Lemmy

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Everything about Lemmy; bugs, gripes, praises, and advocacy.

For discussion about the lemmy.ml instance, go to [email protected].

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Interesting difference from Reddit: Upvotes/Downvotes are not anonymous (programming.dev)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Hey folks! Just realized something that makes Lemmy different from Reddit. Because of the federation, your votes are not technically anonymous on Lemmy. At least, I think.

Although there’s no UI to look at a user’s voting history yet, one could conceivably be built by an instance. Perhaps coincidentally, I hear there’s instances out there populated by mostly bots?

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Yes, that’s a fair point. Just because you send a “I have deleted this message” signal out into the universe doesn’t mean that everyone will receive or obey it.

I assumed that was understood.

But that’s very different from instances intentionally and malevolently keeping data despite indicating to users that it was deleted, which is what I think folks’ privacy concerns are about.

EDIT: What I mean is that the federation model is inherently non-private in a certain sense (but in the same sense that someone could take a screenshot of your Reddit comment and your deleting your comment won’t delete their copy). But Lemmy is not egregiously misusing data.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is largely assumed by someone like yourself or I who understands the implications. I am finding it evident that a lot of people are not aware.

There is also a distinction to a potential screenshot, a scrape or archive no one visits, and a federated copy on a widly used instance you have lost access to.

I edited my comment above to include a project I am working on to hopefully help admins get this across and educate users on how to appropriately engage to their comfort level.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I appreciate your commitment to this privacy consideration. I personally don’t think it’s the hill I’d prefer to die on, but I welcome your contributions.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

Thanks! I'm for mass adoption and want admins to succeed. That starts with keeping users educated (and admins covered).