3 ms·

If we write content for closed platforms known to do terrible things, I guess we should not be surprised when said platforms do terrible things. I keep trying

by jwr 10mo ago

If we write content for closed platforms known to do terrible things, I guess we should not be surprised when said platforms do terrible things. I keep trying to convince people not to use Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter/X, but I'm not getting anywhere. Write your own content and post it on your own terms using services that you either own or that can't be overtaken by corporate greed (like Mastodon).

pmlnr 10mo ago
So many thoughts on this... The platforms and their convenience that one "only" has to write the post yet the internet needs so much metadata, so it tried to autogenerate it, instead of asking for it. People are put off by need to write a bloody subject for an email already, imagine if they were shown what's actually the "content" is. About convincing: get the few that matters on deltachat, so they don't need anything new or extra - it's just email on steroids. As for Mastodon: it's still someone else's system, there's nothing stopping them from adding AI metadata either on those nodes.
- saubeidl 10mo ago
  Why deltachat, an app I've never heard of before instead of Signal, which is also open source and at least has a bit of traction?
  - nunobrito 10mo ago
    Not even knowing what deltachat is, however Signal was suspected from the start of being developed by the NSA (read the story about the founder and the funding from the CIA) and later received tens of million USD each year from the US government to keep running. So it is never advisable option when the goal is to acquire some sense of privacy.
    - normie3000 10mo ago
      > it is never advisable option when the goal is to acquire some sense of privacy. Would this depend on threat model?
      - nunobrito 10mo ago
        Nowadays even YouTube comments are more anonymous than using a "deltachat" or "signal". On the first case there is zero verification on their claims, on the second case there is plenty of evidence of funding from the CIA. At least commenting from an unknown account on any random youtube video won't land you immediately at a "Person of Interest" list and your comments will be ignored as a drop of water inside an ocean of comments.
        c22 10mo ago
        It's been a while since I looked at it but as far as I know delta chat is just email so it's as anonymous as your email account I'd gather.
    - lukan 10mo ago
      "read the story about the founder and the funding from the CIA" And where can I find such a story from a trusworthy source? Quick google search rather turned up this: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/us-intelligences-services-control-the-signal-app/ https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/us-intelligences-services-cont... (Debunking it as russian information warfare)
      - nunobrito 10mo ago
        This is such a recurring topic that it might be better for me to one day write a blog post that collects the details and sources. In absence of that blog post: Start by the beginning, how Moxley left Twitter as director of cyber over there (a company nowhere focused on privacy at the time) to found the Whisper Foundation (if memory serves me the right name). His seed funding money came from Radio Free Asia, which is a well-known CIA front for financing their operations. That guy is a surf-fan, so he decided to invite crypto-experts to surf with him while brainstorming the next big privacy-minded messenger. So, used his CIA money to pay for everyone's trip and surf in Hawaii which by coincidence also happens to be the exact location of the headquarters for an NSA department that is responsible for breaking privacy-minded algorithms (notably, Snowden was working and siphoning data from there for a while). Anyways: those geeks somehow happily combined wave-surf with deep algo development in a short time and came up with what would later be known as "signal" (btw, "signal" is a well-known keyword on the intelligence community, again a coincidence). A small startup was founded and shortly after that a giant called "whatsapp" decided to apply the same encryption from an unknown startup onto the billion-sized people-audience of their app. Something for sure very common to happen and for sure without any backdoors as often developed in Hawaii for decades before any outsiders discover them. Signal kept being advertised over the years as "private" to the tune of 14 million USD in funding per year provided by the US government (CIA) until it ran out some two years ago: https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/signal-facing-collapse-after-cia-cuts-funding https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/signal-faci... Only TOR and a few new tools remain funded, signal was never really a "hit" because most of their (target) audience insists on using telegram. Whatsapp that uses the same algorithm as signal recently admitted (this year) that internal staff had access to the the supposedly encrypted message contents, so there goes any hopes for privacy from a company that makes their money from selling user data.
    - mr_mitm 10mo ago
      This is the internet, you can use hyperlinks instead of making vague references.
