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Others have pointed out that this is fallacious -- even on big services sometimes employees are creepy stalkers, sometimes they're malicious actors of other sor

Others have pointed out that this is fallacious -- even on big services sometimes employees are creepy stalkers, sometimes they're malicious actors of other sorts -- but even if you ignore that on twitter you are a target of advertising and if you think they aren't slurping up all the data they can about you and storing it in a database somewhere, you're fooling yourself. Anyways, down this logic path is an internet where we somehow put all our trust in megacorporations and absolutely none in our fellow human beings and I dunno about you but one of those sounds a lot more dystopian to me than the other.

vgel 4y ago
twitter has hundreds of millions of users and 7,000 (less now, unfortunately) employees, not all of which have production access. i don't know anyone at twitter, so them accessing my data would need to be a random choice from the whole userbase. they'd need to evade internal checks (which, however weak they are, are infinitely stronger than the average fediverse instance). could it happen? could i be eaten by an escaped zoo leopard during my morning walk? having my data "read" by a non-sentient advertising model, while irritating, is nowhere near the same as having it read by a human being. that is a false equivalence. i made no argument about the absolute merit of twitter vs the fediverse. this is simply a downside of small communities that people excitedly migrating to the fediverse with little understanding of how it works or experience with its predecessors will soon run into—twitter is neutral ground, on mastodon you might be arguing with the instance admin's friend and find yourself retaliated against. anyone who used a forum or IRC in the 90's/00's knows what i'm talking about.
- e12e 4y ago
  Well, now you've posted about it here, so maybe someone will get curious? As for: > they'd need to evade internal checks (which, however weak they are, are infinitely stronger than the average fediverse instance). Did you watch Mudge's testemony? Even if Musk wants to, it'll take a total re-org to get a semblance of security at Twitter, by the sound of it... Mudge Twitter whistleblower testimony [video] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32824504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32824504 https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/data-security-at-risk-testimony-from-a-twitter-whistleblower https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/data-security-at-r...
- stormbrew 4y ago
  > having my data "read" by a non-sentient advertising model, while irritating, is nowhere near the same as having it read by a human being. that is a false equivalence. I agree they're not equivalent. One is a small harm guaranteed to be perpetrated every day against every single person using Twitter, numbering in the hundreds of millions of people, largely without those people knowing or consenting to it. The other is a large harm sometimes inflicted on a small number of people, and when it does happen is isolated to a small community where people can find out about it and act on that knowledge how they see fit. I've been around a long time. I've seen power abused on irc and forums and even small social networks. To me, the idea that we need supposedly benevolent megacorporations to keep us from doing harm to each other is a repulsive idea, far and away above "my instance admin might read something I wrote on their server." If we've forgotten how to exist in community with each other, we should relearn that skill.

vgel 4y ago

twitter has hundreds of millions of users and 7,000 (less now, unfortunately) employees, not all of which have production access. i don't know anyone at twitter, so them accessing my data would need to be a random choice from the whole userbase. they'd need to evade internal checks (which, however weak they are, are infinitely stronger than the average fediverse instance). could it happen? could i be eaten by an escaped zoo leopard during my morning walk? having my data "read" by a non-sentient advertising model, while irritating, is nowhere near the same as having it read by a human being. that is a false equivalence. i made no argument about the absolute merit of twitter vs the fediverse. this is simply a downside of small communities that people excitedly migrating to the fediverse with little understanding of how it works or experience with its predecessors will soon run into—twitter is neutral ground, on mastodon you might be arguing with the instance admin's friend and find yourself retaliated against. anyone who used a forum or IRC in the 90's/00's knows what i'm talking about.

e12e 4y ago
Well, now you've posted about it here, so maybe someone will get curious? As for: > they'd need to evade internal checks (which, however weak they are, are infinitely stronger than the average fediverse instance). Did you watch Mudge's testemony? Even if Musk wants to, it'll take a total re-org to get a semblance of security at Twitter, by the sound of it... Mudge Twitter whistleblower testimony [video] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32824504 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32824504 https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/data-security-at-risk-testimony-from-a-twitter-whistleblower https://www.judiciary.senate.gov/meetings/data-security-at-r...
stormbrew 4y ago
> having my data "read" by a non-sentient advertising model, while irritating, is nowhere near the same as having it read by a human being. that is a false equivalence. I agree they're not equivalent. One is a small harm guaranteed to be perpetrated every day against every single person using Twitter, numbering in the hundreds of millions of people, largely without those people knowing or consenting to it. The other is a large harm sometimes inflicted on a small number of people, and when it does happen is isolated to a small community where people can find out about it and act on that knowledge how they see fit. I've been around a long time. I've seen power abused on irc and forums and even small social networks. To me, the idea that we need supposedly benevolent megacorporations to keep us from doing harm to each other is a repulsive idea, far and away above "my instance admin might read something I wrote on their server." If we've forgotten how to exist in community with each other, we should relearn that skill.