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If you have personal information you do not wish bad actors to see, do not publish it using an open protocol explicitly designed to allow anyone to read said in

If you have personal information you do not wish bad actors to see, do not publish it using an open protocol explicitly designed to allow anyone to read said information. Defederating from Meta as a solution is stupid - Meta can (and will if they actually care enough) just rejoin undercover. Furthermore, when it comes to the fediverse, Meta is actually one of the more trusted actors compared to whatever else is on there - at least they're a known legal entity instead of some random. Finally, the fact that publishing private information publicly on the fediverse wasn't considered an issue before Meta came along shows just how irrelevant the whole thing is - the data has been public all this time, but the network is so irrelevant that not even bad actors cared enough to actually scrape it (or at least do anything with it).

zzzeek 3y ago
I think the point they're making is that Meta is in a special place, where by using their unusually vast amounts of personal data and photos, they are somehow (?) going to dox anonymous users by publishing their real names, based on matching their profiles in some way. At least that is the implication based on the quoted tweet right at the top of the post (which is lacking any real detail how exactly Meta got this person's real name matched up with an online alias).
- chc 3y ago
  The only entity that could realistically tell us how Meta linked the profile to that person's real name is Meta, and they aren't likely to share that information — so it's not exactly surprising that the tweet lacks detail on the matter.
  - Tempest1981 3y ago
    Phone numbers and recovery email addresses?
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- yodsanklai 3y ago
  > they are somehow (?) going to dox anonymous users by publishing their real names, based on matching their profiles in some way. Aren't there laws against that? are there even allow to build internal links between FB/IG accounts without user consent?
  - zzzeek 3y ago
    I'm sure the US justice system will be glad to let you sue after you've been murdered by an online mob that found out where you live
    - Vecr 3y ago
      If you get doxed buy {a gun, multiple guns}, preferably a rifle with a red dot or EOTECH and a suppressor, if you can. Guns stop riots.
      - gowld 3y ago
        What if the rioters have guns with red dots and a suppressor?
        Vecr 3y ago
        I think it would probably stop at some point, due to the chilling effect on riots due to a lot of rioters being killed and the probable presence of police and federal agents. It would probably be too late to save you, but it might be a cause to repeal the machine gun ban, so future people could mount machine guns to the back of their pickups, etc.
      - xigoi 3y ago
        Ah yes, the American way of solving violence with more violence.
        Vecr 3y ago
        I get feelings about pacifists I have to suppress. You can say that there are people aligned closely enough to you that dying is not actually an existential threat in the same sense as your country or species getting destroyed is, but it's not a good precedent to let them roll you over without a reasonable application of force. I would personally start questioning it if I had to kill over a thousand people to save myself, but if I'm mostly avoiding collateral damage (i.e. I mostly avoid killing non-rioters/non-attackers), I would keep going. Give them a couple kilodeaths and the riot will stop.
- Havoc 3y ago
  >using their unusually vast amounts of personal data Jikes. Hadn't considered that. Certainly seems plausible, not just via technical means but also content. I've got a reddit profile that I try very hard to keep "clean and anonymous" yet I've had people from halfway around the world message me say "Hey you're Jack from X". Post sufficient volume and it becomes identifiable no matter how hard one tries.
  - omoikane 3y ago
    I think people can make that discovery but you could always deny that association, and it might be difficult for random strangers to gather enough proof to say that two accounts are linked. Meta appears to be publicizing account associations that were previously difficult to confirm, in a way that defeats any previous efforts to maintain deniability.
    - mcpackieh 3y ago
      When somebody confronts you with PII like that, the best move is probably radio silence. Neither confirm nor deny it, and don't even confirm that their message was received. Don't do free battle damage assessment for potential adversaries.
- giancarlostoro 3y ago
  I am assuming they used the same email address they use on Facebook.
- not2b 3y ago
  Meta (when they were Facebook) had a rule that members would use their real names, that their users consented to as part of the terms of service. Apparently they used that as justification to find out someone's real name who was using a pseudonym. Kinda stinks, but I could see how they could justify it (though in the cases I'm aware of they just demanded that people provide real names or verify that the name that they were using was real). But someone who uses a completely different site hasn't consented to the Threads terms of service, and if Threads randomly decided to dox people and alter their posts to add real names (or perhaps deadnames for trans folks), that's a very different matter, and I'm sure that their lawyers are going to tell them not to do that (or risk legal consequences). Since non-users haven't agreed to any terms of service Meta face real court, none of that binding arbitration stuff, and possibly class action if they do it a lot.
  - zzzeek 3y ago
    What if Meta identifies a user on Threads and/or Instagram (who has therefore agreed to the TOS) using a pseduonym on a totally arbitrary Mastodon server? All Meta has to do is drop a little sidebar on that person's Instagram profile that says "This user also identifies as XYZ@server" Person has been doxxed, the content is entirely on Threads or Instagram , they agreed to the TOS, and it seems very plausible Meta would do something like this.
JohnFen 3y ago