  - gardenerik 10mo ago
    Delta.Chat is really underappreciated, open-source and distributed. I recommend you at least look into it. Signal, on the other hand, is a closed "opensource" ecosystem (you cannot run your own server or client), requires a phone number (still -_-) and the opensource part of it does not have great track record (I remember some periods where the server for example was not updated in the public repo). But yeah, if you want the more popular option, Signal is the one.
- vachina 10mo ago
  Use them as the public toilet they are. Never put in any effort in anything you upload.
- kuschku 10mo ago
  How is mastodon someone else's system? You can host your mastodon server just like you can host your email server or matrix server. And other mastodon servers, just like other email servers, can of course still modify the data they receive how they'd like.
deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
darkwater 10mo ago
The OP is also on Mastodon already, but social networks are ruled by their gravity well, unfortunately.
keiferski 10mo ago
Individual actions like this will never do anything, because the average person is not going to spend hours upon hours investigating platforms. They just want an easy way to connect with their friends and family, follow artists, etc. Which is why I think the only solution has to come at the governmental regulatory level. In “freedom” terms it could be framed as freedom from, as in freedom from exploitation, unlawful use of data, etc. but unfortunately freedom to seems to be the most corporate friendly interpretation of freedom.
- anonym29 10mo ago
  >They just want an easy way to connect with their friends and family You'd be surprised how many people in your life can be introduced to secure messaging apps like Signal (which is still centralized, so not perfect, but a big step in the right direction compared to Whatsapp, Facebook, etc) by YOU refusing to use any other communication apps, and helping them learn how to install and use Signal.
  - HiPhish 10mo ago
    I got my parents and siblings all to use Signal by refusing to use WhatsApp myself. And yet all of them still use WhatsApp to communicate among each other. They have Signal installed, they have an account, they know how to use it, and yet they fall back to WhatsApp. Some people really do want to choose Hell over Heaven.
    - anonym29 10mo ago
      Great first step either way! The pressure for social conformity is a hell of a drug and I try to have compassion for those suffering from it, even as I try to gently encourage them to grow past it.
    - array_key_first 10mo ago
      The primary and most important feature of a messaging app is the ability to message a lot of people. Signal is the best messaging app, but not by metrics people use to measure messaging apps, because not a ton of people use it. I use signal, but I also still use SMS (garsp!) because ultimately sometimes I just need to send a message. It sucks and it's stupid, what we need more than anything else, more than any app, is open and federated messaging protocols.
raincole 10mo ago
Most people write to be read. Surely I can write on my own blog, but no one would read them (not that my social media is much more worth reading though.) Plus, what about videos? How is a non-tech savvy creator going to host their content if it's best in video format?
chistev 10mo ago
> I keep trying to convince people not to use Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter/X, I'm with you, but WhatsApp is tough. How do you keep in touch?
- the_other 10mo ago
  I left Insta the day FB bought it; closed my FB, twitter, and Google accounts a couple of years later; WA was the hardest to leave, I'll grant. Since I left, I've used: phone; email; Signal; Telegram; letters; post cards; meeting up in person; sms; Mastodon; tried a couple of crypto chats. There are so many options it's not worth worrying about. In the cases of special interest groups (think school/club/street/building groups), I just miss out, or ask for updates when I meet people. I am a bit out of the loop sometimes. No-one's died as a result of my leaving. When someone did actually die that I needed to know about, I got a phone call. Honestly... just leave. Just leave. It's not worth your time worrying about these kind of "what ifs".
  - the_af 10mo ago
    How about close friends who live on the other side of the world? Telegram and Signal are, to me, about as trustworthy as WhatsApp. Well, actually, nobody really uses Signal, and Telegram is about the same as WhatsApp so who cares. Waiting to meet my friends once every 1-2 years is not enough. I want to chat daily with them, because they are my close friends. Daily telephone conversations with a group of them? Nope. Snail mail? It doesn't work for daily conversation. So WhatsApp it is!
    - chistev 10mo ago
      Yea, WhatsApp is the one that's difficult to leave behind.
    - the_other 10mo ago
      Fine. Allow Zuckerberg to mediate your conversations and profit from your relaationships and emotional labour. That’s your choice.
KurSix 10mo ago
Owning your own site and using federated spaces like Mastodon is absolutely a healthier model, and I wish it were more viable for more people. But until discovery, reach, and social norms shift in a big way, a lot of folks are going to be stuck straddling both worlds

