this post was submitted on 16 Nov 2023
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Privacy
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I can't imagine that any app that currently exists gives a shit about exploiting your data. Lemmy is too young for that to really be a problem.
The real problem is that nothing on lemmy is private because of it's federated design. There have been some discussions the last few weeks talking about this, but just about every interaction you do is broadcasted out to every instance, and its social media so of course anyone can see what you post. Things like viewed posts and saved content should stay on your instances server, but assume every other action is public.
Dont use your real name on the good internet
Agreed. Although The Fediverse also can't easily be searched via your standard search engines, so finding that public information is harder than on other social media apps (for now...).
This isn't to say there isn't a privacy concern using any Fediverse Social media platform. It's just that there are some inherent design implementations that make it hard for the average person to invade the privacy of a user of the platform.
This is, of course, afaik. Please let me know if I'm mistaken.
pretty much spot on, search is still pretty bad on fedi (on the twittery side and the reddity side)
although it is still not hard to invade someones privacy the old fashioned way by, for instance, making alt accounts to evade blocks but thats nothing unique thats all platforms
Search currently kinda sucks actually inside the fediverse. I tried to find one of those posts before making the comment but gave up because it was worthless.
I’d imagine it’s only a matter of time until someone makes something better, and 3rd parties start mining it. Or we’ll get that nefarious third party with a server just ingesting all our data to sell off.
It can be searched just fine, Googled my tag to see where I get hits, and quite a few are Lemmy comments.
Wait, even direct messages?
direct messages arent really private on any platform but on the fediverse they especially arent
not only can your admin read your messages if they really want to (like non federated sites) but also you have to consider the other instances admins too
i think thats why lemmy has a profile field for a matrix username by default because thats at least a more private way to do dms
The instance I joined didn’t even require an email at the time. They have a long way to go if they want to be the next Facebook lol