> Meta is actually one of the more trusted actors compared to whatever else is on there - at least they're a known legal entity instead of some random. But they're a known entity with a long track record, which is how I know they can't be trusted.
- nomel 3y ago
  But, you know the space they operate. That space is limited by profits, what their immense legal team allows, and their immense security team controls. The alternative is, literally, a complete stranger, with no track record, unknown motives, and (as the recent hacks showed) doesn't have the skillset to keep your information secure anyways.
  - JohnFen 3y ago
    This is true, but it's also a "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't" argument. Which is not to say it's invalid, of course, but it's not a strong argument. Personally, while I certainly don't trust a random stranger, I trust Facebook even less. Not that any of this matters, really. My opinion affects nothing.
    - thrashh 3y ago
      Trust is more nuanced more than that though. I trust my grandma to make a good cake, but I do not trust my dad to do the same. But I trust my dad to be there when I call him, whereas I wouldn't of my grandma. And that level of trust nuance comes from a long track record. To me, there is no other source of trust.
      - JohnFen 3y ago
        I agree entirely! And the long track record I see of Facebook tells me that I can trust them to abuse people any time they can make a dime doing so. They have no benefit of the doubt, because there is no doubt. A stranger might also abuse people any chance they get, but there is also a chance that they're better than that.
joe_the_user 3y ago
Defederating from Meta as a solution is stupid - Meta can (and will if they actually care enough) just rejoin undercover. I agree with the rest of your post but I suspect that in this instance Meta, a large public company, that might leery about doing something that potentially embarassing. But your basic point remains true. A wide variety of companies, many bad actor, are going to be scraping, processing and connecting any data anyone makes puts online and that will happen whether Meta joins the fediverse or not. If Meta wanted fediverse data bad, they'd likely just buy it. Indeed, all the hand wringing about Meta in particular in the article and here seems deeply confused - of course Meta isn't the only problematic actor out there. Indeed, the anonymity-problem of all the walled-gardens is that they explicitly attempt to stop online anonymity in various overt ways. But everywhere entities are trying to deanonymize covertly and these can be at least as bad. The main thing is that anyone wanting anonymity needs to take active measures to achieve it. And these measures vary on how visible you are and effectively how much your enemies are capable and interested in you. Those talking anonymity would do best educating people in this.
- kevinventullo 3y ago
  Meta, a large public company, that might leery about doing something that potentially embarassing. I don’t know, they did depend on Onavo analytics for a while: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
  - joe_the_user 3y ago
    Yeah, the (less-important, subsidiary) point is they'd be happier to use some other source than engaging deception overtly and results would be the same.
- jdp23 3y ago
  I should have been clearer about how this relates to general issues. I added a sentence "Of course, Meta's far from the only threat out there, but as I discuss in 'Threat modeling Meta, the fediverse, and privacy', looking at Meta-related threats also points to solutions that increase privacy and safety in the fediverse more generally." Here's a link to the longer post (still a draft). https://privacy.thenexus.today/fediverse-threat-modeling-privacy-and-meta/ https://privacy.thenexus.today/fediverse-threat-modeling-pri... And agreed, it doesn't scale for Meta to infiltrate people into every single fediverse instance -- although threat actors who are targeting specific people or communities might well do this, so it's also something to take into account.
godelski 3y ago
> Defederating from Meta as a solution is stupid One question I've had for fediverse people is how you prevent a federated system from centralizing. I am legitimately curious. Email is often given as an example, but imo that a perfect example of a decentralized system BECOMING centralized. Sure, other players exist but the vast majority of people are on gmail, apple, or outlook (which is much smaller than the other two). Things tend to follow power distributions due to the momentum force being critical. In network systems (e.g. twitter,facebook,HN,email,ISPs,Walmark,etc) the utility/value is not linearly proportional to the userbase, but super-linear (this was one of the big problems with cryptocurrencies too. "Gotta have money to make money"). In these systems resources are "attractive." So with this in mind, how is a decentralized paradigm any different than an attempt to just reshuffle the top players? (i.e. re-centralize but with a different group at the top) I just don't see the mechanism that prevents centralization.
- wmf 3y ago
  You can force decentralization in certain ways like only allowing one user per domain but nobody has the courage to try it.
  - gonehome 3y ago
    This is similar to how urbit’s ID system works fwiw - the ID is tied to the computing node itself 1:1 and you can’t have an account that’s separate from a node.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- gonehome 3y ago
  I think you don’t, which is why I think federated systems built on the existing stack are doomed to fail (by recentralizing). You’re right to point out email as an example of this failure. You need urbit or something like it to fix it, the problems are deeper. https://martiancomputing.substack.com/p/tlon-urbit-computing-freedom https://martiancomputing.substack.com/p/tlon-urbit-computing...
itronitron 3y ago
You're overlooking the fact that Meta is collecting a whole lot more information than just what people post publicly, and they're not transparent about that.
alwaysbeconsing 3y ago
There's a huge gap between sharing a post and having that be replicated and consumed or archived elsewhere by other users/hosts, and having that same post processed against a giant pile of other data specifically to de-anonymize it. The first one is, yes, just normal use of public information. The second is more like spying, and since we know Facebook does stuff like that, being apprehensive specifically about them is justified.