by jwr 10mo ago

pmlnr 10mo ago

So many thoughts on this... The platforms and their convenience that one "only" has to write the post yet the internet needs so much metadata, so it tried to autogenerate it, instead of asking for it. People are put off by need to write a bloody subject for an email already, imagine if they were shown what's actually the "content" is. About convincing: get the few that matters on deltachat, so they don't need anything new or extra - it's just email on steroids. As for Mastodon: it's still someone else's system, there's nothing stopping them from adding AI metadata either on those nodes.

saubeidl 10mo ago
Why deltachat, an app I've never heard of before instead of Signal, which is also open source and at least has a bit of traction?
- nunobrito 10mo ago
  Not even knowing what deltachat is, however Signal was suspected from the start of being developed by the NSA (read the story about the founder and the funding from the CIA) and later received tens of million USD each year from the US government to keep running. So it is never advisable option when the goal is to acquire some sense of privacy.
  - normie3000 10mo ago
    > it is never advisable option when the goal is to acquire some sense of privacy. Would this depend on threat model?
    - nunobrito 10mo ago
      Nowadays even YouTube comments are more anonymous than using a "deltachat" or "signal". On the first case there is zero verification on their claims, on the second case there is plenty of evidence of funding from the CIA. At least commenting from an unknown account on any random youtube video won't land you immediately at a "Person of Interest" list and your comments will be ignored as a drop of water inside an ocean of comments.
      - c22 10mo ago
        It's been a while since I looked at it but as far as I know delta chat is just email so it's as anonymous as your email account I'd gather.
  - lukan 10mo ago
    "read the story about the founder and the funding from the CIA" And where can I find such a story from a trusworthy source? Quick google search rather turned up this: https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/us-intelligences-services-control-the-signal-app/ https://euvsdisinfo.eu/report/us-intelligences-services-cont... (Debunking it as russian information warfare)
    - nunobrito 10mo ago
      This is such a recurring topic that it might be better for me to one day write a blog post that collects the details and sources. In absence of that blog post: Start by the beginning, how Moxley left Twitter as director of cyber over there (a company nowhere focused on privacy at the time) to found the Whisper Foundation (if memory serves me the right name). His seed funding money came from Radio Free Asia, which is a well-known CIA front for financing their operations. That guy is a surf-fan, so he decided to invite crypto-experts to surf with him while brainstorming the next big privacy-minded messenger. So, used his CIA money to pay for everyone's trip and surf in Hawaii which by coincidence also happens to be the exact location of the headquarters for an NSA department that is responsible for breaking privacy-minded algorithms (notably, Snowden was working and siphoning data from there for a while). Anyways: those geeks somehow happily combined wave-surf with deep algo development in a short time and came up with what would later be known as "signal" (btw, "signal" is a well-known keyword on the intelligence community, again a coincidence). A small startup was founded and shortly after that a giant called "whatsapp" decided to apply the same encryption from an unknown startup onto the billion-sized people-audience of their app. Something for sure very common to happen and for sure without any backdoors as often developed in Hawaii for decades before any outsiders discover them. Signal kept being advertised over the years as "private" to the tune of 14 million USD in funding per year provided by the US government (CIA) until it ran out some two years ago: https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/signal-facing-collapse-after-cia-cuts-funding https://english.almayadeen.net/articles/analysis/signal-faci... Only TOR and a few new tools remain funded, signal was never really a "hit" because most of their (target) audience insists on using telegram. Whatsapp that uses the same algorithm as signal recently admitted (this year) that internal staff had access to the the supposedly encrypted message contents, so there goes any hopes for privacy from a company that makes their money from selling user data.
  - mr_mitm 10mo ago
    This is the internet, you can use hyperlinks instead of making vague references.
- gardenerik 10mo ago
  Delta.Chat is really underappreciated, open-source and distributed. I recommend you at least look into it. Signal, on the other hand, is a closed "opensource" ecosystem (you cannot run your own server or client), requires a phone number (still -_-) and the opensource part of it does not have great track record (I remember some periods where the server for example was not updated in the public repo). But yeah, if you want the more popular option, Signal is the one.
vachina 10mo ago
Use them as the public toilet they are. Never put in any effort in anything you upload.
kuschku 10mo ago
How is mastodon someone else's system? You can host your mastodon server just like you can host your email server or matrix server. And other mastodon servers, just like other email servers, can of course still modify the data they receive how they'd like.

