can further improve your privacy and difficulty to be fingerprinted in general, things like librewolf, for example.
That’s not the question here.
The 2 problems here are
that F*book scrapes this user’s personal data from other random places (very illegal)
and that they change the FB profile without asking the user specifically (should be illegal, but maybe they find an excuse in their terms & conditions)
Anyone wanna give the tldr?
There’s a cookie in it for ya 🍪
Even if you and the instance you are using is blocking Threads your information still becomes visible to Threads if someone on an instance that isn’t blocking Threads interacts with you. The interaction can come in the form of following, boosting, or mentioning your name.
Then the fear, according of the article, is for hate groups going out of their way to harass vulnerable groups.
And it’s worth mentioning that the article has specific cases of that happening already.
They don’t even need to go through a middle third party instance, they just have to have a ghost instance that nobody know it belongs to them and this one will federate with everybody else
For example if you go to FMHY federated instances, there is one called evil.social , that could be from Meta or Google or NSA… nobody knows
Threads has an influx of bad actors (right-extremist, anti-LGBT racists and any permutation) who intentionally target vulnerable groups on the FV.
You can’t rely on individual blocks, including for the whole Threads “instance”. If Threads ends up in a federation, everything else on that federation is now compromised because that’s simply how public content works on AP. There’s no real way around this without keeping Threads out of federation.
tldr: Its no use.
I dont remember the reason but that was basically it.
I agree wholeheartedly with this. Block Threads if they do a shitty job moderating their users and they post stuff not permitted by our instance like homophobia, transphobia, racism, etc. Preemptively blocking them to “protect privacy” won’t do that and gives the false impression that what you’re posting to the fediverse can’t be just hoovered up by google/meta anyway.