5 ms·

They constantly archive things people do not want archived. Like Mastodon.

dewey 7y ago
A lot of the websites that shut down quickly didn't want to get archived too (blocked the Archive etc) and if the archiveteam wouldn't have stepped up it would be lost now. If you don't want things to stick around don't put them online.
- sascha_sl 7y ago
  Just because you can, doesn't mean you should archive peoples private lives, especially if those already deny robots in general, which many mastodon profiles do. I can understand overriding a corporate decision, but the meta tag on Mastodon profiles is a user preference that is explicitly opt in. There's a lot of harm that can be done with archived data and you idiots never see the issue because you're not targets and you assume anything anyone puts on the internet will be curl'd by someone. But that's because YOU'RE THE ONES DOING IT. STOP.
  - scohesc 7y ago
    Then practice good opsec and post under a pseudonym or something. We're past the point where you should expect any privacy of your identity on the internet.
    - jolmg 7y ago
      > We're past the point It never was a point. It was common sense since the old days to never expect privacy from what you publish on the internet. That's what publishing means.
  - tripzilch 7y ago
    Because they are the ones normalising the habit of smearing your personal details all over the net. I mean it seriously, we didn't used to do that. Anonymity, pseudonymity, remember how nobody used to know you're a dog on the Internet? > But that's because YOU'RE THE ONES DOING IT. STOP. No it's because the people who are doing harm using that data are doing harm. And they're not listening.
LocalH 7y ago
If you don't want it archived or kept, then don't publish it
- sascha_sl 7y ago
  "If you don't want to get shot in the US, don't go into public spaces" has about the same energy.
  - LocalH 7y ago
    I don't see that. So is it your belief that a person should by law, have the right to demand that anything they have ever published be taken down, no matter where it is? So a person has the right to contribute to a community for any given amount of time, and then pull out of that community and remove all their contributions?
dredmorbius 7y ago
Source? Keep in mind that archiving Mastodon is pretty much inevitable: spin up an instance, connect widely, keep toots. There've been some announced archive projects, one of which flared out loudly a few weeks ago when I asked what the content removal policy was (the operator threatened retaliatory actions just for my asking, I saved their replies ... via the Internet Archive). IA basically have an "ask and we'll remove" policy for content removal. Given that Mastodon toots are parented (at least for source instances) under the user's profile URL, asking for a global removal is fairly straightforward. Email info@archive.org The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is also, at least for now, not very easily searchable. Having been involved in the project to archive Google+, it's 1) impressive at what they saved and 2) disappointing at what was missed, as well as 3) frustratingly difficult to track down specific items. If I've got a link, I can generally get there. If not ... it's much harder. I do think we need to come to some level of agreement/understanding of what can be / should be archived, and what should not. That's not easy. I'm not an archive absolutist (save everything), but I understand the value in saving even the ephemeral and non-obviously significant. Significance often increases in time and context.
- sascha_sl 7y ago
  IA is fine. Archiveteam, which my comment references, has been doing it against user wishes. https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Mastodon https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Mastodon https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=robots.txt https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=robots.txt They're not the same entity, although people often assume they are.
  - dredmorbius 7y ago
    I'm aware of Archiveteam, and worked with them on the G+ archive project. They've been sensitive to exclusion requests, and serve principally to move data to IA, where, again, removal requests are easy and recognised. IA have generally the same policy as AT on robots.txt, for entirely justifiable reasons. In the grand scheme of things, open, public, accessible archives >>> closed, private, nonaccessible (or accessible-only-for-a-(price|class) archives. Adding the capacity to denote specific exclusions assists further in this.

A lot of the websites that shut down quickly didn't want to get archived too (blocked the Archive etc) and if the archiveteam wouldn't have stepped up it would be lost now. If you don't want things to stick around don't put them online.

sascha_sl 7y ago
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should archive peoples private lives, especially if those already deny robots in general, which many mastodon profiles do. I can understand overriding a corporate decision, but the meta tag on Mastodon profiles is a user preference that is explicitly opt in. There's a lot of harm that can be done with archived data and you idiots never see the issue because you're not targets and you assume anything anyone puts on the internet will be curl'd by someone. But that's because YOU'RE THE ONES DOING IT. STOP.
- scohesc 7y ago
  Then practice good opsec and post under a pseudonym or something. We're past the point where you should expect any privacy of your identity on the internet.
  - jolmg 7y ago
    > We're past the point It never was a point. It was common sense since the old days to never expect privacy from what you publish on the internet. That's what publishing means.
- tripzilch 7y ago
  Because they are the ones normalising the habit of smearing your personal details all over the net. I mean it seriously, we didn't used to do that. Anonymity, pseudonymity, remember how nobody used to know you're a dog on the Internet? > But that's because YOU'RE THE ONES DOING IT. STOP. No it's because the people who are doing harm using that data are doing harm. And they're not listening.

LocalH 7y ago

If you don't want it archived or kept, then don't publish it

sascha_sl 7y ago
"If you don't want to get shot in the US, don't go into public spaces" has about the same energy.
- LocalH 7y ago
  I don't see that. So is it your belief that a person should by law, have the right to demand that anything they have ever published be taken down, no matter where it is? So a person has the right to contribute to a community for any given amount of time, and then pull out of that community and remove all their contributions?

dredmorbius 7y ago

Source? Keep in mind that archiving Mastodon is pretty much inevitable: spin up an instance, connect widely, keep toots. There've been some announced archive projects, one of which flared out loudly a few weeks ago when I asked what the content removal policy was (the operator threatened retaliatory actions just for my asking, I saved their replies ... via the Internet Archive). IA basically have an "ask and we'll remove" policy for content removal. Given that Mastodon toots are parented (at least for source instances) under the user's profile URL, asking for a global removal is fairly straightforward. Email info@archive.org The Internet Archive's Wayback Machine is also, at least for now, not very easily searchable. Having been involved in the project to archive Google+, it's 1) impressive at what they saved and 2) disappointing at what was missed, as well as 3) frustratingly difficult to track down specific items. If I've got a link, I can generally get there. If not ... it's much harder. I do think we need to come to some level of agreement/understanding of what can be / should be archived, and what should not. That's not easy. I'm not an archive absolutist (save everything), but I understand the value in saving even the ephemeral and non-obviously significant. Significance often increases in time and context.

sascha_sl 7y ago
IA is fine. Archiveteam, which my comment references, has been doing it against user wishes. https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Mastodon https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Mastodon https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=robots.txt https://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=robots.txt They're not the same entity, although people often assume they are.
- dredmorbius 7y ago
  I'm aware of Archiveteam, and worked with them on the G+ archive project. They've been sensitive to exclusion requests, and serve principally to move data to IA, where, again, removal requests are easy and recognised. IA have generally the same policy as AT on robots.txt, for entirely justifiable reasons. In the grand scheme of things, open, public, accessible archives >>> closed, private, nonaccessible (or accessible-only-for-a-(price|class) archives. Adding the capacity to denote specific exclusions assists further in this.