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> People should be able to converse without their every word landing on a permanent global un-erasable indexed public record. Call me crazy. Sure, and they sho

> People should be able to converse without their every word landing on a permanent global un-erasable indexed public record. Call me crazy. Sure, and they should use Signal instead of publishing their conversations and then getting mad when they turn out to be publicly available.

tensor 4y ago
This is my position too. What I'm looking for in a twitter alternative is something public that I can post to the entire world, and search. If I want to post to my friends I already use Signal and vastly prefer that to something like Mastodon. The add the extra complexity of follower only things and instances and I just don't understand who this service is aim at other than the people who created it. Hence, to me, it is and will always be some niche thing (that isn't terribly interesting to me). All that said I still read these threads because there needs to be a good twitter alternative.
sneak 4y ago
I don't think it is reasonable to expect Signal groupchats with more than n participants to stay private, where n is more than 5 and less than 20. Android malware is a thing and Signal Desktop does not encrypt anything at rest on disk.
Spivak 4y ago
I do think I should be able to post something publicly and not have it indexed by search engines. If someone screencaps it or copy/pastes it fine but the original should live on the dark web. This is one of those things that tech needs think is pointless when in reality opting out of search indexing drops your visibility to nothing which is good for making sure your posts don’t “break containment.” Unless you’re a public figure or social media influencer having a post tied to your IRL identity blow up is usually a bad thing.
- donkeyd 4y ago
  > having a post tied to your IRL identity blow up is usually a bad thing Well... Then be careful with what you post tied to your real identity. I have separate accounts for separate use cases. My main on Reddit, for example, can (very) easily be doxxed so I hardly post anything controversial on that account. Through all the recent data leaks it's getting even easier to dox people based on screen names too. I'm even considering getting a PO box next time I move house, just to decrease the chances of my home address ending up in a data dump.
- OctopusLupid 4y ago
  Do you mean deep web?
- vidarh 4y ago
  If it's readable, it's indexable. There's no way around that. I'd say there's no technical way around that, but there's also no realistic legal protection against that - at most you can limit public search engines.
- input_sh 4y ago
  > I do think I should be able to post something publicly and not have it indexed by search engines. There's a preference in settings, but it just adds your profile to robots.txt. Meaning that if someone boosts your post and doesn't have that configured...
BostonEnginerd 4y ago
I think the future of social actually looks more like Signal and Whatsapp groups (maybe Discord too?) than it does Twitter and Facebook. People seem to appreciate and value private discussion more than they used to. I certainly spend more time interacting with people in small group chats than I do on Facebook now.

tensor 4y ago

This is my position too. What I'm looking for in a twitter alternative is something public that I can post to the entire world, and search. If I want to post to my friends I already use Signal and vastly prefer that to something like Mastodon. The add the extra complexity of follower only things and instances and I just don't understand who this service is aim at other than the people who created it. Hence, to me, it is and will always be some niche thing (that isn't terribly interesting to me). All that said I still read these threads because there needs to be a good twitter alternative.

sneak 4y ago

I don't think it is reasonable to expect Signal groupchats with more than n participants to stay private, where n is more than 5 and less than 20. Android malware is a thing and Signal Desktop does not encrypt anything at rest on disk.

Spivak 4y ago

I do think I should be able to post something publicly and not have it indexed by search engines. If someone screencaps it or copy/pastes it fine but the original should live on the dark web. This is one of those things that tech needs think is pointless when in reality opting out of search indexing drops your visibility to nothing which is good for making sure your posts don’t “break containment.” Unless you’re a public figure or social media influencer having a post tied to your IRL identity blow up is usually a bad thing.

donkeyd 4y ago
> having a post tied to your IRL identity blow up is usually a bad thing Well... Then be careful with what you post tied to your real identity. I have separate accounts for separate use cases. My main on Reddit, for example, can (very) easily be doxxed so I hardly post anything controversial on that account. Through all the recent data leaks it's getting even easier to dox people based on screen names too. I'm even considering getting a PO box next time I move house, just to decrease the chances of my home address ending up in a data dump.
OctopusLupid 4y ago
Do you mean deep web?
vidarh 4y ago
If it's readable, it's indexable. There's no way around that. I'd say there's no technical way around that, but there's also no realistic legal protection against that - at most you can limit public search engines.
input_sh 4y ago
> I do think I should be able to post something publicly and not have it indexed by search engines. There's a preference in settings, but it just adds your profile to robots.txt. Meaning that if someone boosts your post and doesn't have that configured...

BostonEnginerd 4y ago

I think the future of social actually looks more like Signal and Whatsapp groups (maybe Discord too?) than it does Twitter and Facebook. People seem to appreciate and value private discussion more than they used to. I certainly spend more time interacting with people in small group chats than I do on Facebook now.