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Threads' New Terms and Conditions Affects the Fediverse
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this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2023
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Isn't this just public information anyway, what's the problem with them taking it?
It's Meta. This is just the beginning. Stop them right from the start. Fuck these corporations.
Story of the punk bar bartender and nazis
based on @iamragesparkle;s tweets
I was at a shitty crustpunk bar once getting an after-work beer. One of those shitholes where the bartenders clearly hate you. So the bartender and I were ignoring one another when someone sits next to me and he immediately says, “no. get out.”
And the dude next to me says, “hey i’m not doing anything, i’m a paying customer.” and the bartender reaches under the counter for a bat or something and says, “out. now.” and the dude leaves, kind of yelling. And he was dressed in a punk uniform, I noticed
Anyway, I asked what that was about and the bartender was like, “you didn’t see his vest but it was all nazi shit. Iron crosses and stuff. You get to recognize them.”
And i was like, ohok and he continues.
"you have to nip it in the bud immediately. These guys come in and it’s always a nice, polite one. And you serve them because you don’t want to cause a scene. And then they become a regular and after awhile they bring a friend. And that dude is cool too.
And then THEY bring friends and the friends bring friends and they stop being cool and then you realize, oh shit, this is a Nazi bar now. And it’s too late because they’re entrenched and if you try to kick them out, they cause a PROBLEM. So you have to shut them down.
And i was like, ‘oh damn.’ and he said “yeah, you have to ignore their reasonable arguments because their end goal is to be terrible, awful people.”
And then he went back to ignoring me. But I haven’t forgotten that at all.
How does defederating them stop them from getting this public information if they want it?
Good point. I guess they could just fire up a shell instance and get all the good stuff. I wouldn't be too surprised, actually.
They don't even need an instance to get they can just scrape it, like anyone can with public info. They wouldn't even need to make an account for the scraper.
Yes, by design: https://docs.joinmastodon.org/methods/accounts/
IMO, the problem is not them taking the information per se, but in abusing that info to further the massive surveillance apparatus that harms society.
This and the constant lying while doing it!
Public? Idk, maybe. I wouldn't generally consider my IP to username to be public. Comment and post stuff, sort of. But even if it's public, I still wouldn't want Meta consuming it.
Are they talking about your IP address or the service's? Does ActivityPub even share the user's IP address with other nodes in the network? That'd be crazy, so I assume that it doesn't. Then Meta can't find out your IP address.
No this is not in the specification.
A malicious instance could in theory distribute this information but it would be non-standard. Of the 2 systems I've studied - Mastodon and Lemmy - neither do this.
In this scenario they would be talking about the IP address(es) of the services.
Thanks for the clarification. That claim seemed really off.
I've assumed that what you see publicly is basically what's synced. Obv. your instance can have a few more meta details on you, like IP, device info, possibly all the exif they've stripped from uploaded photos, but these things aren't in the ActivityPub outbox
If a Threads user posts an image, and Meta hosts it, and I scroll through my feed and see it, my client will hit their server for said image. And Meta can collect my IP.
Meta basically invented this shit.
@MrScottyTay
wake up man...
I'm wide awake, isn't this just the information transferred when federating? But they just have to put it into a TOS because they're an actual company with liability? I really don't see the issue with them having this information.
They correlate the content of your posts with all the other data they have about you, taken from every app (besides WhatsApp, FB etc) that has FB trackers built in. Then that aggregated profile will be used with AdTech to serve ads and make money. I personally object to Meta making money with my personal data without me using their products.
That's just how adtech works in general. Every ad company has a profile on who they think you are, well more technically a cohort of potential similar profiles. Also not all profiles can equated to a single person and a single person may have multiple. That's how wishy washy the whole tech is. It's good enough though. Way better than seeing those flashy "download these smiley trail mouse cursors" ads the old internet used to have. Still. I don't see the problem here, it's just about making ads more relevant to you. If you're not the kind to let ads sway you anyway than what's the big deal? And if you are the kind to be swayed at least they'll be actually relevant to what you're into.
The big deal is I help others make money of me without my consent or getting something back in return. At least not usefull to me. On top of that they track the hell out of me with surveillance.
Because fuck them. This is step one of their 20 step plan to do evil shit.
Won't matter much in a democracy, but in a dictatorship or atcracy it means life & death.
In India, people have been imprisoned for posts & tweets for calling out Hindu supremacist Modi govt's anti-democratic policies & communal acts, Some of them have been violently assaulted in their homes by Hindu supremacist thugs for their posts and tweets because the dictatorial govt has stooges in both Meta & Twitter who access the ip address which is tracked down by the state.
What if my instance says other services and instances can't do that? Are meta then breaking the law?
If your instance says nobody can fetch its messages that just means turning off federation
Can we put terms as to how the data is used / not used? Surely that could put an end to meta's dark move?
Yeah, that should be possible, back it up with the GDPR as well.