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

darkwater 10mo ago

The OP is also on Mastodon already, but social networks are ruled by their gravity well, unfortunately.

keiferski 10mo ago

Individual actions like this will never do anything, because the average person is not going to spend hours upon hours investigating platforms. They just want an easy way to connect with their friends and family, follow artists, etc. Which is why I think the only solution has to come at the governmental regulatory level. In “freedom” terms it could be framed as freedom from, as in freedom from exploitation, unlawful use of data, etc. but unfortunately freedom to seems to be the most corporate friendly interpretation of freedom.

anonym29 10mo ago
>They just want an easy way to connect with their friends and family You'd be surprised how many people in your life can be introduced to secure messaging apps like Signal (which is still centralized, so not perfect, but a big step in the right direction compared to Whatsapp, Facebook, etc) by YOU refusing to use any other communication apps, and helping them learn how to install and use Signal.
- HiPhish 10mo ago
  I got my parents and siblings all to use Signal by refusing to use WhatsApp myself. And yet all of them still use WhatsApp to communicate among each other. They have Signal installed, they have an account, they know how to use it, and yet they fall back to WhatsApp. Some people really do want to choose Hell over Heaven.
  - anonym29 10mo ago
    Great first step either way! The pressure for social conformity is a hell of a drug and I try to have compassion for those suffering from it, even as I try to gently encourage them to grow past it.
  - array_key_first 10mo ago
    The primary and most important feature of a messaging app is the ability to message a lot of people. Signal is the best messaging app, but not by metrics people use to measure messaging apps, because not a ton of people use it. I use signal, but I also still use SMS (garsp!) because ultimately sometimes I just need to send a message. It sucks and it's stupid, what we need more than anything else, more than any app, is open and federated messaging protocols.

raincole 10mo ago

Most people write to be read. Surely I can write on my own blog, but no one would read them (not that my social media is much more worth reading though.) Plus, what about videos? How is a non-tech savvy creator going to host their content if it's best in video format?

chistev 10mo ago

> I keep trying to convince people not to use Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter/X, I'm with you, but WhatsApp is tough. How do you keep in touch?

the_other 10mo ago
I left Insta the day FB bought it; closed my FB, twitter, and Google accounts a couple of years later; WA was the hardest to leave, I'll grant. Since I left, I've used: phone; email; Signal; Telegram; letters; post cards; meeting up in person; sms; Mastodon; tried a couple of crypto chats. There are so many options it's not worth worrying about. In the cases of special interest groups (think school/club/street/building groups), I just miss out, or ask for updates when I meet people. I am a bit out of the loop sometimes. No-one's died as a result of my leaving. When someone did actually die that I needed to know about, I got a phone call. Honestly... just leave. Just leave. It's not worth your time worrying about these kind of "what ifs".
- the_af 10mo ago
  How about close friends who live on the other side of the world? Telegram and Signal are, to me, about as trustworthy as WhatsApp. Well, actually, nobody really uses Signal, and Telegram is about the same as WhatsApp so who cares. Waiting to meet my friends once every 1-2 years is not enough. I want to chat daily with them, because they are my close friends. Daily telephone conversations with a group of them? Nope. Snail mail? It doesn't work for daily conversation. So WhatsApp it is!
  - chistev 10mo ago
    Yea, WhatsApp is the one that's difficult to leave behind.
  - the_other 10mo ago
    Fine. Allow Zuckerberg to mediate your conversations and profit from your relaationships and emotional labour. That’s your choice.

KurSix 10mo ago

Owning your own site and using federated spaces like Mastodon is absolutely a healthier model, and I wish it were more viable for more people. But until discovery, reach, and social norms shift in a big way, a lot of folks are going to be stuck straddling both worlds