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> Just this week, some random person decided to start indexing every post on the mastodon network. The backlash to this was incredible. A lot of servers blocked

> Just this week, some random person decided to start indexing every post on the mastodon network. The backlash to this was incredible. A lot of servers blocked this instance, and the guy got banned within hours of announcing his indexer. Kinda puzzled by this. Who's out there posting to the open Fediverse with no expectation that their posts are going to be seen, indexed, and possibly archived? It's like publishing a web page and expecting that search engines won't index it. Just like with other services, you should expect that anything you post to the Fediverse will be there forever, tucked away in databases, indexed by search engines, and outlive you. Even more so, since editing or deleting Fediverse posts is more like a polite request than an actual command; some servers ignore such requests even if your home server complied. That people are getting upset at this idea gives further credence to the idea that these newcomers really have no idea what they're joining up to and are just hoping that "Mastodon" matches the ideal Twitter replacement they have in their heads with little to no understanding of the reality of its workings.

joepie91_ 4y ago
And this is precisely the sort of thing that sets apart community-run projects like the fediverse (!= Mastodon) apart from for-profit platforms like Twitter. The fediverse culture is based around consent and guarding each other's safety. That means that just because you can do something, that doesn't mean that people will accept you doing so. And that is precisely what happened here. Someone started indexing all the posts of a group of largely vulnerable and marginalized folks, without asking for their consent, without trying to understand the community norms, just barging in and doing what they felt like without concern for the consequences to other people's safety. They got swiftly ejected from the community accordingly. If you truly believe that it's okay to index things just because "well, I can technically access it" without any further consideration, then to put it bluntly: you are a threat to the safety of marginalized folks, and you are not welcome in those spaces. You should also consider that there are plenty of people who cannot afford to take such a cavalier attitude as you. > That people are getting upset at this idea gives further credence to the idea that these newcomers really have no idea what they're joining up to and are just hoping that "Mastodon" matches the ideal Twitter replacement they have in their heads with little to no understanding of the reality of its workings. This is certainly true. The fediverse is not a replacement for Twitter, and it is not meant to be. The toxic Twitter culture is not wanted there. That of course doesn't stop media outlets from completely ignoring that and going for the quickest headline.
- Cyberdog 4y ago
  > The fediverse culture is based around consent and guarding each other's safety.… If you truly believe that it's okay to index things just because "well, I can technically access it" without any further consideration, then to put it bluntly: you are a threat to the safety of marginalized folks, and you are not welcome in those spaces. You should also consider that there are plenty of people who cannot afford to take such a cavalier attitude as you. This just makes no sense. You can't paint a message on a billboard and then get angry when cars driving by can read it. If a group of people wants to post messages secretly amongst themselves, the Fediverse is the wrong place to do it. Use Telegram or a private Discord server or something, but even then screenshot leaks are bound to happen eventually. If you are truly concerned about the safety of "vulnerable folks," you should be all for educating them on the true workings of the internet so that they can avoid publishing things they don't want the world to see. You are saying it's fine for them to use a system whose stated purpose is blasting messaged all across the internet to whoever wants to see them and then expecting all the recipients to know about and follow the unwritten rules they are somehow bound to when handling that message. That is not a realistic expectation.
  - simfree 4y ago
    Followers only posts and requiring followers to be approved by the account they are following is common on the Fediverse. This is what vulnerable folks I follow do to protect themselves, along with their instance admins often blackholing (IP tables dropping & blocking in their instance config) shit holes like https://freespeechextremist.com https://freespeechextremist.com I say this as a person banned by https://freespeechextremist.com https://freespeechextremist.com , apparently my toots on that Pleroma instance should have been racist, and most other speech is unacceptable there.
- ConfuSomu 4y ago
  Exactly, thanks for summarizing the problem with indexing well. Indexing posts is a disservice and a danger to the safely of marginalized communities.

joepie91_ 4y ago

And this is precisely the sort of thing that sets apart community-run projects like the fediverse (!= Mastodon) apart from for-profit platforms like Twitter. The fediverse culture is based around consent and guarding each other's safety. That means that just because you can do something, that doesn't mean that people will accept you doing so. And that is precisely what happened here. Someone started indexing all the posts of a group of largely vulnerable and marginalized folks, without asking for their consent, without trying to understand the community norms, just barging in and doing what they felt like without concern for the consequences to other people's safety. They got swiftly ejected from the community accordingly. If you truly believe that it's okay to index things just because "well, I can technically access it" without any further consideration, then to put it bluntly: you are a threat to the safety of marginalized folks, and you are not welcome in those spaces. You should also consider that there are plenty of people who cannot afford to take such a cavalier attitude as you. > That people are getting upset at this idea gives further credence to the idea that these newcomers really have no idea what they're joining up to and are just hoping that "Mastodon" matches the ideal Twitter replacement they have in their heads with little to no understanding of the reality of its workings. This is certainly true. The fediverse is not a replacement for Twitter, and it is not meant to be. The toxic Twitter culture is not wanted there. That of course doesn't stop media outlets from completely ignoring that and going for the quickest headline.

Cyberdog 4y ago
> The fediverse culture is based around consent and guarding each other's safety.… If you truly believe that it's okay to index things just because "well, I can technically access it" without any further consideration, then to put it bluntly: you are a threat to the safety of marginalized folks, and you are not welcome in those spaces. You should also consider that there are plenty of people who cannot afford to take such a cavalier attitude as you. This just makes no sense. You can't paint a message on a billboard and then get angry when cars driving by can read it. If a group of people wants to post messages secretly amongst themselves, the Fediverse is the wrong place to do it. Use Telegram or a private Discord server or something, but even then screenshot leaks are bound to happen eventually. If you are truly concerned about the safety of "vulnerable folks," you should be all for educating them on the true workings of the internet so that they can avoid publishing things they don't want the world to see. You are saying it's fine for them to use a system whose stated purpose is blasting messaged all across the internet to whoever wants to see them and then expecting all the recipients to know about and follow the unwritten rules they are somehow bound to when handling that message. That is not a realistic expectation.
- simfree 4y ago
  Followers only posts and requiring followers to be approved by the account they are following is common on the Fediverse. This is what vulnerable folks I follow do to protect themselves, along with their instance admins often blackholing (IP tables dropping & blocking in their instance config) shit holes like https://freespeechextremist.com https://freespeechextremist.com I say this as a person banned by https://freespeechextremist.com https://freespeechextremist.com , apparently my toots on that Pleroma instance should have been racist, and most other speech is unacceptable there.
ConfuSomu 4y ago
Exactly, thanks for summarizing the problem with indexing well. Indexing posts is a disservice and a danger to the safely of marginalized communities.