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I could totally see there being a mass movement to add robot.txt to opt everyone out of being indexed. Then a movement to defederate anyone who allows indexing
by boyter 4y ago
I could totally see there being a mass movement to add robot.txt to opt everyone out of being indexed.
Then a movement to defederate anyone who allows indexing.
Then hopefully a move to allow-list federation which I personally have suggested for a while now as the only sensible move if they really want some privacy.
- CaptainFever 4y agoI can see the “defederate from indexing” movement too, although this may get pushback from creators that rely on social media to make a living or to self promote. (Checking for “web search tool”, #Google and #Fediblock from mastodon.social, it seems like people have not noticed yet.) I would like to point out that HN has actually discussed the “no search social media” idea before, where it was called pseudo-privacy[1]. Whitelisting makes me worried for the future of decentralised social media, as higher barriers for creating new instances encourage consolidation instead of diversity and decentralisation. It’s true that it would make moderation easier, though. Indeed, one of the main barriers to spam right now is perhaps the cost of domains. Speaking of which, this also makes me worried how the Fediverse will deal with its inevitable spam problem, without simply saying “the volunteer mods will take care of it”. Or perhaps that is a legit strategy, I’m not sure. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317234 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22317234
- boyter 4y agoI wonder about the spam problem as well. Blocks will not work. I have a feeling that Hashcash could be a solution, and where instances do not participate in it you could slow their connections in. Just an idea though.