If you're a developer working on a fediverse app or service and want to get it right – or just don't want to be the center of the next firestorm – here are a few suggestions.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 months ago (10 children)

They all seem reasonable suggestions:

Consent matters, even for public posts

Get broad feedback before launching – and listen to it

Honor existing opt-in and opt-out mechanisms

Include an additional opt-in mechanism for your service if it's not just a search engine or profile discovery (or something very close to them)

Make sure to communicate that you're taking an opt-in approach and honoring existing mechanisms

DON'T say the things that developers who ignore consent typically say

Be extra careful if you're a cis guy

Look at opt-in as an opportunity for a potential competitive advantage

I'm conflicted over the fact that using ActivitiyPub necessarily implies consent for other people to collect the data you send through it. It seems that many people using ActivitiyPub connected services want something different than ActivitiyPub or different default settings on many ActivityPub services.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 months ago

Thanks, glad you think they're reasonable. I don't see it as using ActivitiyPub implying consent; it's more that ActivityPub doesn't provide any mechanisms to enforce consent. So mechanisms like domain blocking, "authorized fetch", and local-only posts are all built on top of ActivityPub. I agree that many people want something different than ActivityPub currently provides, it'll be interesting to see how much the protocol evolves, how far people can go with the approach of building on top of the protocol, or whether there's shift over time to a different protocol which has more to say about safety, security, privacy, and consent.

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