fooofw 3y ago
I feel like the fact that Meta (and anyone) can see posts and users regardless of whether or not they are defederated is a bit of a distraction. However, I do see the point of considering ways for instances to somehow distance themselves from Meta's instance. If another instance/admin was publicly known to comparably engage in pervasive user tracking (both on and off their own websites) and algorithmic attention monopolization, would we not expect many other actors in the fediverse to defederate or otherwise distance themselves from those practices/that instance? Obviously, several instances have decided to do so by premptively saying they will defederate. I'm just saying that I think it makes sense to at least consider it. E.g., compare the labels the data collected by the Threads Android app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.instagram.barcelona https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.instagr...) to those of the Mastodon one (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.joinmastodon.android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.joinmastod...), and I at least see the contrast. But perhaps this is just me being naively unaware of rampant community-sanctioned indiscriminate collection of user data in the fediverse (I'm not part of it, just curiously observing Meta's entry).
dcow 3y ago
Yeah I stopped reading the article once it mentioned people getting annoyed and wanting to control who sees their public content. You don't get to make that call. The community doesn't get to make that call. The protocol makes that call and the protocol allows anybody to view stuff you post publicly. You don't get to say "I publish this but Meta can't view it". Not even legally you don't. That's not privacy and no amount of "web3" is going to fix that. Copyright cannot restrict who can view a work you created once you transfer or license that work to somebody else (e.g. by releasing it publicly on the fediverse). You don't get to say "here's my post but if you show it to Meta then that's illegal". We don't even have a common legal framework for dealing with content distribution that isn't copying (we got "lucky" that you have to copy content to view it digitally so copyright can be poorly jammed onto the digital content distribution model and everything doesn't burn down). Where the heck did people get the idea that they get to dictate how culture spreads and evolves?
- Guvante 3y ago
  Your understanding is flawed. Copyright is 100% okay with transitively controlling production of content. After all how else would you describe someone allowing Netflix to stream your content? You can't restream Netflix and Netflix is restricted on how it can stream to you. Both rooted in the original Copyright protection and the licenses to content given out by intermediaries. Most posting platforms give themselves very broad rights with what they can do in a transitive fashion. But that is "companies don't want to get sued for user uploaded content and are lazy" not "you don't have any rights over things that are published".
  - dcow 3y ago
    It's not that simple. If I sell you a book, I cannot place a restriction on that sale saying you can't resell that book (first sale doctrine). You're allowed to do that because you own the copy of the book. You can't copy the book and sell it, because you don't own the copyright, but you can sell the original copy, show it to whomever you want, etc. It's not that "copyright is okay with transitive licensing" but more that "copyright simply prevents you from copying a work you didn't create (or otherwise don't have copyrights over)". That's all it does. If you want to place downstream restrictions on your content then you have to license it (and get someone to agree to your license). You have rights over how you license content. Yes. And users may agree that they're only "viewing" a copy and don't in fact own it when engaging with your licensed content, sure. But my main point was that you don't get to publish content to the public domain and then say oh wait no I didn't want Meta to see that oops #privacy #cancelmeta. And further that it's kinda silly to imagine a world where everyone licenses every little toot they make. At some point we're in a public forum and we just all need to understand what that means, including that someone you don't like might be listening. Anyway, I don't think licensing content is a positive thing for society. It may benefit media conglomerates, but not individuals. Arguably, creators shouldn't be allowed to say "Netflix you can stream this content to users but not in Brazil". I don't think it's a sealed deal that downstream restrictions on content distribution are healthy or in any way in the public interest. Charging a royalty for a views/streams of some show is one thing. Saying "only on Tuesdays and not in Brazil" gives too much control to creators to dictate how their art should be interpreted. And nobody can prevent you from using Netflix to stream a show to your Brazilian friend on the couch next to you... nor should they ever be able to. That would be really really bad technology, were it to exist. So short of attaching licenses to every post you make, no, there's not a socially healthy, let alone even viable, strategy to control content distribution in the "fediverse".
bmacho 3y ago
Can Meta scrape twitter or reddit, and pair your messages with your facebook account? Sure they can. But it is probably not legal, and looks very scary. Mastodon and Fediverse however explicitly offers your data to them.
- not2b 3y ago
  Even though Threads isn't federated yet, you can find any user's public messages via https://threads.net/@username https://threads.net/@username (which is identical to the scheme Mastodon and other fediverse sites use). Anyone's public postings can be found in the same way, and defederation doesn't prevent it. There is nothing to stop the Meta folks from looking at https://sfba.social/@not2b https://sfba.social/@not2b even if our admin blocks threads.net. Mastodon and the fediverse explicitly offer public posts to everyone. Some sites use robots.txt to block search engines and web crawlers that follow the conventions. Others don't.
dathinab 3y ago
