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  • Privacy is a reverse idea on the Fediverse. I know it's a hot take, but by design the Fediverse is never going to be private and people should stop assuming it is.

    When you send out a comment/like/post/whatever, you are literally broadcasting a message to any other instance listening. It essentially just says 

     
        
{
  messageId: 42,
  message: "This is some message",
  action: "comment"
}

    and if you want to delete that message it's essentially

     
        
{
  messageId: 42,
  action: "delete"
}

    While Lemmy and Mastodon respect that, anyone can build any fediverse app and simply choose not to use it. Anyone can build a search engine and can choose to respect the delete or not. Any instance could defederate from them if they don't like that, or they may not care. The point however is that ActivityPub is designed this way, and there really isn't a better way.

    If your comment has been sent out to other instances - well then it's there already. You can't delete it without some form of just asking politely that they delete it. They have it already, it could be stored in their DB, duplicated in other DBs, aggregated and sent to AI, searchable, whatever. They have it. There is no concept of "delete" on the fediverse. It's asking nicely for them to delete it.

    • The thing most people get wrong is privacy friendly =! private. If you say something publicly (on the internet) you can assume it will stay for ever, if not directly then via some sort of archive. The privacy part of Lemmy/Mastodon is them not collecting data on what you look at to sell it. If you want something private then don’t use Social Media, because what you say publicly will stay public.

      • The privacy part of Lemmy/Mastodon is them not collecting data on what you look at to sell it.

        Nor requesting your real name and ID, phone number...

    • As you say though it's only shared to any other instance listening. The point of consent-based federation is that you get to choose which instances do and don't get to listen. So if your comment hasn't been sent out out to other instances, they don't have it.

      • Its documentation, for example, describes consent-based allow-list federation as "contrary to Mastodon’s mission."

        and I would agree with them. Consent based federation would fundamentally change the fediverse and create large tenants overnight. Small instances like mine would be at the mercy of large instances to be federated with them. It relies on people being kind and open, something we have already seen that some instance owners can be, others are not. I would even argue that that isn't even federation anymore, it's just slightly more open walled gardens

      • So if your comment hasn’t been sent out out to other instances, they don’t have it.

        What's stopping malicious actors to create an account on the same instance as you and follow you (or your RSS feed) exclusively to pull your data?

        Remember "information wants to be free"? That adage works both ways. If people want (or need) real privacy, they need to be equipped with tools that actually guarantee that their communication is only accessible to those intended to. The "ActivityPub" Fediverse is not it. They will be better off by using private Matrix (or XMPP rooms) with actual end-to-end encryption.

  • Might spund a little conspiratorial but this fubdamentally breaks what federation means and specificly gives enormaus power to larger instances. Also the language of it by calling it consent feels like its meant to evoke a certain emotional reaction almost like its part of a larger phyop.

    Also there is no such thing as privacy on the fediverse. There is anonymity if ur carefull.

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