> If you have personal information you do not wish bad actors to see, do not publish it using an open protocol explicitly designed to allow anyone to read said information. you seem to not even have read the first paragraph, or not understood what it imples the whole point of this article is that meta has a precendence of aggregating and combining data from all kind of sources. This includes data which is not supposed to be public, but e.g. was sold without your knowledge, awareness or explicit consent. A situation you could argue the huge majority of people on the internet is in. For example consider this hypothetical scenario: So they might take the supposed to be public data of e.g. your anonymous political activism (lets say anti corruption in a very corrupt country). Then take a public profile you created e.g. in your teens, which you never linked or used the same email address with as you politic profile and should have no connection at all (you acted carefully). But then meta is like, oh see through the data we bought/own we know that that profile was using that (non public) email address and through other data we brought we know that that email is belived to be owned by the same person as that other email (e.g. you used is for forwarding or account recovery, also non public) so we conclude they are the same and publish *to the whole world trivially accessible that the anonymous political activists is you*. Or another scenario: They used AI body/face recognition to make the link even through you never posted the face in you anonymous account without appropriate masking or at all. Or another scenario: Metadata of locations leaked through the usage of social media created the link. Or another scenario: Someone marks you on a image they took without your consent (and/or knowledge), doesn't matter if they later delete it or make it only visible to their frinds followers. Or in other words as long as you don't live as a complete hermit and have far above average tech knowledge and also treat absurdly careful to a point where it causing major annoyance in your life stuff like that can totally happen to you. This is why the GDPR was created to make it illegal to aggregate information about third parties without their consent in surprising ways. But it's also where it failed the hardest to archive it's goals you could say (but thats a different discussion altogether).
8organicbits 3y ago
> wasn't considered an issue before Meta came along This is false, there's been frequent discussion around how indexing and search should be performed in a privacy preserving way. Meta is just the latest concern. [1] https://www.anildash.com/2023/01/16/a-fediverse-search/ https://www.anildash.com/2023/01/16/a-fediverse-search/ [2] https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/07/cage-the-mastodon/ https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/07/cage-the-mastodon/
boyter 3y ago
I totally agree. Using a protocol designed to distribute content with the expectation that you remain in control of it is asinine. If you really want to control it, either allow list federate with only instances you know are in the same circle (IE make your own smaller fediverse), or move to a private forum. I argued with the Fediverse about this several months ago, and raised all of the same problems in the article with them. Only to be shouted at, doxed, abused, insulted and attacked. I still think that what I experienced would be enough to drive some people to self harm. The level of toxic interactions on the fedivese was the worst I have ever experienced on the internet. As such I find the fact that there is a freakout over what has been predicted multiple times hilarious. I welcome Meta joining. The sooner people on the fedivese grow up and realize the reality of what is coming the better. I really like ActivityPub. I really like the fedivese idea. However when you visit you rapidly discover its full of the really annoying people from twitter, and people with "ex tumblr poster" in their bios. Forget where this came from but it sums it up perfectly. Fediverse: We are open for federation and you to join! Meta: Ok here is what we are doing with instagram. Fediverse: Not that kind of open!
sanderjd 3y ago
Yeah when I saw this headline I was really confused. What is the privacy concern with respect to publicly published data? It really doesn't compute for me...
cmrdporcupine 3y ago
The threat here is not about Meta harvesting already-public information. The risk here is about them doing to people off their network what they do extensively within their own network already: harvest information on your interactions with their content and users. Meta doesn't just build a profile of you based on your posts, its secret sauce is building a profile of you based on what you like, repost, comment-on, hover-over, etc. Yes they can go out and spider ActivityPub content already, though they probably don't currently bother. But what they will gain by being part of the fediverse is the ability to associate your interest in their content back to your identity and learn out a graph about you. Boost/like/share something off Threads, and you've helped them build a model about you in a way that they can't currently do with all the free content out there already. I'm not sure why other people aren't making this connection. Again, the threat is that Meta could extend its abilities to build a model on how users from outside its own user database interact with its content and users. They're known to already do this in the form of tracking pixels on 3rd party sites already, but this is a richer source of information. That said, I also think the Fediverse is so tiny that this particular market isn't of much interest to Meta in reality. I suspect this feature will never launch.
barbariangrunge 3y ago
That was one of the problems with mewe. Sure, there's a good privacy policy. But what you're posting is more or less public, so the point is almost moot. MeWe was nice though, really great communities on there back in the day
jezzamon 3y ago
There's a few different concerns, one concern is about the reach of your posts changing dramatically, and meta handing your content to people who will then harass you, share your posts into their network multiplying the effect, etc (a common experience for trans people on some networks). Like, these people could've found your posts but they have no reason to search for you explicitly. L

zzzeek 3y ago

I think the point they're making is that Meta is in a special place, where by using their unusually vast amounts of personal data and photos, they are somehow (?) going to dox anonymous users by publishing their real names, based on matching their profiles in some way. At least that is the implication based on the quoted tweet right at the top of the post (which is lacking any real detail how exactly Meta got this person's real name matched up with an online alias).

chc 3y ago
The only entity that could realistically tell us how Meta linked the profile to that person's real name is Meta, and they aren't likely to share that information — so it's not exactly surprising that the tweet lacks detail on the matter.
- Tempest1981 3y ago
  Phone numbers and recovery email addresses?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
yodsanklai 3y ago
> they are somehow (?) going to dox anonymous users by publishing their real names, based on matching their profiles in some way. Aren't there laws against that? are there even allow to build internal links between FB/IG accounts without user consent?
- zzzeek 3y ago
  I'm sure the US justice system will be glad to let you sue after you've been murdered by an online mob that found out where you live
  - Vecr 3y ago
    If you get doxed buy {a gun, multiple guns}, preferably a rifle with a red dot or EOTECH and a suppressor, if you can. Guns stop riots.
    - gowld 3y ago
      What if the rioters have guns with red dots and a suppressor?
      - Vecr 3y ago
        I think it would probably stop at some point, due to the chilling effect on riots due to a lot of rioters being killed and the probable presence of police and federal agents. It would probably be too late to save you, but it might be a cause to repeal the machine gun ban, so future people could mount machine guns to the back of their pickups, etc.
    - xigoi 3y ago
      Ah yes, the American way of solving violence with more violence.
      - Vecr 3y ago
        I get feelings about pacifists I have to suppress. You can say that there are people aligned closely enough to you that dying is not actually an existential threat in the same sense as your country or species getting destroyed is, but it's not a good precedent to let them roll you over without a reasonable application of force. I would personally start questioning it if I had to kill over a thousand people to save myself, but if I'm mostly avoiding collateral damage (i.e. I mostly avoid killing non-rioters/non-attackers), I would keep going. Give them a couple kilodeaths and the riot will stop.
Havoc 3y ago
>using their unusually vast amounts of personal data Jikes. Hadn't considered that. Certainly seems plausible, not just via technical means but also content. I've got a reddit profile that I try very hard to keep "clean and anonymous" yet I've had people from halfway around the world message me say "Hey you're Jack from X". Post sufficient volume and it becomes identifiable no matter how hard one tries.
- omoikane 3y ago
  I think people can make that discovery but you could always deny that association, and it might be difficult for random strangers to gather enough proof to say that two accounts are linked. Meta appears to be publicizing account associations that were previously difficult to confirm, in a way that defeats any previous efforts to maintain deniability.
  - mcpackieh 3y ago
    When somebody confronts you with PII like that, the best move is probably radio silence. Neither confirm nor deny it, and don't even confirm that their message was received. Don't do free battle damage assessment for potential adversaries.
giancarlostoro 3y ago
I am assuming they used the same email address they use on Facebook.
not2b 3y ago
Meta (when they were Facebook) had a rule that members would use their real names, that their users consented to as part of the terms of service. Apparently they used that as justification to find out someone's real name who was using a pseudonym. Kinda stinks, but I could see how they could justify it (though in the cases I'm aware of they just demanded that people provide real names or verify that the name that they were using was real). But someone who uses a completely different site hasn't consented to the Threads terms of service, and if Threads randomly decided to dox people and alter their posts to add real names (or perhaps deadnames for trans folks), that's a very different matter, and I'm sure that their lawyers are going to tell them not to do that (or risk legal consequences). Since non-users haven't agreed to any terms of service Meta face real court, none of that binding arbitration stuff, and possibly class action if they do it a lot.
- zzzeek 3y ago
  What if Meta identifies a user on Threads and/or Instagram (who has therefore agreed to the TOS) using a pseduonym on a totally arbitrary Mastodon server? All Meta has to do is drop a little sidebar on that person's Instagram profile that says "This user also identifies as XYZ@server" Person has been doxxed, the content is entirely on Threads or Instagram , they agreed to the TOS, and it seems very plausible Meta would do something like this.

JohnFen 3y ago

> Meta is actually one of the more trusted actors compared to whatever else is on there - at least they're a known legal entity instead of some random. But they're a known entity with a long track record, which is how I know they can't be trusted.

nomel 3y ago
But, you know the space they operate. That space is limited by profits, what their immense legal team allows, and their immense security team controls. The alternative is, literally, a complete stranger, with no track record, unknown motives, and (as the recent hacks showed) doesn't have the skillset to keep your information secure anyways.
- JohnFen 3y ago
  This is true, but it's also a "the devil you know is better than the devil you don't" argument. Which is not to say it's invalid, of course, but it's not a strong argument. Personally, while I certainly don't trust a random stranger, I trust Facebook even less. Not that any of this matters, really. My opinion affects nothing.
  - thrashh 3y ago
    Trust is more nuanced more than that though. I trust my grandma to make a good cake, but I do not trust my dad to do the same. But I trust my dad to be there when I call him, whereas I wouldn't of my grandma. And that level of trust nuance comes from a long track record. To me, there is no other source of trust.
    - JohnFen 3y ago
      I agree entirely! And the long track record I see of Facebook tells me that I can trust them to abuse people any time they can make a dime doing so. They have no benefit of the doubt, because there is no doubt. A stranger might also abuse people any chance they get, but there is also a chance that they're better than that.

joe_the_user 3y ago

Defederating from Meta as a solution is stupid - Meta can (and will if they actually care enough) just rejoin undercover. I agree with the rest of your post but I suspect that in this instance Meta, a large public company, that might leery about doing something that potentially embarassing. But your basic point remains true. A wide variety of companies, many bad actor, are going to be scraping, processing and connecting any data anyone makes puts online and that will happen whether Meta joins the fediverse or not. If Meta wanted fediverse data bad, they'd likely just buy it. Indeed, all the hand wringing about Meta in particular in the article and here seems deeply confused - of course Meta isn't the only problematic actor out there. Indeed, the anonymity-problem of all the walled-gardens is that they explicitly attempt to stop online anonymity in various overt ways. But everywhere entities are trying to deanonymize covertly and these can be at least as bad. The main thing is that anyone wanting anonymity needs to take active measures to achieve it. And these measures vary on how visible you are and effectively how much your enemies are capable and interested in you. Those talking anonymity would do best educating people in this.

kevinventullo 3y ago
Meta, a large public company, that might leery about doing something that potentially embarassing. I don’t know, they did depend on Onavo analytics for a while: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onavo
- joe_the_user 3y ago
  Yeah, the (less-important, subsidiary) point is they'd be happier to use some other source than engaging deception overtly and results would be the same.
jdp23 3y ago
I should have been clearer about how this relates to general issues. I added a sentence "Of course, Meta's far from the only threat out there, but as I discuss in 'Threat modeling Meta, the fediverse, and privacy', looking at Meta-related threats also points to solutions that increase privacy and safety in the fediverse more generally." Here's a link to the longer post (still a draft). https://privacy.thenexus.today/fediverse-threat-modeling-privacy-and-meta/ https://privacy.thenexus.today/fediverse-threat-modeling-pri... And agreed, it doesn't scale for Meta to infiltrate people into every single fediverse instance -- although threat actors who are targeting specific people or communities might well do this, so it's also something to take into account.

godelski 3y ago

> Defederating from Meta as a solution is stupid One question I've had for fediverse people is how you prevent a federated system from centralizing. I am legitimately curious. Email is often given as an example, but imo that a perfect example of a decentralized system BECOMING centralized. Sure, other players exist but the vast majority of people are on gmail, apple, or outlook (which is much smaller than the other two). Things tend to follow power distributions due to the momentum force being critical. In network systems (e.g. twitter,facebook,HN,email,ISPs,Walmark,etc) the utility/value is not linearly proportional to the userbase, but super-linear (this was one of the big problems with cryptocurrencies too. "Gotta have money to make money"). In these systems resources are "attractive." So with this in mind, how is a decentralized paradigm any different than an attempt to just reshuffle the top players? (i.e. re-centralize but with a different group at the top) I just don't see the mechanism that prevents centralization.

wmf 3y ago
You can force decentralization in certain ways like only allowing one user per domain but nobody has the courage to try it.
- gonehome 3y ago
  This is similar to how urbit’s ID system works fwiw - the ID is tied to the computing node itself 1:1 and you can’t have an account that’s separate from a node.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
gonehome 3y ago
I think you don’t, which is why I think federated systems built on the existing stack are doomed to fail (by recentralizing). You’re right to point out email as an example of this failure. You need urbit or something like it to fix it, the problems are deeper. https://martiancomputing.substack.com/p/tlon-urbit-computing-freedom https://martiancomputing.substack.com/p/tlon-urbit-computing...

itronitron 3y ago

You're overlooking the fact that Meta is collecting a whole lot more information than just what people post publicly, and they're not transparent about that.

alwaysbeconsing 3y ago

There's a huge gap between sharing a post and having that be replicated and consumed or archived elsewhere by other users/hosts, and having that same post processed against a giant pile of other data specifically to de-anonymize it. The first one is, yes, just normal use of public information. The second is more like spying, and since we know Facebook does stuff like that, being apprehensive specifically about them is justified.

fooofw 3y ago

I feel like the fact that Meta (and anyone) can see posts and users regardless of whether or not they are defederated is a bit of a distraction. However, I do see the point of considering ways for instances to somehow distance themselves from Meta's instance. If another instance/admin was publicly known to comparably engage in pervasive user tracking (both on and off their own websites) and algorithmic attention monopolization, would we not expect many other actors in the fediverse to defederate or otherwise distance themselves from those practices/that instance? Obviously, several instances have decided to do so by premptively saying they will defederate. I'm just saying that I think it makes sense to at least consider it. E.g., compare the labels the data collected by the Threads Android app (https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.instagram.barcelona https://play.google.com/store/apps/datasafety?id=com.instagr...) to those of the Mastodon one (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.joinmastodon.android https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.joinmastod...), and I at least see the contrast. But perhaps this is just me being naively unaware of rampant community-sanctioned indiscriminate collection of user data in the fediverse (I'm not part of it, just curiously observing Meta's entry).

dcow 3y ago

Yeah I stopped reading the article once it mentioned people getting annoyed and wanting to control who sees their public content. You don't get to make that call. The community doesn't get to make that call. The protocol makes that call and the protocol allows anybody to view stuff you post publicly. You don't get to say "I publish this but Meta can't view it". Not even legally you don't. That's not privacy and no amount of "web3" is going to fix that. Copyright cannot restrict who can view a work you created once you transfer or license that work to somebody else (e.g. by releasing it publicly on the fediverse). You don't get to say "here's my post but if you show it to Meta then that's illegal". We don't even have a common legal framework for dealing with content distribution that isn't copying (we got "lucky" that you have to copy content to view it digitally so copyright can be poorly jammed onto the digital content distribution model and everything doesn't burn down). Where the heck did people get the idea that they get to dictate how culture spreads and evolves?

Guvante 3y ago
Your understanding is flawed. Copyright is 100% okay with transitively controlling production of content. After all how else would you describe someone allowing Netflix to stream your content? You can't restream Netflix and Netflix is restricted on how it can stream to you. Both rooted in the original Copyright protection and the licenses to content given out by intermediaries. Most posting platforms give themselves very broad rights with what they can do in a transitive fashion. But that is "companies don't want to get sued for user uploaded content and are lazy" not "you don't have any rights over things that are published".
- dcow 3y ago
  It's not that simple. If I sell you a book, I cannot place a restriction on that sale saying you can't resell that book (first sale doctrine). You're allowed to do that because you own the copy of the book. You can't copy the book and sell it, because you don't own the copyright, but you can sell the original copy, show it to whomever you want, etc. It's not that "copyright is okay with transitive licensing" but more that "copyright simply prevents you from copying a work you didn't create (or otherwise don't have copyrights over)". That's all it does. If you want to place downstream restrictions on your content then you have to license it (and get someone to agree to your license). You have rights over how you license content. Yes. And users may agree that they're only "viewing" a copy and don't in fact own it when engaging with your licensed content, sure. But my main point was that you don't get to publish content to the public domain and then say oh wait no I didn't want Meta to see that oops #privacy #cancelmeta. And further that it's kinda silly to imagine a world where everyone licenses every little toot they make. At some point we're in a public forum and we just all need to understand what that means, including that someone you don't like might be listening. Anyway, I don't think licensing content is a positive thing for society. It may benefit media conglomerates, but not individuals. Arguably, creators shouldn't be allowed to say "Netflix you can stream this content to users but not in Brazil". I don't think it's a sealed deal that downstream restrictions on content distribution are healthy or in any way in the public interest. Charging a royalty for a views/streams of some show is one thing. Saying "only on Tuesdays and not in Brazil" gives too much control to creators to dictate how their art should be interpreted. And nobody can prevent you from using Netflix to stream a show to your Brazilian friend on the couch next to you... nor should they ever be able to. That would be really really bad technology, were it to exist. So short of attaching licenses to every post you make, no, there's not a socially healthy, let alone even viable, strategy to control content distribution in the "fediverse".

bmacho 3y ago

Can Meta scrape twitter or reddit, and pair your messages with your facebook account? Sure they can. But it is probably not legal, and looks very scary. Mastodon and Fediverse however explicitly offers your data to them.

not2b 3y ago
Even though Threads isn't federated yet, you can find any user's public messages via https://threads.net/@username https://threads.net/@username (which is identical to the scheme Mastodon and other fediverse sites use). Anyone's public postings can be found in the same way, and defederation doesn't prevent it. There is nothing to stop the Meta folks from looking at https://sfba.social/@not2b https://sfba.social/@not2b even if our admin blocks threads.net. Mastodon and the fediverse explicitly offer public posts to everyone. Some sites use robots.txt to block search engines and web crawlers that follow the conventions. Others don't.

dathinab 3y ago

> If you have personal information you do not wish bad actors to see, do not publish it using an open protocol explicitly designed to allow anyone to read said information. you seem to not even have read the first paragraph, or not understood what it imples the whole point of this article is that meta has a precendence of aggregating and combining data from all kind of sources. This includes data which is not supposed to be public, but e.g. was sold without your knowledge, awareness or explicit consent. A situation you could argue the huge majority of people on the internet is in. For example consider this hypothetical scenario: So they might take the supposed to be public data of e.g. your anonymous political activism (lets say anti corruption in a very corrupt country). Then take a public profile you created e.g. in your teens, which you never linked or used the same email address with as you politic profile and should have no connection at all (you acted carefully). But then meta is like, oh see through the data we bought/own we know that that profile was using that (non public) email address and through other data we brought we know that that email is belived to be owned by the same person as that other email (e.g. you used is for forwarding or account recovery, also non public) so we conclude they are the same and publish *to the whole world trivially accessible that the anonymous political activists is you*. Or another scenario: They used AI body/face recognition to make the link even through you never posted the face in you anonymous account without appropriate masking or at all. Or another scenario: Metadata of locations leaked through the usage of social media created the link. Or another scenario: Someone marks you on a image they took without your consent (and/or knowledge), doesn't matter if they later delete it or make it only visible to their frinds followers. Or in other words as long as you don't live as a complete hermit and have far above average tech knowledge and also treat absurdly careful to a point where it causing major annoyance in your life stuff like that can totally happen to you. This is why the GDPR was created to make it illegal to aggregate information about third parties without their consent in surprising ways. But it's also where it failed the hardest to archive it's goals you could say (but thats a different discussion altogether).

8organicbits 3y ago

> wasn't considered an issue before Meta came along This is false, there's been frequent discussion around how indexing and search should be performed in a privacy preserving way. Meta is just the latest concern. [1] https://www.anildash.com/2023/01/16/a-fediverse-search/ https://www.anildash.com/2023/01/16/a-fediverse-search/ [2] https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/07/cage-the-mastodon/ https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2018/07/cage-the-mastodon/

boyter 3y ago

I totally agree. Using a protocol designed to distribute content with the expectation that you remain in control of it is asinine. If you really want to control it, either allow list federate with only instances you know are in the same circle (IE make your own smaller fediverse), or move to a private forum. I argued with the Fediverse about this several months ago, and raised all of the same problems in the article with them. Only to be shouted at, doxed, abused, insulted and attacked. I still think that what I experienced would be enough to drive some people to self harm. The level of toxic interactions on the fedivese was the worst I have ever experienced on the internet. As such I find the fact that there is a freakout over what has been predicted multiple times hilarious. I welcome Meta joining. The sooner people on the fedivese grow up and realize the reality of what is coming the better. I really like ActivityPub. I really like the fedivese idea. However when you visit you rapidly discover its full of the really annoying people from twitter, and people with "ex tumblr poster" in their bios. Forget where this came from but it sums it up perfectly. Fediverse: We are open for federation and you to join! Meta: Ok here is what we are doing with instagram. Fediverse: Not that kind of open!

sanderjd 3y ago

Yeah when I saw this headline I was really confused. What is the privacy concern with respect to publicly published data? It really doesn't compute for me...

cmrdporcupine 3y ago

The threat here is not about Meta harvesting already-public information. The risk here is about them doing to people off their network what they do extensively within their own network already: harvest information on your interactions with their content and users. Meta doesn't just build a profile of you based on your posts, its secret sauce is building a profile of you based on what you like, repost, comment-on, hover-over, etc. Yes they can go out and spider ActivityPub content already, though they probably don't currently bother. But what they will gain by being part of the fediverse is the ability to associate your interest in their content back to your identity and learn out a graph about you. Boost/like/share something off Threads, and you've helped them build a model about you in a way that they can't currently do with all the free content out there already. I'm not sure why other people aren't making this connection. Again, the threat is that Meta could extend its abilities to build a model on how users from outside its own user database interact with its content and users. They're known to already do this in the form of tracking pixels on 3rd party sites already, but this is a richer source of information. That said, I also think the Fediverse is so tiny that this particular market isn't of much interest to Meta in reality. I suspect this feature will never launch.

barbariangrunge 3y ago

That was one of the problems with mewe. Sure, there's a good privacy policy. But what you're posting is more or less public, so the point is almost moot. MeWe was nice though, really great communities on there back in the day

jezzamon 3y ago

There's a few different concerns, one concern is about the reach of your posts changing dramatically, and meta handing your content to people who will then harass you, share your posts into their network multiplying the effect, etc (a common experience for trans people on some networks). Like, these people could've found your posts but they have no reason to search for you explicitly. L